POV Sith

I accompanied Huntress and her group in her tour in Western Poland. I saw, how she was humiliating Beria and even Diana. Vivaldi seemed to be impressed by her forceful acts. I wasn’t. Few years ago I was fan of Bane and dark side stories. They were like fairy tales sometimes. I was fascinated by villain characters. Those villains, that had wits, struggled and didn’t have evil empire served on a plate. Huntress wasn’t one of them. She looked to me as mini boss to conquer, that could never grow to real power. She just didn’t have any great vision of future. She was temporary villain administrator in my opinion and she would be exchange in time as head of Devas.

Still, I put my effort on the line. I helped localized Oldman. I stood with them, when they humiliated hosts. I was one of them. Not really. It looked as if I was supporting their way of doing things, but in reality I was sitting on the fence. Observing. I didn’t want to be next head of Devas. I believed in what Nameless, En, said about possible future when we would fight each other. I worked on my own strength. I already had offensive mixture, that was evolved version of poison. It eroded health and partially other upgrades done by different mixtures. I didn’t told anybody about that.

At the beginning, when I linked to my bio-stone I thought I could become powerful villain character. Then I learned, that strength, growth, building support around needed time and positive abilities. I couldn’t become evil because it would make me weaker. Best road for me was to cooperate for benefits and fight against common enemies. And I stayed on fence when things were muddy.

When Huntress called all for big meeting, I knew, that she wanted to establish herself more as head of Devas. I read many books with plot for power, to guess, that Devas, that didn’t joined us in recent development would be warned or even punished. That was natural, but brute way of showing off.

We couldn’t be all present on meeting. First of all, Vivaldi had some probation period and wasn’t invited. Coal, Mouse, Smoke and Rook were present online. Lynx had some deals and couldn’t change his schedule. Rest of Devas were present in person I headquarters in War-Saw.

-= Thank you all for coming. – Started Huntress. – We are here today, because lot of things happened in last few days. You know, that Vivaldi joined us. We had stand off with Diana and her minions. Beria taught us something and for now, he acts as our spy.

She retold story of last few days with more details. We were heroes in that story. We did all we could and more. Then huntress went for some blood and attacked people that didn’t contribute enough in her opinion.

-= You know, - She changed her voice tone. – we could do better. We most likely would subdue Diana herself if we were in greater number then. I understand, some needed to stay and watched our businesses. But Smoke, you could give more for community. And Nameless, your project deprived us of presence of three Devas, which could be crucial. Do you have something to say?

-= I’m sorry. – Stated En. – If we knew how things would develop, we would join you.

-= It’s not enough. We wasted our time, risked a lot and you had fun time. Could you present something more tangible, than saying sorry?

That was why, I thought, that Huntress wouldn’t stay head of Devas forever. She offended people. Even if she was right, there was different ways to state that. I knew Nameless and Coal quite well. I could tell, that they would feel wrongfully pressured by that attack. En would remember.

-= In fact, we have. – Said En. – Our project let us create cultivation chamber for lightning ability users. It helps normal people, such as our Devas supporters to get to minor completion of ability.

That was unexpected. Huntress wasn’t prepared. She needed to respond.

-= Yes, that help us or our supporters, but won’t help us in our fight against Diana. – She said.

-= Not in direct way. – Confirmed En. – But in long term it’s useful.

-= Can I say something? – Asked Coal through speaker.

-= Yes. Sure.

-= I would like to revoke my status as Unlimited Deva and became for at least month Associated Deva.

There was silence. All except Vivaldi were Unlimited Devas. That was people aim. Self-degradation? Ridiculous.

-= Let me explain. – Continued Coal. – I build my settlement. I need to finish main part of it till summer. It’s part connected with plants distribution. I don’t want to be one disappointing group. It would be better to treat me as temporary outsider. That way there won’t be so much regrets. I like you all and that’s why I don’t want to disappoint you.

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-= I thought, that you hated Diana. – Said someone, Hail possibly. – Why are you backing off, when we found her?

-= My hate became pity. There are more important things to do than spend time on pity.

That move of Coal was like clap on cheek to Huntress authority.

-= You can become Associated Deva as you wish. – Said Huntress. – But, when you will want to become Unlimited Deva, we will all consider it. Maybe it’s unlikely, but possible that it won’t be so easy then.

-= I understand. – He said. – I can’t see better solution though. I need this month for my work.

-= Does anybody wants to say something more in this topic? – Asked Huntress. Nobody answered. – Then Coal is Associated Deva from this moment on. Please disconnect from meeting, Coal.

He disconnected. It was quite shock.

Huntress didn’t give us much time to digest Coal degradation in ranks.

-= There is one thing our organization should do, that we neglected. – Stated Huntress. – All free floating hosts are lose ends, as I see it. They spell trouble for us, if not already, then in long term. We have many examples with Vivaldi, Beria and Legibot on front. But if you think about it, all host except Paladin, that chose to act independently from Devas were making some problems for us at one point of time or another.

-= So, what do you propose? – Asked Hail.

-= We need to have some control over them or at least know, what they are doing.

-= You said that. – Pointed Asmo. – But our best spy, Coal, already went out.

-= It’s regretful, but we have another five magic ability users with sensory radar. We can try to find those hosts without them knowing, what we are up to. That way, we can see, if their activities aren’t rotten. If we would fail in finding someone, we can ask him for meeting. That way he would come prepared, but all except Diana would probably agree to talk.

There was more questions. Some didn’t want to travel through Poland all the time. We would travel in pairs with one sensory radar user and one lightning user. Huntress had enough influence to push through that project. Some were willing to support her, others didn’t want to make problems for group. At the end of meeting we had pairings of Huntress and Vivaldi, Nameless and Lynx, Mercy and Mirror, Hail and Luigi and Mouse and Asmo. Pairings could change due to circumstances. Others would work on sustaining Deva’s organizations, me included.

When meeting ended, there was time for free talks if someone stayed. Company around Huntress stayed. I went out. I called Coal.

-= Hi. – I said through phone.

-= Hello Sith. What do you want?

-= I wanted to confirm something with you. – I went straight to point.

-= Shoot.

-= You disdain what is happening with Unlimited Devas under Huntress. Are you?

-= Confirmed.

-= Why? We were never ideal organization. Why now?

He sighted.

-= We are too focused on ourselves. We started playing those policy and influence games. Games for power.

-= Isn’t it natural? – I interrupted him. – At some point each big group of people do that.

-= Maybe each group do, but we decreased things we do besides those power games. Huntress pressed those, that didn’t play those games. It was enough for me to pause.

-= Ok. But you worked with us under worse circumstances, when Diana’s Ahriman’s Order was strong. What did change?

-= You ask me question, I should ask myself. – He laughed. – Maybe I know answer. Ask En, if you could visit CHoMiA. There lies big part of my answer. Then we would talk again.

-= Ok. I’ll do it.

We said some more words and hung off. I called En.

-= Hello.

-= Hi Sith. Did something happen? You could talk to me after meeting and now you are calling me.

-= Well, it’s complicated. Nothing happened. I just talked with Coal and he said that in part he distanced himself from Devas because of CHoMiA, whatever that is. I should ask you about visiting it to see by myself, he suggested. Can I visit CHoMiA?

-= Probably yes. I will confirm that with them, but most likely they would agree, maybe after stating some conditions. I will contact you tomorrow on that topic.

-= Yeah. I’ll be waiting.

We talked about meeting for few minutes. Nameless wanted to contribute to search for stray hosts as he felt little guilty, that he half abandon other topics beside his project. I told him, that Huntress was manipulating him and it was part of some power play. He replied that after he would do enough to silence his guilt, he would rethink what was going on with Unlimited Devas.

It seemed, that CHoMiA was group of independent magic ability users En created. They were independent enough, that Nameless needed to ask them for permission in some matters. I thought, that it was strange. Still, I wanted to see.

POV taller general

We had some temporary deal with Vivaldi. Some negotiator from his side was able to push it through. At the beginning, when Vivaldi ran away with his bio-stone I thought, that we could punish him. We had bucket of dirt on him. But we did some illegal stuff also. If we let police catch him after we showed proves of serious crimes, we would lost him and lot of money too. Some forces helped Vivaldi and hid him from us. Then, they contacted us and tried to enforce the same deal, just Vivaldi would do his part from free foot, without supervision. I was opposed to that solution. He needed to pay for his lack of respect. So we had temporary deal.

I hired few private detectives to search for Vivaldi. If I would catch him back, they couldn’t retaliate. He broke rules by running away first.

Jack, retired policeman, said, after we contacted him, that he had tied up hands. I heard from my friends from police forces, that he was working on another crime case. I did some research and name of Diana, some mutilated, revengeful person was involved. I wasn’t interested in helping him anymore.

We, me another general and our close relatives, established civilian-military company. We started trade with international corporation. They were brutal and disrespectful at start of cooperation, but each time we provided them with medicine batches my military divisions occupied their whole building. For safety reasons as we called it. They were moving and working under rifle barrels. That taught them to be more polite.

We got some money and it was good money. All companions from our civilian-military company except me were blinded by money. They pressured for easy deal and calm life. I felt, that if we get back Vivaldi, we would have more. I had time for my move until temporary deal would expire.