Chapter 153: The Founders of Aleyros (Part 4)
Key stands back up, “Ya kill the others?”
“No, they’re all unconscious,” answers Kane.
“Good,” says Key, walking over to a closed door that connects to the main dining area.
While Key opens it and enters inside, Damon asks Kane, “What are you going to do with me?”
“Nothing. You said you lost your honor, but you fought with more honor and integrity than all those guys combined. How long have you been working in the underworld?”
“‘Bout twelve years now. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s enough to support my daughter.”
“You’re in this line of work with a daughter?” asks Kane, looking down at the ground.
“She lives with her mother. I messed up, and she won’t let me see her. It’s… probably for the best that I’m not around. I don’t want my girl to know who I really am, and every time I try to escape the underworld, I’m always somehow wrapped back into doing these jobs. It’s better like this.”
“Do they know about your daughter?”
“No. I’ve always been careful with my words so they wouldn’t know.”
Kane nods, “How do you feel about working with us? You won’t exactly be settling down.”
Damon looks at Kane and says, “You want me to work with y’all? Aren’t you with the government?”
“Yeah, but things are complicated in Iasa. Something tells me you’re not from here.”
Damon shakes his head, “I used to live in Opuree, but I escaped to Taliarusa during the Amlovos rebellion eighteen years ago.”
“You escaped? Were you a prisoner at Soulbell?”
Damon nods, “Yeah. I was part of the Amlovos but was thrown in prison before the rebellion occurred. Murder, smuggling of weapons, theft, and proof that I was a rebel got me sentenced to forty-eight years behind bars when I was twenty. I knew some of the stuff I did for the Amlovos was wrong, but the class disparity back then made it impossible for my father to provide for him and me. He dragged me into the whole rebellion thing... they promised him basic human needs. That’s all it took for him… and me to sign up. For the first time in our lives, we were eating a meal daily and were given a bed to sleep on. All it cost was our humanity.”
“Your father still alive?”
“No. He died in the rebellion, probably to Percival. I don’t hold a grudge; my father and I both knew what we signed up for.”
“And what happened in Taliarusa once you got there?”
“I had nothing, but I started over. In Taliarusa, your place in society is determined by your strength in combat. That’s the only determining factor. Everybody is chipped, and on your wrist, there is a visual ranking that determines how valuable you are,” says Damon, showing Kane a massive line scar on his wrist. “I ripped mine out once I started working in the underworld… the blood loss nearly killed me. I think Colt, the person still ranked first there, installed this kind of tier system, and the only way to move up or down in society was by fighting. One singular rank out of millions was sometimes the difference between being able to sleep indoors or buying some food at the market, and the rankings were always changing. Violence was around every corner. It’s still that way even today, but… I also found love there.”
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Key walks back out of the room, carrying four stainless steel tubes, each about a foot long.
“There’s eleven of them, and only Cascade was a dual wielder, so this should be enough,” says Key, handing two tubes to Kane.
Damon’s eyes widen, “Those are shard preservation capsules. How did you get those?”
“You’re not the only one with connections to the underworld and black market,” replies Key, extracting the iris core from a man and placing it inside one of the capsule's three compartments. “Kane, should we kill them?”
“We can’t afford to let them go alive,” says Kane, using Ventus Surge, an elemental ability Kane wields that allows him to conjure and control air, to extract all the air out of the man’s lungs.
Watching Kane seamlessly end the man’s life, Damon asks, “Who the hell are you guys?”
Glancing at Damon as he walks over to the next unconscious man, Kane says, “You said you were once part of the Amlovos. Well, you’re not the only one who's been pissed off by an oppressive government.”
Key looks over at Kane as she extracts another shard, “Thought you said nobody else?”
Kane clicks his tongue, “Look, Damon. You can team up with us or continue living as you are now. I trust you won’t tell anybody what you saw here if you leave.”
“I’m not going back. I’ve wanted out for a long time,” says Damon. “But what if they find out I’m alive? Try to come after me or something… I’d just be a nuisance.”
“Quite the opposite. We’ll protect you,” says Key, now filling up her second tube with shards. “And besides, if they keep sending guys like this after you, we’ll be able to steal their shards easily. The more shards we have, the better, so it works out.”
“Who were you working for? Who wants my legacy ability?” asks Kane, placing the two tubes he was given on a table, a shard inside all six compartments.
“I don’t know who passed down the order. I just know Cascade hired me. Cascade and I have worked together before for a mafia boss called ‘Coach’, so it might be him.”
Kane looks over at Key, and Key says, “I’ve heard of Coach but don’t know much about him. He’s never been involved in trading or selling weapons.”
Damon nods, “Yeah. Think he’s a shard collector. We stole an elemental shard last time.”
“Hm. If it was this ‘Coach’ guy who hired you all, he was probably after both my legacy core and elemental core,” says Kane, now taking the air out of the men from whom Key had extracted shards. “I thought it was Stryde coming after me again, but this is the first time I've heard of Coach.”
As Kane approaches the last unconscious man, Damon says, “Look, I’ll run with y’all. I just– I need to provide for my girl. I’ll do anything for ya, but I need some kinda cash.”
Already done, Kane stands up and nods to Key, and Key disappears again into the open doorway.
Kane asks Damon, “What was the pay for this job?”
“An initial fifty thousand rima for taking the job. Five hundred thousand more if we succeeded in stealing your legacy core,” replies Damon.
“That's pocket change for the reward."
"I know, but you take what you can get. It's hard to find consistent work in the underworld."
"What if I offer you fifty thousand a week? Two million if we succeed in taking down the Queen?” proposes Kane with a grin, pulling out his wallet and walking over to Damon.
Kane pulls out a small stack of cash and offers it to Damon. He adds, “And uh, one hundred thousand just for signing on.”
Damon staggers a step back, “Look, I’d take this in a heartbeat, but that’s a lot of money. You don’t even know my ability or if I’m reliable or–”
Shoving the cash against Damon’s chest, Kane says, “You don’t need an ability to be strong or reliable. Very rarely do I come across a man like you who puts somebody else before themselves. After losing my wife and daughter, I just have my son now. I need to look out for him. Take the damn rima, and help your daughter.”
Damon slowly bobs his head and accepts the rima from Kane.