Madripoor, lowtown

In the years after World War II. Madripoor being a pirate republic at the time, was one of the countries that witnessed the exploits of Captain America, this brought about the Baran Reforms a few decades ago, promoting commercial ideals and administrative separation between the two areas of the capital, resulting in the golden age of the Principality of Madripoor.

This allowed Hightown to grow and prosper. As the lowtown docks were created, one of the main smuggling and black market distribution routes on the Asian continent.

That's why it was in this rat's nest; The Harbor Bay, the bar par excellence of the sailors and pirates in charge of smuggling and where one of the largest stores of contraband were organized to be distributed. Although it was never a pleasant place to see, right now he was faced with a grisly sight of a large number of dismembered and disfigured bodies.

It took only a few minutes to cross from outside the gate, assassinate the guards, and make his way to the premises. From there, he made his way to the office where he began his search for his lovely boss. Although he could easily have been found by our dear Eliza, my friends were feeling furious with the guy, so a game was proposed, whoever could find him could kill him. After waiting a few minutes, a telepathic ping sent the message that they were in the warehouse, sending a response order to bring him to their office or my next office. Something easy to legalize after finding a large amount of deeds hidden in their safe.

“We had a deal dirty rat” he spat his words like a curse almost falling at my feet.

Roney Cash...the current owner of Harbor Bay, is an ambitious man. I liked greedy men. Toward predictable, gullible, easily manipulated men. Ambitious men will only act in their own best interest and are incapable of trusting others. But when you can convince them that your goals are more or less in the same direction that's when they become cooperative. There is no trust, only mutual benefit.

I had an order to deal with them; the first step is always to identify their ambition. It was also the easiest step. Roney was pretty simple, as simple as any other moron climbing ladders in the Underworld. Like the rest, he strove to get to the top and was willing to lie, betray, and murder to get there. Any minimal power over people in his hands satisfied him. Before the next ambitious man grabbed him by the ankles, threw him down, and took his place.

But what set him apart was that he had connections in Hightown. A most profitable relationship and it would have continued had our interests not stumbled.

“That's right Roney, but it turns out that under the deal you would stop moving kids to Japan,” I said as I stood at the huge window behind his desk, contemplating in earnest the ongoing health violations in this dump.

“What are you talking about, I stopped the traffic weeks ago” The tone of his voice was even accompanied by anger.

“Your last shipment wasn't octopuses Roney” Although that's how they camouflaged it, it wasn't a sophisticated network but governments didn't usually mind a couple of kidnapped mutants.

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“You mean mutants, please Maleït we all know they're not human, don't we?” his words, accompanied by a nervous chuckle, only caused tension in my companions.

A roundhouse kick to her spleen made it clear how much my assistant Eliza agreed with her assertions. A beautiful woman, raised in a strict, elite household who kicked her to the curb as soon as word got out about their differences.

“Please Eliza there is no need to be violent, our friend here has a point, surely the appearance of some of them is not human at all, they deserve to be persecuted and treated as less than animals” I understood Roney, it was intrinsic in how societies behave, you reject the threat, you push it away and if it is weak: You eliminate it.

“But you see Roney there enters a little problem, my friends here are not human according to what you say and that doesn't make them happy. Koemi please show her how sad that makes you” She had won the prize, though no one competed for it more than her ‘Oh and please have your team clean this up before you leave’.

Normally she was a quiet girl, but her childhood days being trained by a criminal organization of assassins in Japan that tortured you for pleasure were the possible cause of her occasional urges. Behold also her motivation to make anyone connected with such organizations pay.

“Gladly boss” a calm and peaceful smile is what I would have seen if it wasn't for the blood that washed over his body.

“I want you to announce that we own Harbor Bar and the surrounding area. Roney's time is over, I want his routes and contacts, I want us to have even his underwear. We take over everything and we'll make it better” I deflected to Eliza, as I tried to draw out any images about poor Roney's fate. He was surrounded by some psychos.

“Sure boss” It was the calm response from sweet Eliza that my heart, a sweet high society girl who was unfortunate came to me determined after learning of my cause.

“I notice their spirits high today, do you know anything about that Antonio?” I hope it's not because of the recent misfortune we were forced to do by our friend Roney.

“They are excited, they are looking forward to having a place of their own, a home” A determined voice, a man of many talents who I could tell is a friend from my childhood, at least the second one.

I was repulsed by the very thought of his words. “This place will never be our Home Anthony, if it were for my incendiary cauldron of disease, but it will be our momentary base. Then I want at least a renovation.”

For now, I hoped that these actions would adequately demonstrate their strength, without revealing too many of their hidden cards. Most of the city gangs had different routes and contacts in Hightown, while we will still be unknown, in theory, we could easily topple the power of all of lowtown. However, maintaining that power with our few members was not feasible. Nor does it work if we attract attention by belonging to a different race.

Still, just knowing that I could call on those forces if necessary brought great relief. However, this world always reminded you that your power was always circumstantial and anyone could kill you.

“Won't the higher-ups intervene? “Johann asked curiously.

“As long as we make sure the flow doesn't stop and we don't affect their business, they won't mind having to negotiate with someone else” Besides Hightown though luxury and beauty were common in their sight, was a rat's nest in itself, each looking for the slightest hint of weakness to destroy themselves, they won't attack a foreign group without being sure they know us, they will send their disposable tokens first.

“I thought we wouldn't get involved with drugs and human trafficking.”

“We won't, but that's not for them to know. We'll wait to build a stable base to continue operations, or at least that's what we'll say” I didn't consider myself a righteous person, let alone one with heroic morals; I might as well say I didn't like heroism. Not that I didn't like heroes, I admired many of them as much as anyone. But one thing that is easy to learn is that sacrifice is rarely rewarded.

But that was an issue I didn't want to get involved with on either side, if you dealt with severe crimes like drugs and human trafficking it would only bring you unwanted attention from heroes. The time was not yet right.