Lawrence took a seat, taking off his gloves and leaving the QR Code on his hand very visible for the restrained people in front of him. While that might've looked like a calculated move on his side, the truth was that he was actually thinking of this new catchphrase he was starting to get used to. Every sounded villain needs a catchphrase, especially if they have world domination as a goal, he thought.
"Chief" Mika brought him back from the clouds. "I don't know these guys, but the Hellhound gang rings a few bells."
"Later, lady. I am busy with our guests now" he crossed his legs fashionably, reminding himself to enjoy the act just a little.
"Well then" he eyed the suitsmen, observing them with much more detail.
The first, the one Mika knocked out first, looked around his thirties. He lookee vaguely German, but Lawrence assumed he only had the genes. The guy wore flashy sunglasses and his hair was cut in a trim cut, wheat yellow in color. He was looking at his companions doubtful, probably looking for an explanation for the situation.
The next one, the one who acted like the boss, was a muscular man around his fourties, with shaved in the head with a kept mustache-beard combo. There was a dragon tattooed on his neck, which was probably the most distinguishable feature of the guy the fake mark on his hand aside.
The last one, the one man called Bob, hardly made it to his twenties. He was a slim boy with a sick look on his face, hair parted in two sides reminding Lawrence of a certain giant-slaying captain. Except this one looked too lame to be the original. He had an anxious look on him, like he wasn't supposed to be there. He was constantly looking aside, avoiding to lock sight with Lawrence or Mika.
"We started with the wrong foot, gentlemen. That is my fault, I admit, I was the one who started hostilities. Let us leave that in the past, though." Lawrence said, leaning against the fluffy enough fur of the couch.
"Easy for you to say" Bob whispered. A red line going from his nose all the way to his chin remained as a reminder of Mika's homely welcome.
"Yes, sorry about that." He gestured towards Mika, now sitting in the floor and trying to open a beer bottle. "As you can see, she is not the "ask first, hit later" kind of person."
"Figures" Bob said.
"You do know that I'm here, right?" Her cry of discontent was utterly ignored.
"First things first: introductions. I believe I already presented myself and my minion, and it would be rude not to do so yourself."
"It's rude to chain a guy in a chair, but you don't seem terribly bothered by that." Bossman pointed.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Yes well, you don't seem bothered by the fact that you are the one chained and I am the one with the bloodthirsty minion, but nobody seems to be ticking you for that, are they."
The man shut up.
"You were introducing yourselves" Lawrence reminded them. "Well then, bossman, you go first please" he adressed the tattoed suit.
The person in question rolled uncomfortably in his bindings, as if looking for a way out of his dilemma. Apparently convincing himself he had absolutely no other choice but to listen to Lawrence, he sighed and dropped his head.
"Everyone knows me as Kane" he muttered. "And these" he pointed the possibly German guy and Bob "Are Rohn and Bob, in order."
They squirmed in their chairs in order of mention.
"Fare enough. Well then... Cain."
"Nope"
"What?"
"It's not Cain. It's Kane. There's a difference. You don't emphasize on the I, you pronounce–"
"Well then" Lawrence cut him off with a lot less of patience now. He didn't usually do that, in fact he hated people who did it, but Lawrence Lakewood just wasn't in the mood to discuss with a middle age kinda fat baldy about an exotic name's phonetic.
"What where you doing in the sewers of Worne YK? I assume it wasn't the smell what attracted you, now was it?"
"Very funny" was Kane's reply. "No, I was there for some gang errand."
"Said errand being...?"
"Said errand being none of your business." he grumbled.
"That so..." Lawrence made a bewildered face, then a face of concern. "Well, that's a shame, isn't it...?"
He looked at Mika for a few seconds.
"Knight, please take our other gests to the next room. I want to have a little alone time with Cain."
"Like I said, it's–"
"I sincerely give a rat's ass what your name sounds like, Cain, now shut up unless you think those chains would look nice on your neck."
That shut everyone up, to which followed the rustling sound of Mika dragging the rest of the prisoners to the decadent half-dining room half-kitchen.
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There was an uncomfortable silence in the stretched-up room. Mika was fidgeting on a phone, sitting in one of the cracked marble counters next to the fridelge, leaning against the dirty wall with her Griffindor caterpillar look (And new shoes, Lawrence had bought them for her).
Bob and Rohn were doing what they could in their place, which was staring at the ceilings and the walls.
"Hey" Rohn's whisper barely reached Bob's ear.
"What?" He practically zapped Rohn with his voice.
"Quit it with that. When you gonna get us out of this?"
"There's a cooldown for my blasts, and there's a couple of minutes left for that cooldown to expire. Plus, we've gotta be near Kane to dash out, unless you want Ulysses to be on our backs for the rest of our lives."
"And what about that smokescreen stuff?"
"Ready, but we won't do a thing with a smokescreen if we're tied up like this."
"Aight," Rohn smiled. "Then you'll be glad to know I managed to get off these sweet binds" he said. "So maybe you wanna smoke us up now?"
"How the hell did you...? You know what, forget it. Alright, let's do it."
"On three?"
"Sure."
They both quieted down, burning in anticipation.
"One, two..."
The world went slower. Mika's shape seemed to go somewhere far away, and the adrenaline shot burst through their veins like dope as their heartbeats fastened per second.
"Three!"
Several events took place at the same time that moment. Bob started to get red and redder, the door heading to the room where Lawrence was interrogating Kane burst shot, Mika got zapped in Mek*rama for the third time consecutively...
Lawrence Lakewood would have a lot going on pretty soon.