Morbolfr sat alone in a rental car. He had sent off his bodyguards early in the morning to drive his usual vehicle all over town. Where he’d go now, he needed no witnesses.
A new plan had formed in his head after last night. He had seen the Bomber’s face, recognized him, and knew exactly what drove him, and he’d try to use him for his ends.
Twisting the truth a bit would be a piece of cake. Using the free radical to remove all the generals from the field. All but him, that was. He reached into his pocket for one of the two doses of their wonder drug.
He took the first dose and got out of the car with care not to destroy any part of the now fragile vehicle.
It was time to find out if he could get the Bomber to be steered in a more productive direction. Morbolfr still remembered meeting the man at the funeral of his kid and father. He looked him in the eye and told him a bunch of nothing without knowing what was inside the man’s head at the time, nor what he was capable of.
He knocked on the door loudly. That previous conversation would now serve to sell his lie and thereby allow him to take control of the most valuable asset in town at the moment.
In his side pocket, he carried a file he had some well-paid insiders forge in a hurry. He had made sure that it would satisfy his own standards and would put the blame exactly where he wanted it to be.
The door cracked open, and he stared the maskless Bomber right in the eye, pretending to be entirely oblivious to the man’s secret.
“Good morning,” Morbolfr politely greeted the man with the swollen shut eye and his uncovered bruises.
The glare from the man on the other side of the door spoke volumes of what he would like to do if it were night or they met somewhere other than his neighborhood. Morbolfr let the hatred wash over him. It peeled off him like rain from an umbrella. He had no qualms about the feelings of outsiders for him.
“Goodbye.” The Bomber said with a slight wheeze in his voice dripping with barely held-back poison.
Morbolfr held his hand just slightly against the closing door. “I made you a promise, did I not?”
The fingers of his hand noticed the pressure on the door lessen as the man hesitated. Experiencing the world with all senses heightened was always a rich trove of novelty. Picking up on the slight change, even with his considerable increase in strength, was owed to Morbolfr’s own rigorous training. Most men turned into rampaging brutes while having their strength and endurance increased by the drug, but Morbolr took pride in setting himself apart from them in that regard.
“And you came to me to what?” The Bomber's eye mustered him with overflowing contempt. “Keep your word? Don’t make me laugh.”
Morbolfr simply nodded. “As unbelievable as this may sound, I do.” He took the risk and looked over his shoulder up and down the road. “Though, I wouldn’t want to risk standing out here in the open for too long. There are eyes everywhere in this city.” He turned his attention back to the man at the door. “So few of them are kind or caring.”
The door opened and made way for Morbolfr. “Come inside, quickly, before I change my mind.”
He stepped inside past the Bomber, once again purposefully exposing his back to a man who could tear apart buildings with his abilities. Morbolfr was placing all his eggs in one basket. The simple fact that the man wouldn’t destroy one of the precious memories and places he had left of his family. The door closed, making the hallway darker than expected during the morning. Morbolfr took a more careful look at the place. All the windows were covered, and the inside of the house looked not well kept. But what could you expect from a man who went out night by night murdering himself through the Clans in Pliada City?
The Bomber walked past him. “Come, let’s talk in the kitchen then.” Morbolfr took a good look at the man. Surviving an encounter with the former Major Buster and Michael Menace was no small feat, but it came at a price. His hopefully new ally looked as though a truck had run him over.
They sat down at the surprisingly clean kitchen table. Morbolfr waited for the man to settle in properly before he spoke up again. He began with care and a tale that seems believable, if odd. The selling point that would win the day was his previous promise, though hollow it had been, and the fact that he wasn’t shielding the Clans per se. “I know what it is like to lose family. That’s what I told you, and I meant it. And just as I promised, I found out what happened, but to make my words hold any meaning to you, I feel that going back in time before tragedy struck is not only in order but necessary.”
Morbolfr paused, studying the man’s expression, going from angry to dejected at the prospect of returning to a time when his family was alive and well. “If that is too painful, I will, of course, refrain, but it will make what I have for you here,” Morbolfr held up the thin folder in his hand. “much harder to believe.”
He could see the struggle in his eyes, and he also saw that he won out over the urge not to revisit the past. ‘Truth’ was a powerful motivator, even if it was just an illusion.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“For the context, I will go back to when I was still a young man. My first ever job was to go to your father and convince him to pay the protection money. I won’t mince words. That was what I did. That is what he paid, and you know this as well as I do. Twenty years later, you had just returned from the war a few years prior and were raising your daughter on your own. At the time, your father approached me with a request. He wanted to set aside a fund for your daughter so that she would get the best possible education later on in life. As unbelievable as it may sound, for a young Swaddy man, his first job is an embossing moment. On a whim, I granted his request since, in the big picture, his contribution had become a minor addition to our clan. That was a week before the bomb exploded in your father’s jewelry store that you survived.” Morbolfr paused, tapping the folder on the table thoughtfully. To the Bomber, he might appear to gather his thoughts, but in reality, he went over the next part of his tale one last time to ensure it was efficient.
“At first, I thought it had to be our returned rivals, and the reports of the eyewitnesses in the police reports seemed to confirm that, too. However, I dug deeper and found that this was a plot by two of the Clans. It was a direct offense meant to put me on the frontline in the war with the Carthaginian intruders. The two men who pit me against their competitors outside the city were banking on the fact that their hired hitmen would be outwardly enough to convince me of the attack against what they assumed to be my turf. Of course, they didn’t know that I had just released your father from his obligations with the promise that no harm would befall him. They fully counted on me not investigating this on my own.” Morbolfr concluded by stating. “I may be a criminal, but I take my word to be something that is not given lightly.”
The man he tried to convince didn’t betray any emotions or thoughts and slowly reached for the folder on the table, flipping it open without breaking eye contact. “And you come to me with this now.” His eyes glanced down, flicking through the pages and studying the witness reports, and then he came to the part Morbolfr had put together just for him. “Why?”
“Because I just now got these results in my research. It took quite some time to find the culprits, and interrogation took even longer.” Morbolfr said in a low voice.
The man’s face took on an enraptured expression. “You found the ones who planted the bomb?”
Morbolfr nodded. “Yes, I found them, and I assure you they won’t lay a finger on another child ever again, but what I learned from them is what brought me here.”
The Bomber’s face showed disappointment at first. “They’re dead?”
He nodded once more in confirmation. “Yes, I took personal care of them. Honor demanded it.”
“Honor? Since when have you people had honor?”
Mobolfr got up from his chair in a huff. “I let you run rampant at night up until now. Only ever confronted you when you directly threatened my Clan members, solely because of my honor, man. Can you say the same for yourself, living that double life as a police recruit? Don’t think I don’t know or wasn’t aware what you were up to, Bomber. I tell you because, as a father, I imagine that the actual people orchestrating the deed were of much more interest to you than the lowlives that took the job.”
The Bomber looked over his shoulder, not reacting to the reveal as he had expected. “We can’t trust him. Go to your room.”
Morbolfr looked about in the kitchen in confusion.
“This doesn’t concern her.” Morbolfr looked back to the man and was eye-to-eye with him. “this is between you and me. Do you think this changes anything? So what if your Clan wasn’t directly involved? Are you still in cahoots with them? What do I care for the power struggle of the Swaddy? So they picked me and my father to start a war, big deal. And if you knew for this long, why didn’t you come here before to end the threat to your Clan?”
The Bomber stepped into the middle of the kitchen and spread his arms. “Because you didn’t know until recently. And what’s the plan now, you reptile? Planning to use me to get back at your rivals? Think that will keep your people safe from me?”
Morbolfr was still trying to figure out who had been sent out of the room; the thought of a witness made him nervous.
“I will root the criminals out of this City. Every last one.”
An idea crossed his mind when he revisited the words of the Bomber. “Even at the price of children dying? If there is chaos in the streets, there is no telling who will fall victim to some random crook. There is no telling what kind of gang takes over, and if you look outside Pliada, not far away, the gangs of Akasha Ulundi are just waiting to take over from the Swaddy. What will you do then when the people dig in their bloody hands who would steal children from the streets? Will these victims become collateral damage in your crusade?” Morbolfr pointed his finger. “We only have prominence in part of the country. You don’t want to know what is going on in places where we don’t hold a solid reign. If you help me, we can steer the refuse away from this City. Sure, I don’t like it but consider what you will bring to the children of this city if the Clans are gone. There will be a war much worse than what is happening now.”
There was a pause, and both men glared at each other. The Bomber again looked over his shoulder. “Not now, darling. I said go to your room. You can’t seriously expect me to trust that man. We can’t tru-”
Morbolfr looked back between the empty spot and the man, and it finally dawned on him. ‘He thinks he’s talking to his daughter. He really has lost his mind.’
The Bomber made a few steps toward the kitchen door. “No, wait-” Then he abruptly stopped and just stood there.
Morbolfr hedged his bet. “Children, huh? Always all or nothing.”
“All or nothing, hm.” The Bomber looked at the empty spot and slowly turned.
Morbolfr swallowed nervously. “But I think you should listen to her. Because I meant it when I said children are never in the crosshair of my clan, and I will make sure of that. If anyone goes against that, I won’t hesitate to throw them to you. I don’t really care how you decimate the ones responsible for,” He paused, considering his words. “the tragedy that befell your family. We don’t have to like each other, but as long as I call the shots in this city, you have my word.” Tapping the folder on the desk. “And that much at least you know you can trust.”
“Let's say for a minute, I was to agree to your terms. How would we go about this partnership?” The Bomber had swallowed his bait hook, line, and sinker.
He inwardly thanked the delusions of the Bomber’s dead daughter. “It’s simple really. I’ll leave notes for you of targets that will greatly harm the two you want to take down and the Carthaginians. Let’s say a specific location is a dead drop. We won’t ever have contact, and you can go about your work. I won’t be as active in attempting to stop you since you, in turn, will refrain from attacking the men of my Clan or me. While you grind down their organization, I will work behind the scenes and create for you a scenario in which you can go for a decapitation strike on their leaders. But this won’t happen today or tomorrow. We have to be smart about this. No more getting caught out by the FBI or Michael Menace with our pants down.”
The Bomber sat back down at the table. “Sounds like a plan. Tell me more.”
Morbolfr set his suit straight. “Alright, let’s go over the plan. Come summer, you get your revenge, and I take over the city.”
He was already planning further ahead. He wouldn’t suffer this insane man longer than he had to. Standing up to his full height, Morbolfr nodded at his new chess piece once and turned to leave. Before he left the kitchen door, Morbolfr turned back and wrote a number on an old issue of the Tribute. “I would make a call to a certain Doctor Mefford. It seems you had a bit of a hit and run accident that you can only report after he released you from treatment on Monday. You were lucky the good Doctor saw it all happen and began treatment right away. It will make these injuries you got less suspicious. Tell them Mr. Toom asked them for a favor. They’ll help you out with anything you ask them for. It is a nice clinic in the city center. They’ll take proper care of you.”
With that, he left. All his bases were now covered. It was time to put his plans back on the rails. A new destination awaited, and further horizons had opened for his Clan. Morbolfr sat back in his rental car and took the neutralizing dose. Now, it was time to woo the new woman in his life.