"Please, I'm telling you I'm worth way more to you if you don't hurt me!" Steven yelled. His hands had reached around to his back in an attempt to soothe the pain that was coursing through his body.

Daz shook his head. "I already told you, didn't I? 'Then don't talk.'."

At that moment, Daz's eyes widened when he saw what looked like an explosive cannon round enter his vision. There was no time to shout nor to react. In fact, Daz was lucky to just see the thing at all before it impacted on Steven's leg and violently exploded.

The surrounding people immediately got into defensive positions as the ones closest to the explosion shielded their faces or tried to step back, however, surprisingly, the explosion never reached them.

Looking at where Daz and Steven once stood, a bright blue barrier could be seen with nothing but smoke and debris visible inside of it.

In front of Madison, Mr Barrier was concentrating as he kept his indestructible barrier up in place. "Daz..." Madison muttered in worry.

Mu held his chin in interest. "Where did that explosion come from?" he asked.

Aila was just as confused. "That wasn't an attack from your people?"

Ron - the man stood next to her, well, his face was filled with anger. "Bullshit it wasn't!"

Crusher frowned. "Oi, if we'd wanted to kill you lot then you'd already be dead, so shut yer trap and wait for the smoke to die down and the barrier to drop. Uriel'll be able to explain, I'm sure."

"She means Daz when she says Uriel, by the way," one of Crusher's men sheepishly said so as to avoid any misunderstanding.

"What's even making that barrier? It looks very sturdy," Ellie commented. She had been rather uninterested during this whole affair, but seeing something so magical appear out of thin air had intrigued the telekinetic witch.

"Mr, Barrier," Madison answered as she pointed to the fuzzy ball of fluffiness that was floating in front of her.

Before anyone could ask any further questions the barrier disappeared, Mr Barrier floated back over to Madison's head, and Daz reappeared now that the smoke had died down.

He coughed violently and a frown was on his face. "Well, that was a surprise."

"What the hell was that?!" Ron yelled.

Another one of Aila's people covered their mouths in horror as they said, "E-Eric..."

Steven, or Eric Carter, well, the man had been turned into nothing more than a lump of flesh. All that remained of him was the upper half of his torso and his arms which had been raised to protect his head.

Not minding the gory scene, Daz leaned down and ruthlessly cut off Steven's right hand with a single knife slice. "A promise is a promise. Be a better person in your next life, Steven."

Daz stored the hand then sighed deeply before he swept his hand through his hair. 'Damn it. Half of my gems were blown to bits in that explosion... Well, I can resummon them tomorrow, but that was a real surprise.'

Aila could see the tension peaking in her people, so she quickly stepped forward and glared at Daz. "What is the meaning of this? What the fuck was that explosion?"

Daz scratched his head and wore an annoyed look on his face. "My best guess? A pair of idiots. A more in-depth answer? I'm pretty sure it was a cannon shell that somehow got fired accidentally from a tank."

"What? You expect us to believe that? Whatever the hell that was killed a good man! Do you just expect us to lower our heads and accept such a weak answer?!" Seeing Daz in an awkward position and also surprised by what had just happened gave Aila the room to show her confident and scornful nature.

Daz sighed and muttered, "Will is going to get an earful for this," under his breath.

He ran his fingers through his hair once more than replied, "Steven, or Eric, as you knew him, was not a nice man. He was a perverse, rude, disrespectful person who had no faith in my threats. How about I offer an apology?"

Aila scoffed. "As if an apology can make up for this," she said as she gestured to the bloody mess and charred ground that was now the remains of Steven.

"I'll give him a proper burial, though no funeral. Also, you're from New York, right? I'll give you information on your closest rivals as a formal apology for this... incident. I genuinely only wanted his hand and to beat him up, not to kill him," Daz claimed.

Ron had nothing but disgust on his face as he stared at Daz. "As if we can trust any informat-"

His words stopped when he saw the red lightning in Aila's hand. "If you speak out of turn again, then you'll be tattooed. Do you understand me?"

"Y-Yes. S-Sorry, Miss Bristle. It w-won't happen again, I swear..." Ron replied as his entire body trembled and any semblance of hate that he was pointing at Daz quickly morphed in raw fear as he humbled himself to Aila.

'Interesting... Now, why is he acting like that and what does 'tattooed' mean? I doubt it means getting his body inked, that's for sure... Hmm... We aren't enemies yet, so I should probably use this somehow in conversation and find out what it is from her own lips rather than from her skill list,' Daz decided, though he was incredibly tempted to check through her skill list regardless.

He had already done so during their encounter at the system's auction, however, she had no skills nor racial traits or item abilities that allowed her to 'tattoo' a person. 'Ah, maybe it has something to do with her esper heritage? She's definitely an esper, after all. I'll ask Rose about it later. I doubt that's something that Aila would ever tell me about herself.'

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Aila nodded then stopped arching the red lightning between her fingers. She looked at Daz then said, "Information on our rivals, yes? Fine. I can agree to that if the information proves to be true."

'And if it doesn't?' Daz privately asked sarcastically. "Great. Well, with that out of the way, let's go to my keep, shall we? We can talk after everyone's relaxed a bit and cooled down."

----------------------------------------

"Well, this is nice," Daz commented as he stepped into his throne room only to find it filled with tables, seats, and a feast fit for a king.

Lyle was standing near the entrance with a polite smile on his face. "My King, in preparation for the arrival of our guests, I felt it would be most appropriate to arrange befitting amusements. We have a band prepared as well who are ready to play some music should you will it. Thankfully, there are a few musically talented survivors in Waterford and they're eager to perform. Should that be to your tastes, My King, a surround sound system is also available. Regardless, I highly recommend allowing one or the other to suitably set the proper mood for easy negotiations."

"Sure, that sounds fine. Who am I to stop eager people willing to help me?" Daz asked rhetorically. He then patted Lyle's shoulder and said, "Come see me when the party is over, will you? I'd like to talk to you."

Lyle immediately nodded. "Of course, My King."

Shortly after that, Daz and his followers were seated and then Aila and her people were.

Daz was, naturally, at the head of the central table while Madison was to his left and Mu was to his right. Ellie could be found to Madison's left while Crusher had her own set of tables just for her and her followers.

Opposite of Daz sat Aila while Ron was facing Mu. Another lieutenant of Aila's, a young woman with flowing ginger hair and a freckled face, was just across from Madison.

"Quite the party you've thrown for us, huh?" Aila asked with some cynicism lacing her words as she tentatively sipped on her wine and cut into her steak.

Daz nodded proudly. "My personal advisor is one hell of a man. He's not the strongest person but he's an exceptional planner I've learned. It's almost like he's a completely different person than who he was before the apocalypse struck."

"Is that so?" Aila asked as she narrowed her eyes in disinterest. "I've seen people turn from friendly neighbours with three kids and a lovely dog into violent murderers at the drop of a hat."

Mu was a little saddened by that. "People are incredible at adapting, but at the same, also incredibly inept at adapting."

"That's the blessing and the curse of humanity," Daz commented. "Anyway, Aila. Would it be rude of me to ask you now why you've come here? The optimist in me says you want to join me."

Surprise washed over the young woman's face. "You'd accept us if we had?"

"With open arms. If you pledge your loyalty to me and sign a system-bound contract to not betray me, we can consider our past nothing but water under the bridge," Daz said with a tempting tone to his voice.

Aila looked hesitant for a split-second before she relented and shook her head. "No, we would never join you. What we want is an alliance."

"A pity," Daz claimed with a shake of his head. "Well, what sort of alliance, exactly?"

"A strategic alliance," Aila replied immediately.

Daz cut into his food and put a bite of it into his mouth before he replied, "I will never ally myself with my father. I hope you understand that. He and I don't exactly view things eye-to-eye, you see."

Aila smiled wryly. "I'm aware, as is the leader and ruler of New York. Our alliance would only be until all of the U.S in under our control. You get half, we get the other. Once that's said and done, we'll dissolve the alliance and enter a non-aggression pact."

Daz chuckled faintly. "And what do I stand to gain from this?"

"Pardon?" Aila didn't quite understand. Daz was very powerful, yes, but individual strength wouldn't help in conquering one of the world's largest countries. It only made sense to forge alliances to make such a difficult task, well, no longer quite so difficult.

"Well, I have military might. Granted, only with a handful of individuals, not with an army..." Daz said as his mind finished his sentence for him. '... yet.'

"And as far as strategy goes, I'm very confident that few people on the planet can even come close to the abilities of my personal strategist," he said passively. "So, what can you offer to me that will make an alliance between our two factions worthwhile?"

"... Is there something specific that you want?" Aila asked. Clearly, she had some wiggle room here to negotiate.

'Excellent. An alliance would definitely be great. I can just lend them a clone of mine or two for decisive battles or to intimidate their rivals, while I can use their men to act as my armies for if I ever need to siege a city and I can slowly sow the seeds of distrust towards Father. It'll certainly help keep my people safe while I consume California then eventually Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico as well. I'll still be on my own with Taiwan, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it,' Daz thought and then took a sip of his drink.

"Well, there are only two things that I really want right now," Daz claimed calmly.

Aila raised an expectant eyebrow. "And those would be...?"

"A power source that's extremely durable and is roughly as good at generating energy as, oh, I don't know, 20 or so nuclear power plants?" Daz said with a small smile on his face. The looks of disbelief on Aila and her lieutenants' faces tickled him to his core.

"I doubt we can arrange that, nor would it be worth it. We could use something like that ourselves," Aila replied after a few moments had passed.

Daz nodded. "I expected as much. Super weapons sure are difficult to build, huh?"

Aila's eyes widened. "Is that what you need something like that for? A super weapon?"

"Who can say?" Daz responded with a question and a sly smile. "Anyway, the only other thing that I'd accept would be a portable oxygen supply that's big enough to supply, oh, let's say... New York City? It'll also have to be an enclosed environment. Like a bubble or something."

"... Why on Earth would you ever need that? And why New York?" Aila asked in suspicion.

Daz laughed faintly. "It was just an example, Aila. As for why I need it... Well, we all need oxygen, now don't we? I'm thinking of colonising the moon. It's just a fantasy of mine. Ever since I got my emotions back I've felt the need to explore the solar system and colonise it, so I figured, why not start with the moon?"

Aila slowly nodded, though she still didn't quite believe him. "We can probably arrange that."

"Excellent. Then shall we sign a contract right here and now?" Daz offered.

Aila shook her head. "I'm only the messenger and initial negotiator. You'll have to come to New York and meet with my ruler Emma Cromwell to properly work out the details."

"I see. Well, in that case, please, enjoy the rest of your evening. Maddy and I will be going to bed early today. It's been a long day. Please, feel free to stay here in the keep tonight. Some of you will have to share rooms, but enough of the employees don't actually live in the fort, so there're plenty of bedrooms for you all," Daz said as he stood up and took Madison's hand in his.

Aila reached out to him and said, "Ah, Dare-, Daz!"

"Hmm?" the reaper responded as he looked at her curiously.

She seemed hesitant and eventually retracted her arm. "It... It's nothing. Thanks for being so, uh, hospitable."

"Like I said, it's the least that I could do after the accident with Steven. I'll also have your intel on your rivals ready by tomorrow morning. As I've already made abundantly clear, I'm a man who keeps my promises." With that, Daz bowed his head slightly in a polite gesture then left the throne room with Madison and Mr Barrier.

Mu happily slurped away on a bowl of chicken stew soup then said, "The food's incredible here. This is actually my first time tasting it. I should come to the keep more often."

"You don't live here?" Ron asked.

Mu shook his head. "I actually almost killed Daz. Now I'm Waterford's watchdog. I own the military camp you all passed on the way here."

Aila heard that and saw this as a good opportunity to put her charms to work. "Is that so?" she asked in a sultry voice.

Were he telling the truth, then the woman may have just found a valuable chess piece should the alliance with Daz go in an unfavourable direction.