Chapter 153- Kingmaker 8

The next day

Evening

Eldorado Capital Business District

The Fando-Kibris Royal Hotel was the tallest building in the capital with 70 floors and a helipad for the more VIP guests. It was around 300 meters give or take and it was cylindrical in shape.

25 years ago, this area was once a simple suburbs filled with medium class citizens.

Said citizens were slaughtered in a massive gang war between 3 of the major cartels.

Despite the beauty of the Fando-Kibris and its sorroundings, the vast majority of Eldoradonian citizens despised it due to its sordid history.

Fun fact: The Fando-Kibris was co-owned by 2 of the major cartels: the Fando Family and the Kibris Gulf Syndicate.

Yep, they didnt even bother hidding it anymore.

That was how powerful the cartels have become in this country.

Thanks to this, the heightened security forced Theo to abandon the daytime guns blazing approach.

Mind you, he could have gathered up his forces and launched an all out assault on Fando-Kibris, but that would mean less fun for him.

There was also a chance that his troops might accidentally kill Gregorio Lorne.

Now that wont do.

Theo wanted to mentally torment his oldest brother for many many years to come. Killing him outright was too boring.

Besides, there were tons of innocent civilians working in the hotel. An all out war would lead to catastrophic colateral damage.

As such, Theo decided to go at it alone.

Just to be clear, he understood that he was letting his overconfidence get to him and his hubris will result in unneccesary pain.

However, his desire for fun was irresistable. Consequences be damned!

At the moment, Theo was using his grappling guns to scale the Fando-Kibris from the outside.

Based on the info being provided by his spydrones, there were quite a lot of people in the hotel at the moment. This was very unusual given the current war happening within Eldorado.

Normal tourist would try to get out of the country ASAP, yet the hotel was 80% occupied.

Interesting.

For now, Theo slowly made his way to the helipad.

Upon reaching the top, he immediately went to the shadows to avoid the 5 guards that were roaming about.

He performed one last weapons check before kicking off the party.

1 Beretta ARX 160 with dual drum magazines

4 Beretta 92 pistols

1 Super Shotgun

1 HF Blade

2 Frag Granades

The backpack with 6 mechanical arms with 4 grappling guns and 2 auto loader system.

Omni Directional Flamethrower

It was his standard loadout. Nothing more, nothing less.

He was ready and willing to start the party, but there was 1 massive problem. There were too many innocent civilians inside the hotel.

If he went about his usual killing spree, the collateral damage might be considerably smaller than an all out assault with his reformant units in tow, but there was still collateral damage.

While such unfortunate incidents was practically impossible to avoid, he would rather not have any innocents die this day.

If he forced an evacuation, he cant stop all the criminals from evacuating along with the civilians. Hunting them one by one would take too long and some of them may even escape.

He mulled his options for a few more moments but he wasnt able to come up with a plan to prevent the criminals from scattering beyond his reach.

"It seems that papa dear is having trouble. Mind if I lend a hand?" said Juno through the coms

"Juno? If you're using ER46's frequency, then you're in the An-22 right? What the hell is my heavily pregnant wife doing in the freaking control room?" replied the annoyed Theo as he shot a glance towards the sky.

At the moment, Juno was within a heavily modified Antonov An-22 that was flying 25000 feet above the city. This was the same An-22 Theo used during the Alkebulan incident.

As in the past, the An-22 was used as both a command center for the operation and an signal amplifier that allowed Theo to control all of his drones through out the city.

"Now now dear. I may be pregnant but I'm not an invalid. I can walk around no problem. And besides, it's boring to stay in some fancy room while there's a party in full swing."

"Hmm... good point..."

If there was a shared interest that the Theo-Juno couple had, it was their love for violence and war.

Theo would feel the same as Juno if he was in her position.

As such, Theo decided to let her do what she wanted despite his concern for her pregnancy.

And besides, its not like she was alone. There were tons of Reformants near her to back her up.

"Anyways, if you have any suggestions, I would like to hear them." said Theo

"ER46 just told me that we have quite a bit of surplus of manpower thanks to our partnership with the Eldorado Armed Forces. So I suggest forming a baracade. Based on the map here, your forces already has partially surrounded the area around the hotel."

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Theo accessed the digital map and was surprised that it was indeed true.

Aside from the initial artillery barrage, there was no real coherent plan aside from hunting down the survivors. These were mostly small fries that did not matter enough to hold a place within the cartel strongholds.

Theo's troops were mostly engaged in small scale fire fights all across the city.

Thoug unintentionally, there were troops within a 1 kilometer radius of the hotel.

The only area without armed conflict was a large suburbian area southeast of the hotel.

"Hoo... nice.... ER46, you heard what we were talking about right?" asked Theo

"Yes my lord." replied ER46

"Then do what Juno just suggested. Send some forces into the suburbs but make sure to do it quietly. I will force an evacuation here. Allow the civilians to pass unharmed. Kill everyone else."

"As you wish my lord!"

"Happy hunting dear. I'll be masturbating while I watch you pleasure yourself. Fufufufu." said Juno

"Dont you dare. I'm fairly sure that you're not suppose to touch yourself when you're so close to your due date." replied Theo

"~Aw~ killjoy. So be it then. Do enjoy yourself."

"I will. No doubt about that."

Theo took aim from behind his cover and blew one of the guard's head with a single shot.

Though the wind was strong at the top of the 70 storie building, the sound of the gunshot was loud enough for the guards to hear.

Unfortunately for the guards, Theo had the element of surprise. He was able to kill 3 before they could process that they were under attack.

One of them tried to use his coms to report the situation.

Theo rewarded him with a bullet to the head.

The last remaining guard ran for cover as he fired wildly at his hidden enemy.

He never got to safety.

Theo shot both of his legs before blowing putting a bullet into his cranium.

Easy peasy.

Just like any half decent security force, these guys must make periodic reports to their HQ. Failing to do that would instantly raise the hotel's alert level.

Theo had no paitence to wait that to happen.

He accessed his spy drones to check for an area where there were many people.

There seemed to be an event or something on the 40th floor. This was perfect stage for his opening trick.

He grabbed the corpses and threw them one by one off the roof.

Let's just say that the people in the 40th floor were shocked when bodies fell from the sky when the song 'It's Raining Men' was playing.

Theo calmly entered the hotel via the stairs and made his way to the 70th floor.

Before he could exit the stairway, he heard the sound of rushed footsteps from approximately 2 floors down.

The security detail reacted faster than he anticipated.

Theo stayed where he was and waited for them.

The moment they saw each other...

"Good evening. Busy day isnt it?" said Theo before he dove into the 70th floor to dodge the incoming gunfire.

There were only 3 of them armed with Glock 17s. Not much of a challenge, but they were perfect for announcing Theo's arrival.

Theo ran to the end of the hallway and fired a gum drone at the stairway door before hidding behind a corner.

Theo watched the video feed from the gum drone and waited for all 3 of the guards to enter the 70th floor.

At that moment, Theo used the corner as cover and open fired.

Like fishes in a barrel, the guards could do nothing but die in the coverless hallway.

Naturally, the gunshots definitely caught someone's attention.

A stereotypical cartel looking guy stepped out from a nearby room with his gun drawn.

Theo didnt need to run his facial recognition to know that this guy was a criminal.

By the time the man was able to take aim at Theo, his head was blown off.

From this point onward, Theo felt like he died and went to heaven.

Armed individuals exited their room to see what was going on.

Theo's facial recognition had Eldorado Law Enforcement's criminal database installed and it pinged all of them.

To Theo, this was an all you can eat buffet.

With sadistic glee, he open fired with reckless enthusiasm, killing 5 in one volley though most were able to dive back into their rooms.

He took this opportunity to run away before the enemies could swarm him. But as he did so, he left one of his frag grenades on a nearby table.

The sound of his retreat stoked the fires of aggression within the criminals. They rushed out of their rooms to give chase, only to walk into an explosion that tore them apart.

10 died instantly while atleasy 8 were severely injured in that relatively small hallway.

Theo made way to the large circular empty space at the middle of the building that stretched all the way to the first floor. Its diameter was approximately 30 meters.

Annoyingly enough, every last one of occupants of the 70th floor exited their rooms. All of them were armed with large veriety of weapons.

Does this hotel have some sort of silent alarm or something?

His enemies were reacting way too quickly.

Well, it didnt really matter to him. At least he didnt need to go door to door just to slaughter them.

Theo ran counter clockwise through the circular hallway while shooting anyone in sight.

Naturally, his enemies did not take this lying down.

Bullets, fireballs, lightning bolts and enchanted arrows bombarded Theo from the opposite side of the divide.

Theo kept his knees bent and performed a shuffle run while using the concrete protective barrier as a shield.

Sadly, the barrier was ment to prevent people from falling over the edge. It was not designed to take magical bombardment spells. It was instantly obliteraded in one hit.

As such, Theo was forced to abandon offense and focused on running as fast as he could.

Fortunately, his magically inclined enemies were very reckless at throwing their spells. Sometimes, they would accidentally hit their fellow criminals. Other times, the shrapnel from the exploding concrete barriers rivalled a frag grenade's lethality.

Of course, the gunfire killed their fair shair of allies as well.

Theo could not help but thank them for doing his job for him.

Eventually he was able to approached the magic users and gunners on the otherside, but he was immidietly greeted by a man that metamorphed into a bipedal tiger.

As tigerman lunged at him, Theo shocked his opponent by charging in.

Tigerman was able to knock Theo off his feet and slam him into the ground.

Unfortunately for tigerman, Theo was able to stab the poor bloke in the head with his HF blade while being speared into the ground.

RIP Tigerman. He died in his moment of glory.

"Oh my god! They killed Kenny!" roared one the mages.

"YOU BASTARD!" one of the gunman followed suite.

"Hmm? I could have sworn I killed a couple of Kennys in the past... Deja vu?" thought Theo as he pushed tigerman Kenny into standing position and used him as a meatshield.

Like the ancient Spartans of the Hot Gates, Theo inched forward with his trusty shield in tow.

The friends of Kenny unleashed their wrath upon their comrade's murderer by bombarding their former friend's corpse with terrifying amounts of firepower.

Were they really friends with the newly departed Kenny?

Surprisingly enough, Kenny's corpse was uncharacteristicly durable.

Though one side of it was slowly being decimated, it remained relatively stedfast.

Underneath the smokescreen of a firestorm, flashy lightning bolts, bullets, arrows and burning flesh came Theo's counter attack.

First, he fired a gum drone to the other side of the divide. Since the spy drones could not sneak into the building, this was his only means of gaining dynamic field of vision over the battlefield.

When the gum drone's video feed went online, he immediately went into offense.

The gunman was shot in the balls, which caused the poor man to squeeze his trigger as he crumbled to the floor in agony. This resulted in him pumping a large amount of lead into the archer.

Theo used his super shotgun's grappling claw to pull the fire mage in. The man ended up getting hit by a lightning bolt.

The fire mage's resistance prevented him from dying, but he was definitely greviously injured.

This made the storm mage hesitate. Big mistake.

Theo richocheted his bullets on a door knob near to the storm mage.

The bullets went into the mage's left rib, left shoulder and finally the brain.

Before Theo could celebrate his small victory, the gum drone caught a massive wave of energy from the lower floors heading towards his position.

He used grappling guns on his backpack to pull him away as fast as possible.

Not a milisecond later, tigerman Kenny, the fire mage and everything within 2 meters in Theo's previous position was obliterated.

Based on what the gum drone could see, the attack looked like a vertical slash which sliced through 3 floors.

Theo calmly walk towards the barrier and searched for his assailant.

He didnt need to look hard.

At the 64th was an old yet extremely buffed samurai who wielded a nodachi with one hand.

Theo had no idea who this man was but it was clear that this guy was atleast an S ranked superhero in terms of power.

Definitely the final boss of this stage.

On the other hand, Theo knew exactly who was standing beside this fearsome samurai.

There was Gregorio Lorne, looking pathetic as ever.

The Tenjou, a Zifang based 5 person harem superhero team. They were ranked A before they left the Hero Alliance.

A challenge, yes. But not a problem.

The last one was someone Theo never expected to be here.

This girl was a complete unknown to him. She does not exist in any record anywhere in the world.

Even the massive database of the Hassan-i-Sabbah which has a profile on every person that ever existed since the dawn of their organization had no records of her.

The great superhero Crow had 2 sidekicks. Theo knew already slept with Vulture AKA Dorothy Boreal so he knew her very well.

But the other one...

"What the hell is Sparrow doing here?"