Hours passed with Jake sitting in the tree’s crown, watching the goings on down below him. The two troopers were resting or making copies of Jake’s bombs. Mary was practising with her weapon and skills and Lewis was talking to his overly aggressive brother.
“They’re going to need to sort him out or he is going to either get himself killed or he will get someone else killed. Sadly, I’ve done all I can for them. They need to find their own way to live in this world.”
Three more hours passed before Jake came back down and said the site was located around ten kilometres north of their location, but he gave them a warning not to go any further north than that. The four people who fought the rattling nodded while Dave just stared at Jake, his eyes full of hate for the man.
Jake walked over to the two troopers and said to them, “when you get back to the settlement, come see me.” Then he walked over to Mary. “I’m leaving now, so take care of yourself and don’t drop your guard around him.”
Jake walked over to Lewis and was about to tell him to look after his team, but his brother couldn’t keep his mouth shut for five seconds. “Just fuckoff already. We don’t need a piece of shit like you. If it wasn’t for you, using that skill, I would have killed you ten times over.” Dave yelled.
“Okay idiot, I’ve had enough of babysitting you and your temper tantrums.” Jake said before teleporting away
Mary looked over at Dave with disappointment in her eyes. “I really did like you, but your personality just sucks. Never come near me again and when we get back to the settlement, you are quite welcome to leave this team.”
“Shut Up bitch. Just because you wanted to bang the man doesn’t mean we need to like him. Am I right, bro?”
“This time you're wrong, Dave. You are very wrong. I love you brother, but fuck, you really are an idiot, and one that keeps getting his brother in shit for it.”
“Oh grate, so he used some kind of magic on you as well. Do you want to fuck he too? What about you two? Are you all his little bitches as well?”
The next moment four people in unison attacked the man two shot a round each seeding them passed each ear Mary punched him in the stomach making him hunch over as his brother elbowed him in the back of the head sending him back to the land of the unconscious. “It’s time to go. Lewis put a note in his brother’s hand, then left with the others.
Five hours later, Dave woke up. “Those fucken idiots think they can do that to me, fuck them.” Dave started walking north. “he only gave us that warning because his hiding something up there and I’m going to find it. I’ll show them which one of us is more powerful. Then they will come crawling back to me.”
After some time, Jake stood outside of the settlement. There was now a wooden wall that incompetence the perimeter. It was at the edge of the barrier that protects the settlement on the outside of the wall they had cleared the trees and in their place was clusters of buildings some of which were over five stories high and in the centre of one the clusters There was an Australian flag flying and the building looked a lot like a government embassy. The other clusters were also clearly embassies from other countries, one of which was a United Nations facility. It seems Jake’s hunt had taken a lot longer than he realised.
Jake walked towards the entrance to the settlement. Only to be stopped by a man wearing a badge on his chest it was an image of two black hands, one of which was holding a bloody heart and the other was holding a pair of broken shackles.
“Holt, this is the freedom council’s territory. To gain entry, you are required to pay a toll of one item; it must be of at least the common grade. Once you enter the settlement, we recommend you follow the rules.
Jake looked at his items. He pulled out one of his daggers and handed it to the man with the handle facing the guards men.
“Do you mind if I ask what is the symbol you have on your badge?”
“It’s the symbol of the settlement guards. The hand holding the heart represents the fight for freedom, while the other hand represents the freedoms that were granted to all citizens of the settlement.”
“May I ask one last thing?”
“As long as it’s quick, I’ve got to go on patrol soon and I want to have a break first. What seems to be the Australian government, have been trying to get in lately.”
“My question is, who does this safe zone belong to?”
“That’s an easy one. It belongs to the settlement council.”
“Is that so? Are you saying that it doesn’t perhaps belong to a man named Jake everval he also might go by the demon of the past?”
“No, if I am hiring you right, you're talking about the fonder of the mercenary group that was doesn’t matter, anyway. The safe zone doesn’t belong to him.”
“Thank you for the information. I’ll let you get some rest now.”
Jake walked directly into the settlement, then checked if anything was wrong with his connection with the settlement.
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“There’s nothing wrong with it except one thing.”
There had been a deliberate weakening of the barrier. Its weakening was to limit the damage that would happen if someone tried to harm the settlement owner’s interest. Before Jake decided he would find Erica, Kiki, and Emma before he changed the barrier back to the way it should be. Jake teleported into the shadows of the newly constructed building that now reached from the meeting hall to the city gates and back to where the bushland started. Jake was hoping they didn’t go any further into the bushland, then he could see because if they went back too far, they would be within the old military camp and Jake wasn’t ready to let go of his last connection to his fallen teammates.
As jake got closer to the location, he had remembered the mercenary hall being there was a new building there that had settlement guards posted at the entrance and above the door the sign said. Home and business of the council members, Sir Matt Iron, his wife Jess Iron. Underneath that sign there was one more. It was small, but when Jake read it, his anger skyrocketed. It said in all capital letters “humans only” this was an open attack on all the non-human races and it was also an attack directly pointed at Jake as well. The two of them knew full well that Jake was a demon, not a human.
Jake found it strange as he teleported through the settlement. He didn’t see a single non-human race on the streets and the ones he saw were in the homes of humans serving them like they were their slaves. Jake had seen enough of this and he sped up
His teleportation as he headed out towards the bushland, thinking if the people he was looking for were not in the settlement, then they must be in the bushland.
“I really shouldn’t have given them any power. I was so stupid. Why did I do? it they tried to kill me once but then I just see them working in my settlement, then what I just give them the highest level of power in the settlement. Yer I’m an idiot.”
Jake rambled on like this till he reached the bushland. Stopping at the edge, he read one of the many signs those fucken assholes doing this in my territory. I’m going to kill them all for this.
Sign
This territory is governed by the rules of the Australian government and all non-human races are to comply with all rulings to the Australian government.
All non humans must report to their local government officials for a tracking mark to be established.
If a non-human does not have a tracking mark applied to them, the local government auctions will enter them into an indentured service contract to the highest bidder.
The settlement has expelled the demon’s hand mercenary group, and they will treat anyone working with or for them after the designated time as if they belong to non-human stock.
The founder of the demon’s hand mercenary group is to be executed for crimes against the Australian government.
Jake passed the signs and walked into the bushland, not even bothering to hide his presence anymore. Fury emanated from his body as he walked through the bushland, tearing apart all the signs around him with both stable and unstable arcane energy and leaving deep gashes in the trees.
A minute had passed as jake walked deeper till someone he knew appeared before him. Old cuts covered Emma, and her arms bore the scars of shackles.
“Boss, you're finally back. We need your help.”
Emma stumbled over to jake and fell into Jake’s arms.
“What happened?”
Emma told Jake about how the two he appointed council members recently showed their true colour as they changed the barriers parameters without all the council’s permission to do so. Jake then asked about Eric, Kiki, and the two old council members. Jake was delighted to find that all four of them were in the camp they were headed to. But then Jake's happiness faded as Emma said that the two old council members were in a terrible state and that if they didn’t get a healing potion soon, they would die. While Emma and Jake were talking over a few things, Emma told him that she no longer had any control over the barrier and neither did the two old council members. Emma and the others didn’t even have the bonuses that came with their positions.
Jake opened up his interface and checked something he should have when he first knew something was wrong.
assigned to freedom settlement council
Matt Iron
Jess Iron
Alan Blake
Harry Berg
Jeff Sands
Would you like to remove members from the list yes/no?
“I can remove them all from the council and reinstate you right now. But I would like to check one thing first.”
Jake looked over his interface again
Change council assessment rules make a council member of the owner’s choice the only member that can make assignments other than the owner.
“Okay, so I can also change it so you and I are the only ones that can assign a new member of the council.”
“Don’t do that yet. We need to find out what information they have been selling and what damage they have made.
“Do you have a way to find this information out?”
“We have people in locations around the settlement gathering information. I think we should have what we need soon, maybe a day, maybe two.”
“That’s exactly. What about those two assholes? Are they in the settlement? I would like to give them a brief visit.”
“Sadly, no, they left for the US embassy the moment they changed the barrier. My guess is they knew what was going to happen once you got back.”
“Fucken he’ll know the US has two spaceships to copy. I’m going to have to speed up my plans.”
“What’s the plan to counter this new threat?” Emma asked.
“I’m going to rebuild my shuttle into a gunship and build copies of a light fighter design I have. I’m going to need help from a lot of crafting professionals to accomplish this. And later, once we know what we can handle, I have another design that we could use. On that note, there are two unranked officials from the mercenary group named Harrison Lopez and Joel Spencer. They have a profession that will be of grate use to us. They are out at a mining location I told them about. Also, make sure they get their records for finding it.”
“Yes, boss, I will have some people go out and protect them.”
“That won’t be necessary. I spent some time with them and the team they were in. They should be able to protect themselves against most threats.” Jake said.
Jake stood in front of a cluster of tarps strung up in the trees under them were humans and beast folk working together on surviving this mess. The children were playing with each other. It didn’t matter if they were human or beast folk, children could always adapt to changes quicker than adults.