Joy had just spread the news that the Kings had gained the neutral territory, not overtly of course, she didn’t want the other factions to get too suspicious, so she used an operator station. Everyone listened to those things. It shouldn’t be long before they were knocking on the Kings’ doorstep.
Before they got there, though, Joy figured she should take a look at her experience. There were a lot of lessers here, and she had been taxing it from hundreds.
Power: Envy Type: Mythical Alignment: Demonic Class: Null
Abilities:
Envy’s Greed (Active)
- Upon envying a target, gain the ability to steal their power
Envy’s Tithe (Passive)
- Steal a small part of experience from those you deem lesser. On kill, if you deem the target lesser, take the target's experience with the highest efficiency possible.
Envy’s Allocation (Active)
- Allows the user to transfer experience between Powers, can only be used out of combat | Banked Energy [0050] | Total Energy [1570]
Drawbacks:
Ego - feelings of arrogance and superiority increase with each use.
Psychopathy - Decrease empathy and increase violent tendencies with each use.
The calling of Sin - Decreased ability to resist the use of this power
Demonic Aura - Anyone near you is intimidated, scales with the use of your power
Limited Power - You are as strong as the accumulated energy you have.
Seed of Pride - Hidden
Huh, Joy hadn’t thought to bring up her full status after her sub-system reorganized everything. It seemed better, so she didn’t mind the change.
To the main point, only fifty? From over six hundred people, only fifty experience? She knew they lived poorly, but less than a tenth of a point per person? Joy guessed she shouldn’t be too surprised, the fact they even have experience at all should be impossible, but those were questions for another day.
She allocated her experience to the only power she had, not that it made much of a difference, but it takes drops to fill an ocean.
After a few days of waiting, and goddamn were those miserable here, in the poorest part of hell, she saw the Rider’s and Forsaken’s forward advance. That was the sign she’d been waiting for, they’re already on the move.
She snuck over to the Kings’ HQ, unchanged from her last visit, and after scouting for a bit, finding only in-fighting and fucking, she infiltrated. Unseen and unheard, she ghosted through the lobby in search of the boss. Taking him down would be a huge blow in the upcoming war and would practically guarantee their loss.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t loitering in the middle of a packed lobby this time and was actually somewhere secure. She just had to find where, shouldn’t be too hard, right? Surveying the lobby, there were around twelve groups of disparate sizes. Opposite the entrance she entered was the reception desk, unused and dusty. To the right of that was the emergency stairs to higher floors. Adjacent to the stairs, on the right wall, were the elevators.
Structural support pillars dotted the ground floor, these were not pillars of marble, but concrete beams keeping the ceiling from coming down. By itself, the earthscraper would give off an industrial and unfinished feeling, but with the violent masses and red graffiti marking the walls, it was much worse than the sum of its parts.
After a quick moment to plot the most efficient route possible, she snaked around the concrete stairs while ghosting behind a few Kings. With the situational awareness these ‘royalty’ show, it’s a miracle that regicide isn’t more common.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Finally, at the back of the building, she targeted a straggler leaning on a pillar and struck. Joy’s arm snaked around his throat, and she pulled him to an out-of-the-way storage closet that was nearby. He tried to struggle, but ultimately couldn’t win against her Class Four physicality. It was finally coming in handy!
“Who are-” he stopped suddenly, “Gina? If you wanted a quickie in the broom closet you could ha-” After a hard slap from Joy, he quickly shut up.
“Do you guys not have a verification system for your assassins? Like somewhere they have to check into every once in a while to make sure there not, you know, replaced? Something that would be extremely easy since you- the,” She quickly corrected herself “boss invested in voice modulators and goddamn ninja suits!” Joy said, exasperated with the state of operations here.
“Nah, but that’s a good idea! Don’t tell the boss though, you know how he gets when people are act smarter than him.” Warned the oblivious gangster.
Giving in to the stupidity, Joy figured why not, and just asked where the boss was.
“Oh, you don’t know? I thought you went up there all the time?”
“Just humor me.” Said Joy, numbly. She had been so excited to finally put some of the training her family gave her to use, not that she would tell anyone that.
“Well he’s on the seventh floor, like always. Give me a good word, will ya?” He said brightly.
“Sure.” Joy said with a sigh.
She had been thinking of this as a spy thriller, but in reality, it was a comedy. She refused to believe the hours of grueling training she went through were worthless, but maybe it was a bit overkill on these particular… specimens.
So she just… walked through the lobby to the elevator. Her stealth skill didn’t even shout at her in alarm. It was based on her perception after all, and she knew these people weren’t a threat. She gained a little experience with every wave someone gave her, and somehow, she would have preferred not to have gained any.
Is it a crime to want a challenge?
With a quiet *ding* the elevator arrived at the ground floor, and she rode it up to the sixth floor. The grunts may have sub-brick intelligence, but she wasn’t going to risk the boss being that stupid too. Though, with how things were run, that was looking more and more likely.
The sixth floor was a bunk room with no bunks. Just blankets arranged in a vaguely grid-shaped pattern to denote where everyone was to sleep. There were a few people passed out on the ground, and none of them woke up as she walked out of the elevator and to the stairs. A few seconds later, and voila, she was on the boss's floor. She got out some makeshift lockpicks for the door before she thought better and just tried the handle. Unlocked. Of course.
Maybe I won’t even have to kill him. Wouldn’t surprise me if he tripped on his shoelaces and hit his head on a pipe.
Walking in, there he was. Asleep. Did she even need to be here? Would the Kings even be a challenge to the other factions? These were one of the big three, right? She walked in, and shock of shocks, an alarm went off.
Oh my god, he actually took a precaution! I might actually get to do something today.
With surprising perception, he noticed Joy through her stealth and said, “Goddamnit Gina, come through the elevator next time, you know how much the alarm annoys me!”
The elevator didn’t have an alarm. Joy could have walked in, gone to the elevator, ridden it up, and murdered him in his sleep.
H- Wh- I-
She was rendered speechless, even in her own thoughts.
“Well, why are you just standing there? Did you wake me up for a reason?”
“Are you dumb?” She blurted unintentionally.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST ASK ME!” He went from annoyed to red-faced on a dime.
“After all I did for you, you have the audacity to come in here and insult me to my face! Who bought you that suit, huh? Who negotiated for your family after they pissed off the Forsaken? You kill one upstart nobody, and you think you can come in here and do whatever you want?” He tiraded, talking more to himself than anybody by the end.
This comedy of incompetency be damned, Joy was getting some entertainment from this. So she took off her mask.
“And who the hell are you! What did you do with Gina?”
“I am a humble leader, much like - well, I was going to say like you, but I’m a fair few steps above that. You know what, just call me Joy.”
He stood there dumbfounded for a moment before the pieces came together in his mind. Joy thought it was particularly amusing. She could almost see the gears in his mind, so rusted by bloodshed that they could hardly be used to think at all.
“I’m almost thankful you murdered her, now I get to kill you myself.” He said with shocking sincerity.
“Oh? Did you actually care about her? Surprising, I thought you were so brain-dead that every emotion besides rage was gone.”
And with that, he was off.
If a man like Alex, the former leader of the Furies, could afford R-4 Augs, then they were a minor expense to a man like this. Fortunately, there were only a few R-3 Augs in existence, and none of them could be found in a dump like this. They were on even ground.
Or, well, they would be, if Joy didn’t have him beat in literally every area. Back when she was fighting Alex it was close because she was still just a Class 5, but now that she could see the Augs in action from the perspective of an actual Class 4, she realized her initial assessment at the time had been correct. Overpromised, underdelivered.
That didn’t stop her from toying with him for a bit, but his screams of rage got boring quickly.
“You bitch! I’ll fucking kill you for what you’ve done!”
He rushed towards her once more, yet it was more a mad dash than anything that could actually be called intimidating. These leaders seemed to get by on sheer size and strength alone, and now that this man was stripped of his strength advantage, he had nothing to compete with. He didn’t know how to actually use his range.
So, with deftness that can only be achieved by actually being Class 4, she jumped over his bull rush and while hanging upside down in the air above him, cut his carotid artery.
Well, finishing with style at least made it interesting.
She couldn’t bring herself to feel disgusted like she did with Wei. There, it felt… it made her feel like her former contemporaries. Bullying the weak just to feel strong. That wasn’t why she did it, but while killing someone that pathetic, she couldn’t help but draw comparisons. That and the act of killing itself made the act altogether unpleasant.
This though. The man was a tyrant, he may not have done anything especially egregious to her, besides the name-calling, but when you're faced with something that much greater some people can’t help but shout into the void, but you could tell from the way he treated his subjects. Starving and without shelter, he and his ‘Kings’ lived in an ivory tower.
She passed by several cafeterias on the way here, all fully stocked with food. The civvies only got access if they joined the Kings. She wasn’t sure to what degree, but the destitution here was, at least in part, manufactured.
Joy may be a heartless bitch most of the time, but even she had some standards.
Goodbye and Good riddance. Now it’s time for the fireworks.