It turned out Johnny was hard to find.

First, we went back to the cathedral to search for that sexy, confident noblewoman. She wasn't there. Nobody had seen her. Nobody had heard of her.

Then, we went back to the slums, back to Johnny's apartment. Maybe his girlfriend had more information about this mob. The mob that gave Johnny the job in the first place. We had some questions for this mob, and we didn't know where to look.

She wasn't home.

So, we went back to the black market, the place with the black awnings and sketchy deals and the now-ruined pawn shop. We asked the passerby about the mob. We asked the shopkeepers, the nearby residents, even the guards. Just before we decided to head back to the cathedral to rob it, a beggar came to us.

He wanted money in exchange for information. I made him a stack of sandwiches. No tomatoes this time (Vil also wanted one). He accepted and told us where to go, and when we heard, we should've known to begin with.

Every city seemed to have underground, organized crime. The mob was the general term. And for some reason, as if some fateful cliche, they always liked to hang out in abandoned industrial areas. Empty factories with caved-in roofs. An active steel-mill in the foreman's office. Behind the dumpsters near the shipyard. If at any time you would go to those places, there was at least some guarantee you'd run into one.

We walked down the street, through a residential area, around the cheering coliseum, and we crossed through the industrial zone near the docks. The smell of fish and ocean reached here and all around was the sawing of saws and the beat of hammers. Construction noise. Industrial sounds. Overhead, unmanned cranes stretched and criss-crossed and cast long shadows across us.

It was dark here. The construction noise seemingly more distant, and we heard the slight echo of voices across the empty metal buildings. Someone laughed. A special, unmistakable, villainous laugh. These had to have been the guys we were looking for.

We rounded the corner and spotted several tough-guy mobster types. They had cornered some poor, stupid girl, and she was pressed against the wall.

Wait, no. It was Johnny's girlfriend!

Vil and I stood with arms crossed. "You must be the mob," Vil said.

They snapped over to us and grinned like hyenas.

"Oi, chums," said a scrawny punk with a red mohawk. He wore a sleeveless leather jacket. "Looks like we gots ourselves some more fresh meat, eh?" He snickered and flicked out a knife.

"Ah yeeea," said a big guy. "Tryina be tuff guys, eh?" He crossed his arms.

The third pulled away from the girl and started over to us. He had this confident gleam to his smile. Hair half-shaved, eyebrow pierced, dressed in a leather jerkin that archers liked to wear. "New guests," he said. Unlike the other two, he sounded more like a b-list politician than a creeper. "Tell me, friends. What brings you here?"

His tone and his stand were contradictory. If I were blind, I would've thought he was welcoming me into his home, but the fact that he slid out a longsword from its sheath told me otherwise.

I took a hard look at the girl. She was unharmed but shaken. She was in tears, but her amber eyes dug into me. They pleaded for help just as they did back in the slums. I recognized that look.

The three stood across from us between the abandoned factories, in the criss-cross shades of the crane scaffolds, and we stood against them in a sort of patient standoff.

I spoke this time. "We're looking for Johnny," I said.

The three laughed. "Johnny, you say?" said the charismatic mobster. "Never heard of him."

The girl snapped back. "They have him! They have Johnny!"

"Quiet, bitch." Barked the leader. He looked back at us with a smirk. "That's right. We have Johnny. Let me guess, he owes you money."

"Where is he?" Vil asked. "I just wanted to talk."

They laughed. "Talk? With Johnny?" The leader stepped closer and wagged his sword at us. "I hate to say this, friend, but you won't be talking with anyone after this. That is unless you pay our fee."

"Do you take sandwiches?" I asked.

The scrawny mohawk answered. "What kind?"

"Enough!" shouted the leader. "Kill these nerds and bring me back that guy's armor. It'll sell for enough."

The big guy and scrawny guy snickered, knives drawn, and the approached in a fighter's stance.

I stepped forward. "Let me handle these two. I must test their mettle."

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Vil sighed. "To entertain your fetish again?"

I stood in front of him as the two mobsters stepped closer. "It's not a fetish. It's a battle technique." I crossed my arms and stuck out my chest. "Come! Show me what you got!"

Heart of the Masochist activated.

Mohawk and Big Guy charged, each giving off a ferocious little warcry. They raised their daggers and sliced. Both plinked right off me. I thought I saw a single spark shed off me, hard to say. "More!" I shouted.

They shook back, then attacked again.

A two-three-four hit combo, a sort of blade dance between these two mobster men, and I moved not an inch from my spot. My eyes closed in focus, my metallic brow furrowed, my arms crossed, and my chest out.

Before long, they panted with exhaustion. "W-what kind of armor is this?" said Mohawk.

"He's... he's impenetrable," said Big Guy.

I shook my head. "Shameful," I grumbled. "It didn't even tickle! It didn't even give my dick the slightest of tickles!"

I snatched Mohawk by the throat.

My mining laser clicked open from my waist, and as the scrawny punk writhed in my grip, I fired it.

Fzzzzzz!

+50 Earth Element

+50 Water Element

+400 Blood Element

The laser burned through his jacket, and his skin sizzled, steamed, boiled, and he screeched at the pain. His fingers clawed at my forearm to escape me, but there was no escape.

Fzzzzzz--

+100 Earth Element

+100 Water Element

+800 Blood Element

Big Guy stood horrified, shook off the fear, and charged with his rage. My tentacle arms shot out from my back, snapped into knife-hands, and I slipped each one into his body, digging around, writhing inside him, caressing his bones and under his flesh and lungs and hearts and soon he erupted no longer as a living person, but as a shredded bag of skin and meat.

Fzzzzzz--

+200 Earth Element

+200 Water Element

+1600 Blood Element

The laser burst through the scrawny guy's chest, and I dropped him limp into the dirt.

+3500 XP

+1 Level [Level 34]

+1 Class Point

My laser cut off, and I stood staring at the leader, expecting him to be scared out of his wits.

He wasn't. His expression was of darkness. A sinister grin, a hint of nervous resolve, but no fear.

I stepped over--

He slashed his weapon. A red glow arced and raced at me! Magic!

I braced--

A dull fiery pain flared around me, but it didn't land.

I opened my eyes to see Vil standing before me with his manashield out. It hummed and blinked off. He held out his palm. "Humor me, Redrim."

I smirked.

Hmmm-click.

+1 Longsword (Rare)

I tossed it to him, and he caught it.

Now, this was something I wanted to see. A fight between swordmages.

The leader said, "Let me guess. Adventurers? Ha! I was like you once."

"Is that so?" Vil said, unamused.

They sidestepped around each other in a duelist's circle. Weapons aimed, each waiting for the moment to strike.

"It is," the leader growled. "Once I learned the sins of the temple, I was cast out. It was only the mob who took me in. They gave me power. They gave me purpose."

"Go on," Vil said.

"I, uh, that's about it," he said. "I don't have anything else cool to say."

"Tell me about Johnny," Vil said. "What was that job?"

They were still walking in circles, aiming their weapons at each other. This had to have been like the third or fourth lap.

The leader scoffed. "That fuckin' weakling. You're wasting your time on that one. He was only ever good for stealing from people." The leader passed by me on his lap around. "We try one time--one time--to get him to put the knife on someone, and he fucks it up. No, he doesn't just fuck it up. He runs. He ran from the easiest goddamn job in the world. All because he didn't want to kill a so-called innocent person. Ha!"

"The target," Vil said, "was the foreigner."

"Heh. As if I'd tell you," said the leader as he passed by me. "There's no point in talking further. You'll both be dead soon, regardless. Unless you pay the fee, you off-brand chumps."

"Pay the fee? You're a conman, I can tell. You're also condescending." Vil's eyes flashed with anger, with victory. "And now, with a strike of my blade, your limp body will be a descending carcass of a condescending conman!"

He slashed. His weapon flared with aquatic energy, and it zipped over--

The leader swung back with the heat of fire. The water flashed into steam and reflected back at Vil.

Vil returned again with another slash. Gale-force winds focused into a single swing of his sword, and it shot through the boiling mist, the air gap now yanking it back over to the leader.

The leader flashed in his manashield, but it did nothing to stop the spell. It was now a formless blur of heat, an invisible cloud of boiling air, and he swung his sword and manashield to wave it away, but that did nothing. He tried to use his own wind spell, sharp slashes of wind zipping the air around us, but now the cloud of broiling air had set in all around him. Soon, his face reddened and blistered, and his clothes soon soaked with the hot wetness of it, and I heard the entirety of him begin to sizzle.

Vil stood with confidence.

I stared at the twitching, dying mobster. "Were you waiting for that pun?" I asked.

"Rate it," said Vil.

I shrugged. "I dunno. Decent timing, kinda weak, to be honest. Four out of ten?"

"Or was it... descent timing?" He hit me with a smirk. "Seven out of eleven."

I rolled my eyes. That one was actually alright, but I wouldn't tell him.

Vil stepped over to the leader. The guy was blistered all over and gasping like a fish out of water. Vil knelt down. "Tell us where he is."

The guy coughed and gagged.

Vil held his hand over his throat, and a green light glowed from his palm. The man's blistered face was healing, and his breathing stabilized.

"J-Johnny is," the leader cough again. "Johnny was picked up by the cops. They had him in jail on the... West block. We just sent a guy to pick him up."

Vil backed off. The guy continued to writhe and choke. "They didn't have Johnny," he said.

"Wait, if the cops have him, then what about the bounty?"

Vil shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The church and the government are separate here." He tapped his pocket. "This bounty is for the priests, so it's still on the table."

I looked for the girl. She was gone. "We need to hurry. If the mob gets him before us, there's no telling what'll happen to him."

"Right."

We took off.

The sun was now hanging low in the sky, the world in its golden hour, and people busy with the evening rush of foot traffic.

We were so close, we could taste it, yet still.

There was distrust between us. Something that I had sensed.

As we raced through the residential blocks and headed to the police station, my mind raced over what I would have to do once we got Johnny. I saw the same look in Vil's eyes.

Soon--I felt it--soon we would betray each other.