FoJ: Chapter 6

“Why’d you say it like that?” Alex squints towards Thellsa. “That was so final! Like a cliffhanger at the bottom of a chapter or something!”

Thellsa’s left brow twitches from annoyances, but she ignores his comment nonetheless.

“What I’m saying is that the timing of her disappearance was definitely not a coincidence.” She says. “I’ve informed the CIA of what happened here, and they’ve shown interest in investigating.”

“Really?”

“The Karnsteins kidnapped a whole bus full of preteens, it’s not only strange behavior from their side, but it breaks a lot of unwritten rules.” She takes a sip from her drink. “That’s the shit that gives the church sanctions to send an exorcist after you; and in the Americas where the Angels are very much hands on, that means serious fucking business.”

“Huh. So what do you think happened to her?” He asks. “Another ambush?”

“It’s possible.” Thellsa admits. “But if she’s an Amazonian, as is expected, then she’s at least High Class. The Amazon tribes won’t let anyone weaker leave the tribe. If someone beat her, then they’re no pushover.”

“Huh… Is that powerful? I don’t really have a sense of strength just yet.”

Alex admits, some of Garp’s mannerisms, tastes, and personality did get to him, which started to get more and more apparent, but he’s not lying when he says that he can’t really sense the difference. Back at the Vampire mansion, he could clearly feel the difference in strength between all the combatants, but to him that difference seemed so slight as to be insignificant.

Thellsa sighs. “Not everyone is a monster like you.” She answers. “But here’s an impromptu lesson, the devil system of gauging strength is the most expansive, their peerage system meant that they suddenly had a large amount of reincarnated devils with an extremely diverse variety of abilities, over the years, their ranking system evolved to be one that’s able to generally gauge someone’s strength based on a very simple hierarchy.”

“It roughly goes Low-Class, Mid-Class, High-Class, Ultimate-Class, what they call Satan-Class, and beyond. We other races call Satan-Class Peak-Class, but don’t let me stop you from doing otherwise. Now, it’s not the ranks themselves that’s great about this system, but rather how they accord each person their rank.”

“Uh uh.” Alex nods while munching on a fistful of rice crackers.

“There are certain metrics that one has to exceed in order to be considered of a certain rank, it means that to be High-Class, per example, you have to be considered relatively well rounded when it comes to combat abilities, there’s actually a lot of people in Low-Class who have abilities capable of threatening someone at High-Class or up provided the conditions are right, but because those abilities aren’t universally viable, they don’t get the rank.”

Alex nods after swallowing. “I heard you’re High-Class, is that strong?”

Her twitch increases in strength, but she calms herself by gulping down the rest of her glass. “I definitely am! The strongest person in the city right now is Don Renato, he’s barely considered an Ultimate-Class and he’s still considered a regional powerhouse!”

She sharply slams down the empty cup. “One thing you have to understand about the supernatural is that most of the powerhouses are old monsters hidden in other realms, being Ultimate-Class anywhere on earth means that you’ll be mostly unchallenged.” She explains. “Most factions in New York barely have one High-Class amongst their ranks, before you came we were overstretched but were able to keep the peace because both me and Cillian are ones.”

“We trained hard to reach that level, so please don’t belittle our efforts.”

Alex awkwardly scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, sorry about that.” He says. “I’ll try to be more careful next time.”

“Hmph.” She exhales through her nose. “I guess it can’t be helped if you didn’t know about it. You should probably head out.”

“What about the kid?”

“As the senior adult in this place, it’s my responsibility to take care of him.” She answers. “My house has more than enough room for him, I’ll buy him clothes, get him to a well-protected private school, and I have a well-stocked fridge. Fairies are pretty good with kids, you know. He’ll be okay.”

Alex frowns. “If you say so.” He says. “But uh… speaking of homes, I don’t really have a place to stay in…”

Thellsa shrugs. “Stay in a hotel or something? I dunno.”

“My landlord’s looking for a tenant, I’ll hook you up.” Cillian interjects.

“Sweet!” Alex exclaims. “You’re a pretty good guy behind your icy exterior, Cillian. When can we go.”

Cillian bashfully turns his head away as he stood up, heading toward the exit.

“We can go right now; I’ll give you a ride.” He says.

Alex shares a knowing glance with his fairy boss, before gently pullinh the sleeping boy aside and swiftly joining the shy swordsman.

Thellsa shakes her head as they leave, letting out a snort once she hears the “A motorcycle? Dope!” by Alex from the outside.

She pours herself another glass, staring at the unconscious form of Cyrus.

“I should probably start getting ready.” She sighs, leaving her glass untouched and gently holding up the boy. “Can’t have you sleep in a place like this, right?”

--*

“Baby come back! Every kinda fool could see, there was something, in everything about you!~”

In a damp cold cave somewhere unknown, a strange man, dressed in a very nice old fashioned suit in flashy white and red, a gold cape over his shoulder and a strange black mask that resembled that of an ancient plague doctor with its beak like nose, danced and sang to a bloodied black cane.

He skipped and turned in the darkness, his boots splashing over dirty dark pink puddles.

“Baby come back! You can blame it all on me, I was wrong, should’ve never ever doubted you!~”

“Please… Let it me go…” A voice echoed deeper in. “I don’t know where the key’s at!”

The dancing man suddenly goes still, mid dance.

He taps his cane to the ground, swaggering stylishly deeper into the cave.

Hidden by the shadows, was an average looking middle aged man shackled to the cave’s wall. His body was tattered, filled with all sorts of burns, scars, wounds and bruises, trembling from the cold.

The masked man hums.

“You didn’t have to interrupt my fun with something so useless, ya know?” His voice was deep and smooth, the type that would ease your mind. “The thing about humans is that you’ve got stuff you do well, the music, the fashion, the art and the theater, all things that bring deep joy to my heart.”

With blistering speed, the man grabs his prisoner’s neck and lifts him close to his masked face. “But… There are other things that you aren’t good at; lying comes to mind, per example.” His eyes bear into the man’s with great fervor, their red pupils almost glowing. “Not when I can smell the cold sweat, hear your heartbeat, and feel the heat creep up on your face as you try to DECIEVE ME!”

The captured man trembles with fear, taking a gulp of nonexistent saliva.

“Just tell me, and I won’t kill you.” The masked man says. “I’m sure that might sound like a lie, but I don’t really need to get rid of you, you know? I have no grudges against your order, you didn’t see my face so you can’t snitch, and your friends already know about your disappearance, whether you die or not, doesn’t really matter.”

The man kneels next to his prisoner, putting a hand over his shoulder.

“I don’t want to hurt you as much as you think I do. Just tell me, man, you already did enough.”

--*

At the mouth of the cave, the masked man dials a number in a satellite phone, an unmarked cadaver slowly getting devoured by his shadow.

After a few rings, the person on the other side answers.

“Hey, it’s me.” He says. “I’ve got the key, how’s it going on your side.”

“The boy’s guardian managed to escape, the bitch took down half our team.” An unknown voice answers.

“That’s bad fucking news, man.” The man says. “If the boss finds out about that then we’re screwed.”

“His Lordship is preoccupied with his own problems.” The voice retorts. “Some independent group had an altercation with the vampires, the boy’s gone.”

Silence is all there is response. The man’s expression beneath the mask is unknown, but his aura turns practically livid.

“Who?!”

“Some neutral group, they were pretty strong before, but our Lord says they have some new guy.” He says. “You should be very careful; our Lord thinks that guy may be strong, maybe even stronger than you.”

“What’s their name?”

“They call themselves the Lucky Lounge.”

The man crushes the phone in his grip, staring at the sky with hate.

“Nothing can go my way, huh.” He muses to himself.

--*

“I’m glad we could come to an agreement.” Alex smiles.

He has just signed a lease with Cillian’s landlord. The apartment itself was in a slightly sketchy neighborhood, but the building itself was very up to date, so most people who could rent were unwilling to do so at its price.

The apartment itself was a very cool space on the top floor, it was those types of places that you’d see in a noir movie, with a neon sign just outside giving it a unique feeling and a straight look at the New York sky line, with all its sky scrapers and tall buildings in sight.

The price was outrageous though, but when he received a notification on his phone talking about his 15k bonus, he just said fuck it and paid the price.

Turns out the Lucky Lounge gets paid very well for all pacifying actions, and that Don Renato and the Romulus clan were very happy about their retaliations against the Karnsteins.

So yeah, a quick trip to buy a futon, and Alex is now sitting in his new apartment, meditating on a barren bedroom.

He meditated for a while, or tried to, anyway, and using intermittent waves of Conqueror’s Haki, he pacified the local life force and absorbed it, after it was basically pent, he lied down on the uncomfortable futon and went to sleep.

He slept dreaming of a world of pirates.