East Meets West 6

Xiang Tian Ren was a guard in the city of Yellow Peak City, a position that he had been proud to receive. It was difficult to join the City Guard, if one did not have the appropriate familial connections and backing, but he had managed and served in the City Guard for the last thirty seven years.

That pride, that dignity, had been ground into sand in those thirty seven years. Every day, Xiang Tian Ren witnessed the rampant corruption and injustice that plagued Yellow Peak City. He had seen fellow guards take bribes, turn a blind eye to criminal activity, and even actively participate in criminal acts. He had tried to report these incidents to his superiors, but they had always dismissed his claims and told him to mind his own business.

Xiang Tian Ren had become disillusioned with his job and with the city he had sworn to protect. He had lost faith in the system and in the people he was supposed to serve. But he couldn't just walk away from his position. He had a family to support and no other skills to fall back on.

One day, while on patrol in the city's red-light district, Xiang Tian Ren witnessed a young girl being dragged into a brothel. He knew what went on in those places, and he couldn't stand the thought of this innocent child being forced into a life of prostitution. He had to act.

He stormed into the brothel, ignoring the protests of the madam and her henchmen. He found the girl and, with tears streaming down her face, she begged him to save her.

City Guardsman Xiang Tian Ren knew that he was risking his life and his job, but he could not stand by and watch this atrocity unfold. He fought off the madam and her men, grabbing the girl and running out of the brothel.

He knew that he had just made a powerful enemy, and that his actions could have serious repercussions. But for the first time in a long time, Xiang Tian Ren felt proud of himself. He had finally stood up for the people he’d swore to protect. That had been ten years in.

He’d saved the girl, but after he'd managed to get her home, to her parents. It had been public, the Lord Magistrate had given him a ceremony praising him. Then, the very next day, he'd been demoted and put on one shit assignment after another. His superiors were furious that he had gone against their wishes. He got the feeling that they wanted him dead.

Instead of being on track to command the City Guard in a larger district of the city, he was put back to basic patrols in the most dangerous part of the city. That his reward for fulfilling his oath, doing his duty, was punishment, combined with the fact that he later learned that the madam was back in the brothel less than a week later…

Oh sure, there was a great deal of talk about how she’d failed to realize the age of the girl, but over the years, Tian Ren had kept his ears open, listened, and paid attention. He had to admit, to himself at least, that what he had learned over the years broke his resolve. Not only were the city’s upper echelons part of a province-wide kidnapping and prostitution ring, but there was even one of the most powerful sects in the province involved!

The Indomitable Bull Sect was known even outside of the province for their power; the Young Masters of the sect had won the Jade Sands Trial Tournament for the last six hundred years! With such patrons supporting the ring, what could he, a single member of the City Guard, possibly do?

That’s what he’d thought for ages, the better part of fifteen years, yet he found himself standing in front of a man with strange features and even stranger dress, standing in front of one of the ring’s brothels, dozens of children huddling behind him, Madame Han Yu and the Young Master of the Indomitable Bull Sect both horribly injured at his feet.

What in the name of the Heavens had happened here?

[hr][/hr]

I have no idea who it was that the fancy looking man who’d apparently been in charge of the pedo ring was, but from the way that the people on the street were looking at him as I dragged him and the Filth out, the kids all following me, I had a bad feeling that I’d bitten off a lot more than I could chew.

The crowd around us was still too small for anything to happen, and from what miniscule ability I had to sense the wells of power in others no one watching was even close to what Mr. Fancy Pants had, but I had a feeling it wouldn't stay that way. Almost as soon as I had that thought, several men had shown up, wearing the armor and uniforms I’d seen on everyone running security in the city.

From the way that the children huddled closer to my back, and the faint sound of sobs started behind me, I didn’t think that they’d be helping me. I didn’t put my hand on my revolver, but I damn well kept it close. Taking in the armored men, I counted ten of them, and I quickly took their measure. All ten moved like ordinary people, none of the power that I or Long John Silver at my feet had affecting their movement.

A man stepped forward, surprisingly old for being an apparent first responder, his voice rough and gravelly as he asked, “What happened?”

Limpy was apparently tougher than I’d given him credit for, because despite my having turned his knee into chunky salsa, he immediately pushed himself up with his arms and bellowed something unflattering, to which I responded by kicking him in the back of his head. The spur on the back of my boot may have tore up the back of his fancy bathrobe looking dress, but I honestly didn’t give a shit.

“This scum stole children,” I said, wishing I had the words to properly convey my rage and fury. “Imprisoned, hurt, violated them.”

One of the local equivalent of cops moved up to the older one, and spoke to him. I didn’t catch all of it, and even if I had I’d be surprised if I could understand all of it, but I did manage to catch ‘woman’, ‘lord’, and ‘daughter’. Knowing my luck, the woman I’d hamstrung was some big wig’s daughter, and I narrowed my eyes, my body tensing slightly in preparation for a fight.

All of a sudden, however, I heard the sound of breaking glass, and a figure in yellow clothes (what was it with this city and the color yellow?) leapt from a window in the building I'd rescued the kids from, landing on the ground about ten yards away. They landed in a roll, a faint, turquoise shroud surrounding their form as they came up from the roll and started running. I don’t think so, sicko.

My hand left its place by my revolver, instead moving to another piece of kit I had on my belt.

[Lasso the Tornado]

Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys, eat your heart out. The lasso rope fell over the fleeing figure's head, wrapped tightly around their throat. Their head came to a halt, then their body lifted off the ground as their momentum came to a hard, forced stop. They fell to the ground, the lasso still around their neck. The figure lay there on the ground, unmoving, as I heard shouts from the police officers who had come.

“This day is too complicated,” I heard the old cop mutter.

[hr][/hr]

The next few hours were a rush of activity. First thing, we had to get the kids to the closest equivalent of a hospital and make sure that they were okay. Then we had to find out where they could go to live, now that they weren't going to be sold into slavery. That's when I learned that there were no parents at the place I'd taken them to. None. Not one single parent had shown up to claim them.

Somehow, I doubted that was a coincidence.

The old cop, who the rest clearly respected, sat down in front of me with a sigh. Rubbing at his forehead, he looked up at me, “You made a big mess. A lot of powerful people will be very angry with you.”

I didn’t immediately answer, instead turning my head to rather pointedly look across the room to the fifty to sixty kids sitting at several tables, the inn I was staying at having stepped up to house them until their homes could be found. Turning back to him, I gave him a hard stare and let just a little of the roiling storm of anger and fury I was feeling into my voice.

“Any who would conceive of doing this to children deserve far worse than a little anger,” I growled.

A few of the cops behind me made noises of agreement. The old cop nodded, his eyes flicking between me and the kids, then he leaned forwards to speak quietly to those gathered.

“We have orders to find a reason to arrest you, but there’s a caravan heading out of the city in an hour. They could use another caravan guard,” he told me before turning his attention to the cops behind me. “Zheng, go speak to Lang Li, tell them that I’m calling in the favor. Yuan…”

I listened for a few more minutes, eyes narrowed, as the old cop barked out orders and directions. Satisfied that the old cop would follow through with getting the kids home, I stood and left, getting Rocco and heading to the caravan the old cop mentioned. The man who seemed to be in charge of the caravan was happy to let me join, apparently my reputation preceded me. Then ten minutes before the caravan was to leave, the old cop showed up, the kid I’d given my hat to with him.

“Matters are much more complicated than anticipated,” he said to me quietly, as the boy ran a hand along the fur of Rocco’s nose. The old cop nodded towards the boy as he said, “This one is from the tribes far to the north, and I don’t have the contacts necessary to get him home.”

The message was received, and I nodded, telling him, “I’ll take him home.”

I would also keep an ear to the ground, in order to see if I could find any other groups linked to this one. If I did, I would make sure that they received the treatment that they so rightfully deserved.

[hr][/hr]

Xiang Tian Ren watched the caravan leave, the young tribal child sitting in front of the odd stranger on his horse. He wasn’t sure how much the stranger understood the situation, but at the very least, he could tell that the stranger would die before letting anything happen to the child. Tian Ren wasn’t so fortunate. He’d known that the ring was highly placed within Yellow Peak City, but today he’d learned that it was so much worse than that.

From what the children had said, the majority of them were from out of the province. The reach that the ring had was so much longer than he’d thought. Taking in a deep breath, he ran a hand through his hair. He’d talked his superiors into raiding the ring’s other locations in the city, and it was officially too big and too well known to the populace for the city’s officials in the ring’s pocket to brush aside or suppress.

His stomach churned thinking about what had been discovered. All together, over two hundred children had been saved. Two hundred children that had been kept as slaves in his city, and he’d had no idea.