(Nippur) Cleaning up the streets [Great]

[Victor Wolfe]

Tempted to press the button on his belt and just hide Victor resisted his instincts and training knowing that they had to make as big a scene as possible. His breathing quick but manageable, any guards that did manage to spot him attempted to give chase, none of them able to truly keep up with the fleet of foot assassin. One guard in particular thinking that he had cornered Victor, raising his glowing gold glaive and demanding the rebel lord to surrender, only to be left dumbfounded when Victor launched himself into the air ten metres high, landing with a backflip as he turned and proceeded to free run across the roofs of the city laughing like a madman as he danced across the Nippurain skyline.

The hot desert air blowing through his hair, the sweat on his brow caused by the suns rays on his almost all black uniform, this was the life, not one piece of paperwork to look over and not a snooty vassal to tell him what he should and should not do, but as much as he was enjoying the little game of chase with some slightly more competent pieces of cannon fodder than he was used to having Victor knew he would have to act quickly, the guard captain was not a patiant man after all and he was only going to have so long to execute his plan, especcially given that he had not told Kanda every detail and step, did not want his simple little justice obsessed brain to get too caught up on the finer sides of espionage and deception. 

Looking down at his knee the lord chuckled, he was pretty sure even given the situation that such an honourable swordsman would have expected to be hit in such a dirty and low down move, but Victor was trained in the art of doing everything he could to ensure victory, he had met and fought many so-called chivalrous men before, and at the end of the day he had always found a hand full of dirt into their eyes followed by a swift blade to the throat quickly silenced any talks of fairness or honour, well kind of silenced, more replaced it with gargling, choking and acusitory glares.  

Spotting some movement out of the corner of his eye he noticed two large hooded figures, both physically imposing specimens and both trying to be as subtle as they could about drawing the lords attention, one of them whistling, hands held to his back as his fingers twitched towards the pair and the second spurting out "Lord Wolfe!" between loud coughs. Controlling his anger that tweedle dee and tweedle dumb as a sack of bricks had been the ones chosen for a secretive mission like this Wolfe decided that it would be best to quickly go to them before half of the guard force not in on the act descended upon this location, having them all humiliated and then executed for treason. 

"Oy look bruv, ain't it the treacherous lord emself"  the fist of the two hooded men pointed at Victor who was at this point a seething pot of disappointment and rage, they had literally just pointed him out in the middle of a street, if there had been any guards nearby he was sure that they would have already attempted to make the arrest, and with how vital Victor assumed this pair of mongrols where that would likely lead to one badly cut up guard, after all, he did have to keep up the act and if that meant killing poor Gerry who was only three days away from retirement then it would have to be done for the greater good of all, well except Gerry, but who really cares about Gerry? 

"I think yous is right bruv, our boss wants to speak to you governor, " said the second of the assumed twins as he raised his hood like a top hat, revealing a chiselled if bland and stubbly jawline, followed by mean looking blue eyes and a bald head. Using every inch of his being Victor resisted just gutting the two of them. Spending most of his life working in the shadows the assassin knew that showing your face to someone whose intentions were not fully known could be the difference between life or death, did no one know how to be a good minion to an all-encompassing despot anymore? Even the honour bound guardsman had shown more street smarts than these two curs, and he was the one that got taken out by a low blow.

"Well that is just perfect fellows because as my own little take over plan seems to have been caught in an earlier stage than I would have liked, and your boss seems to be able to get things done, so perhaps we have more goals in common than I had thought?" Victor lied through his teeth his voice slick and smooth as he waxed off lines so familiar to him, the same song and dance he had done hundreds of times before. 

"you mean, you had yer own plans to take over guv?" the first of the brothers asked, Victor, could almost see the dumbfounded look under the hood of this well-muscled street thug, apparently the idea that someone other than their boss having the brain power or ambition to want more than to just be the side character in someone else's story was a shock to them, whoever their parents where had clearly prepared them well for their lifelong role of generic and totally disposable minions, Victor wondered to himself if these two shared any relation to the old guards of Nippur as their exposed and well-oiled abdomins and total incompitance at their jobs would suggest this to be a possiblity. 

"of course I did, I am the banisher Victor Wolfe, do you think I just spent the last two years fornicating with every woman I could find and acting out revenge fantasies on helpless undead? Of course not, whilst your boss was securing his plans I was making moves on my own, not every prime in this city owes their loyalty to the King, after all, I was the one who helped organise the early responses, of course  as good as I am I thought that I could weasel my way into the guard captains mind, then my little coup would have gone off without a hitch. I asked a little too early and he was not willing to do what is truly right for this city." Victor said with a confident smile as the brothers now named idiots one and two seemed to be convinced of Victor's intentions, they had seen him stab the pretty girl in the back, so why not do the same to the pretty guy. This seemed like a flawless plan to their primitive brains. Wolfe realising he had them eating out of his hands made a grand motion as he grinned 

"so we must prepare," he said smugly causing the two idiots to scratch their chins, Victor wondering how they even remembered how to breathe without accidentally exhaling a lung.

"prepare for what?" idiot two for the first time in the conversation took the initiative, the pair looking eagerly at the eccentric man in front of them.

"For the death of the king!" Victor proclaimed proudly, only for his eyes to narrow as the minions in front of him seemed to be struggling to add it together.

"Why? Is he sick?" idiot one questioned, causing the assassin's blood to boil even more as he realised that this was an honest question and not some sly ribbing like his fellow assassin would make jokes around. 

"No you fools, we are going to kill him, and Sasuke too" Victor growled, annoyed that he had to spell out everything for the disastrously dumb duo in front of him, but managing to reign in his anger back to convincing slyness as they walked towards the direction of the bakery that the New babylonians had scouted out before, realising that maybe the baker was not actually a clever warning system but actually just that obvouisly the guy Victor sighed, he thought he was onto something major, a multi layer plot, but nope, it was the baker, with the Dave, in the throne room. Still what they did not know was his motive, and that was what the diplomat was actually interested in. 

"Great idea, who needs a King?" the two idiots almost started to dance along the path in celebration at the idea of returning to the anarchy of yesteryear causing Victor to have to stifle his voice from a shout, eventually calming himself enough. 

"Idiots, there will be a King! The Baker will be king, if we stick with him, we will never go hungry again!" Victor proclaimed his new and very temporary loyalty causing the mindless drones guiding him to start chants of "long live the king!" The assassin keeping his head buried in his palm as he wondered just how they had gotten so far without being stabbed to death by suspicious Nippurian guards.

The three men walked quickly, reaching the bakery, it had been a relatively short walk but the assassin felt more drained than he thought was possible, every muscle in his body twitching, if not for the fact he was infiltrating their base, Victor would have left the twin reprobates in tiny pieces all over Nippur, that or had an aneurysm as he stabbed them and they took several minutes to even process that they where dying, so dumb that even evicting them would not provide any pleasure.

Reaching the door the two stooges decided that they would be better served standing guard outside the bakery because it's not like the guy they just met that was a known traitor could be playing them just to quickly stick a blade into their boss right? Letting out another sigh Victor pushed open the wooden bakery door the smell of fresh dough and cooked bread flowing into his nostrils, was their any better scent for reminding people of more innocent times? However at the counter rather than a genius mastermind was just another goon, triplets maybe? Opening its mouth the flurry of sound and noise only made Victor think of someone trying to vomit out words, none of it sounding anything like a language he recognised.  Giving a stupid smile with his tongue still hanging out of his mouth the third idiot simply pointed to a side room. 

Deciding to just ignore what he had just seen and heard Nippurs finest diplomat gently knocked on the door to the room, labelled "Boss", knowing he was expected it wasn't long before he heard the sweetest sound he could have hoped to hear, a polite "Why don't just stand out there Lord Wolfe, do come inside and take a seat, we are ecstatic to hear that you have decided to defect to our cause" all of the tension left Victor's muscles as the clearly well educated and polite voice called him inside, it was the first sign of culture he had seen in the last few hours, a return to his element, someone with the mind to acutally play mind games with and try to worm his way into their head. 

Entering the office the boss as he was know was at the other end of a rectangular desk, his chair almost resembling a throne with its high back and regal design, the carpet leading to the guest chair reminding Victor of the one in the throne room of Nippur. walking forward Victor pulled out the second chair, taking a seat as he leaned back, something seemed off though. Sure that the Baker judging by his rotund and stout frame was nowhere near as tall as the lanky assassin, he wondered why it felt like he had to crane his neck just to keep eye contact with the man, looking down to the floor he noticed a step, much like in the throne room of Nippur, allowing the baker to look down on everyone that entered his kingdom of bread. 

"I am happy that you are so happy to have me on your side, would have been very awkward if you just viewed a man with my wide skill set as more trouble than I am worth, although I must say seeing your little throne room in here you do not do much to hide your ambitions do you?" The assassin chuckled as he crossed his legs. His eyes examining his companion for the moment. 

Short and stout like a teapot the baker maybe reached five ft five but probably weighed around ninety-five kg. His black hair glossy in the light coming in through the Venetian blinds of the office, he wore a beige suit, and although Victor could not see due to the desk covering his feet he assumed he was the type of man to wear platform heels and demand his workers walk around hunched over. 

"Why of course, I have always admired you since you came here, starting out as a fountain fresh and not backing down against a grotesque monster, even though you lost you still came back swinging. Then alongside the rest of your comrades in arms you go and make a gargantuan splash during DA, showing that you have the cunning as well as the bravery needed to do whatever needs to be done for the survival of New Babylon. You fought bravely in the battle for Nippur and died allowing some people to escape. And recently you have been trying to change our public image to make sure those sorts of misunderstandings could never happen again. Frankly, Mr Wolfe, it would be insanity at this point to refuse your help, after all, I feel that if we did you would probably find a way to bring us all down, after all, if you die you get to come back, and we both know I do not share that luxury. But you see Victor we are a lot alike you and me, we both had to work to get to where we are today, you through training and doing whatever it took to get to where you wanted to be and I through making all the right business decisions."  The Baker pushed a pair of spectacles up his face as he reached over to a glass bottle of what looked like Whiskey "Drink?"

"Well it would be rude to refuse woudn't it" Victor said in a playful tone as a glass of the golden brown liquid flowed into two glasses, Victor picking one up, waving away at the ice not wanting to ruin the drink with water as he took a drink, it was good, going down very smooth the sort of drink that would fetch a good price in his own world. Clearly, a show of affluence rather than an act of kindness, after all this man was a secondary, he had to work to get what he had. "And who knows, would not be the first time I would have crushed a coup that was within inches of completing their goal simply because they insulted me. But you do seem to have a fairly large scale operation going here for a baker, so what is this really all about, did Gilgamesh raise the tax on flour when I was not looking? Ban the selling of croissants after ten pm? Why the coup, and what is the real extent of your operations Mr?" Victor leaned forward inquisitively allowing his hand to slip behind his back, where he had placed his dataverse device, sending a message to Kanda informing him of the next step of the plan Vic knew that he would still have some time to question the master of bread.

"I thought you would be the first one to understand Lord Victor, you see when the battle for Nippur happened everything collapsed, except my business, even the bandits did not want to lose one of the few sources of hot food available to them consistently, I was one of the few people able to keep money flowing, and thus one of the few still hiring. Other businesses tried to come back when the bandit problem was not as bad, after all when you have already raped and pillaged just about everything that isn't nailed down why stay? But as I had this bakery as a constant cash stream I could open up my own version of their idea and pay better. Once the competition went bankrupt or sold themselves to me then I could drop the wages again and make a profit. Usually, then I would hand it off to people I saw as loyal, good followers and the like." The man leaned forward, pride beaming in his voice and an evil grin on his face "You wonder why the economy seems uncompetitive? I own almost everything!, I own the blacksmith, I own the grocery store! I own the company that removes snakes from peoples houses!" Victor was certainly impressed the baker had like all capitalist scum used a national disaster to expand his influence to almost be on a similar power level to the lords themselves. 


"Seems like you are doing very well for yourself, so why not just control from the shadows, why all the risk of a coup? You had to know that Gilgamesh would send people to track down whoever tried to assassinate him? I am just not certain why someone who is clearly doing better than the average Nippurian would take the risk you did?" The assassin was ecstatic in his chair, apparently, this conspiracy ran much deeper than just an evil bakery, he would have to thank the swordsman later, this had the potential to solve so many issues with the economy and infrastructure of the city but he had to know more about why someone in such a strong p
osition would risk it all on a huge gamble. 

"Well you see Victor, at the end of the day I am still a commoner, and whilst Gilgamesh was gone I could underpay workers, extend the working day, force overtime, kidnap a kid or two to get rid of the threat of unions, and over all just rule as I please, but as it stands, you lords seem to want to actually improve life for the common folk, and that cuts into my profits, so I had a revelation, why don't I gather up all my trusted employees and we get rid of this despotic monarchy, replace it with a nice merchant republic, run by me of course. And if you can help me take out the King, not only you but your allies will profit immensely as patricians in our new republic. So what say you, Victor?" the Baker extended his hand "Will Victor Wolfe and Boss Baker create a shining beacon of greed in these dunes?"