Overcoming Obstacles, Forging Friendships

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

The freed hostages spilled out from the building in a great tide, whilst the Battle Rabbit stood off to one side, returned to his human form for the time being, his broken arm hanging by his side and his expression rigid and controlled as he fought not to show the pain he was feeling.

He had no idea what had come over Shotgun Steve to encourage the man to actually make use of one of his Secondaries in combat, rather than simply treating her as a mere accessory, as the racist, old Prime had done when they had first fought… but it would appear that even someone such as that was not completely incapable of learning.

It had occurred to Hijiri that he may need to summon himself one of those banishment circles he’d heard tell of from the Dataverse… if the Northside Wolfpack’s Claw was going to continue growing in power and unleashing new, unique abilities every time he returned from death then he could quickly become a serious threat if not removed from the picture permanently.

That was a longer term goal, though. For now, his first task was simply getting home… which could pose some difficulty. Even if the NSW themselves somehow hadn’t noticed the goings on here, despite the whole thing being broadcast on live TV, there were plenty of other petty criminals around, even here in Northside, where the two primary gangs—the Wolfpack and the Pyros—held their nigh-unassailable duopoly over organised crime.

Any one of those thugs and lowlifes could decide that even a Prime might make an easy target when worn out and suffering from a broken limb… and that killing one such as this, who had openly challenged one of the superpowers of the region, could net them quite the reward.

Still, there was little point in putting it off, so once he was sure that everyone else had abandoned the scene of the crime, and he had called the nearest EPD station to alert the Empire’s soldiers to the occurrence—acting the part of a good and upstanding citizen—the Rabbit strode off down the street, his eyes peeled for danger.

When the eighteen-wheeler rounded the corner, he was tempted to smile, but instead put a scowl he wasn’t feeling on his face. It was one of his, and in his absence it would appear that some enterprising gangsters had thought to paint their logo—a thick, dark green stripe with the letters ‘TTG’ emblazoned across it in white, along with a pair of much thinner white lines, one each positioned just a little way inwards from the top and bottom of the green section—along the sides of the silver behemoth.

When it drew to a halt, a smug-looking Alejandro reached across from the driver’s seat to open the passenger door, “Need a lift, sir?”

“Didn’t I explicitly tell you to wait back at the Pillar?” though he wasn’t about to show any gratitude after having a direct order disobeyed, the question was uttered drily, as he climbed up into the vehicle. He couldn’t really pretend to be too angry, since this was potentially saving him a whole lot of trouble.

“You did,” his security chief admitted, with not a hint of contrition in his tone, “though if I remember correctly you also said something about it being easy to defeat that guy… and then left us to watch as you went and got the shit kicked out of you by a half-naked girl. Good job there, by the way, sir, if you were aiming to lull the enemy into a false sense of security then you’ve done a bang up job. I’m sure no one in all of Northside will consider us any sort of serious threat now.”

“Alright, alright, point taken,” Hijiri muttered irritably, slamming the door shut behind him, “going after him alone may have been a bad call. You happy?”

“I’d be a lot happier if I hadn’t been forced to watch you almost getting yourself killed, but right now I’ll settle for getting you back home in more-or-less one piece, so you can get that arm seen to… sir.” as he spoke, the Spaniard pulled away from the roadside, before taking the first left, following the quickest route back to their base of operations.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Bernie King, the Takanomiya Group’s Treasurer, was stood on the pavement with a small cadre of confidants when the truck turned in off the road and rolled past him. He was waving goodbye to an expensive black car as it was being driven away down the road. Alejandro didn’t stop to speak to him—they could all catch up later, after the Rabbit's injuries had been taken care of—and at the vehicle's approach, a large section the steps at the foot of the pillar drew back into the building, to leave a wide gateway for it to pass through.

Once inside they parked, and were quickly approached by a couple of the gang’s optimistically assigned medical personnel, who had no actual knowledge of their field whatsoever and had been granted their positions solely based upon: a) whether they actually wanted the job, and b) how good they looked in a nurse’s uniform.

That policy would perhaps end up being changed later, if they ever actually managed to recruit anyone with proper medical know-how, but for the time being the gang—being comprised of the absolute most downtrodden of masses that Northside had to offer—was lacking in anyone really well educated at all.

Nevertheless, their hearts were in the right place, so Hijiri allowed the pair—a ruggedly-handsome man who had left his shirt unbuttoned, to better show off his chiseled abs, and a young woman with no bra and an extremely low-cut dress that showed off more of her chest than it covered—to bundle him onto a stretcher, despite the fact that his legs were working perfectly, and so this was completely unnecessary, and carry him off.

Just like the ‘ground’ level above it, this basement area had four large, cuboid pillars of veined, white granite stretching from floor to ceiling. When they approached one, a flat slab of stone on the surface they faced sunk down into the floor, revealing the steel walls of an elevator within.

They took the lift up to the building’s medical level, then hurried him out, through a hallway with spotless, white walls, floor and ceiling. The air up here was much cleaner and fresher than on the streets of Tier Five, now far beneath them… but it was an artificial freshness, with a hint of the sharp, alkaline scent of chemical solvents.

They brought him to a room overflowing with stainless steel and white plastic machinery, all of it with a sleek, futuristic aesthetic. Putting him down clumsily—practically dropping him, in fact—on a shelf-like protrusion built into one of the multitude of devices, the pair caused their leader to wince as their ineptitude resulted in his broken shoulder striking the hard plastic.

At the push of a button, the surface withdrew into a short tunnel with a soft hiss, then there came a loud beep when one of the nurses pressed the ‘start’ symbol. The highly advanced and easily operated machines that filled this floor were the reason he could afford to run a hospital in the Pillar itself, despite his largely uneducated minions; with infallible machine intelligences to do all the heavy lifting—metaphorically speaking, at least—all that was required of the human medical staff was to tap a few clearly labelled buttons when needed.

A beam of light played across his body as an advanced scanner of some kind sought to identify and categorise his injuries. A moment after it vanished, a panel in the roof of the machine slid open to allow a white, plastic, syringe-tipped appendage to lower down. Bending at joints located where a human’s elbow and wrist would be, the device pricked his throat with the tip of its needle, before pumping some chemical or other into his bloodstream.

A pleasant numbness began to spread slowly outwards from the point of the injection, and as the limb withdrew and the ledge on which he lay drew back even further in towards the centre of the mechanical medic, his eyelids grew heavy, then closed. The last thing he heard before sinking down into a deep and dreamless sleep was the soft vsh noise of more panels opening and several additional appendages descending to begin his treatment.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

“Boss! Director!”

Blearily, he rubbed his eyes. What had he just been-?

Oh, right. This was the medical level. He’d been put under while that machine operated on his shoulder… or... did whatever it was that these things did.

Just because he was the one to have summoned them, that didn’t mean that Hijiri himself actually understood how they functioned; he had simply desired a fully automated hospital within his base, and this was what the Omnilium had provided.

There were a pair of lovely young women standing before him, one with chin-length blonde hair and a tattoo of an eastern-style dragon taking up most of the left side of her face—from cheekbone to chin—while the other wore her hair shoulder-length, and dyed a vivid, aquamarine blue. Both of them wore white nurses’ dresses which were so short that it was a miracle their skirts even managed to cover anything at all.

Judging by the urgency in their faces, though—as well as the blonde’s tone of voice as she spoke—this probably wasn’t the time for a fashion critique.

“Yes? What is it?” the Rabbit asked, his tone cool and professional as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He felt the cool air on his skin, looked down, and hesitated, “... And why am I topless?”

“Er, well, the machine...” answering his less important question first, the blue-haired nurse gestured helplessly at a small waste bin by the side of the hospital bed in which he had been placed, in which the tattered remains of a preposterously expensive shirt and suit jacket and been tossed. Judging by how shredded they seemed, he could only imagine that the contraption had chosen to cut the garments from his body, rather than risk injuring its patient further by removing them in such a way as to leave them intact. He sighed. It was the reasonable way of doing things, he supposed.

“Alright, well, one of you—I don’t care which—go get me a fresh suit. The other, fill me in on what’s going on.”

The blonde lifted a small, immaculately folded pile of clothes from a nearby bed, “Soon as he saw you, the Chief said you’d want these, boss, so he had them sent down hours ago.”

“Thanks.” another suit. Practically identical to the now-ruined one. Excellent. The Prime smiled slightly, then accepted the clothes, looked about until he found a privacy screen, and headed behind it to change, “Alright then, the situation?”

“They’re here.” it was the blonde’s voice, “Or... they will be soon.”

“The Wolfpack.” added the other woman, as if she really thought he was dense enough to not realise that on his own.

“Right. How long do we have?”

There were a few seconds of silence before the reply. Hijiri imagined the nurses shrugging or shaking their heads helplessly; they probably weren’t the best people to ask, “Sorry, boss… we weren’t told any details... just to wake you up.”

“Right,” he said again. A few moments later, he was done, and stepped out from behind the screen, “What’s being done about it, then?”

“The Chief made an announcement over the tannoy for everyone fit to fight to arm themselves and gather on the ground floor to wait on you.” the aquamarine girl answered, her voice trembling slightly. Although there were many in his gang who relished the thought of being able to bear arms of their own, and would love the chance to gun down a few of the scumbags who'd ruled the roost here in Northside for far too long, it was clear that this young woman was not amongst their number.

“Okay, you two come with me; I’m sure there will be plenty of people in need of your attentions before long, even if all you’re doing is ferrying them up here. You needn’t bother with weapons.”

That said, he led the pair to the nearest of the elevator-columns. Taking the superfast lift down to the ground floor, they then waited a couple moments on the large slab of stone which served as the elevator's door on this level sinking down into the ground, then stepped out.

The one, huge room was packed. Some people looked angry, others frightened, whilst some actually seemed excited… as if they thought this was going to be easy. As Hijiri and his two companions left the lift, silence rippled outwards through the crowd, conversations dying out as people realised that their leader had arrived and turned towards him attentively.

He headed for the southern side of the building, as its proximity to the road made it a much more likely target than any of the other three cardinal directions. The crowd parted before him, and he was soon joined by Alejandro.

“Well?”

“One of our plainclothes spotted them gathering. ETA 20 minutes or so.” Hijiri nodded in response to the Spaniard’s words. Given their lack of a real uniform, or even a unifying colour scheme, the ‘plainclothes’ of the Group were essentially just people who’d left behind their identifying armbands when leaving the Pillar… it was hardly a high-effort disguise, but with the exception of the three leaders, none of them were high-profile enough to be recognised, so they didn’t exactly require much to keep beneath notice, “I left King and some others up on the security level. I thought it might be best to have some people running the turrets.”

“Yeah. Good thinking.” theoretically, the numerous turrets scattered throughout the building were supposed to be run by AIs with advanced threat identification software… however, they could also be controlled manually, and given that scores—if not hundreds—of gang members were going to be fighting to defend this position, the Rabbit was totally fine with not using this battle as a testing ground for their programming.

Stepping outside, after one of the massive wall/door slabs of reinforced glass had sunk down into the floor to permit his exit, Hijiri walked the ten metres of the plain, empty stone plateau which bordered the Pillar, taking him to the top of the steep, fifty-metre-high staircase. He spoke loudly, so that everyone nearby could pick up his words, “We won’t give them an easy time of it. I want everyone with guns arranged out here; primarily on this side, but with a thin cordon around the whole building; we’ll need to be alerted if they try to hit us from behind.”

“Of course, sir.” Alejandro nodded, his expression deadly serious.

“Medical personnel are to gather behind the front lines to evacuate anyone who’s wounded, and someone contact our Treasurer; I want the walls getting no lower than three feet from the ground; if they look like they're going to reach the top of the stairs, I want us to have a defensible position to fall back to.”

“Yes, sir.” the Security Chief responded, fishing out his phone to get in touch with Bernie, as those closest to them obeyed their leader’s instructions without question; readying themselves for what may well prove to be the most brutal fight of their lives… and, for many, no doubt the final fight of their lives. Despite this certainty, they seemed much less fearful than earlier. Their faith in the Director was absolute and unquestioning. In his presence, they were sure that their victory would be swift and decisive.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Pick-up trucks, vans, even a trio of mini-buses. The vehicles that the Wolfpack showed up in were many and varied, but they all had one thing in common; passenger space.

The gangsters didn’t stop at the pavement, instead turning in onto the concrete plaza, driving right up to the foot of the stairs before bringing their transports to a halt and piling out.

The Takanomiya Group were armed only with handguns and katanas; they had no heavy weapons, so they were forced to simply let the vehicles come on unimpeded. As their foes started to leave the safety of their rides, though, they began firing. At first, the NSW goons tried shooting back, but all the Group members were lying prone on the plateau at the top of the steps, to prevent as small a target as possible, and when the enemy noticed that almost all of their shots were going wide, they quickly fell back to take shelter behind their vans and trucks.

“Cowards!” a man’s voice roared like thunder, as an enormous, bare-chested guy hopped casually down from the bed of a truck, “Charge them or I’ll tear all you little bitches limb from limb myself!”

He wore a huge, black wolf’s pelt on his head and shoulders, brown bracers, grey jeans and black boots. He was a big, buff guy, shooting orders and not giving a damn about personal safety, so of course Hijiri’s people focused their fire on him.

Their bullets bounced off his bare skin.

He never even flinched. He didn’t react at all. He might as well have not even noticed.

After several seconds of this pointless waste of ammunition, the Battle Rabbit snapped at his subordinates to turn their attentions elsewhere… there was clearly no point shooting at that guy at all unless it was at point-blank range.

Though they did their best to lay down suppressive fire, the bulletproof brute was soon able to cajole his followers into a suicidal charge up the steps.

It stalled before too long, of course. Sprinting up a steep set of stairs over sixty metres long wouldn't exactly be a doddle for the average person, and the constant hail of gunfire hardly made it easier for them.

For a short time, is seemed as if their foes would never even reach them... as if this poorly thought out assault would be a one-sided massacre the likes of which Northside had never before seen. But then, it started to become apparent to the members of the Takanomiya Group—as the NSW leaders must have expected—that they were running out of ammo faster than the Wolfpack were running out of clueless minions to send trudging to their deaths.

At some shouted orders from Hijiri, Alejandro, and the scattered-about members of the Security Chief’s retinue of most trusted allies, who had been tasked with acting as lieutenants during the battle, the gangsters slowed their rate of fire, taking more precise aim and focusing on killing as efficiently as possible to conserve bullets.

Emboldened when the astronomical rate of casualties amongst their ranks began decreasing somewhat, the NSW goons hastened forwards, bringing up their own weapons to fire now that they had more than a second or two between reaching the front of the crowd and being gunned down.

Having to keep as low as possible to avoid the gunshots made it even harder to keep firing, and before long the mob was over two-thirds of the way up the steps.

“Fall back!” the Director called, and his gangsters dutifully—if somewhat awkwardly—shuffled away from the edge until they could get up without immediately having their heads blown off. A few had been killed during that shootout, and a few more had to be hauled off by the nurses, but for the most part they were unscathed.

They had reaped a devastating toll on their foes and exchange taken barely any losses themselves. It was an excellent start, but things would only get worse from here on out. They all backed up to the walls and climbed swiftly over the thick, slab-like, glass barricades.

When the foremost of the Wolfpack’s warriors reached top of the staircase, pistols bucked and bullets flew, cutting them down like blades of grass.

But then he arrived. The man in the wolf’s pelt. There was only one person this could possibly be. The head of the wolf. The jaws and the fangs of the NSW. Jarl Fenrir. A Secondary of might unrivalled in all of Northside. From what he had learned through his informants, the Battle Rabbit was sure that had the Jarl cared enough about ruling this little corner of the tier, he could have snuffed out the Pyros’ flame at any time, and had it all for himself. Luckily for those kids, though, he seemed to be one hell of a lazy bastard.

It would appear, however, that building a bigass fucking tower on the outskirts of his territory and publicly challenging him to a fight was enough to lure him out. Good in theory. Not so much if he proved to actually be tough enough to just kill everyone.

He sauntered casually forwards, showing no reaction as over a dozen gangsters turned their fifty caliber Desert Eagles on him and fired. As before, the bullets simply bounced off, as if his body was composed of solid steel. What was worse, in the precious seconds they spent being thoroughly distracted by the great juggernaut of a man striding their way, scores of his fellows poured out onto the ten-metre-long plateau and hurried after him. Other gunners did fire upon them, but they could only do so much. Their own dead and wounded were trampled without concern by the rapidly encroaching mob.

Hijiri fired along with the rest, landing headshots here and there, but even his weapon wasn’t capable of penetrating the flesh of their goliath foe. And then the Jarl reached their wall. The large lump of glass was two feet thick and should, in theory, have been bulletproof.

Hijiri had intended for it to be bulletproof when he had summoned the immense structure, after all.

Unfortunately, Omniverse bulletproof and real bulletproof were, it turned out, two very separate things. The glass could take a hit, certainly, but as the average bullet in Omni’s strange universe was far weaker than one from the Director’s own reality, ‘bulletproof’ didn’t mean nearly as much. Yes, they made for good shelter when the common goons of the Wolfpack fired upon them… but when their leader swaggered up and booted it, cracks ran through the block like bolts of lightning, and shards broke off around the point of impact.

The gunfire wasn’t bothering him, even at point-blank range, so a few enterprising fools sought to strike at him with their blades instead. Mostly, Fenrir ignored them, for they were no more effective against him than the shooters. One unlucky young woman, though, he apparently had decided to make an example out of.

Her katana struck one of his bulging biceps and bounced off harmlessly, whilst she cried out in rage and cursed at him. Before she could manage to draw back, though, one hand flashed out and snagged her wrist, yanking her towards him, onto the top of the glass barrier. He then slammed a palm into her chest, thumping her down onto the surface with enough force to send more cracks shooting through it.

She gasped, as the wind was knocked from her lungs and—more likely than not—at least a few ribs were snapped. He wasn’t done, though. He pulled back with the hand gripping her wrist while pressing down hard with the other to keep her in place. She may not have had any air left in her lungs. One or both of her lungs themselves may even have been punctured by those broken bones. But even so, she managed to scream.

It was hardly something that anyone could ignore, and for an instant that dragged on and on and on, as if the Omniverse’s concept of time itself was mocking them, everyone—friend and foe alike—simply stopped and stared as the hulking brute literally tore the youth’s arm from her body, just as he had promised to do to any of his own followers who hid or fled like cowards.

Her screams took on a new volume as bright, sanguine blood gushed from her horrific injury, and more was splattered across those nearby as the Jarl swung the limb triumphantly, like a gory battle standard, lifting his face to the heavens to howl like a wolf.

Others of his gang did the same, or else cheered boisterously as they now recommenced their advance. In moments, they were climbing over the glass, while Hijiri’s people backed up, firing upon and slaying those in the foremost ranks but achieving little more than slowing the horde as a whole. One guy—rather than moving away to keep his distance from the foe—took a moment to aim carefully and precisely, then shot the dying woman in the head, ending her suffering. Fenrir was hardly pleased to have his act of sadism spoiled, though, and lashed out, connecting with the gangster’s head with a backhand that shattered his skull and sent his body flying.

He lifted up the woman’s limp corpse by the throat and tossed her over his shoulder like trash, to be lost amidst the mob at his heels. Then, with another mighty kick, he smashed in the blockade, sending tiny shards of glass flying outwards in a spectacular display of brute force. He could just have easily leaped over it, but that wouldn’t have looked as cool, and for a guy like this, the Rabbit was sure, that would be considered a major drawback.

Striding through the gaping hole he had made, the leader of the Northside Wolfpack spread his arms, smiled, and said in a voice which was as near to the growl of a feral beast as it was to a proper language, “And so, my pack, it begins! I give you these upstarts, these weaklings, for your feast! Tear out their throats! Devour their flesh! Guzzle their blood! Let none survive...! Let us show Northside what happens to any who would stand against us!”

And then he began to laugh, as those of his people spilling into the building opened fire en masse, and rank upon rank of Group members—for the first time exposed to the enemy’s weaponry without any semblance of cover—were gunned down in a tide of spraying blood and jerking limbs.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Hijiri scowled.

“Get back!” he roared, as a flash of white light burst outwards from his body for an instant. When it passed, his Original Form was revealed.

In this transformation, rather than having rabbit ears on his head, the Director bore a small pair of dark wings in their place. This was the truth of his people. The Battle Rabbits, before they had been Battle Rabbits, had been angelic beings of immense power, and though those days were now long since past, the strongest of his kind could still attain such a form on occasion. And Hijiri himself was, of course, amongst that esteemed group.

Fenrir snorted dismissively, then smirked at him, looking the Rabbit up and down, “And just what are you supposed to be, pretty boy? A valkyrie? You’re certainly effeminate enough, I can’t deny.”

The Wolfpack thugs had ceased firing in order to allow their leader's snide, little comment to be heard, whilst TTG retreated as instructed… though a few of the braver medics darted forwards to grab a wounded comrade before doing so. It wasn’t necessarily the most sensible course of action, but it pleased the Director to see his people looking out for each other even so.

“I am Takanomiya Hijiri, Director of the Takanomiya Group. Your reign ends here, Jarl.”

The Jarl opened his mouth for another sly remark, but by then he had already missed his chance. Hijiri had darted past him in an awe-inspiring burst of speed.

From the moment he struck the first of the goons, the Battle Rabbit lost track of the wider conflict almost entirely. His whole world became a blur of flashing steel, flailing limbs and fountains of blood erupting like geysers from open wounds.

His foes could not touch him. He wove between the peons with ease. Few of them even managed to turn to face him before he’d cut them down, let alone actually make any attempt at striking their slayer. And those who did manage that could only watch as he slid out of the way like a ghost, and then they died like everyone else.

The Director caught a brief glimpse of Fenrir’s baleful expression as the great hulk of a man cast his gaze after the spinning, racing Rabbit. Dashing through the massed members of the NSW, Hijiri was reduced to little more than a red-stained blur surrounded by a corona of spurting blood.

Seeing their leader wreaking havoc, his gangsters were emboldened and opened fire, gunning down ever more of the enemy, even as they continued to swarm into the building in an unending tide. Snarling, the Jarl dashed in Hijiri’s direction, putting on an impressive turn of speed himself.

He could not match for the Battle Rabbit’s pace, though, and Hijiri danced away just as effortlessly as he had from all the others, leaving Fenrir raging impotently in his wake.

As he cut through masses upon masses of minions, he encountered three people who stood out. The three he had seen on their broadcast, following the death of the stormtrooper squad he had been working with. A young woman with a psychotic grin and one of the most absurd weapons conceivable, a behemoth in a grey tracksuit, and an old witch.

The girl was enthusiastic, but ultimately little more difficult to overcome than a run of the mill thug. She swung her awful armament his way—a cross between a flail and numerous buzzsaws—but all the Director needed to do was take a step to the side and grab one of the chains out of the air. He swung it around a couple times, standing still for under a second, then flicked his wrist, burying the buzzing blade in the girl’s neck.

Gasping, she staggered backwards, dropping her ludicrous tool to clutch at her throat. And then he was past her. The next he came across, a little later, was the big man, who actually took him by surprise, lashing out before Hijiri had even noticed him. He wasn’t as fast as the Battle Rabbit, but surprise had given him an edge, and he managed to snag Hijiri’s wrist, immobilising his sword arm.

The fat bastard pulled the Director towards him, likely intent on trying to pin him down. He wasn’t expecting to see the Heavenly Weapon: Desert Eagle manifesting in a burst of light in Hijiri’s empty hand, though. In an instant, the pistol was pressed up against his chin. In the next, his head had burst apart in a shower of blood and brain matter.

Slipping free, the Rabbit carried on, hacking and slashing through a mob of gangsters in black, leather biker jackets, until he came upon the little, old woman in their midst. Thick, oily shadows rose up before him, beginning to coalesce into the shapes of beasts, monsters and demons.

His katana tore them apart like sheets of paper, scattering wisps of smoke as he passed through the swarm of apparitions without slowing. The hag’s magic was like nothing he had yet encountered, either here or in his own reality… but it made little difference; her spells seemed to require time to forge whatever foul beings she was aiming to conjure, and the Rabbit was simply too fast for her.

In a single swipe of his sword he had taken her head. In a matter of seconds, the gang's leadership corps—who had proven insurmountable foes to the stormtroopers he had previously fought alongside—had been mown down like blades of grass. From there he moved on seamlessly, slaying another swathe of foes, before his attention was snatched away from his own conflict by a new chorus of screams.

Leaving the remaining NSW gangsters to flee in terror, he turned to see Jarl Fenrir tearing his people apart. Clearly having gotten fed up chasing the elusive Rabbit’s shadow, the brute had turned and charged his allies instead. They could no more stand against his rampage than the Wolfpack had been able to deal with Hijiri’s onslaught.

Covered from head to toe in blood, expression wrathful, the Director faced his counterpart in silence for a moment, catching his breath, and then he was moving again, his gun vanishing and his upraised blade flashing in the light as he bore down upon the barbaric norseman.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Fenrir managed to turn and raise an arm in time to block the downward strike. Hijiri had put in all the strength he could muster, plus the added weight from a few seconds of charging his gravity manipulation. Against any ordinary foe, no matter how muscle-bound, the blade would have passed straight through flesh, muscle and bone, to slice the limb neatly from their body.

Against the Jarl, it didn’t even break his skin. The katana bounced off. Momentarily taken aback, Hijiri blinked in surprise. His shock didn't last long; he wasn’t even standing still for a full second. It was still enough time for the hulking norseman. The Rabbit turned, trying to dodge the moment the bigger man lunged. He wasn’t quite able to get aside quickly enough, and Fenrir’s fist struck him in the ribs, sending the Director flying, then tumbling across the ground.

Once he ceased rolling, still gasping for breath, Hijiri forced himself up onto all fours, wincing at the sudden, shooting pain in his chest. It might have been a fractured rib, or a broken one. The Jarl laughed at seeing his opponent struggling. A few foolhardy gangsters hacked at him with their katanas, achieving absolutely nothing. He reached out, casually, grabbed a pair of them by their skulls, and lifted them up into the air.

Slowly, but without seeming to exert himself in the slightest, Fenrir tightened his grip. They screamed. Dropping their weapons, the pair clawed and scrabbled at his hands and fingers in vain attempts at breaking free. The Rabbit staggered upright.

With loud crunches, their skulls broke. They weren’t dead just yet, though, and their agonised shrieks continued, as the rest of the group hurriedly backed off, terror in their eyes. As he continued squeezing, slowly pulping their brains, they finally perished. It was abundantly clear to them all that their fates lay solely upon the Battle Rabbit’s shoulders. If he couldn’t put down this monster then none of them could, no matter their numbers.

Hijiri charged, desperately trying to push his power to build up faster, to reach a level far greater than before, to allow him to strike with force far beyond anything he had ever managed up until now. It was abundantly clear that without exceeding his limits, he could not hope to take down this brute. He grit his teeth, as the strain of abusing his ability in this manner sent a spasm of pain through his head.

He raised his blade, and brought it down, unleashing this tremendous power for the first time. A devastating might that was almost beyond comprehension. A level of weight that was without doubt enough to cleave any foe in twin.

For all his speed, though, the angle of attack was rather predictable, as his gravitation manipulation could only really boost the strength of blows from above. As a result, it was no great surprise that the Jarl managed to raise an arm to block. He was smirking; absolutely sure that Hijiri could not possibly hurt him.

When the blade tore into his flesh, then stuck in the bone of his forearm, he was momentarily paralysed by shock. Blood spattered, droplets covering both of the already drenched combattants.

The brute recovered before the Director, though. Hijiri—expecting a one-shot-kill—was dumbstruck at finding that even by exerting himself this much, he could not fell this foe. Roaring with the effort of pushing aside the tremendously heavy blade, Fenrir nonetheless managed to force the Rabbit back, and at the same time wrench the weapon from his grasp. It fell to the floor with a clatter, its vast weight vanishing the moment it left his grip.

Enraged at actually being harmed by someone, the Jarl’s lips peeled back in a snarl. He paused, though, when Hijiri held out a hand and the discarded blade vanished in a flash of white light. The Rabbit then leapt backwards, a good dozen metres or so.

His enemy roared, and charged, but despite his surprise the Director was not the sort to let himself be ruled by emotion in this sort of way. He calmly recreated his katana—now returned to its scabbard—unsheathed it, and darted forward to meet Fenrir head on.

This time, he put everything he had left into the new technique, Overcharging the gravitation effect to heights even beyond his first attempt. As he raised the katana high, the Battle Rabbit felt a sudden rush of weariness and stumbled, almost tripping for a moment. But he caught himself, and brought down his weapon, a wordless battlecry escaping his throat as gravity warped and the sword's weight increased exponentially.

This time, Fenrir held both arms over his head. He couldn’t hope to dodge the strike of a Prime with such unsurpassable speed as Hijiri, so he simply sought to bull rush him, betting that the Director would exhaust himself with this blow, and wouldn’t be fit to dodge after the Jarl took it and carried on charging. Hijiri would be run right over, crushed into the ground by this titan in human form that was bearing down on him.

He was almost correct. He had thought that the first strike he had endured had been the Rabbit’s most fearsome offensive. He hadn’t imagined that Hijiri could potentially push himself even further, to draw out even greater power in his time of need. In fairness, this was hardly a baseless assumption, as neither had Hijiri; it came as a surprise to them both. The Rabbit had managed, though, and when the blade came down this time, it was with truly immense force behind it.

The katana’s sharp edge cleaved through muscle like it wasn’t there, and even the bones of Fenrir’s forearms barely slowed it. He fell to his knees as the absurd weight of the blade that had just embedded itself in his skull bore down on him. For a moment, there was utter silence.

The crowd simply stared at the Director, standing before the kneeling brute, both hands on the hilt of the sword which had cleaved his head in half almost to the base of his nose. With his brain neatly bisected, there could be little doubt that Jarl Fenrir was dead. And yet they waited, the entire crowd holding its breath, not daring to believe that it might actually be over.

Hijiri collapsed against his foe, then, too exhausted to even stay on his feet for even a second longer, and the corpse topped to one side. That broke the spell, and a tumult broke out. Some people cheered—so relieved to be alive that they found exuberance, despite the death all around them—whilst others shouted for help and rushed about searching the dead for friends and loved ones who perhaps had only been wounded and might still be saved.

Hijiri was barely conscious, and so had little trouble ignoring the clamour. He noticed when someone knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder, though.

“Sir, what would you have us do?” Alejandro asked. He was always trying so hard to sound to sound professional lately, that one. Having an actual job title seemed to be going to his head.

“You’re in charge... take care of things.” the Battle Rabbit groaned, knowing he was in no fit state to lead anyone right now, and then promptly passed out.

***

The Spaniard shouted for silence. It didn’t work.

So he rounded up a few of his friends and they all started yelling, until everyone else had shut up. The surviving medics more or less ignored them, though. They stopped speaking, and cast a lot of glares their way, but otherwise continued ferrying injured gangsters across to the lifts as quickly as possible... even in situations where moving them in such an incautious manner was extremely inadvisable, given their extremely delicate conditions. Their hearts were in the right place, but without having any idea what they were actually doing, it was fair to say that plenty of mistakes were made.

Alejandro reluctantly entrusted them with Hijiri, and ordered some others to stay and help with the injured and the subsequent cleanup. The bulk of the survivors, though, he took down below, to the garage level where they kept their four eighteen-wheeler trucks. After loading everyone into the vehicles, they set off, driving out through the stairs, which pulled back and rearranged themselves at their approach.

They split up, their trucks heading off down different streets. They could hardly do a complete sweep of Northside with so few vehicles, but they could keep their eyes peeled for any fleeing gangsters in NSW colours… as they made their way to the rival gang’s now-undefended bases.

Hijiri wanted to protect Northside from the horrors of gang warfare, but for that to be done, they would have to make it abundantly clear to everyone that the Takanomiya Group was the supreme fighting force in the northern quadrant, a paramilitary organisation without equal; an insurmountable opponent to face. And that would require a powerful message.

This battle, which had resulted in the deaths of the NSW’s entire leadership, would be a good start… but alone, Alejandro Torres did not believe that it would be enough to stamp out all opposition. In order to convince the remaining Wolfpack members to give up all hopes of resisting them—as well as convince those kids in the Northside Pyros to not even bother trying—they’d need to make it clear to everyone the consequences of opposing them.

They’d burn down the bases, along with any of the fleeing gangsters who’d managed to return to take shelter within them by the time they arrived. After today, there would be no doubt throughout the criminal underworld about who ran Northside.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

“So let's hear it then.” the Rabbit said. They were in his office once again: Bernie, Alejandro & himself. As with the last meeting they had held here, the Director sat in his black, leather armchair, whilst opposite him, past a small table, the other two were seated on a matching couch.

“Yes sir. Their bases are all charred ruins now. I thought it would be best to take decisive action and hit them before they could recover from the fight, to take out their HQs so that they had nowhere to fall back to. Because of our actions, the NSW has effectively been wiped off the map.” the Spaniard’s voice held a hint of doubt. He surely would have been feeling very pleased with himself when he returned from his little crusade, before hearing their Treasurer’s report for himself.

Now, though, the Security Chief was likely worried about being demoted or punished in some way. He had taken off his wide-brimmed hat, and now clutched it tightly with both hands. He looked rather nervous, to put it lightly.

“Yes, excellent job… and yet… it almost didn’t work out so well, did it?”

“No, sir.” Alejandro muttered, looking down, avoiding meeting Hijiri’s eyes.

“Bernie,” the Director said, “was left behind while you took most of our uninjured troops away with you. You tried to be on the lookout for Wolves on the run… but how could you possibly have been expected to catch them all? You only had four trucks, and a whole quarter of the Tier to drive through. It’s no surprise that some eluded you. You expected this, of course.”

“Yes.” mumbled the chastised-looking chief.

“What you didn’t expect, though, was that they would somehow—correctly—guess that you had left our own base of operations with almost no defenders. You also didn’t imagine that they would turn back around once they knew you were nowhere nearby, and attempt to strike the Pillar again. So when they did exactly that, it could've ended very badly for us, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes.”

“And yet...” an edge of amusement now crept into the Rabbit’s voice, “it didn’t. No one noticed them climbing the steps, so when they burst into the first level, the outcome might have been catastrophic.”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t. This may have been a rather severe oversight on your part, but in this instance, no harm was done. They charged in, only to find that floor completely empty, as our nurses had already transported the injured up to the medical level by then. All that remained were corpses. Still, that wasn’t the end of the threat. A couple of them had heavy weapons… rocket launchers. They blew apart the stone doors of our elevators with ease, and their little mob would have begun climbing the maintenance ladders and breaching level after level. That didn’t happen, did it?”

“No, sir. We were lucky that Bernie was there.”

“Indeed we were. Remind us, Bernie, what heroic action did you take to put a stop to these vile invaders once and for all?” Hijiri allowed a hint of his smirk to show on his face.

The Treasurer, all puffed up and pleased with himself at being called heroic, said “I pushed a button.”

“Yes. Truly, a more valourous act has never been seen. And what happened next, Bernie?”

“Well, like I said before, boss, almost everyone who’d been up there in the security room had already left to go help move the injured, y’know. There didn’t seem much point in having lots of us sitting around when the fight was over. So we didn’t have nearly enough people to manually run the security system like we’d planned… so I just hit the button to turn back on the automatic defences. The AI realised that something was wrong, the turrets came out from the ceiling and the floor, and shot them all up.”

“They 'shot them all up', huh?”

“Yeah. There were none of our people on that floor anymore, o’ course, so there wasn’t any need to worry about friendly fire… so I just let them fire at will. There were dozens of enemies down there, but it only took, like, thirty seconds or so to gun them all down. And they were so surprised at seeing all the turrets appearing that they didn’t really fight back properly; only a few of the guns were even damaged.”

“I must admit, I hadn’t expected the automated system to prove nearly so effective… though thembeing completely ignorant of its existence likely had a lot to do with that success. Now, what have we learned from this incident?” Hijiri tilted his head a little to one side regarding the pair.

“AIs are awesome.” Bernie stated. Hijiri gave a brief laugh. He couldn’t exactly deny that the turrets had certainly proven their worth.

“Not to be so reckless.” muttered Alejandro despondently.

“Yes. In this instance, no one was harmed, and I can repair the damage to the Pillar quickly enough, so it’s not really an issue… but it could easily have turned out differently. So just… try to consider all the possibilities before you go racing off into battle.” the Rabbit got to his feet, walked around the table and perched on the armrest of the couch. He put a hand on the Spaniard’s shoulder.

“On the whole, though, you did do a good job, Alejandro, so don’t be so worried. You aren’t being punished. Because of what you two have managed, as well as the small part I played in our victory over them, the NSW have for all intents and purposes ceased to exist. And the Pyros don’t pose nearly as much of a threat. We’re more than capable of taking care of those kids quickly... so well done, gentlemen, Northside is ours.”

***

Thirteen Days Later

Ding-ding-ding.

The little bell rung as the door to the shop was pushed open. The old man behind the counter looked up, a smile on his face. It vanished the instant he saw them.

It was a newsagent’s. Papers, magazines and the like lined the shelves around them. There was also a section for confectionary, and one for alcoholic beverages. Two of them glanced around at their surroundings as they walked through the little store. The girl at the front, though, looked straight at the owner, smiling pleasantly.

“We’re deep in Pyros territory here.” he said without preamble, his tone cold, “They’ll burn down my store if I stop paying them. So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll pass. You can leave now.”

She laughed. She was caucasian and tanned, in her late teens or early twenties, with black hair that didn’t quite reach her chin. On the right side of her face, a nude woman was tattooed in violet ink, posing seductively. The girl wore a black bikini top, tan cargo trousers, and a pair of scuffed, white trainers.

To her left was a man in a dull yellow, checkered suit, with the jacket hanging open and the top few buttons of the white shirt beneath undone. His shoes were black leather, and he looked to be in his mid-thirties, with a paler complexion than the girl, short brown hair and a five o’ clock shadow.

To her right was young, hispanic woman with long, brown hair. She looked a little older than the girl, and was certainly more well endowed. She was dressed in a tight, white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and black trainers.

Each of the three wore one of the green & white armbands of the Takanomiya Group around the bicep of their left arm.

“This isn’t their turf any more. They don’t have any territory. No one does. The gangs are being forced out. Northside is being secured.” the tattooed girl spoke cheerfully.

“Right… sure… ‘forced out’. I seem to recall hearing a rumour that the gangsters in Northside were being forced into early graves if they tried to oppose you lot… and the rest of them—those without the guts to fight back—were just being recruited into that organisation of yours.”

Her face took on a clearly-faked expression of horror, “Oh no, wherever could you have heard such vile lies? I promise you, sir, they’re not true at all. We're very careful with our hiring process. We wouldn't want to risk arming anyone untrustworthy, after all. Only the most respectable citizens of Tier Five are given leave to join the Takanomiya Group.”

“Uh-huh.” he sighed, “You could at least put more effort into pretending ... you aren’t exactly dressed professionally, you know. Most real companies require their employees to wear a shirt & tie.”

The girl smirked, “We have a pretty lax dress code. That doesn’t make us any less of a real company. We’re registered with the Empire, we pay taxes, all that stuff. And that means we’re as proper as a company can be.”

“You’re running a protection racket.” the man said dully. His name was Mervin Smith, he was in his late eighties now, and he wasn’t remotely happy at getting caught in the middle of some stupid gang conflict. He just wanted to be left alone to run his store. It was bad enough with those Pyro brats charging him an arm and a leg just so they’d refrain from burning the place down, without having another group show up now looking for money as well.

“No, no, not at all, psh.” the girl waved a hand dismissively. She was a terrible liar, “We’re just a friendly security company, that's all. For only a small monthly fee, we’ll keep an eye out for criminals in your area and make sure none of them bother you. And in the event that anyone should manage to break in despite our best efforts, we’ll track them down free of charge and get your property back… whilst also dealing with those delinquents in a permanent manner. Of course, we might not always be able to locate them with no leads to follow, so if you’d like an extra layer of protection, we’d strongly recommend purchasing—for a very affordable one-time fee—one of our Takanomiya Brand CCTV systems. Should anything occur, you need only provide us with the footage of the culprit and we’ll have a much easier time locating them.”

The man to her left took over from the girl, seamlessly continuing their spiel in a slightly droning voice, “There’s always the chance that thieves could catch on to that, though, and take the time to destroy any computers or other electronic devices you may have for the purpose of saving CCTV footage on before they leave. So for our Premium Rate clients, we offer a special cloud-based system, which allows you to automatically upload all CCTV footage directly to the servers at our company HQ, meaning that not only will we have records of anyone who comes in here to threaten you, but we'll know immediately if such a thing should occur; you won't even need to report a crime, we'll likely arrive at the scene before they've even finished robbing you.

“If that still isn’t enough for you,” the big-breasted babe announced brightly, “we at the Takanomiya Group also provide a whole range of insurance services, all at extremely competitive prices. Even if some vandal does trash your shop, with the right insurance plan, your losses will be fully covered. Tempting, huh?”

Mervin glowered silently at the trio of salespeople/racketeers for a moment, then snapped, "Are you done yet?”

“Almost!” the girl in the centre beamed at him, “If you’d kindly just take this informational pamphlet detailing our full range of products and services, then we’ll leave you to your business, sir.”

She held out a little, green & white booklet. He made no move to take it from her. In fact, he looked at it as it it was a piece of dog shit she was offering.

After a few moments of tense silence, she dropped it on the counter, still smiling, and turned to leave. Her companions followed her out, though the suited man looked back at Mervin sourly before exiting the store.

He stared at his door for several seconds after they’d left, then looked down at the pamphlet. Snarling, the shopkeeper snatched it up and threw it into the waste bin beside his counter with all the force his old arm could muster.

He glared at it for a little longer, then fished it back out, opened a drawer and tossed it inside, before slamming the drawer closed once more.

He despised these people for intruding on his life… perhaps even more so than the Northside Pyros, who had always been the ones threatening him previously. At least they had the decency to admit to being criminal scum, rather than trying to bribe the Empire into accepting them as a legitimate business organisation by paying taxes.

But he couldn’t afford to risk picking the losing side when his livelihood was on the line, and judging by how easy a time these TTG goons seemed to be having wandering through streets that ought to have belonged to their enemies, it would seem like they were winning this fight. So he'd probably be better off just holding on to that little book for the time being, in case he did actually need to start paying them at some point.