36 Preparations for the Next World Part 6
1543 Words
“What the f**k are you looking at?” Asked by the gruffly man who was sitting on one of the dilapidated armchairs.
He was giving both Kedrick and Thaleos a nasty glare, as the two men entered the run-down bar. They decided to just ignore the old man and walked near the bartender.
“Thought so.” The drunk and high man mumbled under his breath, then spat on the position were Thaleos and Kedrick were standing on.
The priest and beast tamer looked around the bar’s decaying wall paint and dirty floor filled with holes.
Kedrick moved a little bit closer to Thaleos and whispered, “This joint’s about to fall apart. Maybe we can just bomb the whole thing.”
The bearded man just shook his head in a quiet chuckle and responded in a hush tone, “Nope. We just need to target the people who directly hurt James.”
Kedrick let out a disappointed frown and crossed his arms. “Fine.” The umber man jokingly mumbled.
“You don’t look like you’re from here.” The bartender was wiping a golden shot glass and was cautiously eyeing Thaleos.
The beast tamer just stared back and Kedrick tried lessening the bartender’s wariness by saying,
“He’s with me, Bernard. We’re all good.” The priest gave the middle-aged man with thinning hair a cheesy grin.
The bartender merely nodded his head and went back to wiping the other glasses. The two men marched towards the back door and saw two men guarding by the threshold.
“You need something from Garrett?” The bouncer stared at the two men with a cold look.
“Shipment just came in.” Kedrick smoothly responded, as he took out a small brown paper bag from his brown trench coat.
Kedrick and Thaleos were obviously hiding weapons under their coats, just like every single person inside the bar.
In the dark parts of Ellis Town, also known as the Rat Hole, everyone was always ready for a fight. All people that have lived in these parts know the dangers of being complacent.
As Thaleos showed another brown paper bag from his pocket, the bouncer just nodded his head and slowly opened the door.
Once they’ve passed through the thresholds, they heard shouting and cheering echoing around the long and wide alleyway.
Since most of the buildings were already foreclosed, their destroyed parts were occupied by a large base for the small-time gang.
A loud cheering crowd were surrounding a large-sized stage that seemed to have large black rats fighting against each other.
Sitting in one of the throne-like sits, that had hundreds of creature bones decorating it, was Garrett. The young man had scars and tattoos all over his face, which Kedrick knows was all a façade.
Everyone in the rat hole knew that being that obvious can only mean two things: you’re either really stupid or really brave. And the umber man sensed that Garrett was attempting to be the latter.
The beast tamer and priest slowly approached the rat den and snuggly hid within the loud crowd.
As everyone was already betting on the stronger and healthier-looking rat, Kedrick courageously shouted, “My friend and I are betting the red one, for $200,000 shekels.”
The black rat with a red collar already had multiple gashes on its body, and it was probably a few seconds away from collapsing.
The crowd went crazy about the announcement as soon as they saw the umber man showing the large bag filled with the white gems. This caught Garrett’s interest, as the scar-faced man just gave the two an unnerving stare.
While the crowd was busy taunting Kedrick and increasing their bets, Thaleos quickly placed a couple of drops of the blood lust potion on the red rat’s gashes.
Luckily, everyone was so busy betting against their decision, and no one noticed what the beast tamer did.
Once the crowd finally settled down, the rat with the blue collar suddenly went in for a bite causing the other rat to fall on its side.
Everyone around Kedrick and Thaleos suddenly started cheering loudly, causing the whole alleyway to be filled with noise. This seemed to agitate the black rat with the red collar, as it quickly recovered.
The crowd was in momentary shock when they saw how the red rat brutally attacked the other rat. It started using its metallic claws in scratching the other rat’s snout and belly, soon it started ripping apart its innards and continuously cut through its opponent.
As soon as the red rat stopped, the referee declared it the winner, making everyone in the crowd loudly complain,
“I f*****g placed 10,000 shekels on this, what the actual f**k. That little red rat was about to f*****g lose, what the hell happened?” One of the angry female hunters asked, as she stared at the red rat with a deranged look.
“My wife’s about to get my ass, I tell you. I just gave 4,000 shekels. What am I going to do?” A middle-aged man beside Kedrick asked him in desperation, while tightly clutching unto his brown trench coat.
Thaleos watched the whole crowd getting more and more agitated. He felt someone staring at him from across the crowd and saw the scar-faced man glowering at him.
The beast tamer didn’t flinch at the man’s angry glare, he merely watched the gang leader whisper to one of his subordinates in harsh whispers.
Without even wasting a second, the said subordinate was already approaching the both of them, asking them to go to Garrett’s throne of bones.
Kedrick and Thaleos agreed once they got their hundreds and hundreds of shekels. The angry crowd followed them in pursuit of getting their money back, but they merely ignored them — making them more agitated.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” The priest mockingly asked the scar-face man. He got a nasty glare back and the gang leader grumbled,
“Looks like you, gentlemen, have got a lot of cash. Why don’t you share it with my little family here?”
“Well, that doesn’t sound right. We want the bet fair and square!” Thaleos mockingly replied. The bearded man acted as annoyingly as he could, to further anger the gang leader.
They wanted to make the man so angry before launching an attack. They wanted the man to build up his anger, pride, and ego, and seek vengeance.
They want to see him reach the heights of his anger, before totally crushing his soul and cruelly killing him.
Thaleos was amazed at how the human condition quickly dissociates from certain values when some emotions arise. Their deep anger for what Garrett did to James and how the scar-faced man further ruined an already f****d up system.
Kedrick and Thaleos wanted to see the man suffer.
“I am saying this one more time, lads. I highly encourage that you give us the money before we forcibly get it.” The scar-faced man silently threatened, making his gang members smile in relief of getting their shekels back.
The umber man who was usually all smiles now had a terrifying look on his face. He didn’t look angry nor agitated, he just had this empty but intimidating look.
Everyone could feel how furious he was. The beast tamer knew that this side of Thaleos only came out when he was dealing gang-related things.
After a moment of tense silence, Kedrick slowly worded out, “You don’t seem to understand, Garrett. You should be giving us the money, while we’re still being nice.”
Thaleos knew that this was the cue to ready his weapon, so he took hold of the black mythical weapon called, “The Night Parade Blade” and prepared himself for the attack.
Garrett was shell-shocked for a couple of seconds, but quickly recovered when he saw that his gang members were waiting for him to respond.
Although the scar-faced man was slightly shaking from the fear — especially knowing Kedrick’s track record with murdering shady men like him — Garrett still aggressively spat on the umber man’s face and threatened yet again,
“Well, no choice then, lads. Looks like we need to take it from you. Okay, gang, ready your weapons. We need to nicely tell these lads what they’re up against.”
Everyone practically had dollar signs on their eyes as they all took out their weapons, ranging from machetes to guns to long axes.
Every single one of them was ready to destroy the two other men and take their shekels.
“I’m giving you one last chance, lads. Give us the shekels or die.” The scar-faced man sounded a bit desperate in threatening them, which just made the beast tamer and priest chuckle.
Kedrick and Thaleos merely looked at each other and erupted in laughter, making everyone confused.
Once the two men were finished bellowing in deep laughter, their faces returned back to their expressionless form.
Within a split second, a large wolf-eagle swooped down from the sky and took two people from the gang. Everyone watched their two comrades desperately holding unto the wolf-eagle’s claws and shouting in fear.
Before anyone could even do anything, the wolf-eagle flew dozens of feet above the bone throne and suddenly let go of the two gang members.
Garrett only had a couple of seconds to jump out from his throne, when the two bodies were pierced by the destructed chair filled with bone chards.
As the scar-faced man looked up, he saw Thaleos staring at him with a smirk.
“Over our dead bodies.”
- Writer
