239: Conflict Resolution (Patreon)

Desiderio Furioso (government name Marvin D. Little) watched the pack of bikers that stood between his men and their rightful quarry and tried to keep his temper.

It was hard. Ever since he’d given himself up to the Ways of the Sinner, his impulse control was all but gone. The only exception was when his master gave an order. Desiderio might be a Sinner of Wrath, but all Sinners knew fear as well. They feared the Sins, the Seven who ruled New York.

Desiderio had only been in the presence of Ira, the Living Sin who reigned over the Bronx. That had been enough. The giant of a man terrified him. But Ira had awakened all the rage Desiderio – Marvin – had repressed over most of his thirty-seven-year life.

Small as a child, he had been endlessly bullied. In college, the bullying had been subtler but still there. People mocked him, laughed at him behind his back, and he was always too afraid to protest, to defend himself.

Then along came the Sins. Ira had gathered people like Marvin and remade them before the System’s arrival. When Integration began, Marvin was long gone and Desiderio, Knight of Wrath, was already a veteran of many a Dungeon crawl as well as street fights.

Ira had taken over all the criminal gangs in Brooklyn, and Desiderio had been one of his enforcers. The Knight had fond memories of walking through a hail of bullets unharmed. And even fonder ones of the things he had done to all who opposed the Sins.

The best part was that Sinners from one path could indulge in all the excesses of the other six, and Knights and Soldiers were given preferential treatment. In the two weeks since the Sins seized the largest Safe Zones in New York City, Desiderio had enjoyed luxury and decadence the pathetic Marvin couldn’t have even dreamed of. He would do anything to keep his status.

Which brought him to the matter at hand.

The fugitives had gotten a lot further than anyone would have thought. It was the damn Star Kensai. Some dweeb had gained a class based on a freaking movie character and had managed to hide in the City for weeks before breaking out a special group of prisoners, including two people that had to be taken back, alive if at all possible.

They should have run them down easily, but the escapees had acquired a cache of firearms somewhere and their harassing fire had hurt some horses and slowed down the pursuit. Half the refugees had died along the way, sacrificing themselves to buy time. Between those suicidal last stands and the Star Kensai’s damn tricks, they hadn’t managed to catch up to them for half a day. And now they had reached Connecticut.  

Standing orders were to avoid conflict with that Territory. But he also had to recapture the fugitives. Anger overrode fear, and he led his men forward.

You have entered a non-friendly Territory!

The intrusion will alert the Lord of the Territory and any deputies with the proper authority. How fast they will respond is something you will have to find out.

Desiderio blinked away the notification. They would take the three slaves that mattered, kill the rest – he would enjoy shredding the Star Kensai himself and retreat.

A moment later, he realized that a few vehicles in the road ahead weren’t abandoned. People were around them. Armed people. And more were coming up. Men in motorcycles and leather jackets.

Seeing the strangers gave the Kensai motivation to pull off one of his tricks. The man in the robes leaped through the air – and dragged the four other people along with him. Desiderio and his knights were a few hundred feet away, but they wouldn’t reach them before the bikers or the people by the vehicles. They had to leap over dozens of abandoned vehicles, while the road from the Connecticut side was largely clear.

“They’re getting away!” Flagellant shouted. He raised a gauntleted fist and a dozen barbed chains emerged from it. The chains flew toward the flying group.

The lead biker, the one that was playing some annoying song at full volume, became transparent and dashed forward at incredible speed. It wasn’t quite a teleport but close, and rider and bike materialized between the Star Kensai’s group and the reaching chains.

Mark Dufresne (Human Ascendant, E-Grade)

Level 20 Pale Rider President (L) (Death, Motorcycles, Speed)

Health 4,541 Endurance 4,549 Mana 4,122/4,452

The biker was small by comparison to Desiderio’s Wrath-augmented body, but larger than any of his other knights. He extended a hand towards the barbed chains – and they dropped, their speed and momentum gone. Flagellant screamed in pain and almost fell off the saddle, gripping his head with both hands.

“Stop!” Desiderio shouted at his men. The charge slowed down – even Undead horses couldn’t stop on a dime – before coming to a ragged halt sixty feet from the biker. The rest of his gang and the people in the vehicles had reached the fugitives.

Peak E-Grade, Desiderio realized, watching the biker’s stat box. The rest of the bikers are a mix of Fs and Es, the guys from the trucks are all Fs.

He and his six knights – all mid to late E-Grade – could probably take the Connecticut interlopers, but they would take losses. And the Star Kensai was only early E-Grade but his Legendary Class gave him a lot of strength, even with his Mana nearly depleted. The odds were close to even, and even fights were nasty and uncertain.

Talking might be the way to go.

It was a move he hated, a Marvin move. Ever since he had turned into a nine-foot-tall mass of muscle and rage, he spoke as little as possible. He didn’t have to say much; anybody lower than him on the totem pole bent over backwards to obey every grunt or gesture he made. And if they got it wrong – well, that gave him an excuse to flex a little.

Not here and now. He was going to have to fall back on his Marvin side.

And if the strangers didn’t see reason, well, he would put Marvin away and go full Furioso.

*

I wish Otis were here, Mark Dufresne thought as he tried to take in the mess he’d just ridden to.

It was pure dumb luck – or maybe something else – that he was in Greenwich when he got the notification that the Territory had been invaded. A ten-minute drive before the System was covered in a bit over a minute by him and his boys. When the Riders got on their Rare or Epic hogs and were in a hurry, they could move.

The notification didn’t give them exact coordinates, but Mark had headed down I-95 to handle the southern part while the others went on alert. And as it happened, he’d hit paydirt, unless this wasn’t the only probe or raid.

Territory rules were complicated. Unaffiliated bandits or peaceful travelers could come and go as they pleased. But someone who had sworn oaths to a Territory would trigger an alert when entering a Neutral one. That restriction would be lifted if a state of hostilities existed between two Territories, allowing them to send spies or raiders with relative impunity.

The alert meant New York wasn’t starting a war, at least not yet. Mark hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The Refuge was still getting its shit together. They didn’t need a fight with other humans, even if the New York City leader called himself or herself the Sinner.

Otis was better at diplomacy. But the bastard had gotten himself killed. Mark had gotten a lot better at talking to normies, but he still wasn’t the guy you sent to work out peace treaties.

 As he got closer and saw the situation, Mark got the feeling that peace treaties weren’t in the cards that day.

Guys in big zombie horses were chasing a bunch of people wearing mostly rags, except for a guy in a Karate jacket over cargo shorts. Five in total, three women, two men. One of the women and the other man had rifles, AR-15 types which would only annoy the pursuers unless they had been upgraded.

The dark horsemen didn’t look like nice people. When the head of the Pale Riders thought someone was trying too hard, they had gone all the way into comic book villainy.  

For a moment, it looked like the riders would catch the refugees. Then the guy in the jacket had used some kind of telekinesis and lifted the entire group closer to Mark’s approaching team. And produced a freaking energy sword like the ones from those silly movies he’d loved as a kid. Mark focused on him – a kid, maybe in his late teens or early twenties. He even looked a bit like the main character from those flicks – Lars Stardancer.

Kevin Sobieski (Human Ascendant, E-Grade)

Level 13 Star Kensai (L) (The Power (Att))

Health 1,238 Endurance 1,249 Mana 1,649

Another freak, Mark thought, all but rolling his eyes.

Under the System, you didn’t have to be crazy to do well, but it helped.

People obsessed with hobbies, stories or games could convince the System to indulge their fantasies. It had to be something that meant a lot to them; most people didn’t quite have the devotion needed. And this kid must have been a regular fanatic of a fifty-year-old movie series and its crap sequels (or prequels; by the time the new movies came out Mark was doing better things with his time).

If the kid had gained an Attunement to the System’s version of the Power, his heart was probably in the right place. Unless he followed the Void Road instead of the Starry Road.

One of the dark horsemen sent some flying chains after the Kensai and his pals. Couldn’t have that.

Kill Momentum!

The Legendary Skill removed energy from a target. It worked best on moving inanimate objects but living beings could be affected too, in all kinds of fun and interesting ways. He focused on the chains, overcoming the Skill’s inherent resistance, and the chains went limp like so many noodles. Chain guy got a bad case of backlash, too.

Maybe not the best way to make a first impression, but these guys were Demonic Undead. Mark didn’t know a lot about System mumbo-jumbo, but Demonic Undead sounded like they belonged in the ‘kill on sight’ category.

The giant in the equally gigantic horse had his posse come to a halt. The rest of the Riders and some of the salvage crew they had passed on the way there joined in. Brave, and hopefully not the suicidal kind. If a fight started, the F-Grades needed to hang back and choose their shots carefully.

He shot the crew an invite to his Party. That would get them some bonuses and protection that might let them live through a fracas.

After that, he turned to the biggest guy in the bunch, who appeared to be the leader.

“You guys look like you’re lost,” he said.

“Those people,” Desiderio – who the fuck named their kid that? – said, pointing at the Kensai and his group. “Belong to us.”

“People owning people is illegal in the Connecticut Refuge,” Mark told him. “They belong to nobody.”

“They are wanted criminals,” the big guy with the funny name countered, switching tactics.

“Too bad we ain’t got no extradition agreement with New York. You are free to submit a petition in writing, via messenger. Meanwhile, these people are coming with us.”

Mark kind of wanted the big guy to throw down. He still had some pent up aggression left over from the Dullahan episode, and he hadn’t had a worthy target for it. Now, a Demonic Undead in his weight class sounded just like what the doctor ordered.

But he couldn’t think just of himself. A fight against seven E-Grades risked the lives of his people and the security team that had decided to help. He decided to wait and see.

Desiderio glanced at his pack, doing the math. The guy with the chains was still a little conked out. When a Legendary Skill hit someone of Epic tier or below, it messed them up beyond what it said on the description, on the few occasions when it didn’t kill them outright. Mark glanced at the guy before looking back at the leader. Yeah, if it was on, one of his guys would drop the stunned guy right out of the gate. That would make it six versus thirteen – eighteen if you counted the refugees.

That seemed to tip the scales. Desiderio growled like a penned pit bull.

“I’ll remember this,” he hissed at Mark. “I’ll remember you.”

Mark grinned. “Sounds good.”

The seven Wrath Knights turned around and headed back to their Territory.

Maybe Mark would get his chance to work out his anger issues on that Furioso asshole. Just not today.