[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/2tykUst.jpg?2[/img][/center] [b]Shanghai 1923[/b] “Bloody hell.” Detective Chief Inspector Gates held a handkerchief to his mouth. Just minutes earlier he’d been using the rag to wipe sweat from his brow and neck. The commute here hadn’t done them any favors. The SMP car they managed to snag from the headquarters’ feeble motorcool spent the better part of a half hour stuck in traffic. The source of the congestion? An overturned ox-cart that took nearly a dozen mean to flip upright. A half hour ago this looked to be just another quiet summer night. But now? Gates had been stationed in the Orient for over twenty years, most of it in Hong Kong before Shanghai. He was no stranger to senseless violence and brutal street warfare from dueling gangs. He’d taken down Hong Kong Henry, for God’s sake. Grisly scenes of death were second nature to him. But this was something else altogether. “Best we can make out, there were about a dozen of them,” DC Strong said. The two men stood in a back alley just off Middle Ring Road. SMP patrolmen had cordoned off the alley to prevent anyone else coming in, but to Gates that was like closing the barn door after the bloody horse had gone. Word was already spreading through the city about the massacre here. Gates figured there was very little they could do here at this point other than cleaning up. At least ten bodies, or at least parts of them, were scattered across the alley. That was based on just a rough estimation of matching arms and legs. The emerald tinted tattoos and markings on severed limbs made it clear that the dead men were members of the Green Gang. Gates and Stone were familiar with the Green Gang in the same way doctors were familiar with syphilis. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of blokes,” Gates said, spitting on the pavement at his feet. “Bunch of opium dealing savages.” “What is that, sir?” Strong asked, pointing towards the alley wall. Gates clamped his handkerchief tighter around his mouth and nose and walked gingerly through the alley. He stepped over a severed finger to get a better look at the wall. Someone had written something across it. Upon closer inspection, Gates could see that it was dried blood that had been used to write out a message in Mandarin. “‘The cost of crime must be paid in flesh,’” mumbled Gates. “‘The bill has come due for the Green Gang.’ Dear lord… he’s struck again.” --- [b]Chicago 2019[/b] Lamont Cranston looked out at the city skyline. His penthouse apartment sat on the fortieth floor and had a picturesque view of the city. A million dollar view, his realtor had said. It was more like an eleven million dollar view. For those that could afford it, the view would be worth every penny. And Lamont hated it. Because he could see Chicago for what it really was. He could see everything laid out below him, the twisting black tendrils that threatened to choke the city. The smog that hung over the upper limits of the skyscrapers. Only Lamont could see it. Because he could see the evil that lurked in the hearts of men, he could see how that evil poisoned a city. And because of the beautiful view, Lamont was always reminded of how he was failing the city. He turned away from the window and retreated through the penthouse. He couldn’t bear to look out at the city any longer. Lamont reached into his pocket as he walked and slipped the ruby ring on to his left hand. Something else weighed on his mind that night. It enhanced his desire to go out into the night and look for trouble. He had a sense that something loomed just past the horizon. Something was coming, something he could not see the shape of. But whatever it was, it would be evil and bloody. --- The SUV raced down the southside street. The four men inside the car were dressed for war. Tactical body armor, automatic rifles, and night vision goggles. It was all top dollar and better than they were used to. They were all former soldiers, but the Salvadoran army equipment they trained on had been nothing but US Cold War relics. The four men didn’t look anything at all like the stereotypes they broadcast on the news and over social media, not face tattoos and well-spoken English with only traces of accents, but all four of them were MS13 to the core. “In and out in sixty seconds,” the man in the shotgun seat said in Spanish. “We ventilate every living thing in that house.” That was all the orders the four of them had been given. Go in, kill everyone, and then leave. Don’t take any money or drugs or make a big show of the killing. The shotcallers wanted whoever was living in that home dead quickly and quietly. Quick and quiet was their specialty and it was why they commanded so much money for ever hit. The secretive nature of the mission had them all pumped for the potential of actual challenge this time around. They were often deployed to take out rival dealers and people who crossed MS13. They were in a different class than the people they hunted. In a lot of ways it was like the Cubs playing against little league teams. Something thumped on the roof of the SUV. The soldier in the back passenger side looked up just in time to see the blade of a sword slice through the roof. The tip of the blade stabbed him in the face and sent blood gushing through the car. The driver sped up past seventy and started to swerve in an effort to throw off the person on the roof. The two other soldiers raised their guns to the ceiling and opened fire. More thumps as the person on the roof moved, bullets ripping holes into the roof. The blade came down again and sliced the driver’s head off. The SUV skittered out of control and smashed into a parked car, the impact flipping the SUV. The assailant on top of the roof flipped away as the car came down hard and rained shards of metal and glass on the street. [img]https://i.imgur.com/K7dXIYc.jpg?2[/img] Calmly, he walked towards the crashed car and looked in. One of the two remaining soliders was dead, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. The other looked up at him with a bloody face and whispered for mercy in Spanish. The assailant put the blade against the man’s face. “You live simply because of dumb luck, remember this fact. Tell your boss that if this is the best he can do, then Grendel is highly disappointed.” Grendel slid the blade across the man's eye. He screamed as blood poured from the wound. With a swift twist of the blade, he stabbed the man's other eye out. “No sight, but you still have a tongue so you may tell the story of what happens to those who declare war and lose.” Grendel stood and holstered the sword. He started to leisurely walk away from the chaos he had initiated while the now blind man screamed.