Right of Retribution -Ch3- (Patreon)

Warner was quietly working through the seemingly endless number of Chinese food containers. In the end, that’d been what the group had settled on.

Gus’ friend, Mark, wasn’t going to be able to make it as he was apparently being watched by the Fed and the PID. They were extremely interested in him right now as he’d already reached out to both agencies.

His offer had been simple; make contact with the “Eyes”. The ones that were of interest were White, Yellow, and Blue. Apparently Gus had managed to go unnoticed or discounted by the other agencies.

That or they thought he was dead and not worth discussing.

Or maybe Mark told them he was dead?

Huh.

That’d be what I did if I was protecting a friend. ‘Yeah, sorry, can’t help you. That guy died. Anyways, here’s what I got for ya’ and just move right along.

Nodding his head at his thoughts, Warner looked back down to the containers. He definitely had a better idea of how Mark was probably playing this out.

“Orange-orange-orange chicken,” said Madison, stacking up three containers of food rapidly. Watching with a smile, Warner couldn’t help but be amused.

Glancing over at him, Madison gave him a wide smile. Her dark brown eyes seemed quite bright today. She was clearly very happy over the situation.

“What?” she asked, still smiling at him. Reaching up with one hand she tentatively pushed her short black hair behind one ear. The pretty and firm details of her face that she and Daria had worked to create certainly drew the eye. “I didn’t change anything lately, why are you staring?”

“Because your mood is infectious, and your smile is beautiful and generous,” Warner said, grinning back at her. “Is that a good enough reason?”

“Huh… I… uh… yeah, that’s a good reason,” Madison said and then wrinkled her nose even as she grinned. “Let’s try to break a bed tonight. You and me, babe.

“You’ve been looking great all day and I cant’ help but keep thinking about sex. So let’s do it. A lot. Okay?”

Chuckling, Warner shrugged his shoulders and then picked up Bodil’s, Maya’s, and Daria’s order. He’d managed to get them all sorted out.

“If I have the time, sure. I might be working tonight,” countered Warner. “Come with me though if I do work? We can watch something dumb on a cell phone if we don’t find anything to do.”

“Yeah, that’d be fine! I like our movie time,” Madison said as she turned on her heel and left the kitchen. “I even remember the movies when I’m with you.”

Rolling his eyes at that, Warner followed the troll into the living room.

Bodil, Daria, Aelia, Maya, and Lauren, were all arrayed out in various seats and spots.

Warner laid out Bodil and Daria’s meals on the coffee table in front of them on the love seat. Turning he put Maya’s down on the TV-tray that was pulled up next to the recliner.

His daughter Maya shared many features with her mother though thankfully none of her personality. She had black hair, dark eyes, was quite petite, and of decidedly Asian heritage.

“Thanks, dad,” Maya said with glee in her voice as she flicked open the container with a pop and then snatched up the fork he’d stuck inside it.

Her mother had tried everything in the world to get Maya to use chopsticks but it’d never stuck with her. Warner had always wondered if it had more to do with the fact that it was Asa who was trying to make it happen.

Looking over, Warner found Aelia watching him with a curious look. Then she gave him a crooked smile. Her white skin and it’s nearly unnatural paleness didn’t stand out so much indoors.

Her dark-brown eyes that were almost impossibly too large watched him.

Almost in a near mirror way that Madison had done, Aelia reached up and pulled some of her blonde hair back behind an ear.

“He’s just staring cause you’re pretty,” Madison said from where she was seated next to Aelia and Lauren. The big Troll often fussed over the small young Were woman. “He told me that earlier. He’s not wrong either.”

For her part, Lauren had her hands in her lap and was quietly watching the television.

Since her rescue from the Were farm, and then CPS, she’d slowly started moving back to her original personality. Though she often had times like right now where she seemed more on autopilot.

As if noticing she was being watched, she turned and met Warner’s look.

Her black hair was pulled behind her head in a ponytail. The brown eyes that’d held a love of life and a desire to push had mostly returned.

Grinning at him she waved a hand and then looked back to the TV.

“He’s not wrong,” said Lauren, contributing her own part to the conversation.

Warner finally looked back to Aelia who slowly blinked, watching him silently.

“Pretty?” she asked after they stared at each other for several seconds.

“I mean, you are incredibly pretty, Aelia,” Warner said and then nodded his head to the kitchen. “But there’s something else, actually. Pretty sure either your order isn’t in there, or I’ve got your order wrong in my head. What’d you get again?”

“Oh,” Aelia said and then laughed, getting up off the sofa. “I ended up changing it last second. I got the same thing Dayine.”

“Okay, but what was it? I’ll get it. Still have to get mine and Lauren’s,” Warner said, following after her.

“It’s fine, I can get Lauren’s,” Aelia said with a casual wave of her hand.

Warner followed despite that and ended up standing next to her at the island.

“How’s she doing?” Warner asked, sneaking a glance back at Lauren.

“Fine. Had a nightmare last night,” said Aelia, checking the contents of two containers and then stacking them one on top of the other. “I was up, like usual. We just hung out and talked.

“She said she sleeps better when you’re over, by the way. Apparently having Yellow-Eyes as a pillar of strength in her mind is a very real thing.”

“Mm. I’ll see what I can do about staying over more often. This back and forth is getting a little tough on everyone.”

“It certainly is, but it’s not like we can just renovate your home to put in another floor or add a second basement. As much as we’d like to, that’s a lot of paperwork. Right now, the less paperwork on you, the better. Maybe we can look into just buying a giant plot of land later. Have everyone move there together,” said Aelia who then made a clucking noise. She was sorting through condiments before she finally found whatever it was she was looking for. “Especially since Dayine and the Valkyries bought all the houses around us.

“Now hurry up, it’s almost time for the call. We’ve only got a few minutes before Daria calls Mark. And where hell is Dayine, she’s moving from fashionably late to rudely late.”

Aelia left the kitchen area without another word.

Shrugging his shoulders, Warner grabbed his own food, and headed back to the living room.

Dayine had apparently entered while he was in the kitchen with Aelia and was now talking with Daria. She seemed to be apologizing to the other woman.

“Hey Dayine, foods in the kit-”

The Swordsinger had turned to look at him when he started speaking. The moment her eyes met his own, her wings shot out on each side of her. Spreading out wide to their full wing-span.

Her feathers quivering with the stretch even as her pupils glowed a bright blue.

With a grunt, Dayine broke the eye-contact and began wrestling her wings back down. Looking off to the side and nearly at Daria’s feet.

Growling, the Angel said nothing as her wings folded down back into her once again.

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” Daria admonished, patting Dayine on the forearm. “You only made it harder on yourself. Not for anyone else in any way. It even made your wing-response almost automatic.

“Now, go get your food. You can have my seat on the love seat. I’m already done eating and will be directing the call anyways. Cups will behind you when you think to ask.”

No one commented on Dayine’s wings or what Daria said. Everyone here was quite used to Daria saying more than anyone wanted at any time.

Though, that does have an interesting consequence, doesn’t it?

No one comments on anything Daria brings up and just accepts it as whatever it is.

Lauren had moved off from the sofa and was now sitting next to Maya in a a chair pulled up next to the recliner. She was sharing the same Tv-tray as his daughter.

Sitting down between Aelia and Madison, Warner opened his container and dug in. He didn’t have anything to add right now and he might be asked to say something once the call started. That would make eating rather difficult if he had to talk.

And the food always gets cold too quick.

Amazing taste, great prices, gets cold way way too quick.

With a mouth-full of chow mein Warner just watched the rest of the room.

Daria had pulled out a burner phone and was not sitting in front of the coffee table in a dinning room chair. She looked perfectly at ease and almost bored. Staring off at one of the walls without moving at all.

“Seeing something fun?” Warner asked, deciding to break the food-chewing filled silence.

Giving herself a rapid shake, Daria turned toward him and gave him a smile.

“Actually, I’m enjoying not seeing anything,” she said with a laugh. “At the moment, the future is blessedly silent.

“Ever since your run in with Warin, my future sense has been a lot… quieter. Many of the noisy futures that ran along the edges of what I could see are all gone. Everything is becoming much more focused and to the point.

“Which means I don’t see the future half as often as I used to. It’s quite lovely to not feel like I’m constantly rushing through a movie at eight-times speed.”

“I have no idea how you do it,” Bodil said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “I get overwhelmed just from what I can do when I do it. I couldn’t even begin to consider how hard you have it.”

“I mean, it’s not like I had any other choice?” Daria asked in a odd way. “That’s like me saying how wonderfully you handle having such an… impressive… asset.”

It was obvious to everyone Daria was talking about Bodil’s chest.

“Oh. I guess I see what you mean. Its just… a part of you,” replied the Rune-Reader in a thoughtful way. As if on command, several grains of rice slipped off Bodil’s fork and went down her shirt. Vanishing away as if into another plane instead of just her cleavage.

Bodil ignored it and simply kept eating. Food falling into that space wasn’t exactly new.

She often referred to the area as “crumb catchers” and remarked that she’d sometimes find things she hadn’t even realized fell in.

“But I’m most definitely enjoying the lull. I’m sure it won’t last as we start moving again but… for the moment… it’s nice,” said Daria, then she turned her wrist over and looked at the watch there. “And it’s time to call Mark. I’ll dial now.”

Dayine sat down with a light thump on the love-seat next to Bodil.

“H-hey… Rune-Reader,” Dayine murmured, looking to the other woman.

“Dayine,” Bodil said with a grin and a nod of her head. “Good to see you.”

Dayine nodded her head in turn, then looked around the room.

Everyone greeted her as she made the circuit with her eyes, though everything was kept very short. Even Maya and Lauren said hello to the Angel.

The burner-phone was ringing away on the coffee table. Speaker phone engaged and the volume pushed up to full.

Madison finished off the last of her food, wiped her mouth and hands quickly, then put an arm around Warner’s shoulders. Then crossed one leg over the other, looking incredibly comfortable.

The hand attached to the arm around his shoulder’s was now idly tickling through the back of Aelia’s hair. Madison not settling for just touching Warner, but also Aelia.

“Ah! Yes! Hello!” said a voice on the burner phone. “I’m so sorry. I uh… I’ll be honest, it took me a minute to figure out the buttons. Ha.

“But yes, hi, hello, heya. I’m Mark, Gus’ would-be-husband if he went that way. How are you all? How ya doing?

“Oh, and thanks for the burner phones. This’ll make this a lot easier to keep in touch.”

“Not a problem, Mark,” Daria said with a smile. “That was definitely part of the reason we sent you so many of them.

“We’re all here. We can do a attendance call if it would help you at all?”

“Uh… no. If I don’t have to do the corpo-shmuck routine, I won’t,” replied Mark with a laugh. “I’ll have to do that enough if I get this job. No sense doing it here, too.”

“Great. Then I’ll just dive right in,” said Daria, folding her hands one in the other. “Unless there’s something you wanted to bring up first?”

“Nope! Other than thanks. You all got Gussy out nice and quick. I’ve patched up worse injuries for him than what he got working with you all,” Mark said in a genuine way. There was no humor in his voice this time.

“He was instrumental to our cause,” Warner said sincerely. “It’ll be sad that he can’t work with us going forward, but we understand it completely.”

“Well, he’ll be busy working for me. Ha. I plan on using him and his wife extensively as a third party contractor,” admitted Mark. “Anyways, no, please, jump in.”

“Right, I’ll get right to the tricky bits then,” said Daria, staring at the burner phone. “We’re going to continue to operate as we have been. We’ll not slow down, change what we’ve been doing, or alter our course.

“We’ll act as vigilante justice and do what we feel is best. For the time being, we’ll remain local to Colorado. We don’t exactly have the type of manpower to cast a wide net.

“We don’t imagine you’ll be able to tolerate our actions, and fully expect you to dedicate a task force to catching us. Let alone publicly where you’ll have to condemn us.

“I can easily promise you we’ll do everything we can to stay out of the Fed and PID’s way, though. We have no desire to look into either department as it would only cause problems. Though if you wanted us to, we could. But that’s more on you.”

“Uh… ah… that… ha. Hahaha. Yeah!” Mark said as he clearly caught up with the conversation. “Yeah, all of that. Exactly. Yes. Thank you, yes. That is so refreshingly direct that it’s amazing.

“As to my own departments… let me get the job first. My plan is to use the ‘Eyes gang’ as my intro card. That I can wrangle them to a degree and get them to dial it down or stay away from certain targets. As well as keeping a watch on ‘Red-Eyes’ as the Fed dubbed him.

“Also, would you be willing to look into things I send your way and see if it’s something worth eliminating through you, or having someone from my own thing investigate it?”

“None of that’s an issue,” said Daria with a hand wave. Not a word of this conversation so far was anything they hadn’t already discussed prior to the phone call. “Though if it’s a particularly nasty injustice, we might have to go for a target regardless.

“Like Patton and company. That was a particularly ugly thing that needed to be handled regardless of the political ramifications.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine. So long as I get a heads up about it before it happens,” said Mark easily. He sounded incredibly relaxed. It even sounded like the squeak of a chair as he leaned back in it. “If you can give me seventy-two hours at the bare minimum, I can spin something up.

“Part of the job, and the deal that I’m working to get, is that I can pursue whatever cases I want. Independent of the Fed hierarchy. I’ve already proven myself to them several times, pointed to those who have infested the upper echelon, and even have connections with the right people.

“Oh, that might happen by the way. You might have to go to Fed headquarters with me to peek through some people, Warner. See if there’s anything wrong about them. I’m pretty sure the Council has people at the top ranks of the Fed.”

“That’s fine,” Warner said as everyone to turn and look at him. Then a weird thought struck him. Struck him hard to the point that he had to say something. “I have a request in return for that though. Maybe it’ll also be helpful for you as well.”

“I mean… getting you to go to Fed HQ with me is… uh… I’m willing to pay a lot for that, but I can’t sell you my body,” Mark said in a loud whisper. “I’m already in debt up to my eyeballs with my wife when it comes to my body.

“Beyond that, Gussy has all my IOUs on it. Anything other than that and I can probably make it happen though. What’s up?”

“You have an employee in Colorado who could be helpful,” Warner said while everyone still looked at him. “She worked as a beat cop. Got caught up in the PID, did a lot of cleanup from all the mess I wrought and found a lot of low hanging fruit that I missed.

“She got promoted to the Fed, then told to pilot a desk, sit down, and shut up. To take whatever’s given to her, do nothing else, and get pay-rises, presents, and bonuses to do so. If she said no, they told her they’d just make her wish she had.”

Is it… weird to be asking for this? I don’t think it is.

I think Althea could help Mark a lot. She could also help us out quite a bit as well.

“I had a brief romantic affair with her, she knows who I am, and has helped me in the past,” confessed Warner. He wanted to make sure he was being honest and upfront with Mark. “I’m not asking you to promote her, but I think she’d be instrumental to a Fed department working with while also against Yellow-Eyes. As well as someone who doesn’t like roadblocks.”

“Sounds like my type of agent. What’s her name?” Mark asked followed by the sound of what felt an awful lot like a pen click.

“Althea Frias. She just really wants to serve justice,” said Warner in a low voice. “It’s one of the reasons we didn’t work out. I’m not the particular type of justice she wants. Hers involves charges, arrests, trials, a courtroom.

“Mine is at the tip of a sword or the end of a gun. It isn’t very polite or welcome in society.”

“Eh, sometimes the world needs a kick in the pants,” Mark said with a laugh. “Alright, as soon as I get this position sorted, I’ll look her up.

“Any chance you can make an appearance this week with me? I’ll want to prove that Yellow-Eyes can be reasoned with to a degree. That’d seal it for me. I just roll up for my interview with Yellow-Eyes. Though we’ll need to be careful. They might try to do something stupid and then you’ll have to bust some heads open.”

“Sure, not a problem,” Warner said, nodding his head.

This all worked out rather well if he was being honest.

There was no way the Fed could ever approve of his actions. Not publicly or in any way that could be shown to someone.

In the background and together on certain things? That’s power in a way.

Things are ever moving forward.