Chapter 9: The God that Failed

[Akira 69]

Akira cackled as he arrogantly walked after Alexei, giving him a head start as he followed him back into a room with alot of crates. Scanning the contents of the boxes around him, he detected weapons, drugs and other such things. He had found the storeroom. "So it's a game of cat and mouse now is it?" Akira cooed with a chuckle as he walked through the rows of crates looking for Alexei, his sword jolting with energy every few seconds and letting off a reddish glow. "I'm going to find you... And then you're going to tell me what I want to know." Akira went on in a sing song type of voice as he rounded a corner and swung his sword, cutting the ground of an empty spot making a loud hiss as his sword cut across the ground. Lifting his sword up again, Akira continued his search for the little man...

[Alexei Nacharade]

Alexei jumped out from behind a corner and fired the spear gun at Akira. He didn't stick around to see what affect the weapon had, instead he darted past and ran as fast as he could for the nearest exit. He didn't know what else to do, everyone else was dead. What could he do against this insane creditor?

["Niel" Samuelson]

Niel did not shake the hand offered him by Pyry. Pyry was obviously not here to help Niel with his mission as a Wrath operative so Niel didn't plan on bothering with the other Manalist unless absolutely necessary.

"You know," Niel said, addressing Linnea. "I do a lot of work here and there and one of my clients, once-upon-a-time, was the S.O.T.A. corporation." He smiled gently. "And I could have sworn one of the other men there talked about someone like you working there, Linnea."

Still smiling, Niel tilted his head slightly, politely. "Ever meet the owner of S.O.T.A., Ms. Korpela?"

[Taylor Jones]

Taylor returns home from work, unlocking the door,and entering her apartment. She kicks off her heels and putting them away. She rests a while, before drawing herself a bath, and stepping in, slipping into the warm water and relaxing.

She finishes up and dresses, walking into her bedroom. On her nightstand lay the card that Eva had given her a few days earlier, she picked it up, flipping in over a few times in her hand, her index finger slipped just slightly and she ended up with a paper cut. Sticking the cut into her mouth, she replaced the card on the nightstand.

Taylor feels a little restless, and she doesn't really have anything to do at the moment. Shes done with work for the day, Mr. Crest hadn't needed her terribly in the past few days, which was a pleasant change of pace, usually she was fairly useful for him, and often had quite the workload, she didn't complain though, she was more than happy to do the work. She slips her feet into another pair of shoes, and leaves her apartment.

[Maeve Cullen]

"Yeah, better than sleeping on a floor." Maeve replied, sorting through the fridge that was in the hotel room. Not much was there. "What'd I miss?"

[Tuesday DeCastro]

Tuesday stretched a little, as she listened to Maeve. "Alexei and I were pretty hungry, so we decided to get something to eat, but he left because he has some business to take care of."

She pauses to take a sip of her cola. "Is he back at the room?"

"And if you're hungry I can order you something and bring it to you." She switches the phone to her other ear.

[Maeve Cullen]

"Nah, he isn't here unless he's spawned some sort of Ninja skills." Maeve replies, shutting the fridge and leaning back against it. "Food sounds great, though. Just buy me something cheap, I know how expensive places can be." She says, not one to accept money from anyone. "I'll pay you the money when you get back."

[Tuesday DeCastro]

"No, you don't need to pay me back. I'll be back in a little while." Tuesday snapped her phone shut and slipped in back into her purse, waving the waiter over and ordering Maeve something to-go, before paying the check and leaving the restaurant.

She arrived back at the hotel room in a matter of minutes, and handed Maeve her food. She sat down on the edge of her unmade bed, and looked to Maeve. "What should we do now?"

[Akira 69]

Akira spun around at the sound of Alexei, meeting the spear fired at him which imbedded itself in his chest rather uneffective. "Seriously? A spear gun?" Akira exclaimed in disbelief as he started to laugh loudly, actually overcome at the hilarity of the situation as he pulled it out from his chest and let it drop on the floor. There was then however, a new problem which he noticed when he had done so. There was now a hole in his nice suit. "I just stole this suit! Get back here baka so I can take payment outta beating you senseless!" Akira roared giving chase to the doorway of the bar where he had lost sight of Alexei. Cursing in japanese, Akira stormed off to raid the store room of any goodies he could make use of before he burned the place down to keep anyone else from getting this cache.

Breaking open a few boxes, he didn't find anything of any value to him except a few bits of jewelry he could hawk for a nice price. Knowing that it would not be long until the long arm of the law came at the sounds of gunfire so he started pouring out bottles of beer all over the place, making sure to get the storeroom too before he lit a conviently found match and flicked it in. The match immediatly caught the alchohol on fire and began to spread quickly through the bar as Akira high tailed it out and made his dramatic escape!

[Alexei Nacharade]

Alexei sprinted for as far as his legs could carry him until he stopped to catch his breathe. He looked around and flipped open his phone to dial Kaschei and leave him the message...he hoped desperately Kaschei would not hold him personally responsible.

"Kaschei some fucking creditor attacked a checkpoint in Helsinki! Guns didn't work, and when we tried to kill it with other weapons it just fucking slaughtered everyone! I was the only one who got away and I saw smoke once I got far enough away. He must have burned it down. We have a SERIOUS fucking problem, Kaschei! How did he even know where to look? He wanted money, or something. Tell me what you want me to do. I'm in Helsinki now, but I may go to Cuba or back to Moscow soon."

With that he hung up his phone before looking down at himself, blinking. There was a cut along his side and he was bleeding. He must have slashed even when he dove away.

Alexei didn't want to go straight back to the hotel, he snuck into a closed clothing store and cruedly bandaged himself up, along with getting some new clothes. He stayed there for a bit, wanting to make sure that psycho hadn't somehow followed him.

[Linnea Korpela]

As soon as Linnea heard SOTA mentioned she knew it wasn't going to be good, but when she heard that he wanted to talk about the owner she felt a little...depressed. Everyone wanted to talk about him.
"Yeah I've meet him," her mood turning sour, as much as she tried to not sound that way she couldn't mask it completely.

[Akira 69]

As fate would have it, Akira had entered the same clothes store Alexei had heading immediatly toward the suits. He browsed through different racks looking for the same suit that he was wearing, except in one piece. Akira had to look his best when he was beating up on people to give him cash, it was illogical any other way. Finding an exact duplicate of his suit, Akira dissappeared for a moment and removed the price tags for the suit before coming back out and heading toward a man who was behind on his payment to Global Bank.

How he could tell the man was behind was a built in feature of all Creditors that allowed them to access Global Bank's database. Akira actually went to the extent of mentally listing certain people on G.B's databank as good targets to hunt down. As he approached the man, Akira searched the databank for the ID of that thug that escaped. He wasn't getting anything yet, but he'd find it soon as he tapped the shoulder of the manager to get his attention. "You are late in your payment..." Akira said putting on the Creditor facade as he right hooked the man in the jaw, sending him wheeling back as Akira grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into a rack of clothes sending them all crashing down onto the floor...

["Niel" Samuelson]

Niel knew all about Keitoleinen's unappealing habits. Hopefully, Linnea would willingly support his efforts to confront the God of Destruction due to a disgruntled disposition.

"Keitoleinen, a very powerful man. I've heard it said that powerful men have a tendency toward uncooth behavior. I'm sure that the owner of S.O.T.A. is an upstanding gentleman, though. Not an enemy in the world to be sure." He might be laying it on a bit thick. He considered asking her bluntly if she would aid him and filed such under "Plan B."

[Alexei Nacharade]

Alexei, dressed in a new button up shirt, clean pressed black pants and a bright red blazer made his way out of the store cautiously.

Alexei rather liked the bright red color of the jacket. Men in Alexei's profession often chose less noticable attire, but Alexei had always gone for style.

Alexei began walking down the street when suddenly a bleeding man walked up to him and began shaking him. He recognized the man as Dmitri, one of the thugs from the checkpoint. Alexei quickly ushered him into a nearby alleyway.

"Alexei!" He babbled. He was already badly bleeding. "Did you see him? It was awful! You! You ran away!"

Alexei slowly calmed him down. He placed both hands on the mafia thug's shoulders.

"Breathe, Dmitri. Breathe, man. Listen to me, I'm going to take care of it, all right? We're fine, and you're under my protection." He smiled and kissed the man on the forehead. "Now tell me, did you see anyone else survive that psycho's attack? Are you the only one?"

Dmitri looked confused, but then nodded vigorously.

"I'm the only one, Alexei."

Alexei nodded and patted him on the back, then drew him into a brotherly embrace. His Balisong slid from his sleeve as he spun Dmitri around so his back faced Alexei. He stabbed the surprised man in the gut several times before aiming a final stab at his jugular and throwing him into the wall. He wiped the blade off on Dmitri's pants before refolding it and slipping it back up his sleeve.

Dmitri was an undesirable witness to the attack. If a truthful account was given, it might have been looked at as a failure on Alexei's part. He needed to be the only witness and therefore be the sole teller of the tale to Kaschei.

"Idiot." Alexei grumbled as he looked himself over to make sure there were no noticable blood stains on him. Maybe this red blazer hadn't been such a bad investment after all.

"I need a drink.." Alexei mumbled as he made his way to the nearest club. He'd spend a bit there before heading back to the hotel.

[Maeve Cullen]

"Well, if we're going to go with our plan last night, we need to iron it out." Maeve stated, deciding she'd just sneak the money into Tuesday's bag later. She begins to eat, hungry enough that any food tasted extremely good. "We can brainstorm for a bit, and if Alexei isn't back by the time we're done we can make a decision to do it without him or give him a ring."