Chương 105: B2. 10.3 - Monsters Make Friends

Overdrive Overdrive tilted his head, listening for more sounds. It had been a couple of minutes since the last bang. He adjusted the settings of his bionic eyes to observe his castle. The night vision had some kinks he would have to recalibrate later. The second floor got blown out a bit earlier. He thought he saw a glimpse of the werewolf that was Red Hood's supposed transformation, but it was no longer there.

It pained him that his castle, built by his hard-earned money through selling drugs and people, suffered this fate. It was invaded by extremist morons who turned out to be making a Purple Bloom. And an Adumbrae was in there too, or some shit that Overdrive didn't understand. Now, Red Hood was fighting that Adumbrae. They made quite the noise. Even the ground trembled. A shitty fate for his poor castle. It all makes for a cool story, though, Overdrive thought to console himself.

He could brag to others that his home was the site of an Adumbrae battle. Many of the PCM dingbats were probably dead inside. He'd take pictures of them later, spread them to his friends that this was the fate of anyone who crossed him. Or he probably should keep his mouth shut. Dumb to risk getting visited by the BID.

"Are… are they done, boss?" Tommy Gee asked.

"Who won?"

"I don't know the answer to both questions," Overdrive replied.

"But I'm betting on Red Hood—you recorded my bet, right?"

"Yep, yep. Biter jotted it down. He's down there, taking more bets."

"No one's going to be stupid enough to bet on an unknown contender," said Kelp.

"But I do have a few people stupid enough to do it."

"That's why they call it gamblin'," Teflon said with a sigh.

"The boss is going to win," Overdrive confidently declared.

"My castle's still in one piece. The boss didn't need to turn into her colossal werewolf form to deal with the Adumbrae inside." Overdrive, Tommy Gee, and the leaders of the other groups had climbed onto the roof of a two-story building to check out what was going on. They were across the wide parking lot of his castle and thought that they were safe. But when the Adumbrae fight reached the second floor of his building, they scrambled to climb down. The fight quieted down soon enough.

Now, they were back, waiting for the next exciting thing. We're really idiots, aren't we? Given that their livelihood was frolicking on the wrong side of the law, it couldn't be said that they knew how to make the best of decisions in their lives. Assuming that they were given such a choice in the first place. If things had gone differently, Overdrive wouldn't be a minion of an Adumbrae. His life sucked from the start.

At a young age, he already knew that his future would suck even more—the 'normal' path of going to college, getting a job, and making a family wasn't available to him. What happened wasn't remotely close to any future he had envisioned. But this was what he had, and he was going to take advantage of it. He was a hundred percent resolved to cling to Red Hood to get out of his debt with the Tea Party for funding all his augments to save his life.

He'd need to look elsewhere for maintenance, not the Tea Party's Doc, but that was a problem for another time. Overdrive threw in his lot with Red Hood when he drove her to the docks. Technically, he didn't have a choice back then; she forced him to do it. He almost got killed by Big Marcy's men, but it might be the best thing that had ever happened to him—he had an Adumbrae for a boss! Who the fuck would be stupid enough to mess with him? There was just a teensy-weensy issue of avoiding getting eaten by his boss.

He saw some videos of the Red Hood devouring people when she attacked the docks. What was Red Hood's long-term plan? He didn't want his brain to be linked to a Purple Bloom. Red Hood had no plans of becoming one… right?

"Why the fuck is there an Adumbrae in my fucking castle?" Overdrive muttered, continuing to scan his precious castle for any clue of what was going on inside. Then he observed the buildings on the opposite block behind his castle. There could've been some movement in the shadows.

"Remember that the PCM was lookin' for Red Hood?" said Teflon.

"Probably want a base for the Purple Bloom they're makin', yeah? Now, they have an Adumbrae."

"Are you saying that PCM planned to turn the Adumbrae in there into a Purple Bloom?"

"Hard agree with Teflon," Kelp chimed in.

"We were wondering why those yellow fisty bastards are swarming Marsh Row. Here's the answer—this is the cauldron for their Purple Bloom concoction. They have an Adumbrae. They're ready to throw people in here to feed their little monster factory until it becomes a big monster factory. Thank the Mother Core that Red Hood's fighting the PCM's Adumbrae."

"Thank the Mother Core…" Teflon repeated.

"We probably shouldn't say somethin' like that no more."

"Red Hood was telling the truth all along," Overdrive said.

"I found it hard to believe at first—""You pretended you did, you suck up," Dulce Maria interjected.

"It was really difficult to believe, wasn't it?" he countered.

"Making a Purple Bloom? Yeah, many screwed-in-the-head cults have that as their vision-mission statement. But most of them are no closer to doing it than my limbs are to regrowing. The thing here is that the PCM got an actual chance of succeeding. That's why Red Hood is worried about them." Everyone was silent. It was dawning on all of them how real this all was. Their businesses. Money. Everything they had would be meaningless if a Purple Bloom were—"What's that?"

Overdrive focused his eyes on the far outskirts of his castle's parking lot. There was a flicker of light. Or that was what he thought he saw, anyway. Switching back to night vision, he caught a person ducking beneath a window. He had recorded the footage. Replaying it, there truly was someone scurrying inside that building.

"Tommy Gee, do we have men over there?" Overdrive asked, pointing. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"No, boss. All of us are gathered here, I think. Yeah?" The other leaders assented. There was no reason for them to send their guys elsewhere. In fact, all of them were scared of being alone. They might get nabbed by a random Adumbrae in the darkness. No one should be in that location unless…

"The PCM may be spying on us," said Overdrive.

"Tommy Gee, get Biter and Chewie. Form three groups to corner whoever is in that building." He described their target.

"It's probably more than one guy hiding, but I don't think there are that many to put up much of a fight."

"I'm going with them, OD," Kelp said.

"It's more boring watching paint dry just standing here. At least I can see paint dry compared to a dark building. If I can kill a couple of PCM boys in revenge for—""Don't kill them unless you've got no choice," Overdrive said.

"We need to question them. They will also be a nice present for our boss."

"To eat?" Dulce Maria asked in an innocent voice. Overdrive shrugged.

"If that's what the boss wants." He watched four vehicles leave their little rabble of an army and head towards the possible PCM spies. It felt good being second-in-command for once. It could even be said that he was their leader. Red Hood's not going to do any actual leading besides occasional instructions. She'd prefer to hide herself from the BID. Effectively, Overdrive was the leader. He'd use Red Hood as a deterrence to any threat to his position. Someday, Red Hood would go on to do Adumbrae things elsewhere.

Overdrive would then have total control over La Esperanza, and maybe neighboring cities as well.

"Say, Overdrive," Dulce Maria said, distracting Overdrive from his fantasies.

"Since we're not really doing anything right now, my brother wants to talk to you about something."

"Fine. What's it about?" Overdrive kept his eyes glued on his castle, making it clear that he didn't care about this small matter. The others should know that he was higher-ranked than they. He only answered to Red Hood.

"Some girls visited his place yesterday," said Dulce Maria.

"Told him some interesting stuff." Overdrive turned around. Enrico, Dulce Maria's brother, waved at him. Overdrive kept back a grimace as he nodded. He considered Enrico a 'lower-class' criminal. Peddling with fake luxury goods, lucrative it might be, was child's play compared to what Overdrive was dealing with. It felt odd seeing Enrico with a pistol strapped to his hip, as if he shouldn't be here at all.

"It might not be the right time to discuss this," said Enrico, "but this is related to Red Hood."

"Oh?" That made Overdrive listen with both ears. Everything about Red Hood should pass through him first.

"A couple of days ago, I was contacted by a man looking for information about Red Hood…" Enrico narrated about how this guy named Johann threatened him with the police raiding his warehouses. Upon checking, Enrico found that Johann did work at the police station, though he wasn't a cop. If Johann could make good on his threat, Enrico didn't know and didn't care. Enrico had been raided a few times before; losing his inventory was a hazard of the trade.

"But I thought that I should find out what this is about," Enrico said.

"If I could be of assistance to our new inhuman overlord—""Don't let Red Hood hear you say that," Dulce Maria said with a hoarse laugh.

"—then all the better for me," her brother finished.

"With how fucked up the world is becoming, Adumbrae right on our doorstep, I thought it better to make a good impression on a friendly monster. Friendly, so far."

"And what information do you have for us?" Overdrive asked. According to Enrico, one of the girls claimed to have a sister who had turned into an Adumbrae. This Adumbrae-sister was nowhere to be seen. The girls wanted to meet Red Hood to ask for her help, probably hearing about the rumors that she was a 'good' Adumbrae.

"She's classified as 'good' because she trounced the asses of Big Marcy's men," Dulce Maria said.

"But she's still a monster. I've seen the videos where she eats people. Damn, I wish I could erase my memory."

"For the record," Enrico said, raising his hand, "I don't buy the sister sob story. I believe that they have some other reason for meeting Red Hood. Perhaps they want to know Red Hood's location and sell it to the BID or Big Marcy or whoever. We should tell Red Hood about this and—""I decide what we'll do," Overdrive roughly cut in.

"No need to bring this up with Red Hood. We'll deal with this simple thing on our own. Investigate Johann. Investigate those girls. Find out what their deal is. Kill them if we have to."

"Isn't that too harsh an action?" Enrico asked.

"I'd say they merely want to earn some cash reward. Or they may want revenge on Adumbrae for some reason. A relative got killed by one before or the like?" Overdrive shook his head.

"Do you think Red Hood would be less harsh? It'll probably be a blessing to get shot than to be eaten by an Adumbrae. I'll be in charge of this matter, and you'll help me investigate. For now, let's focus on the people who we know are actual spies." Tommy Gee and Kelp arrived at the target building. Overdrive observed them fan out and block off any escape route, communicating with Tommy Gee through the radio. Gunshots rang in the air. Everyone except Overdrive instinctively ducked.

The shootout didn't last for long as the PCM spies decided to run, probably scared by the number of men surrounding them. They didn't have anywhere else to go than the parking lot. Cars roared to chase them down and hem them in. Soon, Tommy Gee boasted to Overdrive's ear that they captured three PCM guys. Kelp killed one.

"I couldn't stop him, boss," Tommy Gee said.

"But three is enough for boss Red Hood to eat, right? Maybe we can add regular food with our offering, like burgers and fried chicken and—""We're not making an offering to her," Overdrive said with a sigh. His men got the spirit but didn't understand the rationale behind their actions.

"Just get back here already. Hurry up. Someone's coming out of my castle."

"Is it Red Hood?" Teflon asked.

"Sure is," Overdrive said, keeping his eyes on the short and slim form walking out of the main doors.

"Red Hood won!" Dulce Maria shouted down at the rest of their men. A combination of cheers from those who won their bets and a smattering of groans from those who lost. Some arguments also brewed. Several people asked if the enemy Adumbrae got eaten. Apparently, there was another bet for that.

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" Dulce Maria turned to Overdrive.

"See anything else? What became of the other Adumbrae?"

"Red Hood's dragging a bundled-up something behind her," he replied.

"I don't know what it is, but it's covered by cloth and chains."

"The body of her opponent, I'm guessin'," said Teflon.

"Should we go down there? Meet up with her, yeah?"

"We will," said Overdrive, stepping on the edge of the roof.

"You probably can barely hear it with normal ears, plus all this blasted shouting, but Red Hood's calling for us to come." Taking a page from Red Hood's book, Overdrive jumped off the building and landed amongst the disorganized mini-horde below. The shock absorbers of his aug-leg lessened the effect of the impact, hissing as it dissipated the force. Raising his arm, Overdrive roared, "Move out to meet our boss!" A few minutes later, they were assembled into a somewhat coherent formation in front of Red Hood.

The three PCM spies were bound and made to kneel before her. They babbled about not knowing anything, and they were just following orders. Bullshit like that.

"What do we do with them, boss?" Overdrive asked. He wanted to display loyalty by putting a bullet into their heads. He barely had a part in retaking his castle, and was feeling inadequate. Red Hood approached the rightmost PCM spy. Overdrive held the cowering guy in place, wondering what Red Hood would do. Was she going to eat him? Red Hood held the PCM spy's head and rotated it until it faced completely back. The sickly cracks told everyone that the guy was dead. Overdrive sharply breathed, along with everyone.

Dillon died to a broken neck! Red Hood is warning me not to betray her!