Chapter 55 - Enemies.

"With all these mysteries who's to say that that Quack wasn't involved." said Timble, slippery tongue now from the many cups of wine he drowned.

"Well for once I'm inclined to nod my head with Mister Timble!" Zack complimented with slight a nod.

"Hold your handsome mouth County Zack! I still have my suspicion on you and Miss Kim!"

"What? Me? What did I do?" pouted Billie, always time for a tease and acting a dumb damsel in distress.

"It's the road connecting the both of ya!" replied Timble, with another raised cup for more wine.

"It's sure is an improvement really!" Zack leaned back at his chair.

"What is?" Timble asks, a reply Zack expected as he retorted quickly, "Well a good use of your money! I'd say your dictionary has improved but you need more zeroes for intelligence!"

"Silver tongued Prick....." grumbled Timble, following it with mumbled words unheard as he ranted on.

"I have my reasons for believing not anyone of us is involved in this! New Power-borns and the tunnels! We have reasons to believe that it maybe the works of our officials and Mister Timble is right, Hummels may have a hand in this! To put into terms we have no solid evidence of the perpetrator! Which leads us with two options, which we could do both!" like a commander, Garen announced his statement.

"Hmm! This old man knows of what they are,, To wait for Phillipi the young anarchist and try digging at it by ourselves?!" caressing his short greying stubble, Po guesses the options laid out by Garen.

"Elder Po is right!"

"But where and how are we suppose to do that? If we acted as if we knew of the tunnels the culprits would be wise to wait out the storm and I agree on the officials, tunnels and halls such as that would require huge fundings." sharp as ever, Lin was direct and clear with a solid reason to rule out the other option of investigating the officials saying, "It's not like we could investigate our officials either."

"I could charm them but sadly my perk doesn't erase memories and if the one I charmed is a dud we're out of the game." Billie made her skills known not that It wasn't already.

Twisting slow her fluffy shawl, always a delight even in the eyes of Po who stared with closed happy smile, like a geezer adoring his darling granddaughter.

"You all know my perk! It's your call if you want me to use it!" said Zack, ever so laidback yet sophisticated, a strange yet attractive duet.

"We have enough of dark bats for a century! Nghahahah!" guffawed Timble with a snorting laugh.

"What of Hummels?" Zack then raised a question, "He's not off the list is he?"

Zack was rather glad that the blame game he expected between the leaders lasted so short, tipping his hat to the resounding voice of Garen who ruled out all possibilities of leaders getting involved.

"He is not!" replied Garen, "Because one thing is clear! The perpetrator for the bandits is likely to make a move sooner or later!"

"Right! But what makes you so sure?" asks Lin.

"Overdose!" Garen replied.

"OD? what about getting OD'ed?"

"We know of cases when a person overdoses or OD'ed as Mister Timble said! Billie had overlooked the postmortem done on the two bandits that the Sunflower Plateau caught!"

"And the both of them have traces of drugs in their systems." Billie continued in lieu of Garen, "So Hummels is on the menu! Yay Zack!"

"What if we cut off the funds we payed the Quack?!" Timble blurted a question, inviting grim air which brought silence to which he nervously breathed some short wheedling laughs, "Come on it's been years since the Cleansing, stuff like these will already be swept away from the minds of the people!"

"Our real enemy here is mystery and only a fool will jump to careless conclusions!" wised Po with a lesson.

"Conclusions? Isn't it a given? We catch all our officials and the Quack in one go and that's that! Problem solved!"

"It's not that easy, we all know that officials have power-borns serving their backs! There might even be spies from them among our men!" Lin put forth a much thought after thorn in the sides of every leaders.

The officials; the lawmen who worked under their protected towns coming in to overthrow their stature as the leaders of the town, this was a shared problem by all the leaders.

"Sometimes I feel like we're just head of the military and nothing else!" confided Billie to what Lin said.

"So why not just catch all their ungrateful cunts!?" when it comes to power Timble was always quick to show emotions.

"Because we can't! The media is the truth nowadays, if anyone of them goes missing we're due to suffer the wrath of reporters and all innocent truth seekers! It's a pain that innocence is seen in the eye of the beholder." preached Zack to Timble.

"Rule over them with a strong grip of power!" Timble worsens as he drowned more wine.

"We broke free from it not too long ago why are you saying such things!" Lin scolded, slightly enraged as her palm banged the table from what Timble said, a soft spot in her heart was touched.

"Intimate topics, the cleansing, why are you all acting like I'm the bad guy here? I'm the money loving fat bastard here! The smooth tongued bad guy is usually Zack not me! but he's awfully quiet! Maybe he had a hand!? Maybe we all do? We all have a hand on one atrocious act! We all are murderers who allowed that Quack to fool us! So what makes ruling over them with force such a bad thing?"

A grey and grim truth raised with a solid question, with another sip from his cup Timble continued, "I'm not eager to loose my riches! I'll kill anyone trying to aim for my golds but I like happy faces too it's good for money so if you have a better solution I'm all ears!"

As the leaders continued their talks, the atmosphere outside and far the other end of the bridge attracted even the elite and older Power-borns.

"Looks like they're finally going at it!" smiled a man, one of the elites.

"Ah! Reminds me of our younger days."

"Who's fighting?"

"There's some shooting fires so someone with a fire perk?"

Traditional orders and commands forbid them to move from their posts, standing still in a line they murmured, reminiscing of their rowdy younger days.

A silly yet effective rule if you ask me, not for a Magus, imagine me staying put in one place when there was exciting action. I'd eat a horse from the boredom.

On the other end of the bridge, where the younger power-borns were set loose and free, the guards who stood were asked to only intervene in serious cases, fights and tussles were expected and this was needed for their development.

A duel between Ezreal and Damon; two bright lads, both prodigies of the next generation.

Shooting super sonic flames in an arc from his arms, Ezreal attacked with sniping accuracy from a range, showering Damon with arcing beams of red embers.

Damon retaliated with his strange perk, a swing of his arm could cut the fabric of reality; summoning a glimmering light of greyish white in the thinnest of lines for just a miniscule span of a moment yet with precise cuts from his dotted pupils of grey it was as he claimed, "All in a day's work!" as he slashed all the beams coming at him.

"Hahah! I'd be embarassed if you lose so easily, good going!" yelled a smiling Ezreal from afar shooting another arcing beam.

Slashing the oncoming beam Damon yelled back, "Yeah? Hope I don't --" following his slash before he could finish his word; like unzipping the air between him and Ezreal he reached out his head way over his head and as he pulled down he conjured a long thin line of glimmering white which he slid into and vanishing right after in front of everyone's eyes.

"Disappoint you too much!" continuing where he left off, Damon appeared with a shoving kick from another glimmering line behind Ezreal, catching him by surprise, with not much a time to react but barely swaying his arm to block the thrusting kick.

Damon smiled as his kick was blocked, "You're in my range now!" he said readying for a slash which the onlookers were eager to see what his perk does to a person.

"True! But I can also do this!" leaping back and in the air, Ezreal covered himself with yellow flames which burnt to dusts in a second.

"Slippery fuck! Heh!" as he searches for Ezreal who just vanished along with his flame.

....

"Watch out!"

Then Damon heard a yell coming from afar, and as he turns he was greeted by another shot of red arcing beam which Damon barely dodges.

"Heh! Sneaky brat!" he scoffed to the teleporting descendant of Clan Sunflower, standing far from whence Damon was in the start of the fight.

Two promising prospects dishing it out for the rests to see.