The Coventry Mob

The Coventry Mob.

They weren't the biggest gang in the community, but they definitely ranked within the top three. They weren't small fry, that was for sure.

They were the drug runners of the city, the ones who took in pretty much anyone off the street to give them a new purpose. If only that purpose had been a good one. The gang did everything they could to get their product in the hands of anyone that was willing to buy and snort it. The more the PHA took down, the more of them there seemed to be, like some kind of druggie hydra.

Other than the torch, the street was unlit. The majority of the Coventry Mob were unpowered, just normal guys running contraband to and fro, or selling it on the street. The boss of the mob, however, was a completely different story. If he was around, and he caught sight of me, I was done for.

Little was known about the leader of the Coventry Mob.

Some said he was a Crafter, with a niche focused around drug science, and that was how the rest of his powers worked. He just created a drug that gave him the power he needed at the time and then he went all out with it.

The alternative was that he just had a grab bag of powers so strong that no one would ever be able to stand up to him, and that was something that no one wanted to believe was true.

A vehicle pulled up outside the building the gang members were standing around outside. Vehicles were rare, only the PHA and crafters tended to own them. Out stepped a short man with a balding head, an ornate silver mask on his face. While he was short and bald, he was clearly incredibly muscular.

This was the boss of the Coventry Mob.

He called himself 'Phet', and that was the only name that anyone had ever known him by in the community. He had successfully matched himself up against the entire PHA in the community on numerous occasions, and at this point, it was widely agreed upon that Phet was just too strong for them to deal with, which was how he had stayed out of jail.

Due to the theory of the Coventry Mob boss being a drug tinker with the ability to amp himself in any way possible, knowing anything about his powers at any given time was near impossible… but not completely.

There were some known elements of his abilities, certain quirks that seemed to be always active no matter the engagement that he landed himself in. For a start, he always had a superhuman level of strength and speed, with superhuman healing tacked on. That was even before he took any of the drug cocktails that amped up his abilities.

In other words, fighting someone like Phet wasn't something I was planning to do any time soon, especially not on my first day out.

All of that was compounded by the fact that Phet wasn't the only Powered member of the Mob.

He had a well known right-hand man, a psychopathic murderer that he kept on a short leash, drugging him up any time he wasn't in the field. He was called Loper and was a speedster that moved so fast he may as well be teleporting between two points. That or he was teleporting between two points, no one really knew for sure.

If the Coventry Mob had any other powered people on their payroll I didn't know, and neither did the rest of the community. Though really, with Phet and Loper in the gang there wasn't really a need for extra powered muscle. They were both incredibly versatile and incredibly powerful.

While I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, it was clear that Phet had started delivering instructions to the gangsters that surrounded him.

Whatever he was saying was clearly putting his people on edge. As I watched the proceedings from my dark corner one of the gangsters drew a kitchen knife from a holster on his thigh, while another of them pulled a gun from their waistband.

I swallowed thickly when the gun came into view. For some reason, there was something terrifying about the weapon, which was silly really considering Phet was there and could kill more people in less time than a simple handgun could ever have a hope of doing.

In the end I decided to move from my shadowy position to find a better vantage point. That way I'd be able to monitor their conversation and, hopefully, still stay far out of view.

I backed away from where I was and glanced over my shoulder back down the street to make sure no one was watching, and then slipped down one of the alleyways so I could circle around to the back of the building I had been sneaking into around besides.

My investigation bore fruit within moments.

The building, one of the old west end theatres from before Gold Dawn, had a gaping hole in the side of one of the walls. When it was made I had no idea, but it served my purposes perfectly.

I made my way through the building and up a winding set of stairs until, eventually, I came to a ladder. I scampered up it as silently as I could and popped a hatch that led up onto the roof.

I tried to move as quietly as I could, though considering there was broken glass all over the roof that was difficult. In the future, I'd have to craft some kind of noise-cancelling shoes. That would help during espionage missions such as this one.

Being up at the top of a building made it difficult to hear them, so I brought my gauntlet up to my ear and engaged one of its other features. When I placed my thumb and index finger together into a circle the gauntlet enhanced audio, allowing me to hear things from further away.

"And if you see those kids? Cut them straight down," Phet snarled, a glint of bloodlust in his eye.