157: A Company of Fools: Demons of Sho’lajah I

"IRIS! COME ON! WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE!" I bellowed up the stairs of the dorm to Iris floor.

"I'm coming!" Iris yelled down to me.

I rolled my eyes as I stood at the bottom of the steps. She said that fifteen minutes ago. We were supposed to be at the shop by nine, and it was already eight forty. I was about to bellow up the stairs again when I saw Iris running down the stairs.

She was dressed differently than she usually did. Normally, she had some expensive looking dress or elegant pantsuit on, something that at least matched Jane's style of dress usually. Now, however, she was wearing a pair of leather pants with several pouches and a bowie knife strapped to her hip, a loose black blouse that she had tucked into her pants and black army style boots.

"What?" Iris said when she reached the bottom step and saw me staring.

"What's with the get up?" I asked, pointing to her clothes. Iris frowned and looked down at herself.

"You told me last night to wear something that I'd be comfortable fighting in." Iris said.

"That's comfortable? Those pants are tighter than miser's purse strings!" I exclaimed. Iris frowned.

"What are you, my mother?!" She griped.

"More like concerned brother who doesn't want hos sister looking like a ho-ho." I said. Iris eyes widened, and she placed her hands on her hips.

"I DO NOT LOOK LIKE A HO-HO!" She yelled.

The sound of a door opening behind us grabbed both our attention, and we turned to see Jane walking out of the kitchen. She froze when she saw us, and I could practically feel Iris tense up.

'Ah…shit…' I thought as I nervously rubbed the back of my neck. Jane and mine duel was only yesterday. There was still a feeling of unease when I was around her, and that feeling turned tenfold when Iris was around her. According to the report Iris got from Jangles, Jane came straight home after she left Baset's tower and remained in her room.

"You're going somewhere?" Jane finally asked and motioned to Iris and me.

"Yeah, we have a small problem brewing near the shop that we need to take care of, so I'm borrowing Iris for the day." I replied. "Don't worry about being here alone, I have Alpa'nagia patrolling the airspace around the lab, and the dorm and Bone-lasher is in my room. The two of them can take care of any problem that could pop up."

"I see…" Jane said, adopting her cold ice princess vibe. She walked past Iris and I with her head held high and walked up the stairs without another word.

'Figures she'd be a sore loser…' I thought. I looked over to Iris, who looked like someone had knocked the wind from her.

"Lady Jane…" Iris muttered as she watched her walk up the stairs and out of view. I slapped her on the back so hard she almost fell, then turned and walked towards the door.

"Give her time. It's only the first day." I said. Whatever biting remark Iris had froze on her throat. When I reached the door and turned to look at her, I found her staring at me with a thoughtful look on her face. "Come on, Tri-clops, we don't have all day."

Iris pursed her lips and rushed over to the door with me. She punched me in the arm as she got close, then pushed the door open and rushed outside.

"Yeah, you're welcome…" I muttered as I followed after her.

***

"Hey! Is anybody home?" I called out as Iris and I entered the shop.

Things were looking much better now, relative to how it looked after the looting. All the cluttered that had been accumulating inside the showroom had been cleared out along with the display cases. The old carpet that had been on the floor had been ripped up and was lying on the curb outside, and most of the walls had been stripped bare to the studs.

Jade and Nate walked out of the back of the shoo and smiled when they saw me.

"Chase!" They both exclaimed. Jade rushed over and gave me a hug, then motioned to the shop.

"How do you like the progress we made?" She asked.

"It's a big change. A couple of days ago, this building looked run down and looted." I said.

"You can thank Bo and Jade for this." Nate said he is chest puffed up work pride and admiration. "Bo brought back those Orkands two days ago, and work just became a breeze."

I helped Bo splice two more Orkands before Baset's class and had him take them home. According to the report he gave yesterday after class, they were doing well, but I wasn't expecting them to have gotten so much work done.

"Once you show them how to do something, they learn it very quickly. Frankly, I think it would be easier to hire a skilled contractor and have him teach the orkands how to remodel the shop." Nate said. I scratched my chin and nodded.

"If they do learn fast, then that could be a good alternative. That way, we'll have builders and maintenance workers in house…" I said.

"I've heard of evos doing manual labor but not construction." Iris spoke up.

"Well, most evos don't have the intelligence for it. Ones that can talk are rare, so there's usually a language barrier since most craftsmen and maintenance workers are notmies like me." Nate explained.

"Yeah, that's true. Though there are ways around that. Techno-splicing factories often use evos to help cut down on labor. They more commonly use Fey-Fey's in order to cut down on secretaries and perimeter security." I said.

"Speaking of security. Sin is out behind the shop waiting for you." Jade piped up. I smiled and nodded at her.

"Thanks, we were supposed to be here a while ago, but somebody was taking too long to get ready…" I said, giving Iris side eye. Iris rolled her eyes and turned to head back out the door. I snickered and turned to follow after her. "…either way, keep up the good work!"

Iris and I walked outside and made our way around to the back of the building. We found Sin sitting on a discarded chair with no back. The moment he laid eyes on us, his expression, which had been spur, had already turned annoyed.

"About time you made it, Boss." Sin grumbled.

"Yeah, I know we're late. Blame this one for taking so damn long to get dressed." I said, pointing at Iris. Iris frowned and slapped me on my shoulder.

"Will you stop telling everyone that!" Iris snapped.

"Get ready quicker next time!" I snapped back. She rolled her eyes and then looked to Sin. He had a wholly amused look on his face at watching our interaction.

"Glad I'm not the only one that finds the boss annoying at times." Sin said.

"If you think he's annoying now, try living with him in the dorms. Some nights, it's all I can do to not kill him in his sleep." Iris grumbled.

"Awww, I love you too, Tri-clops." I said, then patted her on the head. Iris growled and glared at me, and I decided it was probably best I stopped fooling around. "So, Sinner, what was so important that you needed Bo to send Gadet to pass me a note in the middle of the night?"

"Red dragons, or rather more remnants of them." Sin stood up and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red and gold bandana. "This new group calls themselves the high fire dragons. This bandana is how they show they're a member. I got attacked yesterday by a large group of them. Apparently, there is a hit out on me, Jade, Nate, and you for our involvement in destroying the original red dragons."

"A hit?" Iris muttered.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Sin smirked and nodded.

"Yeah, Pogs took care of them. I didn't have to lift a finger." He said proudly. His expression turned serious in an instant, and he crossed his arms. "However, this is a problem. If there is a gang hit out on the four of us, the future of the shop is going to be pretty dicey. We'll be attacked every day until we take care of this problem."

"Geez and here I thought I was done fighting gangsters…" I groaned.

"What sort of information do you have on these high fire dragons?" Iris asked. Sin arched a brow at her inquisitively but answered anyway.

"They're comprised of mostly old members of the red dragons, I'd say about two hundred of them. Only fifteen or so would be splicers. They have a surprisingly high number of evos, though." Sin explained.

"What do you mean?" Iris asked.

"Evos are hard to come by here, and the last leader of the red dragons worked hard to make sure only a select few could get their hands on what you need to make an evo." I explained.

"So most gangs in the city only have a few splicers with evos and only one or two at max. The ones that attacked me had fifteen thrads." Sin added.

"Fifteen thrads!" I exclaimed, then scratched my chin. "Where the hell would they get that many thrads?"

"My point exactly. There should still be a shortage of splicing catalysts in the silver and bronze cities. It should be hard for them to make one thrad, let alone fifteen." Sin said. Iris stared off into the distance for a moment and tapped her chin.

"They have to have a backer. Someone supplying them with evos." Iris said. Sin nodded, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of cloth, and handed it to me.

"This was also on one of the fire dragons." He said. I took the cloth and opened it, there was the name of a company on it. I froze as I read the name in my head, and my blood went cold in my veins. Iris, who had been looking over my shoulder, read it aloud.

"Justice Technologies…Justice that's a weird name for a company…wait why does that name sound familiar…?" Iris said.

"Because the CEO of the company is General Beaufort T. Justice." I said through gritted teeth.

"Beaufort…?" Iris muttered dubitatively, then her eyes widened as realization hit. "The American general you made a deal with in order to get out of America!"

"Yeah…him!" I spat. "Before I left America, he used me, and that ascended thrad I caught in order to help build himself a techno-splicing company funded by the government, of course. My parents became the lead scientists there."

"Well, can you talk to your parents and see if they can stop the company from sending them evos?" Sin asked.

"Fat chance of that! My parents are dead to me." I grumbled. Sin sighed and crossed his arms.

"Well then, we're going to have to do this the hard way."

"What's the hard way?" Iris asked.

"Fighting, destruction, and general chaos." Sin said with a smirk. Iris groaned and shook her head.

"So all the things Star Child here specializes in." She said, motioning to me.

"It's why I called the boss rather than try and do this on my own. I know the location of one of the fire dragons hideouts. It's an old office building about three miles from here. Good place to start." Sin said.

"Start what? What exactly is the plan?" Iris asked.

"Start looking for the leaders of the high fire dragons. If we can find them and convince them to rescind the hit, then we'll be golden." I said.

"And barring that we can just kill them if push comes to shove and then people will know not to mess with Sho'lajah artifact company." Sin added.

"Okay…I'm starting to wish I had stayed home…." Iris groaned. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled Iris close.

"Too late for that! We got some gangster to put in their place!" I exclaimed happily. Iris groaned and dropped her head.

"Let's get going then. We'll take Twilight since he's a lot smaller than Grimm-Guard." Sin said. "Twilight!"

The void drake' crystalline structure formed and shot from Sin's farm crystal in the vacant lot beside the shot. Twilight emerged from the structure with a thundering roar and stretched his wings to the sky.

"Great Sinner…Star Shaper. How can I be of service to you?" Twilight asked as he looked down at the three of us.

"We got a job to do Twilight, I need you to be fast and ready to kick some ass." Sin said. Twilight hissed loudly and spat a small ball of black and blue flames into the air.

"I am always ready!"