Frank's Tale

Frank took a deep breath and began.

"It all started back when we were newly awakened on our first mission. Hank and I had a mission which involved going out of the Institute.

I don't want to bore you with the details.

Anyways, we completed the mission and were heading back when we noticed suspicious activity down in the city.

We didn't think much of it.

A couple of guys were offloading stuff off some hovercraft and into some warehouses. Hank and I thought they belonged to the Merchant Union, you know. Our family is part of the Merchant Union too, so we ignored them and went our way.

Over the next couple of months, we encountered those guys a little too regularly so we begun to get suspicious. 

They were always offloading stuff and that too at odd hours; midnight, 2AM, 3AM.

The Merchant Union doesn't work like that.

The Union sends bulk shipments of products mostly monthly with only a special few occasions where it would be sent regularly.

Even then, unpacking or offloading is done in the morning, broad daylight or in the evening around 6PM.

It's easy to identify a Merchant Union shipment by the tags on it and the Mercenary guards around in grey nano armor.

These guys though were receiving shipments daily, in both small and large quantities.

We called my dad and asked him if the Merchant Union was sending stuff over here like thrice a week and he was surprised.

Apparently, the Union had already completed all trades to be done for that month but these guys were still receiving shipments and packing it into warehouses.

That was when we decided to monitor them.

As you've noticed, or if you've not you will, Damien, getting out of the school is pretty easy. The Vice Chancellor doesn't care and so do the teachers.

Even without missions, students can easily go down to the city.

So Hank and I left the school and stayed over in the city for a couple of days. That's when we noticed that after they offloaded their cargo, every week, a hovercraft with the Merchant Union logo would come and pick it up in the morning.

That was when we realized that they were smuggling.

Whatever they were smuggling, we didn't know but they were smuggling it in large quantities to god knows where.

At that time, we were just peak-level Enlightenment realm awakened and we knew we couldn't do much of anything personally. After all, we don't have stealth powers and those watching over the shipment were many.

If I recall correctly, there were about twenty peak level Enlightenment realm awakened, thirteen or fifteen Advanced realm awakened at different levels and three Grand realm experts supervising. 

Sneaking in to investigate would be stupid.

Hank and I then decided to anonymously tip law enforcement agents off so we used my dad's channels and informed the Head of Law Enforcement here of the smuggling ring.

To our surprise, nothing happened.

The only thing which changed was that the smugglers lessened their frequency of smuggling to as low as once a month as compared to when they previously smuggled stuff on a weekly basis.

Also, they increased their vigilance and we were almost caught once.

That was when we knew the Law Enforcement guys were in cahoots with the smugglers.

This only meant that whoever ran that show had a lot of power and reach. After all, this city is pretty strict when it comes to law enforcement and also acquiring a Merchant Union hovercraft isn't easy.

We've always known how corrupt those law enforcers were but that was the first time we saw it firsthand.

We got cautious and decided to stop monitoring them to avoid landing into something way out of our league.

A couple of months passed, we went on vacation and while on vacation we came back to the city to meet up with our friend, our former roommate, Logan.

We had already told him about what was going on down there and he too lived around. While we had stopped monitoring, Logan was constantly tailing the smugglers.

Unfortunately, his luck ran out and he got caught.

Hank and I had to fight our way out of that warehouse against multiple Enlightenment realm and Advanced realm awakened while rescuing Logan.

We were lucky that for some reason, the Grand realm experts weren't around that night.

They chased us down but we managed to find a hiding space to evade them.

When they had left, we finally gave Logan an earful over the stunt he pulled but he wasn't even listening. In fact, he looked panicked.

We asked him why and he told us that he knew what those guys were smuggling.

Weapons, potions, parts of some machine, artifacts, even military grade nano armor!

These guys were deep into it." Frank took a pause to catch his breath.

Lyon and Damien looked at him with mouths agape.

"They're even smuggling military nano armor? And artifacts?!" Lyon was incredulous.

"You escaped from a warehouse filled with tens of Enlightenment realm and Advanced realm experts?!" Damien exclaimed in shock.

"Mm. It wasn't easy but we did it. It was a miracle in fact. We came out with some minor injuries here and there. It's all gone though so I have no scars to show," Frank replied.

"This is deep," Lyon sighed.

"That's not even the half of it. He noticed Merchant Union products too. Apparently stolen. Anyways, to cut it short, we started causing trouble for them.

Hank and I used some of our money to purchase a couple of explosives and other items guaranteed to make their lives a living hell.

It was fun.

We'd wear masks to hide our identity. Hank did most of the damage. He would make his hand gigantic and toss over the explosives from afar.

Before they'd realize, their stuff would go KABOOM!

We had several close calls where we almost got caught but we managed to get away. It felt really good.

Of course they put up measures and other stuff to obstruct the explosives Hank threw but it didn't work.

I think that's when they found out our identities and the rest, I'll leave it to your imagination," Frank shrugged.

Lyon's eyes narrowed. "So they discovered your identities, found out you were students here, paid Jonathan, or even he might be working for them, to injure Hank, especially his dominant hand... or potentially cripple him.

I take it that the hand he normally uses to toss the explosives is what Jonathan pierced?"

Frank nodded. "Yeah. His left hand is his preferred hand," he replied.

"But how do you know the Underworld is the one behind this?" Damien asked.

"Well, like I said earlier, the smugglers are a branch of the Underworld. They heavily operate in the Western and south western sectors.

The South western sectors have it worse. That's where their head honchos are," Lyon replied.

"Besides, Medusa's Tears is part of the potions they've been transporting. Most of them were poison so we looked at their labels and searched their uses on DAUN. Apart from Medusa's Tears there were memory confounding potions, aphrodisiacs, illegal berserk potions and all kinds of potions with horrible effects," Frank added.

"Shit," Damien muttered.

Lyon turned to Frank.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"I want to smash Jon's face in and destroy the warehouses of those bastards," Frank snarled.

"What happened to Logan?" Damien asked.

To that, Frank sighed. "We've not seen him for a while. He moved out to the city and since them we've never seen him again," he replied.

"They've probably silenced him then… or kidnapped him," Lyon said.

Damien let out a deep breath.

**

"Fuck!' Jonathan cursed in pain as he hobbled into his room.

His body was red and bruised with a couple of burns on his arms. Frank's attack earlier had hurt him even though it had been blocked by the instructor.

The one who had done the real damage though was Hank.

Jonathan felt like he had been rolled over by a tank.

Goddamn his whole body fricking hurt! The pain was agonizing.

It took all his willpower not to head to the medical center and get instant recovery.

With shaking hands, he reached for a potion in his wardrobe and without hesitation he gulped it down.

In seconds, his swelling had reduced and the pain had become tolerable.

"Good stuff," he praised.

He didn't have time to waste though. He had to notify them that he had completed the mission and his cover was almost blown if not blown already.

There'd be hell to pay for sure.

The Weber family would start hunting for him. After all, he had injured his son, if not crippled him.

The Institute wasn't safe for him anymore.

He felt claustrophobic here.

Jonathan Vargas, one of the top ten second year students, was planning to drop out of school.

Balancing both sides was proving to be difficult.

He was switching to the other side full time.

There, he wouldn't have to worry about revenge from Frank or the Weber family.

He'd be long gone and safe back at home with his uncle and brothers in the South Western sector.

They wouldn't be able to hurt him there because his uncle was the right hand man of one of the Capos.

With thoughts running through his mind, Jonathan quickly packed up a few necessary stuff and opened the door, ready to leave his residence and the Imperial Institute for good.

That was when he spotted a silver haired guy with green eyes waiting at his doorstep. He was handsome and stood there nonchalantly.

The intruder lifted his head to look at Jonathan and a light smile teased the corners of the his lips.

 Jonathan's eyes narrowed as he prepared to turn into his granite form. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Hello Jonathan. We need to talk," Ronnie Quentin smirked.