A x WHOLE x NEW x WORLD
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
NATION OF X'OMMERA — THE HAGG CARTEL — WAREHOUSE
One second Triple Kill was leaving a neon dystopia and the next: money, metal, and motion.
The warehouse was fully operational.
Men in cartel colors moved through the aisles with purpose.
Crates rolled past on tracks, one after another.
Weapons mods, Emitter parts.
Welding torches spat embers, then cut out.
Orders passed in low tones and quick hand signals. The air tasted like oil and ion static.
Set’s pupils thinned. His ears picked up every scrape, every lock, every click of a magazine being loaded.
Riven watched hands. Some relaxed. Others hovering near their waistline.
“This place is every twisted person’s wet dream,” Talla joked while clocking the scaffolding, entries, exits.
This wasn’t where junkies paraded around like made men the way they did in the betting halls.
Triple Kill had just walked through the front door of a whole new world and everyone was a predator.
They made it a few steps in before one of the men called out:
“Ayo Otto, got news for you, baby.”
Otto gestured back toward TK, asking for a moment, then headed toward the call.
Another cartel member passed by and tossed something to Riven.
“Bet you never seen one of these.”
An inch long, cylinder-shaped with a blue glow. Some sort of munitions.
Riven tossed it to Set.
“Nope. What are we looking at?”
“Burst rounds. WBG’s newest donation,” the man said before grabbing the round from Set and continuing on.
Before they could question what a burst round was or who the hell the WBG even was, Otto returned.
“Come. You’ll wanna hear this.”
They followed him toward the center of the room. About a hundred men stood there, all focused on the same man they’d seen at the UCL — the one with the collared shirt and the tattoos.
Gable.
He stood on a raised platform made from two shipping pallets and a steel sheet. A dozen lieutenants flanked him.
Otto slid into place beside Gable’s right shoulder. He didn’t say a word. Triple Kill stopped a few paces behind them, each of them reading the room in their own way.
There was a kind of pressure in the room that only comes before something irreversible.
Gable lifted his chin, eyes sweeping the room like he was choosing who he still trusted.
"Sweep wasn't random,"
A few murmurs that sounded like everyone cursing under their breathe.
"Someone's talking but the rat will be dealt with." Gable continued.
"They sent their message, now it's our turn."
Gable reached into a crate beside him and pulled out a smooth black case — the same one Otto handed off at Lilly's nights ago. Same size. Same markings; THE MECHA PROJECT. Except now it was locked with a three-sigil seal glowing faint red.
He held it up by the handle.
"And we're sending ours express."
No one in the warehouse said a word. A deafening contrast from the world it was minutes ago.
Just a hundred men bracing themselves for whatever he was about to say next.
“Tonight we take back our rails. HN-7. Northbound. I'm hearing they lightened their guard on purpose. They think we're dumb"
Gable’s smile didn’t match his eyes.
"So let's do some dumb shit."
He dropped the case onto the metal sheet. The echo carried.
“And then we pay Zeraphen a visit.”
That made the room shift.
Zeraphen wasn’t local territory. It wasn’t even Cartel territory. Hitting a ferry or High Noon depot there would only be labeled one thing.
Terrorism.
And Gable didn’t care.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣