Mark watched the gangsters closely, their security envelope tightened around their boss as she leaned against the bar counter, the mechanical tail that extended from her lower back swished back and forth in a low steady rhythm as she stared down Mark. After a few moments of tense silence she finally spoke
"Who the fuck are you?"
Mark showed a smile but remained silent, to Serlina that was answer enough and so she snapped her fingers and one of the gangsters drew his pistol to fire at Mark, or he would have as Mark's sword came flying only stopping right before it buried itself in his right eye
"Come on now, that's rude"
Serlina gazed at the sword that floated in front of her subordinate's eye, even though she wasn't showing it, Mark could smell the fear that she was starting to give off, even from across the room as he opened his hand and recalled his blade which land in his grasp before he stabbed it back into the mutilated corpse at his side once more and leaned back
"Speaking of rude, when I arrived here at the station a few hours ago I ran into some brats that shoved weapons in my face and demanded payment for breathing the air, can you believe that?"
Serlina, the boss of the Iron Snakes started at the devil as he had called himself that sat leisurely across the room from her, despite the distance she didn't feel safe in the slightest and wanted very much to scream and run away. However, she was the Boss of the Iron Snakes, if she ran now her reputation would plummet and it wouldn't be far off before she would turn up dead in some alleyway. With this in her mind she put out a tough front and spoke arrogantly
"Well, business have been tough lately, so we have had to seek other sources of income"
Mark nodded a few times before he asked
"So, now we're here, I've dismembered what? Almost 30 of your men? There about anyhow… So I would say the salaries you're now free of paying would do nicely for my fee, right?"
Serlina shut her mouth tightly, the dead men had families she would have to take care of, if she didn't morale would tank among her remaining men. Mark could see the mental calculus taking place on the face of the young mob boss and decided to throw her a bone
"Don't frown too hard child, say what, I'll throw you a bone… Tell me a name and I'll deliver a head, free of charge"
Serlina's frown deepened and just as she was about to refuse Mark lifted his hand which lifted his blade from the mutilated corpse before he lowered it again, stabbing it through the corpse once more making it clear she couldn't refuse this 'offer'
"...Cardinal Albert"
Mark nodded and rose from the chair before he walked halfway towards Serlina and her bodyguards, there he stopped and extended his hand. Serlina stared at his for a few moments before she walked out from between her bodyguards and met him in the middle where she offered her hand
As Mark grasped her hand, Serlina felt her vision go white before her knees nearly buckled before Mark grabbed her by the shoulder and steadied her for a moment before he let go of her hand and clapped her on the shoulder twice, turned around and walked out of the bar stopping in the door where he lifted his hand and recalled his sword
"Don't wait up~"
With that Mark walked out into the street and quickly disappeared from view, Serlina's knees finally gave out as she sat down on the floor, one of her subordinates walked over to her and asked
"Ser, should we keep taps on him?"
Serlina shook her head before she commanded
"Help Madam Carol rebuild her bar, I want this place spotless and open for business by tomorrow"
-
After Mark left the bar behind he didn't immediately start looking for his target, instead he found a mothballed section of the station and began practicing the control over his sword. By now he had realized that this blade wasn't just some random hunk of metal, however his memories of its creation was still too fractured for him to make any sense of it
'It responds well, no matter if it's a simple swing, a stab or the same feeling I utilize to fly… Is this thing a physical extension of me?'
Mark that floated around in the unpowered, unpressurised, dilapidated street threw the sword ahead before he manoeuvred it around a corner and doubled it back towards him through a side ally where he caught it again
'Hmm… Well, whatever you are, you are clearly friend-shaped, so you must be friend'
Mark reabsorbed the blade back into his body before he floated over to the wall and punched it, once then twice before the paneling was bent enough that he could press his hand in between the gap and access the Ficer crystal below. After connecting to the station's SubNet Mark began looking for his target
'Oh? A religion turned drug dealer and manufacturer?'
The Order of the Yellow Star had dropped their pretence about 50 years ago, and while they still seemed to have temples in several hundreds star systems the order seemed to be mostly shattered into different criminal elements. Of course, the religious maniacs would most likely argue that their 'zaza' was the closest anyone would ever get to meeting God
'...I don't think I've ever fed on a junkie, maybe I should pickle a few to eat as they go through withdrawal?'
Musing about how a junkie's negative emotions would taste Mark broke into encrypted networks and scrapped data which he quickly organized and cataloged while dazing off. Around a day after he had begun looking into The Order of the Yellow Star he had successfully located the local leader, Cardinal Albert
'...Well then, time to go and get him'
Mark moved quickly, by now he looked over the entire schematics of Towo station and gained access to most of the maintenance corridors and empty buildings where he could speed through without worrying about prying eyes and soon he arrived at one of the smaller temples
'Well, as far as temples go, it's nothing special'
The white marble exterior and staircase was polished well, despite the grand appearance the holy steps was filled with people shooting syringes into their arms with the orders logo on them, run-down addicts were passed out on the polished steps along with believers in formal robes, euphoria on their faces
'Well, it's quite novel if you take in the picture as a whole I guess…'
Mark leaned back against the wall of an alley and waited, he had thrown out quite the delicious bait, so now all he needed was to wait for the fish to show up and bite and within the hour a large convoy of inter station transports showed up, Mark waited for the protective detail to spread out and secure the area
'There he is…'
The old man in a golden yellow robe was easy to spot amongst the crowd, Mark didn't wait for him to greet the gathered believers before his sword flew out like a rocket and served the preachers head, before any of the bodyguards managed to react he had stabbed the severed head through the middle and dragged it away down an alley. As the situation quickly deteriorated Mark simply pushed off the wall and walked away from the scene of the crime, 2 blocks away he grabbed his sword as it came flying and pulled the served head off it
"Hmm… Yep, that's the cardinal alright"
Not only his face matched with the identity Mark had dug up, but also the sickly sweet moral superiority most corrupt religious leaders carried with them told Mark all he needed to know, so he simply absorbed the head into his body and went on his way
'The Iron Snake's seat of power is near the main logistic bus on the opposite side of the station… Meh, Serlina should be keeping tabs on Carol's bar, so that will do nicely as a meeting place'
Thus with his destination decided Mark made his way towards Carol's bar, no doubt to the grief of the owner
-
"Boss"
Hearing her darling call out to her, Serlina woke up with a start. She hadn't expected to sleep well since she had met with the monstrous stranger but her rest had been completely calm, she had even had a few pleasant dreams
'...Ugh'
Still nausea rose from the pit of her stomach as she remembered the monstrous stranger, particularly the sound of all the viscera that covered him suddenly slipping off and hitting the floor continued to haunt her
"Ser?"
"...I'm fine, what is it?"
"He has shown up again… Along with the head of Cardinal Albert"
Serlina closed her eyes again and rubbed her forehead for a few moments before eventually asking
"What about the junkies?"
Serlina felt a headache coming, now that the Stranger had shown up carrying the head of the junkies boss in her territory thing would quickly devolve into full on war, at least it should have
"They are tearing themselves apart, I don't have the full picture but it's far more brutal than any normal succession fight ought to be"
Serlina let out a sigh as she imagined the smug grin of the monstrous stranger before she propelled herself out of bed by her bionic tail into the arms of her fiancé. The two shared a kiss before she flashed the smile James had fallen in love and spoke beaming with confidence
"Let's go see what this... Devil wants"