“That’s my girl, she’s always been a mad woman, even as a child she was far too smart,” said Honzo as Seven pushed his wheelchair out of the elevator. They were both covered in food, and Seven could tell by how Honzo’s guards were looking at him that how the pair were interacting must have been an uncommon sight for them all.

  Seven and Honzo had slung dishes full of food and anything else they could get their hands on, even after his guard had decided to cut Seven’s neck open. He’d barely dodged the blade and been forced to beat down four of the man’s guards before Honzo had called them off, somehow landing on a tensionless situation where Honzo felt the need to share with Seven seemingly everything Honzo had experienced while being a single father.

  The pair waited until sunrise for Vivid to turn up, and it wasn’t until the streets around the bar became busy with the morning traffic that Seven began to feel as if Vivid wouldn’t show up.

  Seven and Honzo were depending on one another for any semblance of sanity. As Vivid’s father was on the verge of a mental break, while her lover was coming to understand the fury of what losing a loved one felt like for the first time in his life.

  The worry threatened to cripple them both, with every bit of information they learned waiting for Vivid, the more they both knew something was wrong.

  Honzo’s Swords weren’t the most skilled investigators Seven had ever witnessed, but still they managed to uncover details that led Honzo and Seven to believe Vivid was either kidnapped, or worse.

  Footage from a compromised Graveyard officer revealed her entering a RaidCorp platform, and exiting the floor, heading toward an administration building Honzo was familiar with.

  Seven could tell that Honzo knew something by his reaction to the footage, but didn’t know how to broach the subject.

  He is so much like my dad, I bet getting answers to questions of any kind will be like pulling teeth… I’ll probably just end up even more frustrated than I already am.

  They arrived at Honzo’s penthouse and entered to an only slightly destroyed condo. Repairs had been done. Most of the appliances had been replaced along with the carpet, but Seven could still see blood stains on the unpainted walls.

  “Sparks,” cursed Seven, visibly wincing at the sight.

  “Ha, you must be used to your father’s antics by now, boy. Don’t act bashful just because you want to be with my daughter,” said Honzo. Seven shrugged, smirking as he glanced behind himself to see Honzo’s guards close the front door before standing at attention to either side of the entrance.

  “I suppose I am, but that doesn’t mean that I want to be,” said Seven, sitting as Honzo gestured toward a nearby couch.

  “Vivid is the same way, I wanted her to be a queen pin, and she just wants to be a model. If she wasn’t so bloody beautiful, I’d have wished I had a boy instead, someone like you even,” said Honzo with a laugh. Seven shook his head smiling.

  “Just give me time, sir, I’ll find Vivid and if she wants to keep me around, I’ll make an honest woman of her,” said Seven. Honzo’s brow rose as he gave Seven a stern side eye and Seven felt his face heat, realizing exactly what he’d just said without the slightest bit of hesitation.

  “Oh yeah, young man, we’ll see about that…”

  They continued to talk and before Seven knew what was happening their discussion landed on Graveyard and their interaction with Honzo’s Swords. Seven was worried he’d crossed a line at first, but after a while he began to feel like he was talking like his father in a room full of crime lords, or breaking bread with a rival leader.

  “You seem pretty engrained in this resort. Why here of all places? With an organization your size, wouldn’t you be be better off ruling a slums in any of the major realm cities,” asked Seven, wanting to know what it was that lead Honzo to live in RaidCorp Coliseum.

  “When I came here as a young man, I was told that everything I wanted was going to be paid for, and as many young men do, I believed that I’d made friends with people that had my best interests at heart, and before I knew it a week long celebration turned into me getting abandoned and left behind with a bill for dozens of people that I felt at the time I’d never see again.”

  Seven’s eyes widened and he cursed under his breath, unable to imagine what the situation must have been like for Honzo.

  “Did you, ever see them again, I mean?” asked Seven, and even before Honzo answered, Seven knew the answer by the man’s smile alone.

  “Of course I did, the fools returned season cycles later after I’d formed the Swords and managed to pay my debts off and even managed to buy this building, believe it or not, the result of my revenge resulted in this room being far more bloody than even what your father put us through recently,” said Honzo as the corner of his mouth rose in a faint smile, Seven returning his own astonished smirk, before opening his mouth to speak, only to be stunned into an immediate silence.

  “Breach!”

  What in the sparks was that, thought Seven; a runically inscribed stone orb flying in through the closed balcony door, shattering the glass before it rolled to a stop at their feet.

  “Son of a—” started Honzo. The man cut off by a blaring light and a boom that ruptured the eardrums of everyone in the room.

  Seven felt himself scream, but heard nothing as his hands shot to his ears. His mind was thrust into a state of emergency under the duress of the flash bang.

  Men and women filled the room, and chaos bloomed. Seven only aware that he was being surrounded due to the vibrations being sent through the floor as Graveyard officers stormed into every floor of the building simultaneously.

  He dove to the ground, and tried to crawl in the direction he knew the door was located in, finding himself able to hear slight sounds the further away from the runic flash bang he managed to get.

  What in the bloody embers is going on here!

  Seven screamed as someone stepped on his back as they rushed through the room. He turned over to see Swords and Graveyard officers in a skirmish of spells, bladed weaponry and mana fueled rifles and pistols.

  Hearing more incoming footfalls, Seven rolled out of the way of the doorway as more Swords ran into Honzo’s condo. He lost count of the number of gangsters that entered, pushing himself to a crouch.

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  It’s time to get out of here Seven, move!

  He dashed as fast as he could, staying low and out the line of fire. He barely made it out of the door. Almost tackled by an officer trying to capture anyone that was still upright and moving within the room.

  Seven dove and the man still got a hold of his ankle. The Cultivator far faster than Seven’s mortal capabilities. The strength of the grip around his leg on the verge of snapping his bone with seeming ease.

  Uncaring of how powerful his captor was, Seven kicked out at the man’s knee as fast as he could. However, his strike was feeble, regardless of how perfectly it had been aimed; the officer laughing at a blow that Seven had given his all.

  “Young master,” yelled a voice behind Seven. A familiar voice that drew both his and the officer’s attention, just before a gunshot rang out and the grip around Seven’s ankle lessened dramatically.

  Seven looked over his shoulder to see his guard team rushing down the stairs that led to the roof toward him, and then back toward the massive hole in the Graveyard officer’s head. Brain matter completely splattered all over the wall beside Honzo’s door.

  “Honzo’s inside, we have to go get him,” screamed Seven as he was yanked to his feet and dragged bodily back toward the stairs.

  “No time, young master, we must go now!”

  Seven felt as if he took a single deep breath, and his security team had already traversed the distance between where they’d picked him up, and the getaway vehicle. He was slung into the rear of his father’s car followed by his security team as they fired on the officers trying to enter the building through the rooftop entrance.

  “Go, go, go!”

  The car took off into the air, and Seven cursed, punching the seat beside him in frustration.

  “I left him, I bloody left him. She’s never going to forgive me!”

  “You have bigger issues to worry about than some street rats, son…”

  Seven turned to see his father smiling in his direction; fear filling him as his eyes met the cold gaze of the man who raised him.

  “It’s time to talk about your choices, my son…”

  …

  “Welcome, welcome, welcome!”

  Lane smiled into the camera orb floating just behind her as she walked down the completely packed strip. Arson and the rest of the builders watched her live broadcast as Arson handed them all disguises to wear.

  “As a member of BlackHole Conglomerate, I am excited to present you all with another pop up celebration hosted by, the Builders of Godhood!”

  Khalif looked at the security guard outfits being handed out by Arson in confusion, looking over to Micro in question. The young Cultivator shrugged, smiling back at Khalif as she mouthed a silence response.

  “I have no idea…”

  Khalif’s confusion only grew once he noticed that Arson had not only had enough outfits to clothe them all, but also gotten their sizes all perfect. Not even a single change needed, all the way down to the shoes, hats and ties that completed the uniforms.

  Khalif looked at Jasmine who wasn’t changing but making sure they all looked pristine in their getups; fixing buttons, straightening ties and even applying cufflinks.

  “Did you make these for us?”

  Jasmine frowned, and shook her head.

  “No, why?”

  It was Khalif’s turn to frown as his brow furrowed as he looked between the still dressing Arson, and back toward Jasmine.

  “We just gonna act like him pulling out a full security teams worth of clothing down to the bloody dress socks is normal,” said Khalif in an alarmed whisper. Jasmine seemed to think for a moment, nodding to herself with pursed lips as her every imagined reason was more unreasonable than the last. She lifted a pointed finger and opened her mouth to speak as if she had an appropriate response, only to close her mouth and continue nodding to herself in thought.

  “Nope, got nothing…”

  Rob stood and turned around, feeling an odd draft and reached behind himself, only then noticing that the black dress shirt was ripped. He took off the shirt and looked at it a second time, gasping as he only then noticed the slash mark that ran through the back of the shirt diagonally. A patch of dried blood preserved perfectly in a large section across the back of the clothing catching the light as Rob lifted it.

  “Yo, bossman, I need another shirt, please!”

  Arson didn’t even glance toward the shocked face rob, throwing him another shirt to his relief. Troy chuckled at the shocked faces of her friends, shrugging before she turned back to watch Lane’s broadcast.

  “We got drinks, we got games, we got everything but discounts,” yelled Lane as she clinked wine glasses with a stranger on camera.

  “Man, that girl is a pro,” said Xani tucking in her dress shirt.

  “For sure, she gets better at this every day, I remember the first time she interviewed Arson and seemed nervous, really wasn’t all that long ago if you think about it,” said Troy with a slight smile crossing her face as she looked over at Arson while he fixed his wild mane into a bun. Arson nodding in agreement as he adorned the chauffeur cap customary for RaidCorp guards.

  “That video got me through a lot of rough times while I was in Endless,” said Arson, glancing at Troy.

  “Oh yeah?” asked Troy surprised.

  “He watched your fights more than anything else,” said Micro underneath her breath, causing Troy to blush and Arson to smile.

  “Normally to shop on our strip you would need to be one of our many subscribers, but until sunset, everyone gets in free with all VIP accommodations,” yelled Lane, dancing skillfully on screen to the DJ playing popular music loud enough to be heard throughout the entire strip. The speakers even vibrating the walls of the conference room they all stood in.

  “Well, guys, you all look perfect, I’m gonna go help Lane,” said Jasmine with a playful bow before she exited. Arson waved a hand through the air once Jasmine appeared on screen, shutting off the wall screen and turning to his team.

  “You all ready?”

  He received nods all around, glad to see that none of his friends looked the slightest bit nervous. Their group had come a long way in a short period of time, and Arson was invigorated, feeling that the camaraderie he’d set out to build while on vacation was no longer a dream.

  Not quite perfect, but we’ll get there, thought Arson, glancing between Troy and Micro.

  He turned and exited the conference room; the rest of builders following him to the elevator. The group emerged, onto the forested floor filled with portals, to see one of the recovered security vans his team had driven off a cliff.

  Xani had managed to completely restore the least damaged of the three security vans with Khalif’s help. With the use of his shadow teleportation abilities, they’d managed to retrieve the van from the cliffside. Arson glad that the value of the vans were like that of trash to RaidCorp; the company leaving the vehicles to rust and decay.

  “Please, Maiden, let this go smooth for us all,” said Arson in a murmur as he jumped into the driver seat.

  “Opening the portal now!” yelled Xani from the back of the van as Troy climbed in beside Arson.

  “Got it!”

  Arson ran through the plan mentally from beginning to end. His worries lay with their entry and their exit alone, as Xani had found that entering the treasure troves that could be found in the perimeter wall of the resort’s lowest floor was actually next to impossible unless a singular portal was used.

  This portal could only be found in one of the many guard stations throughout the level, and entry to that sight was more guarded than any other location Arson had seen throughout the resort thus far.

  He cleared his mind of his worries and put on a pair of sunglasses, preparing himself while the portal opened in front of the van. The van’s engine thrummed to life and Arson couldn’t help but smile as he pushed the vehicle forward, entering the guard station just before the final security checkpoint.

  The vehicle descended into a tunnel that lead to a handful of guards that would check the van for incoming valuables, as well as make sure that nothing dangerous such as explosives or infiltration bugs used to hack runic systems had been snuck into the vehicle

  The tunnel was rather long, but Xani had gathered enough information to insure that no other vehicles would be entering the guard depot at the same time as them. Arson stared straight as he came to a stop, guards approaching the van from all sides, waving handheld scanners from top to bottom of the vehicle.

  “They got one of the new vans, I’m jealous, my rig was old and beat up while they had me running drop offs,” said one of the guards as he scanned the van. Arson smirked, glancing into the rear view mirror as a pair of guards opened up the back door. Arson held his breath as they looked inside, praying that the scanners wouldn’t uncover the runic work Xani had done to the back of the van.

  The guards opened the doors, and Arson saw the guard on his side of the van give a nod to the two of his peers he believed to be standing in the back of the van. While in reality, what the guard was seeing was Khalif and Rob standing in a shipping container filled with stolen diamond bricks, with a portal that was fixed to the back of the van, its edges perfectly aligned to give the appearance identical to the van’s rear.

  While in reality Micro and Xani stood behind the portal in the back of the van unmoving as the van was scanned. Xani and Arson had completed the creation of their current smuggling vehicle with ease, but Arson knew that the job would have been impossible without his mother’s help to Arson’s grudging annoyance.

  Don’t think I’ll be able to ignore the use of portals for very much longer, they seem more and more useful with everything we do now…

  He wanted to learn as much about portals as possible, but struggled knowing that his mother was his best bet at getting a true education in portals and gateways. He’d had time to cool off, but didn’t know if he could ever forgive Jade for what he believed she’d done to him, and for not telling him who she truly was to him.

  Now is not the time to be thinking about that Arson, we got work to do!

  Arson was finally able to take a deep breath as the doors of the van were closed, and the gate stopping them from entering was opened, allowing Arson to drive into the security depot. He continued down the long tunnel and eventually emerged into a parking area full of open gateways that led to various points all over the resort, from the bottom floor they were now on, to the floating sky islands at the top of the amusement park only accessible by the affluent.

  Vans drove in every direction around them, and Arson was glad that Xani had mapped out the entire area before they’d entered. The depot far larger than Arson originally assumed it would be.

  His mind flickered to all the open gateways, as an errant thought intrusively invaded his mind.

  Who built this portal system? It couldn’t be, thought Arson, realizing that the structure they were inside was shown to be far smaller than the space Xani and he had looked over while analyzing blueprints.

  It is, it bloody has to be…

  His mother was the most recognized expert of portals, spatial pockets and gateways in the entire realm layer. Which made him wonder, had his mother been paid to build the portal system throughout RaidCorp Coliseum.

  No way… Is that why she had that coin that she gave me?

  It only struck Arson in the moment that they approached the gateway that led toward their chosen destination, that it was odd that Jade had access to a direct portal for a resort in Maelstrom, his blood running cold as the guards waved him through the portal.

  “Guys,” said Arson as he drove them through the portal, the van entering the building they planned to rob.

  “I think we might be in trouble…!”