Note from the author: This story is made for fun and with the intention of entertain the readers. The author doesn’t condone many, if not all, of the activities depicted here. Just come, have fun and that is it :3 And, of course, don’t do these things in real life!
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Aaah, such a lovely morning, right? The sun is up high, there are a few clouds for those that want some shade to rest under, it is not too hot or too cold, the birds are singing, the city is busy with life and it is Friday, with school already over and most people’s workloads already lessened. It is about time that people relaxed and enjoyed life.
But, you know, not everyone can do it.
“And you know why? Because you messed up.”
Landart Beach, maybe a place that, in any other circumstance, would have had a more ‘normal’ name, but right now, in this world, that had been the name of the founder, and the founder had been a crab that spouted whatever came to mind first. It had a beach, and he said Landart, cute? Hope so, because no one can change the damn thing.
Despite the name, and the original small size, the now quite busy city grew up over time. It went from a simple port village with a large beach area that attracted the occasional noble or rich person, to a bullicious city that had one of the more famous and well cared beaches of the region, though it was not yet amongst the top ten in the world. One of the reasons this city had a bad reputation that harmed its image was, to put it simply, the bad neighborhood.
It wasn’t exactly what you’d expect, but yes, this pristine and beautiful looking city was, without a doubt, one of those gems with a rotten core. Much like an apple it could shine, but if you dig too deep you could find a worm, and in this city’s case it was that the youngest generations had been getting steadily worse, more rowdy and, in some cases, very controlling.
Truth be told, this was like everywhere else, if you didn’t look deeper. All over the world things had changed with time, be it political beliefs, certain ideals, the rise and fall of music trends and other such things. Some still held to disco music like if it was a lifeline, while others were of the few people that looked down on certain species when most of the world had moved away from racism and other such superficial things. In that way Landart was not exactly strange, as there had always been a big rift between the rich and the middle class in here.
The problem was that, unlike in most places, in here the problem was being aggravated by certain people.
However, who was the one behind it? Or maybe it was a group that manipulated everyone else? There was always someone crooked or guiding others to do their bidding, in most cases they also had everything tidied up, ready for any kind of problem.
But, much like almost any civilization, there is always a time when a simple mistake can just disassemble everything.
“I made myself clear, you know perfectly well what you have to do, how to control everything, and what you have at your disposal to do it.”
In this case, and after nearly two hundred years of planning, it only took a single year for a wrench to lodge itself firmly in this perfectly oiled machine.
“So then, tell me: How did this one get here?”
Close to the beach, near the hill that ends up in a step fall that would be Landart’s Fall, a coastal waterfall that came directly from the nearest mountain, lied many manors and other opulent buildings. From extravagant to simple, yet luxurious, this area was to be the home of the most prestigious and rich, the golden gate of Landart’s best. In appearance it was a normal residence for the rich, but in some of those houses were things that no normal person could even consider to be simply decent.
One of them, though, had something worse: A brain and an executor.
The first voice, digitalized but calm, hid between the shadows of its home. No meeting had been ever carried out under any kind of light, fear, paranoia and careful planning always painting the perfect picture of normalcy from the outside, but doing a poor job of giving a calm exterior when it came to the inside. The owner of this house had been a paranoid wreck that was only truly happy when everything went its way, going so far as to conduct these meetings in the open, yet with extreme caution.
Now? Now that calm was shattered.
“I assure you that it was nothing more than a simple slip…”
The second voice wasn’t as quiet or as collected, but in the same way it was hidden behind a device that made it sound as improbable as the other figure. Neither of them could see each other, both being in a certain spot, far away from the other, both for their safety and to escape from temptation. This kind of meeting had, in times past, ended up with one figure less.
“I would like for you to stop trying to make a fool out of yourself. It is not funny and I know you are not an idiot.” The first voice grew harsher despite still sounding neutral. “Now, tell me why.”
There was a moment of silence. “The papers came just as you left.” But the tension was still there. “You had to leave too fast, I could not finish everything in time, and not only that, but you mixed those papers with some of the regular orders that I was told not to even look at. Not saying it was your fault, but that damn business trip took you too long and made you leave too fast.”
“True, true…” The first voice hummed. “I cannot fault you for that; we have this system for a reason… But it still doesn’t explain why they are still here and why the problem is yet to be fixed.”
The second voice winced. “That is my fault, and I will not shy away from it. I took notice way too late, three months too late in fact.”
A chuckle could be heard. “Not unexpected. It would be another paying family, another moneybags that came during summer, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that would raise an alarm. Heading out just after summer ended was a mistake indeed… But we have contingencies, and you didn’t use them.”
“Indeed. But at first I thought nothing of it, not until I read the trimestral report that told me the position of English teacher had been filled. The thing was that the teacher was not… doing what he was supposed to.” Another wince, this time more pronounced, echoed within the room. “The man didn’t, well… go for it.”
“You mean to say that he didn’t go with the flow, right?”
“Yes boss, the rest of the teachers, even the ones that are already more than pliant, were ignored. He was more than happy with his job and just shrugged the problem altogether as if it was his imagination.”
“Did you try to do anything?”
“No, boss.”
“Smart. I suppose you read his bio then?”
“Indeed. New rich people, if they come from such a working family, tend to not be all that easy to manipulate, nor are they as stupid as some think. I thought it would just take time, or we could kick him out, but he is very good.” The voice sighed. “From what I read, his family has quite the history with bouts of anger and such, not too weird from white sharks: They tend to get rowdy. The problem here is that he swore to keep his temper in check, probably because he had some problems with someone back in his hometown and, as you may already guess, someone ended in the hospital thanks to that.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“It wasn’t him, no.” Nervous taps could be heard by now. The second voice was very thankful of the table separating the two of them. “Even when others gave him some ‘problems’ once it was obvious he wasn’t exactly the most easy to manipulate person, he kept going straight. It was not after the six month mark that things started to turn sour.”
“You mean to tell me that six months in here, with the people we have on budget, with the rich assholes that owe us favors, with all the crap we can pull, and the dirty laundry we are collecting, and yet we still had this man being all ‘sunshine and rainbows?” The first voice snorted. “This seems like a joke.”
The other person shuffled in place. “Truth be told, I am pretty sure that, if we had ignored him, things wouldn’t be this problematic now.”
“Explain.”
“From what I have read, something that doesn’t show in his basic bio, this man, Nergal, can be an utter monster, but he loves his family way too much. The only reason he hasn’t brutalized anyone in a very long time is because he wants to be a good role model to his daughters, as well as a good husband.” The second person shuffled again. “But… eh… his wife wasn’t as big a stalwart as he was.”
“His WIFE was the first one to break?”
“Yes, and no.” The second voice coughed a bit, but upon not being heard it decided to raise its voice a bit. “It was… uh… Phoebe, boss.”
“...” Teeth grinding against each other could be heard clear as day. “Of course, of course the ones at the city hall would be this smart… Don’t get me wrong; they did the right thing. I would have ordered the same course of action seeing such a nice marriage, if I hadn’t read about the facts! They have compromised this situation by dragging the family to that woman.”
“I agree boss, but after three months without any problems I thought Phoebe would’ve maybe mellowed out… Instead of that, she did what she did best: She went to wreck that marriage.” Scraping of wood, that was what almost made the second person jump out of their bodies, dead. Their boss was getting quite angry. “Nergal’s wife did take the bait, but she managed to keep it hidden… mostly.”
“Who else became involved? Phoebe likes to play alone.”
“She IS a very bad parent, boss, you know that. Pandora saw her, and she went to ‘play’ with Nergal’s youngest daughter. How did she do it? Well, she made sure that the youngest picked on the eldest, and to encourage her mother’s little ‘outings’ with some hints and such, she even went so far as to practically tell her father about it.” Things were reaching the boiling point here. “And Nergal decided to investigate, or that is what I am betting on anyways.”
“Tabitha, eleven years old, fruit bat, youngest daughter. Seems to have problems in class and is shown to lack much empathy for most people, and her coloration hints at her father’s genes as dominant.” The first voice sounded calm again, and the second person knew that their boss had closed their eyes and was reading from memory. “Eve, twelve years old, thirteen last week, white ‘mammalian’ shark. Takes after her father’s new personality as a very calm person, borderline submissive even, with her mother’s genetics. Naomi, fruit bat, thirty two years old. A very quiet woman that took up accounting at an early age, she seems to be very good with numbers and discovered which lottery ticket would win two years ago, but was told to never play again and tell no one about her formula and she’d keep the money.”
“Yes, boss.”
“A happy, fucking, family. Nergal, thirty two years old, white shark. He comes from a family that still has the frenzy from the old days, not like it is that uncommon, but it is dangerous. He was a whirlwind of destruction before he meet Naomi, then mellowed down incredibly after that and decided to pursue a career in teaching.” The first exhaled. “Who had the fucking idea of even teasing the man? True that we could go so far as to get him in prison if he did something, but if he found something, ANYTHING, he could disrupt the whole plan.”
“I know, I know. I even went to try and get Phoebe to calm down, but she flipped me the bird and told me to mind my business. I couldn’t exactly tell her anything special, nor could you, she is not in our pocket like the teachers and those at the city hall are. All she does is encourage adultery, and that is not exactly weird in this place.”
“Of course not, because we still don’t have what I FUCKING WANT!”
A loud smash was heard and the second person’s eyes widened as a piece of wood hit them in the chest. Their boss was not the most physically threatening person ever, but, much like most people, their true strength was all but apparent. Breaking a table was basically nothing if they were angry enough.
“My family has been warring with many of the others to have this city under our command for so many generations it is not worth mentioning just out of shame. I have invested twenty years of my life ironing the last details, managing the manipulation of almost every family, collecting every dirty detail we can use against everyone, much like my parents did before me, and you mean to tell me that being this close may be just a tease because we have an idiot that doesn’t play by our rules!?” The low growl could literally scare the dead at this point. “Add to that damn investigator that moved here a few years ago and we have too many problems. Why a private investigator got married to a rich woman I will not know, nor how stupid the woman is, but I know for a fact that he knows something. We had one problem already, I don’t want another.”
“So… what do we do?”
“How has Nergal developed?”
“Umm…” The second tried to remember all the details. “I know that by the seventh month he was already showing strain and signs of anger. His wife was already cheating on him every once in awhile, but it got steadily worse and more obvious, with Tabitha turning into a little monster quite quickly, not helped at all by the fact that Pandora was making hints nonstop. Eve also started getting bullied at school thanks to her younger sister, and at home it was as bad, or worse, as the little she devil only hid it, barely, from their father. With both teachers and alumni making it all but easier for the man I doubt he has truly realized what is going on, but the tiniest of things could make him snap.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“I swear I told them to lay off, and they did, but at this point I think Nergal was already losing it. Two months later we get a respite with vacations, or so I thought…” The silence from the first was worse than any complaint. “Naomi had gotten good at hiding it, but Nergal was suspicious by now, and I am sure he caught her, and if not, I am sure he is just trying to force himself to deny the obvious. I am also sure he found out whom had been giving Naomi ‘advice’ so as how to have fun, including his youngest's little ‘nudges’ and prods at her sister.” Nervousness crept into the second’s voice once more. “This first week of school had Nergal as the complete opposite of the man that came here a year ago, and I am sure that he hasn’t been sitting on his ass either, so if he is not on the prowl, he’ll be soon.”
“I want to know what he knows.”
“Boss?”
“I want to know what he knows: I want to know if he knows about the investigator, about how we ‘teach’ the young generation, about the people in our pocket and everything else.” The first’s voice became darker and too calm for anyone in its state. “And I want to know how far he would go if he snaps.”
“Boss, he wouldn’t do anything, other than maybe a fit of violence at best, I am pretty sure of…”
“If Nergal goes all the way, then we can’t even call the police. They CANNOT look the other way if they DO catch someone, much less if Nergal has proof that would harm anyone under our employ or those that do have some dirty secrets. If that happens we’ll have to find a different way to get rid of him, otherwise we both, and everyone that is with us, go to hell.”
The second gulped down, ready to escape the obviously infuriated first. “I’ll… I’ll get to it, boss, but it may take some…”
“Fuck it up and I swear, I SWEAR, to everything that is holy, that I’ll get out of here but I’ll leave you to Nergal if he messes my plans up.” A hiss made the second pale. “And I know Nergal would enjoy you until you break… So either find out what he knows and then break him, or find a way to get us rid of him! It is a problem YOU started, so it is a problem that will drag YOU down, not me!”
“Y-yes boss! Right away!”
In the darkness of the room a slam could be heard after the second voice left the premise. This place was dark for another reason: Because seeing the first one, angry as it was, this close, would surely end any and all meetings…
And it was hard to shout at someone when you weren’t sure where they truly were.
Welcome to Landart: A beautiful city besides the sea... one where the rich people are rich and the rest arent. Some people lurk behind the shadows, corrupting, manipulating and hoarding information to make a move and take control of the city. In this chapter you'll see that the chaos that is going to ensue has been brewing for a long time, with the only problem being that THIS chaos was not the one they expected to have.
Proteus is the one person supporting this story! Go give my co-author, friend and cuddle bug a poke o3o!
