Chapter 482: Negotiations.

“You got that fancy otherworld all for yourself, you aren’t gonna take the fight there? Why?”

The question came from Henry. They were in the initial stage of planning how to take down the dagger, and Dante was just done telling what he had in mind.

Though he hadn’t disclosed what abilities he had, it was clear that Dante could waltz in and grab Jaguar without anyone being able to stop him. The base plan involved him sending some of the Daggers into his pocket dimension, too, so it didn’t make sense that he would do all of that just to turn around and hold back while taking down the boss.

“You got a point,” Dante said at the time. “I could move the fight there and spare myself a headache.”

“Sound’s like you don’t plan on doing that,” Henry asked.

“First of all, the fight isn’t mine.”

“That’s not really a reason, though.”

Dante shook his head.

“I’m… just sick of it.” He said. “Having to hide the entire time, jumping at my shadow—it didn’t get me anywhere, so I’m done moving like that.”

“Sounds like you’re just being reckless,” Henry said.

The word plunged Dante into deep thought, but soon after, he shook his head again.

“Reckless is when you pick fights you can’t win,” Dante said. “That’s not what’s going on here.”

“So you’re just gonna leave yourself exposed?”

“Not really. I’m not taking off my armor, nor am I going to fight in the open.”

“And you think that would make a difference?”

“It did.” Looking at the hairy giant, Dante let a corner of his mouth rise. “It worked on you, remember?”

~[ ]~

In the days leading up to the battle, Dante took the information Henry gave him and went around looting everything the gang owned. Everything that can be moved, at least.

Once there is no one at the top keeping things together, the gang would fracture, and anyone with a working brain would realize the gang’s wealth was up for the taking. Because of that, securing assets that can be looted became a priority.

Jaguar was dead, and so were most of the Daggers’ top. The incident didn’t end with that, however.

It wasn’t that Dante didn’t take any precautions to prevent the authorities from—he was in Ghost mode the entire time, and he had Volcan looking for any offline cameras that might have been filming him. He always made sure to remain in spots where he couldn’t be filmed from a distance, and he was extra careful when using 8-4’s Rift Creation.

Few people could have seen him during the fight, and that was his intention. He wanted to see how big a deal the authorities would make out of his arrest. Depending on their reaction, he could gauge how much of a threat they considered him to be, how much they knew, and what the appropriate response to it all was.

His arrest was relatively peaceful—only two cars showed up at the Red Fist bar, and as far as Volcan could tell, no heroes had accompanied them. They tried to confiscate his bionic arms, saying he would get them back after his release. Dante refused, of course.

Though he went along with most of what they said, he wasn’t charged with anything, and so they couldn’t do much in that regard. When it was time to ask the questions, Dante kept his silence the entire time. The officer handling the interrogation didn’t handle it well, but seeing as he could snap their necks with a wave of his hand, they knew not to push their luck too much.

One thing that was made clear from the get-go was that few knew of the true reason for his arrest. The interrogators were more concerned with the bounty Red Rage had placed on his head, the rumors about him killing a bunch of people, and the videos of his fight with Riot.

Dante almost believed that they might actually have brought him in for those reasons, but that couldn’t have been true. Though they didn’t press him for his bionic arms or try to restrain him, they did bring him to an underground room that looked like it had been built to contain high-level threats. They were undoubtedly preparing for things to go awry.

Getting tired of it, he told them bring someone with actual authority to do the talking instead of wasting his time. The message seemed to have gone through, seeing as the next one to show up was the police commissioner himself.

“Dante Sokolov.” He said. “Or should I say William Cipher Alistair?”

“So you have done your research,” Dante replied. “I was starting to get worried you couldn’t figure that out.”

“All info concerning your previous identity has been classified. I assume you have an idea as to why.”

“Nope.” Dante shrugged. “Still a big favor, though. Spares me a lot of pain.”

“Then I hope you would do us one in return.”

“Depends.”

The commissioner looked tall even while sitting. Though he was well into his sixties, with gray eating at his hair, he didn’t look the least bit frail. Volcan evaluated him as a Level 2 Advanced Cyborg, which felt a bit odd for the one in charge of the NVPD.

“Now, you have wasted enough of my time,” Dropping the pleasant act, Dante rubbed his neck and made his annoyance known. “You gonna tell me why you brought me here, or what?”

“You don’t know, and you still came?”

“Oh, I know why I came. Our reasons might not match, though.”

The commissioner continued to stare at him, his expression blank. After some time, he heaved a sigh.

“You are here because of what happened in New City.”

“And?”

That one word was tantamount to a confession. The shock on the commissioner’s face said it all, and the time it took him to form a reply showed he wasn’t ready for things to go that route.

“Can I take that as you admit that you were involved?”

“You had those freaks watching from above, right?”

“You sure you should be saying that?” Asked the commissioner.

“And what are you gonna do about it? Jail me?” Dante scoffed.

The commissioner continued to stare at him for a while. Dante didn’t mind the wait, but it soon became pointless.

“Why don’t you spare me the BS and just spit it out. What do you want?”

“What do I want?”

“You’re a smart man, Jordan. You should know there is no point to the questions game.” Dante looked him in the eyes. “You want things, we want things. We can have a deal, or I can just walk out of here.”

As the silence lingered, Dante shifted his gaze, looking at one of the corners.

“Maybe you should do the talking.”

His eyes widening, the commissioner followed Dante’s line of sight, only to see an empty corner. It only remained that way for a couple of seconds, however. The air shimmered, and someone appeared out of thin air, as if a veil had been lifted.

A tall white woman with shoulder-length red hair, dressed smartly with a blue overcoat draped on her shoulders. The crest on the left breast pocket of her blouse showed that she was a high-ranking officer of the BEO, but Dante didn’t need that to recognize who she was.

“Caroline Lincoln…” The Commissioner’s face twisted in a grimace. “I don’t remember being informed about your visit.”

“And I don’t remember being informed about him being brought in.” She replied. “He’s at least Level 4, Jordan. That’s BEO territory.”

“I will remind you in case you forgot—the BEO in this city is still under my command.”

“Not when the officer in command is around.”

“Save it.” Dante cut them off with a click of his tongue. “I got places to be. Stop wasting my time.”

The two law enforcers stared at him, then exchanged a look. Caroline sighed and walked over, standing beside the commissioner.

“We want the Black Shield power suits. All seven of them.”

“Even the destroyed ones?” Dante asked.

“Yes.” She replied.

“That will be 50 million each,” Dante said. “Gold.”

The silence returned, and for a moment, the masks they wore collapsed.

“You… you want money?” The commissioner asked.

“Of course I want money. Why do you think I did all of that?”

Looking at each other, the law enforcers seemed to get even more confused than before. Caroline looked unsure as she fixed Dante with a glare.

“I don’t suppose you would be interested in selling us info about your current employer?”

“That money won’t do me any good if I’m dead,” Dante replied.

“Sounds like you know a lot.”

“More than you do, from the looks of it.”

Silence returned, but it didn’t last long.

“We want the corpses back.”

“Which ones?”

“Kite, Shade, Raven.” She paused. “And Red Bull.”

Dante snorted.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He said. “The freaks aren’t my domain, so you’ll have to wait.”

“Wait?” Caroline’s frown deepened.

“You want them or not?”

“…”

“…”

“… We will send someone in a couple of days.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Dante sighed.

Doing the same, the BEO officer in chief walked away. Dante shifted his gaze to the NVPD commissioner.

“Now, to what I want.”

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