Gangs of Emberlyn Chapter 25 - Territory Funds
"High level ability?" William questioned as he stared at the message.
"New ability," the system continued. "Soul Absorber. Souls themselves hold an immense amount of energy. This skill allows you to harvest that power. You are your own reaper. You are able to channel the power of the souls you collect in order to strengthen your mind, spirit, body, and the abilities you possess. You currently have 12 souls in your body. All stats bonus plus 1. 20 bonus soul energy. As long as you don't channel the souls, your body will be stronger."
William could feel a minuscule warm, fuzzy sensation run through his body after hearing the message.
"Skills unlocked," the system continued. "Soul Drain: Able to siphon some soul energy from a weakened individual for a time. Skill: Soul Eater: After an individual has died, and before a supernatural force takes the soul away, you may absorb the soul into your body, gaining the power of that soul. Skill: Soul Release: If you so wish, you may expel souls from your body. You must use your will to release them. This could be due to grief, or because if your body isn't strong enough to hold a soul, it will start to tear itself apart."
"What?" William said aloud as he heard tear yourself apart.
When he was reading the message, he noticed that a new tab had appeared. There was the Felkin skills, stats, and now the Soul Absorber page. Well, that's cool, he thought as he closed the system but apparently the system wasn't done.
"Quest Failed," the system reminded the Felkin. "You currently have 7 stat points to allocate. You have fully evolved into a Peasantry, Health plus 20. HP 70 of 70. The system suggests allocating the stored energy of stats."
Seven, William thought. I'll just do 2 of each except dexterity. Using his mind he moved the stat points.
"Strength; 10. Speed; 10. Dexterity; 9. Endurance; 10. Add 1 to each stat for soul bonus. Since two points have been allocated to Endurance, Energy plus 40. Energy; 170 of 220. Soul bonus endurance stat point. Max Energy; 220 plus 20."
Usually, William would be jumping for joy at the newfound power that he got but he was not. Jack still had died. He had failed and he was not doing well. That is when he could hear a car approaching. I mean he could always hear cars but this one was coming into the alley with its lights off. He took a peek to see if he should bolt due to the cops but then he stopped as he noticed that it was a white U Haul truck.
His fingers morphed a little into his Felkin form as he was prepared to take his anger on whoever was the unlucky Shadowfire gang member that had arrived. He heard the doors of the SUV open as well as the back of the truck opening and closing as multiple people came out of the truck and the doors closed but quickly stopped.
"Will?" the familiar voice of Felix asked.
William turned around and he could see Felix along with five masked individuals. Felix's eyes widened as he could see bodies lying everywhere and blood on William.
Oh my god he's a ripper. That was the first thing that came to Felix's mind as he looked around at the area.
He slowly walked over to William, who quickly put his hand behind his back to get rid of the transformation. He got closer to William until he was just three feet away from him while the masked individuals stayed by the truck.
"What happened?" Felix asked as he looked at the body that William appeared to be guarding.
He began to explain what had happened. He left out that he was an Animorph and the reaper part but told him that he had only killed four and that someone else had taken out the injured. He said he did all of this to save his best friend but in the end he had failed. When he was done Felix just nodded and snapped his fingers. The masked men got to work and started to wrap the bodies up.
"If you can I want you to give my friend's body to the police. I want his family to be able to grieve," William said as his eyes watered up again.
Felix pointed to Jack's body and waved his finger. One of the masked men nodded as he continued his work. Felix then swung his arm around William's shoulder and slowly took him inside away from Jack's body. Once they were inside Felix began to look around.
"If we want to take them down," Felix began, "we need money and what better place to steal it from than from them. Look through the floors for any money."
Felix started to search and William, now distracted from the death of his friend, started to look around too. For the next twenty minutes while Felix's people took care of the bodies, they were able to find a couple of duffle bags full of cash. The two placed them in the middle of the room.
"Who are the people that are with you?" William asked out of curiosity. "Are they part of the gang?"
"No," Felix answered. "They are part of a for hire gang that deals with clean ups. They don't ask questions, don't keep records of their jobs, or have allegiance to anyone. I think there are only about 15 members in the gang. I see them everywhere throughout Emberlyn."
"Oh," William answered.
"I'm sorry about Jack," Felix said. "This is not how I wanted to get you to join the gang. Your mind is in a different state now. If you want to change your mind I completely—."
"No," William said. "I will stick with the deal. I want these people off the map. Build a better place where no one has to be worried about stepping outside their door at any time of day. I want peace in Emberlyn."
Felix smiled as he grabbed a liquor bottle from the table and poured two shots, handing one to William, who had a surprised look on his face.
"We're in a gang," Felix said. "You killed people for your friend. Drinking is the least bad thing here. A toast. To make the world a better place. We will create an empire in memory of your friend Jack. For Jack."
"For Jack," William said as they clinked their glasses and took a swig.
William started to cough after he swallowed.
"You'll get used to it," Felix said as he took out his phone to make a call. "Hey Marvin, when you see the truck leave pull the car around. We have bags of money that the Shadowfire doesn't need."
"Understood," William could hear Marvin say on the other end of the phone as Felix hung up.
"They should just leave," Felix said to William. "I already paid them."
They waited for a couple more minutes and they heard the truck leaving. A minute later they could hear a car pulling up. Felix looked outside and gestured for William to help. Marvin entered and helped the two teenagers shove the duffle bags into the car. Felix tossed over an overly large towel. He turned his head to see Jack's body lying on the ground. The area around it had been slightly cleaned up and was ready for the police to find. Before William could do anything, Felix picked him up in the extra‑large towel and entered the car with him as Marvin drove them away.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Marvin said as he looked in the rear‑view mirror. "I just want to say that if you need anything, give a call."
"That's right," Felix agreed. "In this gang we are family. With this money I can buy a little square just outside of town that we can call our own. We'll have to fix it up and it won't be much, but it's a starting point. We can stay under the radar until we have collected enough funds to turn you into an Animorph. Then we can make our move, expand our territory. We won't be able to use this opportunity during the turf war between the two gangs that just started, but maybe we can make our move on the next one."
When Felix said Animorph it reminded him of Brian. It also reminded him that there wasn't just the Animorphs that they needed to worry about.
"There's something else that I forgot to tell you," William said.
Felix looked at William and Marvin tried to look too in the rear‑view mirror but he was driving.
"What is it boss?" Felix said and William raised his eyebrow which the older kid just ignored.
"During my fight one of the gang members had injected himself with a serum that enhanced all of his physical power."
"Like an Animorph serum?" Marvin quickly jumped to that conclusion but Felix just kept on looking at William like he knew there was more.
"No," the Felkin answered. "He claimed that someone was trying to make an Animorph serum but made a temporary super human serum instead."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then the rumors are true," Felix said. "That may be a problem for us. I couldn't confirm if it's true but due to your intel it is. I heard that it is significantly cheaper to make. Meaning that they don't need to risk sending out their Animorph to deal with things and leave their base undefended. They can just send out like three people to snuff out weaker gangs."
"That's not good," Marvin said as he honked at a car that had just cut him off. "F*cker!"
Felix continued speaking his mind. "We might have to make two of us into Animorphs before we can do anything. That is assuming they don't snuff us out first."
Should I tell him about what I am? William thought as he looked out the window. I mean Amelia and I are Animorphs. No, I shouldn't. I need to make absolute certain that our gang is stable. Also, Amelia isn't for me to share.
"We're going to go to the place now and buy the area," Felix said, which snapped William out of his thoughts. "You can just sleep in the car until morning when the place is bought. I don't need much sleep and neither does the guy that we are buying from. Then you can shower and whatnot. It's Saturday so you don't have to worry about school. Text your family the address I'm about to send you and say that you have been hanging out with your new friend, which is me. Say that the text didn't go through when you sent it. Don't associate yourself with Jack. We don't want the police on our *ss. The gang isn't big enough to go up against the police."
"You're covering up for me," William noted.
"No sh*t Sherlock," Felix said. "If I wasn't I would've just made an anonymous report about you when you called."
William averted his eyes as he leaned his head up against the window of the car and before he knew it, he was asleep.
Somewhere in the city of Emberlyn there was a two-bedroom apartment on the bottom floor of an apartment building. In one of the rooms there was a big muscular man looking at himself in the mirror. He looked like an ordinary person except that there was a huge bite on his neck. The reason for the bite was due to a crazy kid during a certain underground fight club. This was one of the two Ironclad gang members that William and Amelia had fought. This was the member that William had bitten. The gang member was currently looking at his bite mark in the mirror when he felt a throbbing pain jolt through his neck.
"Ow," he said as the pain suddenly stopped. "What is happening to me? It's getting worse."
While the Ironclad was too focused on his wound, he failed to notice that his eye color had flickered for just a moment to the color orange.
*****
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