"Okay, look, I got some cash on me, yeah?" Taro tries to negotiate, sweat dripping down his forehead, his hands locked tight on the steering wheel. Goro, sitting in the passenger seat, straightens up and clears his throat.
"We know you work for Oriken. We've got some questions and—"
"Oh shit!" Taro cuts him off. "I thought you were Oriken's boys! Well, that explains the shakedown instead of a bullet to the head, yes sir! Taro's back in the game hehe."
Goro and Go-Go are stunned into silence—not just because Taro's talking in third person and suddenly relaxed, but because back in the game means he was out. "Back?" Goro asks to confirm his suspicions. "Yeah, don't tell me you didn't know?" And just like that, the entire shakedown goes to hell.
"Hey, who sent you? New players, I'm guessing, 'cause you kids are NOT ready for this shit. If this humble servant can give you some advice, to run a proper shakedown you gotta have all the pieces of the puz—" Go-Go kicks his seat. "Shut it. We ask, you answer. Only when we say."
Not wanting to push his luck, Taro zips his lips—literally miming it. "Fuck, Goro! Now what? We lost all control here," Go-Go whisper-yells. "Shhh, quiet and watch the master at work," Goro winks.
"Taro, I'm guessing Oriken cut you loose. What happened? Talk, and we'll see where this goes. Maybe I can get you back in the game by putting in a word with my boss." Taro's eyes light up. He sticks out his tongue and looks up like a kid trying to remember. "First, he bought a few of us. Our handler's Momma, okay? After a while working together, some shit went sideways—missing product, turf wars. I'm guessing that's your boss. Thing is, he fell behind on payments, and to prove nobody screws us with money, someone tipped off the cops for raids. He got pissed at all of us, even though I explained real careful on a call that it couldn't've been me." Taro shrugs. "But hey, the guy's bitter and sentimental. I always say forgiveness is better—revenge kills the soul and—"
Go-Go presses a switchblade to Taro's throat. "Okay! He dumped us all, raids are ramping up, now we're broke and my ahem expenses keep piling up," he admits, clearly talking about his mistress, tensing up again. "So most of us are shopping for a new sponsor. Hell, put the knife down and we can set up a dinner between your boss and mine, yeah?"
Goro signals Go-Go to lower the knife, and Taro's body relaxes again. "Look, so you get the picture - we're worth about a grand each, there's ten of us total, plus Momma's cut for organizing things. Tell your boss fifteen grand buys our loyalty." Go-Go forwards the message to Hector, who agrees. "So when can our bosses meet?"
Taro looks scandalized by the question, turning to stare straight into Go-Go's eyes. "That's not how this works. First I gotta see you're trustworthy - not some double agents looking to whack Momma or, worse, arrest her. Set up a meeting with your boss, then we'll see how things play out."
When Hector takes too long to respond, the silence makes Taro talk again: "What's the holdup? He's not answering?" Go-Go kicks his seat and glances at Goro - the message shows as read. "Don't think it's so easy setting up meetings with the Orisa," she says, the nervous slip revealing more than intended.
"Holy shit! The Orisa? Thank fucking God!" Taro clutches his chest like he's having a revelation. "I thought you worked for that psycho waging war against Oriken! You heard about that crazy fuck? Goddamn maniac blows heads off over scraps of territory, drugs, cash! So low! So fucking vile! So..." He catches Goro and Go-Go's expressions. "Wait...he is your boss, isn't he? Fuck me, small world, huh? I always say-" Go-Go shuts him up by showing Goro Hector's finally replied: "Tonight, 2:30 AM at the Orisa Bar. Don't be late." Without another word, the extortion duo exits the patrol car and disappears into Tawaji's maze of back alleys.
Taro relaxes back into his patrol routine as Hector's men vanish. "That was fucked," Go-Go mutters, banging her head against her palms, hands shaking. Going from online blackmail to in-person shakedowns isn't easy. "You ever doubt how fast the boss is moving? Personally, I think jumping from neighborhood runner to buying cops is a bad fucking idea..." Her unease stirs something in Goro he hasn't felt in years.
"I'm starving. Let's grab food while we keep shit-talking our murderous psychopath boss, yeah?" The exaggeration lightens the mood, drawing a reluctant chuckle from Go-Go. But she needs to confirm something first: "Hey, I'm not into you, and even if i were, Im Esen's sister, he'll gouge your eyes out if you look at me weird."
Goro raises his hands in surrender, winking. "Just hungry. Besides, I'm already talking to some girl anyway." That word - talking - downplays things. In four days they'll hit six months together, but Go-Go doesn't need to know all his business, right?
On their way to a nice pasta restaurant, we leave our duo to their date and shift across town to an anti-Oriken raid.
The raid van is packed with cops in tactical gear - a stark contrast to their usual patrol uniforms of white shirts, navy vests and dress pants. Tonight they wear jackets and ballistic vests marked "Northwest Awata Special Police." Their professional seriousness makes Needlepoint stand out even more in his all-black ensemble: a card-stuffed tactical vest over red-and-yellow gradient combat gear, knee pads, and armored boots. His hero academy-issued vest bears both their insignia and his blood type patch. As a trainee hero, his suit is rated for blades and blunt force, not bullets - a far cry from the variable quality of professional-grade gear.
Needlepoint fidgets with his cards. Not his first raid. Not even his first time taking fire. But always before, he'd had his team watching his back. Tonight, despite the squad of cops surrounding him, he feels utterly alone.
"Easy there, hero," the sergeant offers. "We can switch up the entry formation if you want." He refers to their standard hero-police stack - cop first, hero second, a protocol established years ago.
"No, this works," Needlepoint lies. One cop claps his shoulder. "Just pre-op jitters. Haven't done this in years, right?" The friendly punch can't mask the tension.
"Two minutes!" someone barks. "Body cams on! Central confirms no-knock warrant." Needlepoint takes a shuddering breath, stretches his bandaged fingers one last time, and reshuffles his deck. Around him, cops chamber rounds in compact suppressed SMGs designed for close-quarters work.
The van makes its final turn before screeching to a halt. The sliding door flies open. "Go go go!" Cops pour onto the narrow street, moving with choreographed precision toward their target - a decrepit but deceptively tidy house at the dead end. A red moped lies toppled near the entrance, abandoned mid-escape. Blackout curtains cover the windows. The front door's reinforced with fresh plywood. Backed against the river with trees providing natural cover, it's textbook drug den real estate.
The cops' heavy-duty boots thunder against the pavement as they take positions at the back door - four officers and Needlepoint poised to breach, while two more cover the front, controlling pedestrian flow.
"On your mark, hero." Needlepoint scans the cops around him. Not his team, but his responsibility now. "This is what heroes do" he thinks. "Now!"
The lead cop delivers three brutal strikes near the doorknob. By the second hit, the door bows inward. The third blows the lock clean off its hinges. The door crashes down, revealing a damp, pitch-black interior.
"Awata PD! On the ground!" The sergeant charges in, submachine gun leveled at a drowsy figure on the couch. As he pivots right, Needlepoint covers left - just as a knife-wielding maniac bursts from the bathroom.
The attacker comes in wild, all frenzied slashes and incoherent threats. Needlepoint acts without thinking. A flick of his wrist sends a razor-edged card embedding deep in the man's throat. The would-be killer clutches his neck, eyes bulging, before collapsing with a sickening thud. Needlepoint steps over the twitching body.
"Awata PD!" he shouts at another shadow moving in the periphery. His backup signals advance. No choice now - these raids don't allow grenades or retreat.
Tsk tsk Silenced gunfire from the cops. Someone else chose not to resist.
"Aaaagh!" A new threat emerges - a green-scaled, bald reptilian with a snub-nosed revolver. Needlepoint barely registers him before—
Pop! A round punches Needlepoint's vest, sending him stumbling into his teammates. Click. The revolver jams on the follow-up shot.
"Lizard fucker!" Needlepoint's return fire is merciless - one card through the chest, another between the eyes. As cops secure the reptilian's corpse with a headshot, a female officer checks on him "Can you continue?"
Needlepoint nods, dusts himself off, and falls into position behind the new lead man.
The moment the officer peers down the hallway - "Motherfuckers!" - BLAM! A shot explodes from the barricaded room where two enraged gunmen hide behind a bed and furniture. "Shit! We're pinned down!" Tshk "Akane, copy? Over." The lead officer's voice crackles over comms as a bullet whizzes past his head. Three seconds of static-filled silence. "I'll kill you all!" BLAM! A high-caliber round tears through the wall - definitely a rifle. Tshk "Akane here. Signal's jammed. Reinforcements en route. Status? Over." Tshk "Can't advance. Hostiles dug in. Do you have an exterior view? Over." "Confirming now. Out." Another gunshot. Another scream: "I'll slaughter your families too you pig fuc—" Ahg! Akane's precision fire eliminates the primary threat. Tshk "Second shooter has me cornered!" The lead officer rounds the corner—BLAM!—a clean headshot drops him like a puppet with cut strings.
Ten meters ahead, the first gunman, maybe already dead, rises for one final shot before collapsing over his rifle. Needlepoint takes aim. His first card embeds in the remaining gunman's arm. Before he can throw again—a small pistol clatters to the floor. Surrender.
Tshk "Officer down! EMS now!"
What follows becomes a blur for Needlepoint. In three years as a hero, he'd only seen death twice: a severed arm in earthquake rubble; a burn victim's melted face pressed against his own during a fire rescue. Those earned him commendations and therapy sessions. But this? "I should've gone first". His guilt wars with survival instinct: "Then I'd be dead too". The dead officer's vacant stare locks onto his soul. "Goddamn... sorry you saw that, kid." The sergeant's crisis training kicks in, guiding him outside. "This shit happens. Best way to honor him? Don't waste your own life. Guilt included." Needlepoint numbly nods.
"It'll be rough. Take time off. But you held your ground out there." A half-hearted farewell before retreating to the police van. Inside the house, they'd eventually find $7,000 KD in cash, four firearms, and $10,000 KD worth of drugs, mostly Dustfire. Of the seven suspects, four lay dead and three in custody, alongside one fallen officer. As late-arriving units secure the scene and news crews begin arriving, Needlepoint collapses into the transport, exhausted. "You did good, hero... or should I say—" An officer reads his bloodstained vest patch: "Needlepoint."
Once everything is settled down, the officers get back on the van and off they go to Northwest police center.
The officers cheer him on, their laughter rough but warm, the kind that only comes from men who've spent too many nights in each other's company, breathing in the same stale air of patrol cars and precinct coffee. The mood lifts gradually, like a fog thinning under dawn's stubborn light. Outside the armored van, the city blurs past—a mosaic of flickering streetlights, graffiti-tagged walls, and the occasional glint of a stray cat's eyes in the shadows. The ride lasts about twenty minutes, though it feels shorter with the way stories and jokes volley between them, each tale more exaggerated than the last, punctuated by the occasional crunch of gravel under tires or the distant wail of a siren.
As the truck rumbles over a pothole, jostling them like dice in a cup, one of the cops—a burly man with a beard that's more salt than pepper—leans forward, his grin wide enough to show a chipped tooth. "Come on, Needle, it's your turn now. Quit lurking in the corners like some kinda ghost. Spill something good!" The trust here is hard-earned, forged in the unspoken pact of watching each other's backs, in the way camaraderie blooms like a twisted flower when you've pulled a trigger side by side. It's this very trust that makes Needlepoint drop his guard, committing the worst mistake of his hero career.
"Alright, alright. Picture this—I'm stuck in some damn spy movie." The cops erupt, shoving Needlepoint's shoulder with rough affection, their disbelief loud enough to drown out the engine's growl. The truck's interior smells of sweat, gun oil, and the faint tang of cheap energy drinks. "No way, man! You? Spies?" Needlepoint doubles down, his voice rising over their laughter, "Dead serious! We've got a mole, been feeding us intel for weeks. Says there's rot in the department—cops lining their pockets, working for Oriken!" The words hang in the air, thick as the humidity clinging to their uniforms.
Laughter still ripples through the group, but now there's an edge to it, a tension like a wire pulled too tight. Needlepoint, misreading the room, keeps digging, his tone conspiratorial. He leans in, elbows propped on his knees, the dim overhead light casting shadows under his eyes. "I'm telling you, it's a whole damn operation. Command's crawling with 'em." He locks eyes with the commander—a grizzled veteran with a scar cutting through his eyebrow—and the driver, a wiry guy who hasn't spoken much, just nods along, fingers drumming the steering wheel to a rhythm only he hears.
When the truck finally lurches to a halt in the precinct's parking lot, the men spill out like a tide receding, each absorbed into their own routines. Some head straight for the showers, their boots leaving damp prints on the concrete floor, the scent of antiseptic soap mixing with the stale sweat of the locker room. Others vanish into the maze of cubicles, already barking into radios or clacking at keyboards to file reports under flickering fluorescent lights.
But one cop—a lean figure with a face that's all sharp angles—breaks from the pack. His steps are deliberate, echoing softly in the cavernous garage as he veers toward a dimly lit corner, far from the security cameras' unblinking gaze. The air here smells of gasoline and old rubber, the only company a stack of rusted storage crates and a flickering bulb that buzzes like an angry insect. He pulls out a burner phone, thumb hovering over the keys. The screen's blue glow paints his face in eerie relief as he dials, his voice a low rasp: "Momma, we need to talk."