Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 588: Black Skull. (Part Twenty)
Decades ago, there was a time when a certain philosophy spread through society. It was the idea that evil was far more complex than what many would believe, which was propagated through media and entertainment. It tries to contextualize villains by explaining why they are the way they are, as if that would change the nature of what they did.
Circumstances do shape people into who they turn out to be, and some villains had valid reasons for doing what they do. Still, to pretend that evil doesn’t exist would be like spitting in the faces of all those who found themselves on the receiving end of its horrors, because no amount of sad backstories could make evil anything other than what it is, and in no context would the killing of hundreds of innocent be morally ambiguous.
Rose knew the reason why the Black Skulls did what they did to the survivors of the sanctuary. Those children had been handed out as dolls for powerful people to toy with, and those people wanted the matter erased, sparing them the headache of having to deal with their crimes being brought out into the light. If Black Skull had failed, not only would they have lost their position in the underworld, they would have been disposed of as punishment for failing to upkeep their promises.
With a much greater evil breathing down their necks, they had no choice but to do their bidding. That was their reason, and if it had achieved anything, it would be making them even less worthy of anyone’s sympathy, and they never had hers to begin with.
Knowing their history only helped reveal their nature as the kind of pure evil that can’t be rationalized, and faced with that, the only logical solution would be to erase it from existence.
As the thought ran through her mind, Rose entered a code into a control panel. She was in the basement of her weapons shop, VIOLET ROSE, surrounded by an arsenal large enough to arm a small army. The weapons carried from pistols to heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. Her collection was vast, but most of those weapons were something people would often see on the streets. Common arms, in other words.
The blast door at the back stood out for that reason. Rose walked inside when it opened, passing beside the sets of power suits she had used in the raid on Red Garden. Her eyes landed on one in particular, and she found herself coming to a stop.
Ben, Lu, Bruno. The three had been guarding the Sanctuary the previous night alongside other members of the Los Aros gang. All of them lost their lives in that explosionz, burned alive just because they volunteered to help.
Tenebrosans made up a large portion of human trafficking victims, all because of the unstable state of their homeland. Black Skull being involved in that business was the main cause for their feud with Los Aros, with the latter taking the matter far more personally. Most of the members knew someone who had been taken one day and were never seen again, and knowing the kind of fate that awaited those who suffered that fate, they were entirely justified to feel intence hatred for those who forced it on others.
That hatred was the link that brought her and Los Aros together, but after what happened, Rose could no longer bring herself to rely on them. She couldn’t bring herself to rely on anyone. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
Brushing the dust on one of the power suits, she retracted her hand and walked toward the wall facing the door. Several weapons were displayed on its surface, a pale blue light shinning on them from above. Among them, several appeared to be rifles, though their design gave the impression of a children’s toy.
Rose spared them only a glance before crouching down and picking a small crate, placing it on the workbench under which it had been kept. The crate contained several cylinders, and going by the ring, the pin attached to it, and the handle it held in place, one can tell that they were a bunch of grenades. As for what kind, one has to decipher the words engraved into them to learn.
~[ ]~
Black Skull had been in a state of chaos, and its members were driven into a state of constant panic, not knowing when their life might come to an end.
For the past two days, the gang had been losing members faster than an ancient army fighting against one that had discovered fire arms. Despite the strategies they employed, nothing was able to stop the Red Demon. With each group that gets massacred, the gang’s morals fell deeper, and the remaining members could only question the choices that had brought them this far.
Despair was gradually sinking deeper into their psyche. Surrender wasn’t an option, so they were left with no choice but to fight till the bitter end. They held nothing back, hearing themselves for war and fortifying their hideouts.
Gangs preferred to set their bases in relatively desolate areas, or it might be that things end up that way as people avoided being too close to them. When the rumors of the red demon hunting the Black Skulls began to spread, people natural distanced themselves from the gang. More than they usually do, that is.
No one wanted to get caught in a gang war, and so it was always for the best to stay away until it was over. Of course, most were secretly hoping for the local gang to lose. Black Skull had never been very popular—not even in its own territory, so it wasn’t odd for people to be praying for their downfall.
The recent Red Hunt had thought the gangster’s that moving alone was a bad idea. Moving in groups didn’t make much difference. It only made things worse, in fact. Unfortunately, with most members lacking in power, the only thing they could rely on was theirnumbers, and so they huddled together in one location, hoping to draw in the enemy and overwhelm them.
Unfortunately for them, that strategy was the reason many of their comrades fell, and why many more would fall.
