A high tower perspective
Johann looked down into the streets below his top floor corner office in a new building erected after the downfall as the highest of the sprawl to rule from here world wide.
First time ever he felt vulnerable here and wondered if he cut be struck here, behind high protective glassing an anti rocket system and a hundred elite con soldiers.
Neither their AI nor the humans in the strategic military enforcement think tank considered possible what just happened. There was no explanation.
Humans had mutated and those mutants were excluded from the con world, at least in this part of the world they were practically running.
“This insect..”, he did not turn around, no music was playing and the sparkling wine remained untouched. There was no reason to celebrate. “This insect” he mumbled trying to hide his fear of what was to come there.
The board members stood in silence trying to predict Johann reactions.
Johann looked up and set his eyes onto the horizon watching the late afternoon sun.
Johann was from a very old blood line ruling even before the downfall and Black Striker was no unknown, but the biggest pain in their families ass. For generations them and these pig farmers and beer brewers had been in battle. Centuries ago they belonged to the same knight order and Strikers ancestors killed his ancestor in a clan war over tax.
From than on his ancestors were expelled from their soil and the bloodline of Striker kept changing names, possession but never ever attitude. They stuck to no law, were rebellious and never shy of a conflict against whom ever they considered “an asshole”.
Johann was a “vom Felsen” the Strikers were once “vom Felde” and even gave up their aristocratic title interbreeding with the lowest of the low women possible.
During the downfall his father, in a genius coup, took their ancient town back, the last of the vom Felde gone away. Nobody really new what he was doing or were her was gone and all for a sudden a few years after the downfall someone broke into the prison and freed their slaves brute force. Not one of the guards stayed alive, the director was even crucified after having had his teeth beaten out in the prison court.
Now he sat down in the side valley on top of the old military tunnels build for a war that never happened way before the downfall and turned their mansions pool into a fish farm, because he also took the surrounding hill tops.
With the prisoners and military grade pioneer robots he turned that valley into a modern castle and the - the major continental hub for rejects, a hide out for mutants and centre of terror activity in the uncontrolled spawn quarters, so the official Gremium statement.
They tried artillery attacks and rockets from interceptors and lost them all.
It took Johann a little fortune and a deal he considered disgusting with the prostitutes of the sprawl to figure out that the Black Striker was the last of the vom Felde. Florian Charles de Terre and what happened.
Johann turned around and took a seat behind his massive dark oak table staring at the board members in front of him.
“This mercenary....”
While Johann family rose over the centuries to become way more powerful and a global player after being kicked out of their ancient castles the vom Felder turned looser, renegades, mafia and at some point even terrosists. They lost all their land and enterprises bit by bit, step by step, generation over generation. But instead of fading their faith gone stronger and their strikes more and more dangerous, brutal and devastating, their influence within the low lives and expelled from society at peaks reached god level having them rise against fearing the vom Felsen Clan. During the downfall he managed to escape his prison and took part in the most dangerous and fierceful conflicts of the world order collapse known as the downfall. He was a hunted war criminal that knew now mercy against hired guns or anyone that did not serve the people sticking to their moto “bon a protege, mal a mort” over generations. He did not go to war, but had been on a crusade against everyone that was using military strategies for profit, finally striking against those hunting him as a war criminal by blowing up the court and entire office complex an attack only a very few knew that he had exectured - and know he is back and up against their universal ruling live.
“This insect of a mercenary just turned himself into top priority of all our efforts. He will go down. He will die.
I need a full status report of all our military capabilites and an estimation of the capabilities of our allies. We will prepare a devistating strike against his position, his facility, with all we have got, with all we can bring to the battle ground. This is a declartion of war of total war”, Johann stood up, took his sabre from the desk in front of the window, opened the bottle with a smooth well placed stroke and drank having the expensive limited edition sparkling wine from their wine yards run all over his face and down over his suit.
The board cheered, shouted, screamed and in one voice broke out their uniting moto “Salve Dictus Emperator”
While the board shot themselves off this world plundering the open bar equipped with the fines of spirits and psychoactive drugs, Johann stayed sober. His ancestors all were straight edge and never used any substances changing the persistence of mind. Tonight he would give the gods a sacrifice. A dozen of the secretaries would do. Their pain would wake the demons he will need in this war and tomorrow, based on the numbers coming in, he would develop a strategy. One he will execute in person.
That very moment strikers dogs stood still and looked west, while he looked down feeling a glimps of hell crawling up onto him again. “Ayyyyyeee” he mumbled darkness awaiting.
