God Of Crafting

"Now, are you going to scram, or should we just throw you all in jail?"

It took some real confidence for a man with just one partner by his side to take on that attitude when facing a crowd of people that easily reached three digits.

And yet, this confidence, the very aura that radiated from this man's face and his emotionless eyes as he stared right into the crowd...

It proved to be enough for the people at the front to look away and disperse to the sides, creating a sort of tunnel through the crowd through which the government's car could pass.

But that only included the people at the front who received the full brunt of the officer's confidence. When it came to the people behind them, however...

"NO PASARAN!" a young, maybe twenty-year-old youth suddenly ran forth, screaming as he spread out a huge cloth over his chest covered with the very same words he was shouting. "NO PASARAN!"

'Who is this idiot?' Cassie thought while squinting her eyes in powerless anger when she saw some people pick up the chant and start shouting it too.

With every passing second, more and more members of the crowd turned their attention to the officers, all happily ignoring the task they were paid for to focus on dealing with the one entity they had the utmost hate for—the representatives of not only the government but the representatives of the government's fist!

"Jail it is..." The officer in charge didn't appear to be bothered by the crowd's growing reaction in the slightest. Yet, rather than reaching for his gun, he pulled out a weapon much more fearsome than just a small peashooter hanging off his hip.

He pulled out his phone.

"Dispatch, I need..." the man stopped for a second as he raised his eyes to give the crowd a quick count, "ten units on my position. Unruly citizens obstructing me and my partner from performing our duty..."

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"Shut the hell up!"

Suddenly, one voice cut through all the chanting, all the noise, and gibberish that filled the air.

A feat only possible thanks to the blessing of the machine god—or, in simpler terms, the blessing of a microphone strapped to quite a powerful loudspeaker.

"We are here to stop this factory from operating! And from the looks of things, they are here for the exact same reason!"

'Finally,' Cassie rolled her eyes while relaxing her hands, only to realize that she ended up squeezing them so hard, her nails left bloody marks on the inside of her palms.

"I believe we are here for the exact same purpose!" The leader of the crowd continued the narration, clearly desperate to stop the conflict from turning from a small obstruction into an actual issue. "So why would we stop them? Let's use them! Let's all be smart about it!"

Just like the "NO PASARÁN" guy managed to get people to follow his enthusiasm, the clan officer now managed to take back the initiative, slowly coaxing the protesters to properly make way for the government officials.

A moment later, one of Cassie's cameras focused on the three of them as the servicemen walked past the leader.

"We are not going to call the cops back," the CBSOI agent spoke just loud enough for both the leader to hear and the microphone hidden in his suit to catch him saying those words. "It's now up to you to deal with the rest."

This was the full extent of the interaction between the two sides as the government agents moved past the leader and toward the factory's main gate while the leader remained behind, surrounded by people who just so happened to be close enough to hear the exchange.

'I wonder how he is going to pull himself out of this now,' Cassie thought, entertaining the idea of leaving the man to his own devices, using his plight as a sort of entertainment that could lessen the anxiety of sitting back in the control room while the entire operation played out.

"The office is approaching; get the team ready," Cassie spoke softly into her piece before scanning all of her screens in search of any indicator that things were not going as planned.

'Come on, something has to go wrong. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, so how come our plan is still going strong?'

The answer to Cassie's question... was hidden in plain sight, with the government agents approaching the factory's main gate to make the very first direct contact with the other side of the playing field.

"We are from the Central Bureau of Spiritual and Occult Investigation," the officer announced while once again pulling out his ID before presenting it to the guard on the other side of the kiosk's window. "And we are here to investigate a set of reports. So..."

Rather than spelling it out, the man simply pointed his arm at the huge, electrified fence gate that, even after his introduction, remained closed.

And judging by the disinterested look on the guard's face, he had no plans of making any change to the state of the gate.

"Are you dull, dim-witted, or outright stupid?" The officer quickly changed his tone to a more aggressive one as soon as the more patient and cultured approach failed to work. "Open the gate right fucking now! It's an order!"

Finally, the guard looked up, as if only now acknowledging the presence of the official.

"I'm not going to do so. You have your orders, sir, and I have mine," rather than relenting, the guard simply brought his hand down, only to tap his finger against the trigger cage of his pistol strapped to his outer thigh. "What's more, your jurisdiction does not extend into the industrial districts of the major population centers, all the more when it's private property in question."

The guard's slightly distorted voice cut off a single instant before his voice could fully sound off, an effect the man achieved by releasing the trigger of the intercom that allowed him to speak over the bulletproof glass window of his guarding post.

"Didn't you hear?" The government officer didn't appear to care about the obstinate treatment he received in the slightest. "Ever since the Fifth Legislative Act, all the institutions directly under the command of the central government have their authority extended throughout the country.

In other words," the man then smiled, only to slightly turn when the sound of the sirens reached his ears before having his smile grow wider as he crossed his arms on his chest and looked straight at the guard. "In other words, either you let us in now, or you will all be considered..."

"I would be quite careful of what you are going to say next."

Cassie squinted her eyes when she heard a voice that, despite the digital distortion, she could faintly recognize.

"Because everything you say will be used against you in a court of law."

'Tim...'

Cassie's face froze when the strange ace card of Chihiro's clan finally made his appearance. A man that came out of nowhere. A man that Claire found interesting enough to not only spend quite a lot of her time with... but openly acknowledge him for her very first partner!

The worst of it all, however, was how his influence was the only possible reason behind the sudden movements of Chihiro's clan, movements that fell greatly outside of the scope of the man's profile given his subdued and relatively harmless nature thus far.

That was what Tim, a man that was as much of a wonder as he was a mystery, was to Cassie's clan. At this very moment, however, he was the bulwark upon which all of her plans would crash, forcing them into a true crucible of a test that would determine whether Cassie prepared her operation enough or not.

'And just like I thought, all of my plans...' The girl shook her head a little before taking a deep breath to recompose herself. 'Well, while it's not Chihiro himself, we have no other choice but to ride with it now. Let's just hope nothing...'

Focused on her own thoughts, Cassie didn't pay much attention to the ongoing exchange between the two parties. The moment she refocused on the task, however, she quickly ran her eyes through all the screens to confirm once again there were no unexpected obstructions to the whole plan.

Yet, right when she looked into the screens, she couldn't help but freeze again when she noticed a weird peculiarity.

In all of the cameras pointed at the entrance to the staging area, Tim...

He was looking straight into the middle of her screens. Or, in other words, he somehow managed to look right into all of the cameras pointed in his direction... at once!

"I'm not going to repeat myself. You can either open the gate and surrender to our investigation, or..."

"Do you have a warrant?" Tim asked as he turned his eyes away from the cameras and back to the officers right in front of him.

"Didn't you hear me, boy?! STEP OUT OF THE WAY AND..."

"Any attempts at entry without a warrant will be considered an invasion and repelled with force. And that leaves you with just one question you two need to consider at the very depth of your hearts," Tim announced in a voice light enough that Cassie's mic nearly failed to pick it up.

He then moved closer, nearly pressing his face against the electrified wire of the fence.

"Is that bitch paying you enough for you two to lay your lives down here?"