Phantom

Snake In The Grass

They drove in silence, Phantom allowed Demon to take the wheel of the loaded-up black van he had taken from David. The Drive was silent but it was clear Demon was taking them right up to meet Darren. Phantom used the silence to remember the man who disgusted him. He took the time to remember why. Finally, he broke the silence.

"Darren Brown... The man who ruined everything" he said in a whispery voice. 

Demon nodded watching the road and quickly turning to the right to look at Phantom. 

"Damn right, listen, I know how bad you wanna kill him, he deserves to suffer for everything... But we need to stay calm, Got to make sure he's our guy before we make any decisions, and as you said, we gotta be ready for the war that will follow. Armageddon."

Demon seemed really confident and relaxed despite everything, he didn't seem to be afraid of the 'war' that would follow if Darren died. Phantom looked over to Demon and they made a quick burst of eye contact, followed by a confirming nod. They both were walking down a road that was getting more and more destroyed the further they walked and after tonight... It seemed that the road was simply going to be a land of rubble. 

"A path unpaved." Phantom thought to himself thinking of his past. He thought about the cryptic monologue he gave to Jack earlier that night and just cringed realizing how complicated he made it. It was too hard to explain at the time, but Phantom felt the urge to wanna sit down with him again and really explain what he became. This wasn't the point now though, he had to focus. 

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It was 2 in the morning when they pulled up, Phantom was quite tired using the semi-long drive to rest his eyes. They were parked on the side of a forest path that looked to go far down and was lit up with lanterns the whole way through.

"We gotta walk the rest, Darren's guys are very hostile to random arrivals, especially now. But they aren't expecting this, most of them are probably asleep, we should go now." Demon stated.

Phantom squinted a few times to wake his eyes up before looking at Demon and nodding before stepping out of the car. The cold air immediately hit him, for some reason he forgot about cold weather after being so cozy in the car. Demon stepped out and walked over to the back of the van while watching Phantom.

"Still nice and loaded up?" He asked, opening the back doors to reveal some extra guns. A few M16s with some loose magazines laid flat in a padded box. 

"David had a nice arsenal, maybe you did me a solid taking him out." He said jokingly.

Phantom smiled, but really he was too focused on what was to come to worry about the comedy. Demon handed him one of the nicely refurbished rifles and a few mags. Phantom was into the idea of going silently, but it seemed Demon had a more unpredictable plan. Noticing the displeasure in Phantom's expressions he took a sigh.

"We go quiet we look much weaker, brute force means we can make ourselves a threat, like a bear standing up. We need to be unpredictable, take out as many as we can, hell if we are lucky we can eliminate everyone here and burn his little villa down to the ground before any of his contacts come. He gets them daily." Demon did everything he could to justify his loud plan, and finally Phantom just went with it, taking a deep breath as they started walking down the path.

Phantom did have a question though.

"You seem to know a lot about Darren for someone who said they were laying low." He said wanting Demon to justify this too. 

Demon went straight-faced for a second before giggling a little bit.  

"I have been laying low, but that doesn't mean I haven't been waiting to do this for a long time" He replied looking over to Phantom with a wink.

Demon had been waiting for this opportunity to find Darren and at this point, Phantom had been too. This was payback in the making. 

"So, what has changed with this guy then? I mean after what happened, where did he go from there?" He said somewhat cryptically as if people were listening.

Demon looked over to him and stopped for a second before walking and replying again.

"Well, after 'he' died in the ambush. Darren knew it wouldn't be long before one of us found out his involvement, so for one he went into hiding, paying off a fair amount of street-level mercs, like my guys, but I obviously wouldn't sell to him... After a while, Darren got a little power-hungry, took over a fair amount of the business that was now vacant due to 'his' death. Probably sitting on a lot of blood money. From what my 'recon' can tell, he has spent a fair amount on the little villa up this path. Gave it some refurbishing and now it's his little hub of operations, he has been sending out a fair amount of people to do some bloody jobs, assassinations. My guess is they are targets that could ruin him. Pretty ironic but makes sense. If it was him who sent for your death he will figure you don't know."

Phantom had to process a fair amount of information, Demon seemed like he did a lot of "recon" while laying low. There were more questions he wanted answers to but one of them blurted itself out as it made him really curious.

"So.. the guy who attacked me though, clearly wasn't him, he isn't a fighter, but you are saying this could be his gun?"

Demon thought for a second, not thinking about this at all even during the drive. Finally, he winged his answer.

"Maybe the gun was given to this guy, or hell, maybe this guy took over. Honestly, the gun sounds very similar to his... I reacted quite quickly. But in either way, I am happy we are here doing this." He stated, turning his head away hiding a smile that he clearly didn't want Phantom to see.

Phantom seemed fairly satisfied with the answer he received so they continued the walk in silence.