Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks
Concluding Power Vacuum
The meeting inside the processing tower didn't stay civil for long. Corr Rene arrived first, composed as always, draped in expensive fabrics and guarded by enough muscle to remind everyone in the room that diplomacy in the Vergeworks only existed because violence allowed it to. Splicer followed shortly after, black protocol chassis gleaming beneath the tower lights, every movement precise enough to feel unsettling. Gruto came last, late and furious, already convinced someone had moved against him.
Ace and Lysander von Ascania watched it unfold from the shadows beneath the tower. The shipment hit had done exactly what Ace intended. Not enough to destabilize the Vergeworks overnight, but enough to sharpen paranoia. Enough to force pressure into fractures that already existed beneath the surface. Every accusation in that room carried weight now. Every delayed answer sounded like betrayal.
It escalated quickly after that. Gruto accused Rene of positioning against him. Rene implied he was becoming weak. Splicer calmly pointed out statistical probabilities regarding territorial collapse and resource inefficiency, which only made the Feeorin angrier. Threats turned into movement, and movement turned into bloodshed.
Then Ace moved and the room collapsed into violence within seconds. Blue and crimson lights cut through smoke and muzzle flashes while guards scrambled in every direction. Some tried to run. Lysander moved through the chaos like something starved finally allowed to feed, precise and merciless all at once. Ace stayed colder, focused, every strike placed exactly where it needed to be.
Gruto died first. Splicer followed shortly after, torn apart in a shower of sparks and fractured black plating after attempting to seal the exits. Corr Rene lasted the longest.
Not because she was stronger than the others, but because she understood what was happening before they did. By the time Ace reached her, she already knew the Vergeworks wasn't experiencing another gang conflict. It was being taken.
Now the tower stood silent. Bodies lay scattered across the chamber floor beneath flickering industrial lights while smoke drifted lazily through the upper levels of the processing room. Ace stood at the center of it, looking out across the city through the fractured transparisteel wall ahead.
The Vergeworks stretched endlessly beneath him. It was his. Lysander stood further back in the shadows near the ruined entrance, crimson lightsaber still humming. Workers, smugglers, gunmen, and survivors slowly gathered below the tower floor, staring upward toward Ace in uneasy silence.
For years, the Vergeworks had eaten itself alive because nobody strong enough to control it had cared what happened to the people trapped inside it. That was done now.
Ace's voice carried across the chamber, calm enough that it forced silence around it.
"The Vergeworks answers to me now."
No one moved, and his eyes swept across the crowd below.
"The random hits stop. Territory wars stop. Workers don't get touched unless they make themselves part of the fight." His tone stayed level. "Routes stay stable. Cuts stay consistent. If you work, you get paid. If you keep the peace, you keep breathing."
His eyes were now cast golden yellow.
"But if you start chaos in my streets…" His gaze lowered slightly toward the bodies scattered across the floor around him. "You end up like them."
The gangs were dead. The old order with them. And now the Vergeworks had a king again.
