Chapter 308: Aptronym
Ares and Aejaz shuffled on up to the grumpy official and he curtly spat out the same spiel he did for every other visitor. "State your reason for visiting the Federation, your name so we can take a record of it, and your general wealth bracket. If you need help with the last question..." The man looked like he wanted to tell Ares that he could then fuck right off but his job was on the line so he sighed and begrudgingly finished the sentence. "... Then ask away..." Those were the words he was supposed to say but definitely not the tone with which he was supposed to say them. Regardless, Aejaz ignored it because he didn't want to start any trouble but Ares? Well it's not that Ares was trying to annoy the guy ot anything, he really wasn't, but there were two types of people in this world; those who would let a silly joke turn their foul mood around, or those who would only get more agitated than they were before. Unbeknownst to Ares, this particular fellow fell into the latter category and so his response to the first part of his question, about his reason for visiting the Federation, did not go over too well...
"Well I'm heading to Xasca so.... To get to the other side! Heh, now I know how the chicken crossing the road must have felt." To top off his silly comment, Ares, with a playful smile, elbow nudged the guy who then glared down at him with thunderous rage in his eyes instead of appreciating the light-hearted comment. It seemed the man was just about willing to put this one stupid comment to the back of his brain and forget about it, as he silently waited for Ares answer to the second question, but Ares' next response was the straw that broke the camel's back. In the face of the man's reluctance to enjoy friendly banter, which he made very clear the first time around, Ares flat out ignored his preference and tried again! "I am he who shall not be named!"
"How is that useful to me you stupid idiot?!" The guy was very clearly not happy so Ares rolled his eyes and gave a proper answer instead like a good samaritan.
"Fine fine, my name is Ares..."
"Oh fuck off already!"
...
Oh. He thinks I'm still pulling his leg... Ares gave a wry smile because he really had been telling the truth this time...
"What next? you gonna tell me your wife's name is Enyo too?"
"Uh, actually, funny you say that..."
"No, you know what? You can fuck right off. I'm not letting you on the Federation. Get lost."
"Excuse you!?" Ares could not have possibly foreseen this! Aejaz was off to the side and palming his forehead because apparently anybody else other than Ares could though... But still, Ares felt wronged! "Look pal, I'm getting on that Federation one way or another! Don't cause a scene just 'cos somebody took a piss in your cereal this morning! What's even up with you anyway? Your wife cheating on you? D'you bet all your stardust on the international and lose everything?"
"None of your damn business you punk. I've said it once and I won't say it again. Get your ass out of the queue and don't come back because I will not be letting you through even if the captain himself came and vouched for you. You think I won't attack you if you keep pestering me? I so hope you try 'cos I really wanna smack the crap out of you right about now!" The guy was pretty confident in himself, what with being a transition realm cultivator and all, but what he failed to realise was that this 'Ares' person in front of him was seriously no joke. Had he actually bet all his stardust on the tournament then he would have undoubtedly known about Ares off-rip and not taken this attitude with him. Unfortunately for this guy, he was picking a fight with someone he really shouldn't. Though not everyone in the queue knew who Ares was, and some were revelling in watching him 'struggle', the ones that did were looking forward to a good show. This was especially true of the nearby cultivators who'd also been dismissed unfairly from the Federation by this guy or even those aboard who'd been given plenty of shit from him even if they met all the criteria to get on. Some people had even been invited to the Federation, showing they possessed a prestige worth kissing up to, and yet they'd all been treated like dirt. Worse than that, they were treated like dirt on the bottom of this guy's shoe. It looked like payback was on the horizon!
"Oh? you wanna go? I've been letting people off the hook a lot lately and I'm starting to miss the bloodshed a little. Got some pent up violence in me if you're wanting to go a couple rounds!" Ares was giving this guy one last chance to back out before he punched a whole though him. Everything he was saying was true, that he really hadn't killed anyone in a while as he'd been pretty lenient with the C.O (who screwed him more than once) and the merchant lady, but that didn't mean he was going to jump the gun and not give this guy a chance. He was oh so kindly throwing this guy a bone but now it was a question of whether he'd take it or not. Given the guy's expected superiority over a lower realm cultivator like Ares, the answer was basically set in stone and so Ares was just waiting for the guy's next words to come flying out from behind his lips and then he'd pounce!
"Kids like you need to be taught a harsh lesson so don't blame me if I accidentally go too far and kill you. It's for your own good brat!" Though the official was expecting a one on one duel, some other random cultivators showed up which made his face sour... Until he realised they were on his side!... Why? He'd pissed off a lot of people here today so why where these strange people jumping to his aid? Better yet, what kind of issue did they have with this kid? The official saw him chatting to some salesmen in line but 'Ares' didn't exactly go around bothering anyone else... Had this kid made enemies on the way here or something? Not quite, actually, as Ares had made enemies way before this back when he was in Red Sun. He'd made enemies worldwide when he revealed his Primordial Blade as there were plenty of chumps with it out for him because they wanted to make off like kings after selling his treasure. This was the perfect place for it too as they could take the Blade before selling it off to some rich asshole on the Federation. It was like the Gods themselves had served up Ares on a silver platter, hog roasted him, and put a shiny apple in his mouth to boot. Sure they would have to fight themselves after dealing with Ares for possession of the Blade but it was still a good opportunity to gang up on him!...
Not!
These were people who hadn't seen Ares in action, clearly, otherwise they would not be this confident with just some transition realm cultivator backing them up. Most of these thugs had, at best, peak bloodline awakening /aspect assimilation cultivation bases and were a pretty trifling 'issue' for Ares to deal with. They must have thought the rumours about Ares were exaggerated and unfounded... That or they hadn't done their research properly and only took to heart what he looked like so they could spy him out in the wild. None of this even got started on the fact that Ares literally could never lose the Blade to begin with although that was a lesser known piece of information. In hindsight, he really should have mentioned this back during the speech he gave at the end of the tournament. Personal treasures stuck with revenants for life... And the lives that came after it too. They were bound to the soul and a revenant's soul was indestructible and impossible to interact with in any way. Even if Ares died, as soon as he regenerated, the Blade would just fly over to his new body and that would be the end of it. These clowns wouldn't even get to drag it out of his body as it would still be residing inside him after death until his new body was up and running. of course this hypothetical scenario was about as likely as winning the lottery ten times in a row at bare minimum. Ares was going to die here in a queue of all places!
To kick things off, Ares used telekinesis to fling the weakest cultivator amongst the group at the official and pre-occupy him as he was the most troublesome foe here. The weakest cultivator's face as he was forced to be sent flying was rather funny but the official wasn't in a laughing mood when he had to catch the guy who looked as though he'd just been possessed and needed an exorcist. The concept of telekinesis was pretty rare so the official wasn't sure if this guy had leapt at him on purpose or not and was having a tough time trying to figure out whether he should kill the imbecile or throw him to the side unharmed. Ares took advantage of this indecision and placed the middle and pointer finger of his right hand up against the sideways-oriented palm of his left hand in front of him. He curled his fingers and scratched his skin as he drew the fingers back like he was pulling on a bowstring and a string of golden pressure trailed after his fingers. Ares wound the string up tight with a quick counter-clockwise roll of his two fingers before letting the physical pressure fly straight and true, piercing through two cultivators who were trying to attack him and heading straight towards the official and the guy he'd just caught. The golden pressure had already murdered two people in cold blood with no effort on its part whatsoever so the official took the threat it posed seriously and moved out the way in a timely fashion. Unfortunately for the guy he caught, however, there was no time for him to scramble away after being dropped on the spot so he took the physical pressure to the dome and his brain splattered everywhere, falling off the pier and bloodying the water below.
This attack was a mock up of the disintegration beam Ares wanted to create at some point and bore some resemblance to the finished art. It's piercing power was unstoppable and the raw strength behind the attack was devastating. It had just killed three peak, or near peak, bloodline awakening cultivators without slowing down in the slightest! If disintegration had been used instead of physical pressure then Ares might have accidentally sunk a boat in the background or destroyed a building at the very least. The only reason he didn't with this attack was because it had missed the Federation entirely otherwise it would have cause a ruckus and then some. As for when Ares had learnt this attack, it was during his camp out session with Aejaz over the last few days! The idea had been mulling in his head ever since he saw the Stalker so, even though he was mini, Ares had devised plenty of ideas in preparation for his experimentation. As such, this pressure beam arrow thing, despite how powerful it was, was still only really in the trail and error stage. There was a lot Ares had learnt as a result of firing it that he could adjust even further when he had more time to himself on the Federation. All of which were good lessons to take onboard for when it came time to use big boy disintegration instead and create the art it was a precursor to. Physical pressure was just really easy to mould and control so using it like this, as an omen of what was to come with his arts, was pretty handy for Ares and he was definitely going to keep doing it when it was applicable.
Ares' next order of business was to corral the remaining riff raff and finish them off all at once, maybe even taking out the official too if he was slow on the uptake. To facilitate this, Ares used his physical pressure to create a lasso and he roped up all the thugs that had come looking for trouble. Sheriff Ares was on duty and he rounded up all the darn tootin' outlaws with a single flick of his wrist, expertly gathering all his foes with his physical pressure. The lasso constricted itself around the group and tied them up nicely directly in front of Ares. He wanted to use an art to finish them off but, first... "Esoteric Compression!" Ares directed a metric ton of pressure at the official to slow him down and maybe injure him a little. This art functioned as a lethal attack against weaker opponents but was great for slowing stronger ones down too so Ares had cast it in order to buy himself some time. Why? Because his next art was gonna be a real doozy!
"Perish Wheel!"
Overkill much!?
Still, this would definitely kill the official if he didn't escape his current pressure predicament quickly enough... But that was where the issues started. Though the official was seeing Ares in a brand new light right now he still wasn't familiar with the kind of firepower Ares was truly packing when he went all out. He heard the name of the art loud and clear but still wasn't particularly invested in escaping as he assumed he would have time while Ares was devoting his attention to the random thugs... If he knew what exactly a 'Perish Wheel' was... He would not be so casually trying to shrug off the annoying pressure, that was for sure, and he'd maybe even start rapid casting whatever mobility related arts he knew to flee in terror. It was looking like he was going to get hit by it after all and all the people who were looking forward to his downfall where celebrating with small fist pumps... While running away, of course! A Perish Wheel in a place like this?! The Federation, over on this side at least, was going to get rocked hard by the blast in the ensuing chaos as the waves were going to become ridiculously turbulent any minute now! Ares was bout to create a massive tsunami level hazard but he really didn't seem to care much about the consequences of his actions... And it's not like he had any obligation to either. The officials working here represented the Federation and for such a place to turn Ares, of all people, away for such stupid reasoning would no doubt come off looking terrible for them. Strong cultivators threw tantrums all the time and, as long as there was even an inkling of justification, they were rarely blamed. If anything, even if Ares went through with this, the official, dead though he inevitably would be, would still be blamed for everything and not Ares. What were the Federation supposed to do? Complain to Ares? And have him blow them up and out of the water yet again?! They would sooner desecrate this moronic official's grave and disgrace his corpse thoroughly just to get back in Ares' good graces; the fact that he caused mayhem was mostly irrelevant!
Ares slowly but surely readied the wheel and, although the official was realising the extent of what was to come based on the raw destructive essence welling up, it was far too late to do anything about it. The official scrambled like a mad man in a last ditch effort to free himself and run away but it was looking like an impossibility as Ares chuckled to himself and declared the following... "Cruise missile Ares is ready to launch!"
"The Federation is not even a cruise, Ares, your terrible pun has missed its mark. Also, can you please put that thing down? Your scaring away potential customers..." A familiar voice interrupted Ares power trip so he turned to face the person in question and, sure enough, it was Onno! Made sense! HMTG's current headquarters was here so if he had any reason to visit it then it was only natural he'd wind up here. or maybe he was just taking a vacation with Esme as she was here too? or maybe it was one of the businesses he owned that he'd come to check up on? Could be anything, really. Ares was obviously not going to ignore his acquaintance's pleas so throwing the Wheel anywhere that could cause damage was a no go... But it was still quite a troublesome task to get rid of this thing. Dismantling it would take time but chucking it even straight up into the air would still have consequences on the water below and pose some risk... Ares thought long and hard about what to with this thing but then he had an idea! Chuck it into the void! Ares opened up a void tear and lobbed the Perish Wheel inside it before sealing up the gap in reality and dusting off his hands. No harm, no foul! Treating the void like an art dumping ground was kind of a waste but it also gave Ares the idea to use such a measure defensively if he could ever finagle it. It would be an incredibly potent way of redirecting attacks somewhere they couldn't pester Ares if he had enough time to do it. Of course doing this took longer than literally any other art in his arsenal, and even just bringing out the Blade to block with was quicker, but this was still an option on the off chance anything tricker to deal with cropped up!
Anyway, now that the ticking time bomb was gone, Ares checked in with Onno to see what he was up to while releasing the other fools that were bothering him earlier. He'd killed enough of them to make a long lasting point and those that were still alive would fear for their life whenever Ares was around so they couldn't possibly dare raise another finger at him for as long as they lived. Point in case, the survivors all started sprinting off without waiting for a single word and would never be seen again. If anything, actually, letting them live was beneficial to Ares as they could spread word of what happened here to various other cocky individuals who still believed they could take Ares by surprise or gang up on him. Rumours were one thing but if the guy sitting next to you had a first hand experience then it became more convincing by a pretty significant margin. As for the official, Ares had let up on the pressure so he was standing up and kissing his teeth as having received mercy from some kid was a serious blow to his pride.
"So what brings you to the Federation Onno? I take it you aren't interested in seeing your father... Not that I can blame you, I've learnt a bit more about his deeds as of late and, boy, you really undersold him if anything." Ares really did feel bad for Onno for having had to be the spawn of that demonic flesh wearing creature. He was trying to guess whether it was worse to be the son of Mr HMTG, the son of Major, or the sun of the Starlight's patriarch... All three were terrible in their own right... Actually, now that Ares thought about it, almost all of the patriarchs he'd heard about up until now were terrible men! Were where all the good fathers?! Out to buy milk and cigarettes? As far as Ares knew, the Willow patriarch wasn't too bad and the same was also true of his own father... Though the latter definitely had some questionable tendencies when it came to gambling and the rigging thereof... Though what was Ares supposed to say about that last part really? If he claimed rigging a gamble made someone a terrible person then his own brother might as well be the devil himself...
"God no, if I can avoid my father then I'll consider that a spectacular fortune. I have a few things to check up on regarding my businesses, and I want to show Esme around, but honestly there's someone I want to meet. Someone I haven't seen in a while. if I get a chance, I'll introduce you to him as well as you're both kindred spirits in a way... Free and stupid."
"Oh? And who is this wonderful sounding person then? if they're like me then I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to meet them!"
"You fucking wish. Anyway, personality aside, his name is Hunter. He's one of my brothers and just about the only one with a good head on his shoulders. He was the only son to escape from our father and have absolutely nothing to do with him so I'd say he's been the most successful of all of us in his endeavours. He lives on the Federation not because he wants to be close to the family, absolutely not, but because his business is located here... Hah, even the freest of us became a businessman in the end, ironic isn't it? Well he's also definitely the happiest of us as he's actually created a business he loves from the bottom of his heart so that's the key difference. Our father has done a lot to make his life hard as petty payback but Hunter's always come out on the other end as his business is actually somewhat important to the Federation. Ill give you one guess as to what 'Hunter' does..."
"Ha, no shit? Well, I'm not one to talk. That dumbass official asked me if I was married to a woman named Enyo and, honestly, it made me feel a little unoriginal myself... So what, he just hunts monsters bothering the Federation?"
Onno nodded while keeping an eye on the shady 'official' who kept trying to sneak away for some reason... "... Yes, and he's probably the most renounced hunter in all of Sheryashka, actually. He's an expert trapper with vast knowledge on all things gadgetry related. Nets, poison needles, scanning gadgets. You need it, he's got it. A lot of people come to the Federation to restock on hunting gear from his shop but the main attraction is his bounty board. You need a creature that needs killing? Hire him to go kill it whenever the Federation stops in your country and he'll get the job done without fail. He enjoys his work but our father sees it as low-brow physical labour that only brutes would resort to. Naturally he never received any support and our father had repeatedly tried to kick him off the Federation. He's a resilient one though and the amount of people who vouch for him have kept his shop afloat... By the way, about this 'official'... I don't recognise him? Sure we have a lot of staff aboard the Federation, and I can't remember them all, but this position at the border is one that rarely sees any newcomers. I'm not entirely convinced this individual hasn't knocked out one of the actual officials and stolen his uniform... I'm going to need to have a word with him about where he's come from so could you keep an eye on him for me Ares while I conduct an interrogation?"
What an unusual twist... Why was some stowaway dressing up as an official and taking over their job?! Was this criminal a workaholic? If he was, he could earn money the normal way instead of resorting to whatever the hell it was he was doing currently! There was probably more to this than meets the eye so Ares agreed to make sure this guy didn't pull anything funny... Actually, now that Ares thought about it, there was a somewhat logical explanation for this regarding some information he came across recently... Ares threw out a curveball question from out the blue that, as predicted, ruffled some feathers on the fake official's face, making it pretty clear Ares had hit the nail on the head and saved Onno from having to interview the guy. "Say, Mr unofficial official... You wouldn't happen to be a Firestarter would you?"