13

Leonard had seen enough. 

His hand reached up to the arm wrapped around his neck, and with an iron grip ripped it back, pulling the man from his stool. He collapsed to the ground hard, shocked that something like this could happen. 

"You brat!" The man tried to scramble off the ground, hand reaching down for his gun. Leonard was faster however, stomping down his foot on the man's hand with a loud crunch. "Fuck!!" 

Leonard twisted his heel in, as the pair of bat wielding thugs rushed across the room at him. They swung their metal bats with no real skill, only trying to hit Leonard as fast and hard as possible. He easily ducked under the first, its arc easily readable, before coming up with a fist into the man's jaw. 

His fist connected with a satisfying crunch, blood squirting from the thug's mouth as he staggered backwards. The other swung at his waist, forcing Leonard to quickly move to the side, taking his now bloodied boot of the first thug's broken wrist. 

The bat swept across the bar table, smashing the cups and plates on top. Leonard stepped forward, his military training kicking in as he raised his arms into a boxing stance and sent a quick jab towards the third thug. 

It connected quickly, making him take a step back and bring his bat up to try and defend himself. Leonard simply shifted his balance, quickly unleashing a rounding punch that slammed into the thug's unprotected side. 

"Arghh!!" The man's rib cage stung and he reflexively moved his hands down towards it, leaving Leonard open to make a snapping jab into his face. Confronted with this onslaught of attacks the thug quickly backed up, however not watching where he was going caused him to walk right into a table and tumble over top of it. 

Leonard felt a tingle in his spine and instinctually ducked as a metal bat went whooshing over his head. He kept low, sweeping his right leg around in a circle taking the thug's feet out from under him. 

He followed up by hooking his fist around and down, twisting his body and letting himself lose balance and focusing all his weight into a single punch that slammed into the thug's still falling face, sending it crashing into the floor with incredible speed. 

The thug instantly lost consciousness, the mix of the cold hard floor connecting with the back of his head and the fist with his front being too much for him to handle. 

Leonard got to his feet as the three thugs lay out in pain on the floor. 

Anna stared at him with wide open eyes, never expecting such an outcome from one man against three. Going from fearing for her small business to wondering if her assailants were still alive was a jarring feeling. 

"W-who are you?" She stuttered out, not entirely sure whether she should feel thankful or fearful of this man. 

"Leonard." He shook his hand, knuckles stinging a little from the punches he threw. "Who are these thugs?" 

"You dont know who the fuck your dealing with!" The pseudo leader of the thug group yelled, clutching his broken hand against his chest. 

"That's why I'm asking," Leonard gave the man a light kick before leaning down and grabbing his collar. Pulling his face up to his. "Who are you?" 

"You're a dead man!" The thug didn't explain any, just continued to shout obscenities which Leonard put in end to simply by punching him a couple times until he stopped. He let go of his collar, letting his head thunk painfully back down onto the floor. 

"Do you know who they are?" He instead asked Anna, who was still trying her best to make herself one with the wall. 

"Not really no.." She grimly admitted, "they came asking after my brother a couple days after he disappeared." 

"He's gone? Where?" 

Anna looked at him intently, deciding if he was trustworthy or not. Her eyes drifted to the bodies across the floor, and then the damage their fight had brought upon her cafe. Sure it may have not been the most popular, barely managing to keep afloat most months, but it was her dream job to run such a place. 

She had been in denial about her situation for a while now, her brother helping keep the business afloat with money from places she didn't want to imagine. 

Although before her lay the consequences of forcefully keeping her eyes shut to the situation. For continuing to stay in denial despite the many signs that surrounded her. 

She sighed deeply, figuring there was little more harm that could be done by telling this stranger what was happening. 

"He borrowed a lot of money to help keep this place in operation." She looked sad and defeated. "I told him to stop, but he kept at it. I told him he was being reckless, putting his studies at risk. But he was stubborn, as stubborn as I was it seems." 

"How much did he borrow?" 

"I'm not sure of the exact details," Anna admitted. "But it's close to one million credits." 

Leonard whistled, that was a large amount of credits. Though running a shop in such a good location was probably very expensive. Although the small cafe wasn't the easiest to find, the building's location and view out over the university was prime real estate. 

Location was everything when it came to rent prices. 

"So he couldn't keep up with payments and so went into hiding?" 

"Yeah." Anna sighed, "But I'm not sure where, he just left one day saying he'll handle it." 

"Handle it?" Leonard frowned, those weren't words of someone trying to hide away. "How long ago was this?" 

"Five days ago." 

Leonard would have to follow up on this. However if Anna didn't know what people or groups he had been borrowing from it would be difficult for him to find William. He turned to the trio of broken messes on the floor, maybe they might hold some clues. 

He didn't bother trying to talk with them, he knew they wouldn't cooperate. Instead he searched through their pockets, first taking the projectile pistol and the three spare magazines around the first thugs waist band. Sure the pistol he stole, borrowed, from his father was of a much higher quality he couldn't keep taking it without being caught. 

This gun would be sufficient for now. Ignoring their protests he searched them all one by one, taking their wallets, comms and any other items that could help figure out their identities. The IDs in the wallets didn't help much, only offering their legal names that wouldn't lead Leonard anywhere. 

However in the wallet of the gun bearing thug Leonard found something, a small hexagonal coin imprinted with a pair of skull and bones. He didn't immediately know what it represented, however he did think it might hold some value. 

"Call the police to pick up this trash." Leonard told Anna after he finished tying the trio together with thick rope he took from the cleaning closet before shoving them inside. He chucked the small amount of credits he harvested from their wallets onto the counter, leaving it as a tip for busting her place up. "If you hear from William let me know." 

"Ah, right." Anna pulled up her comm unit, exchanging contact information with Leonard. "Are you going to look for him? My brother I mean." 

"I'll see what I can do," Leonard agreed before making his way to the exit. "I'll let you know if I find anything." 

– – 

"Arthur, I thought you might want to see this." Rupert walked into Arthurs office, a small notebook in his hand. 

Arthur himself stretched his back from behind his desk, having finished another long day of tackling the ever growing pile of documents. He was incharge of managing a portion of the Vallum Estates large portfolio of stocks and holdings. 

It was busy work, not particularly hard once he got the hang of it but the amount of tasks he needed to complete never seemed to diminish any. Sometimes he wondered if it would just be easier to go back to the battlefield, however he quickly dismissed such ideas. 

He wasn't in a position where he could just drop everything and move anymore. Both the fact he now had a family and was now pushing 80. 80 years was fairly old when compared to the general public, however within the high class such an age was still fairly average, some of the old bastards in the Elder's Quorum reaching into their 300's. 

Still, despite his complaints he was very satisfied with his current situation. 

"What's this?" He asked Rupert who handed him a notebook. 

"You told me to keep an eye out on Leonard," Rupert began. "I took a quick look in his room and found this." 

"You looked through my son's room?" Arthur asked, more than a little miffed at the blatant invasion of privacy. 

"Hey hey!" Rupert raised his hands in defence. "It was just a quick peek, but this caught my eye and I think it will catch yours." 

Arthur put aside his grievances, say what he will Rupert was still a man he greatly trusted. If he thought it was important enough to bring to his attention then it was best if he gave it a read. Sending a silent apology to Leonard, he turned the cover over. 

The contents were strange, a bunch of jumbled nonsense he couldn't make any sense of. However, that in and in of itself was not what caused him to raise his brows in alarm. It was the sheer volume of text that concerned him.

The clearly visible handwritten text covered the notebook front to back, nowhere in his quick flipping through the pages did a monochrome of order appear. 

"What is this?" He asked Rupert, although he knew the man wouldn't have any concert answers. He was as much in the dark on this as himself. 

"No idea," Rupert responded, pulling out a chair. "I just had a quick look but couldn't make anything of it." 

"When did you find this?" 

"Just now, I brought it right over before your wife and daughter get back." 

"Hmm.." Arthur placed the book open on his desk and stroked his chin. "It looks like complete nonsense to me. Do you think Leo is taking his time in the Corps harder than he's letting on?" 

"Could be." Rupert nodded. "He's been out all day so I haven't been able to get a good look, but from what i've seen he seemed perfectly fine." 

"Maybe there's nothing to it." Arthur conceded. "But if this is his way of coping with what he's seen it's much better than the alternatives." 

Many veterans treated their issues by drinking until they forgot them. However that often only ever led to a downward spiral, many of Arthurs compatriots fell into its grasp, and oftentimes they couldn't be pulled out. 

"There was one more thing." Rupert added tentatively, not entirely wanting to let his friend know about it. However he knew it would be much worse if he kept it to himself. 

"What?" Arthur raised his eyebrow. 

"Well it's just." He tried to dance around the topic, but then figured it'd be better to get it all out at once. "Leonard took your gun." 

"WHAT!?" Arthur immediately jumped to his feet, the worst case scenarios running through his mind. "And you didn't think to tell me sooner!? Where is he now?" 

"I told you, I don't know." Rupert grimmly answered. "But come on Arthur, you really dont think your son would do that do you?" 

"No, no I don't." He fell back into his chair, reaching to pick up the notebook open on his desk. "But neither did I think he would write over 200 pages of this nonsense. He just got back from a warzone, we have no idea what's going on in his head." 

"What about getting him a psychiatrist? It could help." 

"I'll think about it." Arthur sighed deeply, sinking back into his chair. "But one thing for sure, I need to talk with my son when he gets back."