An Odd Game of Pool

The door creaked loudly as Naos stepped through the door. Very few of the people in the room turned their heads to see who had entered their lair.

But those who did notice that the person who had just joined them was not someone familiar.

"Who're you?" One of the idling ones called out. This got the attention of some of the others and they started rearing their heads and paying attention to the intruder.

"Just someone stopping by to get some money," Naos smirked and looked around. "you guys seem to have a lot of that after all."

It was an ironic and provocative comment intended to cause the simpler ones to pick a fight. And it had worked.

"You came to get some money, and we'll just take some from you!" A man dropped his pool cue and charged at Naos.

He was decently fast, covering the distance between them in a moment, and swung his fist at Naos.

Naos stood there and waited for the punch to hit him. He stood there, seemingly having taken no damage from the attack, glaring at the man in front of him.

The man who had planned to get some quick cash and have some fun beating up Naos quickly had his plans derailed in the face of the man in front of him.

Naos grabbed his wrist to lock him in place before he was swiftly knocked back to the pool table, interrupting the game.

Now he had their attention. All of the gangsters in the room reeled their gazes towards Naos, who was swinging his arm in a circle as if to say this raid meant nothing to him.

For a few seconds, the room was quiet as the mobsters stared down their enemy. Once an abrupt shout rang in the large room, everyone charged simultaneously.

Naos was looking at the 15 people rushing at him together, he got into a proper fighting stance for the first time in a while.

It looked like he was a boxer who had mixed in other fighting styles to create a collage of attacks that could serve nearly any purpose.

"This is more like it!" Naos smiled and ran to intercept the mob himself. He suddenly jumped, his foot landing on the frontrunner's face and pushed him down violently.

The others had not expected Naos to take the initiative so those close to Naos were unable to react quick enough to dodge his flurry of blows.

But to Naos, one would go down and another would take his place. This would get boring quickly so to spice it up a bit, he grabbed the ankle of an unconscious victim and swung the body around like a club.

People in all directions were getting hit and the numbers were visibly thinning quickly. By the time Naos had discarded his impromptu weapon, there were only a handful left.

Proving survival of the fittest, only the strongest or most cunning were remaining. They were the ones who knew how to fight well and had an idea of how strong Naos was.

He was way out of their league.

Regardless, something had to be done. One of them shouted at another.

"Go get the boss," He turned his head back to Naos with fearful eyes, "just get anyone to fight this monster!"

The one on the receiving end of the order ran through a door off to the side while looking back momentarily before closing it behind him.

Now, the remaining few men were trapped in a room with a beast who beat them not only effortlessly, but cruelly and without regard for what would happen to them afterwards.

The man who had given the order was named Jerry.

Jerry was just watching a game of pool while making snarky comments just a few minutes ago and now all of his buddies were all on the floor either groaning or unconscious.

One of his friends was in particularly bad shape with one of his ankles crushed.

Jerry had locked his eyes with the invader that had caused this massacre. He didn't know his name, and he wasn't sure of his real intentions.

"What do you want?" Jerry prodded.

"Haven't I already said?" The man tilted his head. "Right, right, I guess that's an odd thing to say when walking into the base of an organization like this."

The man chuckled manically before bowing politely.

"My name is Naos, and I've come to settle the debt of a friend of mine named Curtis."

"If you want to settle Curtis's debt, consider it done." Jerry hastily responded, "Let's just leave this whole thing behind now and we'll leave that motel alone."

The man who called himself Naos smiled, "That would be nice, but I have another goal here." he pointed at Jerry, "Removing this gang from this city. Only then will I get the assistance that I desire."

Jerry gave up his hopes of negotiating at this. Naos did not give the vibe of an unreasonable man, but a determined and insane one.

It was true that Naos had gotten a bit riled up at this fight, maybe taking it a bit too far, but he was having fun.

Naos stopped acting polite and decided to finish off Jerry.

Without being able to respond, Jerry was hit in the head by a rock that Naos had thrown. He fell to the ground and blood trickled from the center of his forehead to the floor.

The others beside Jerry were paralyzed with fear by now, seeing Jerry taken out so effortlessly. They too were soon dispatched.

Naos reveled in the newfound silence of the room and pulled up a chair that was still in one piece. He was waiting for more moths to the flame to show his flames in their eyes.

Just as he had expected, more people flooded into the room. They were carefully avoiding stepping on their friends whose bodies littered the floors.

"Are you the boss here?" Naos looked at the man in the back of the group. He gave an atmosphere of someone calm and collected, more so than Jerry who had now acquired a slight dent in his skull.

"Yeah," the man nodded, "I'm the Badger."