Montgomery's arm is snatched before he can protest, and another mercenary shoves Lenny forward. Not a single one of them dares to touch Hilda, especially after she glowers at one of them until they look ready to pee themselves. Still, she walks forward on her own, following them close behind.
"Uh, hey, Hilda?" Montgomery snaps over his shoulder as he's dragged away. "Why don't you, I don't know, stop them?!"
Her eyes are stony as she marches forward. "Want to meet this sick boss. Want to pound their face in."
Montgomery scarcely has a moment to insist they don't have time for this before he's hauled off.
As they're being pushed and shoved through the town, Montgomery's skin only crawls more. This place is disgusting. Fecal matter and other waste trickle through the streets, wafting a noxious stench that makes his gag reflexes work overtime. The humidity only adds to the revolting smell, somehow making the scent feel sticky. Montgomery shudders at the very thought.
The people aren't much better than the place. Their homes may be rusting and crumbling, but they're more dirt than flesh and they look on the verge of collapse. Every pair of eyes are vacant and dry and longing, like a desert that once new great rains. In towns like these, the square is usually bustling with noise and activity. The only noise here is the occasional sniffle and cough, and the only activity seems to be sitting around and waiting to die.
He turns to exchange a look of disgust with Lenny, only, Lenny doesn't seem inclined to share it. Instead, his eyes pool with some great, unnamable sadness.
"This is awful," Lenny whispers to himself as he watches a mercenary rip moldy bread from the mouth of a child. "Just awful."
"Why," Hilda demands, making the mercenaries jump. "Why do you take so much."
The krokorok musters all his courage just to glance back at her and respond. "Ain't it obvious? Our boss is the strongest there is; no one can beat him! If somebody wants protection from a guy like that, they gotta be ready to pay big bucks to keep him. What would stop him from offering his protection to a higher paying town?"
"Basic empathy?" Lenny suggests. He's shoved for his efforts.
"Empathy ain't shit," the krokorok sneers. "Economics is where it's at."
Montgomery may hate the guy, but he's got a point. If their boss is as strong as they say, and the town wants his protection, of course he's gonna demand a high price. But if they keep bleeding the town dry, how are they gonna get paid? Eventually, the town will run out of things to give.
That's when it strikes him: that's the point. Protect a town, bleed it dry, and then move onto the next high-paying town. That way, they'll make bank on every town and then have an excuse to leave it for a higher bidder.
Economics.
They pass an old man cradling a sick child as Bela sits nearby and comforts them. When she sees the three of them being bullied down the street, her eyes widen like saucers. Hastily, she jumps to her feet and gallops over.
"What's going on?" She asks, her eyes darting between the mercenaries and them. "Is everything okay?"
"No!" Montgomery and the krokorok yell at the same time. They narrow their eyes at each other. But the krokorok eventually continues, "These three refused to pay up, so we're takin' them to the boss."
"They don't live here, there's no reason they should have to pay..."
"If they benefit from us, we need compensation for our troubles."
Bela gives the krokorok one last imploring look before deciding he can't be swayed. Then, she turns her attention to the three of them and offers an apologetic wince.
"I'll come with you," she promises, as if that solves anything, "And I'll try to smooth things over with their boss."
It doesn't take too long for them to end up at the mercenaries 'base' of sorts. He can tell it's where they camp out because it's the only halfway decent building in the whole town. Also, because a group of mercenaries are slinking around the door, jeering at a woman who seems to be beseeching them for something.
"Please, just one week," she pleads, her voice ragged and weary. "One week without having to pay our dues, and we can save up enough money to buy my son medicine. Please, he'll die without it!"
One of the mercenaries sneers. "How's it our fault that you're such an irresponsible parent? If you'd saved up more, you wouldn't be in this position!"
She opens her mouth to say something else, but Montgomery doesn't hear it. They're shoved through the doors before he can listen to the rest of the conversation play out. But through the thick doors, he is able to hear the muffled sounds of mocking laughter coming from the mercenaries.
Even if the outside of the building suggested some level of luxury (relative to the rest of the town, at least), the inside is kinda a mess. Nothing like the absolute garbage dump outside, but things are tossed around haphazardly and unfinished food litters the ground. It looks more like a sloppy teenager's hideout than a mercenary base.
Montgomery has to squint to study his surroundings better. It's a large room, spacious and tall, and was probably once a community center of sorts. The room is dim, with only half the candles lit, and those half are melted down to the stubs. Wax drips from the sconces into puddles on the floor, hardening and sticking to the floorboards. The windows are boarded up, the floor is unswept, and dust lingers in the air. Again, although it doesn't compare to the horrors outside, it's not exactly pleasant.
But when his eyes wander to the center of the room, he discovers the one good thing in this building: a pile of wealth.
Literally, it's just a pile, sitting in the middle of the room, like in all those cheesy plays where there's a really rich character and the playwright doesn't know how else to show how stinking rich they are. The wealth isn't all glittering gold and shining jewels, and it doesn't resemble a fraction of the wealth back at the Alcott estate. It's mostly goods and food, some copper coins strewn about, and a couple of more noticable assets like family heirlooms. Still, when sizing this pile up to the rest of the town, this collection is like a hoard of treasures. Mayor Bela looks equal parts longing and sick when she lays eyes on it.
At the top of the pile, sitting in a plush chair that rests crookedly in the mass of wealth, a krookodile sprawls himself out comfortably. He taps his claws languidly against the arm of the chair, in a slow, steady rhythm as they're brought forward. His half-lidded gaze regards them carelessly.
"Who are these scumbags you've brought to me?" He wonders, tilting his chin up so he looks down at them over his nose. "They don't look like they're worth my time."
The krokorok pipes up. "Boss, these folks was tryin' to skimp out on payment!"
"Because they don't live here," Bela hastily adds.
"And also screw you," Montgomery snaps.
The krookodile's gaze sharpens, but only for an instant. Then, he yawns, clearly too lazy to bother with them.
Waving a fat finger at them idly, he says, "Just take their bandanas and tell them to get the hell out of my town."
The mercenaries advance, their grubby hands closing in around his bandana. Before a single grimy finger lays on it, Montgomery shoots a jet out water out at them and knocks them back. The struck mercenaries stagger back and sputter to catch their breath, and the others race in and grab him before he can brandish his scalshops.
"Screw you!" He shouts, trying to bodily jerk himself out of their grasp. His movements only serve to lock him further in place. "Go ahead, try it! See if I don't drown your asses and—"
His rant is cut short when the krokorok stuffs a cloth in his mouth to slow down any attack he might try. That doesn't mean he's not gonna fight back, and as they reach out to him again, he summons all the water he can.
Not fast enough. They snatch the bandana from around his neck and scurry back just as he launches a barrage at them.
The krookodile finally seems to wake up as water creeps toward his mountain of stuff. Gesturing wildly toward the door, he bellows, "Get them outta here!"
After a flurry of arms and legs and hands and floor and door, Montomery is thrust outside and thrown to the street. The city stench rears its ugly head once more, so sudden and violent that he nearly retches. He whips around to spit curses at the mercenaries or to just spit in general, but then Lenny is thrown after him and he's opening his arms to catch him before he realizes it.
They hit the ground together, hard. His ears ring from the impact and are filled with the far away laughter of the mercenaries. Bela races out after them, eyes full of worry, mouth racing a mile a minute. Montgomery can't hear a word she's saying. But by the time Hilda trudges out to inspect him, the spots in his vision clear and his hearing comes back.
"Mott? Mott, are you okay?" Lenny asks, voice fraught with concern. His bandana is gone, too. Digging into his pouch, he pulls out a berry. "Here, here, eat this, it'll make you feel better."
Montgomery accepts the berry and chews on it vengefully. Unconsciously, his hand drifts up to his neck. His bare neck.
He's lost his family name. His status. His dignity. Everything valuable about him, everything that makes him him, has been whisked away. Stolen. And now, they've taken the last thing he could claim as his own.
He may be a water type, but right now, he burns.
Beside him, Lenny is comforting someone—the woman who had begged the mercenaries for medicine, a maractus woman. She weeps into his shoulder and utters fragmented phrases like "my boy" and "just a little medicine" and "please, please, please."
They took his bandana.
He burns.
"I'm ending this," he seethes, standing. His fists clench and unclench; his jaw locks so tight it might shatter. "I'm getting our stuff back and I'm ending this."
Bela swallows, anxious. "How?"
"By taking down their boss," he states.
The others look at him like he's a madman. But the thing is, he's perfectly sane.
Now that he's gotten a glimpse of the boss, he knows what he's dealing with. The guy is nothing more than a fat, lazy piece of work. His only real power comes from ordering his subordinates around as well as the town's perception of him as some indestructible warrior. If Montgomery destroys his link to one of those things, the boss topples down from his pedestal.
Beating him in a public fight will ruin his fabricated image of unparalleled strength. Basic power play tactics. Montgomery has seen his father do the same to lesser nobles countless times, and it always ends with them slinking away and his father claiming a great victory. If he does the same, here and now, he'll defeat the boss and get his bandana back.
A dreadfully familiar, sneering voice behind him taunts, "Is that what you think you're gonna do?"
Montgomery's blood goes cold. Before he can whirl around and brace himself, he's clocked in the back of the head.
Lenny leaps to his aid, holding him close. Montgomery turns and scowls at the krokorok, who's busy twisting his wrist like he's gearing up for another punch. The krokorok's grin is malicious.
"Looks like I'll have to keep you folks outta the way, then."