Lord Shadow

Alexei Koseff is one of the Senate members, the Senator of the Senate, holding governorship to one of the Republic territory.

Jean is here.

And members of the Senate are also here.

Although not all of them are here, some are in the Senate in Moscow, holding the fort, exercising power

And of course, there is also Katarina in this island city. It is no wonder that the people of the Republic is very anxious.

They are anxious if the Ice Queen returns back to Moscow.

A civil war between the forces under Jean and under Boris might go to war to settle the score and that is not something any members of the Republic wanted to see,

Peace is hard to obtain, but war is easy to start.

Thus, it is not weird at all that there are many members of the Republic here compared to the other world powers

Alexei is on the side of Jean faction. It is then not weird seeing him here. He spoke to a few statesman of the world powers.

He even spoke to Wang Jian, Athena and Freya of Pandemonium

There is a large hall reserved for them where they could eat, drink and mingle with each other. But Alexei did not go to this place.

Instead, he went around the hallways. He goes to the garden, goes to the lake, goes all over until he saw someone

Standing inside, a pavilion above the lake water, seemingly looking at the sky. Alexei smiles, walk to that pavilion and stand beside that man

That man is a rat.

A rat that is very good at disguising himself.

There is silence between them. Alexei look around him; his Divine Sense is employed.

His Divine Sense is garbled but he could sense things that are closer, around ten feet radius around him.

But more than that it would become garbled.

'If I am like this, other people would also be like this' he thought to himself.  The rat looks at him and could feel his Divine Sense sweeping all over and he said

'There is no need to worry. I buried a few specialized Divine Sense scrambler around. With the Turbulent Seas and the scrambler, they could not listen or spy against us. Even if they spy, they would listen to an altered conversation'

Alexei raised his eyebrows.

'The Scrambler. I guess you also have ties with the order of thinkers.

'Who doesn't?' says the rat. There is another moment of silence between them and then Alexei said

'Peter Pettigrew, huh. That is quite on the nose, isn't it?'

The rat smiles.

'I think it is appropriate code name. I know what people call me. I simply embrace it'

'A rat is not exactly a prideful title to wear'

'In our world, the more notorious you are, the more people could trust you' At this Alexei only smiles faintly.

What he talks about, Alexei understand. But, there is no need to be clear. Since they both understand it, then it is enough

Alexei look around the pavilion and said

'They even put runes on these pavilions.'

The rat smiles and said

'These world leaders are all afraid people would hear their conversation so every pavilion is installed with anti-surveillance runes…. among other measures'

'You made sure that you did not trip any of their security measure?'

The rat smiles and said

'This Dome is hastily built. It still lacks many defensive measures. And because they wanted to quickly construct this building, some places have many loopholes. Maybe, they w ere also very confident. Confident that no one would do anything because Death Monarch is here.

He sighed and said

'People trust him too much' At this Alexei only smiles bitterly.

There is another silence between them, different thoughts swirling in both of these two men minds, and different plots and intrigue

Then the rat looks at Alexei. For a moment, he simply scans him from top to bottom

He smiles

Alexei also miles. He could guess what the rat is thinking about. The rat then said

'I didn't expect that you are a member of the Senate. I could not believe it when the file was given to me. I use to think that the Crime Alliance penetration to the world powers is minimal at best. But a Senator of the Senate? Never in my wildest dream'

Alexei only smiles

This is a normal reaction.

'Politics and crime has always been intertwined' The rat only chuckles at this. The Crime Alliance and the world power stands at opposite side.

But, it was not always like this. Only Pandemonium is stubborn enough to not have any relations at all with the Crime Alliance.

One could even think that Pandemonium is overly idealistic. Yet, the truth was they could afford to be idealistic.

An idealistic idiot always gets killed. But how do you kill an idealistic idiot who is also the strongest person in the entire world?

When one reaches the level that Death Monarch had reached, he is no longer an idealistic idiot. He simply could materialize his ideals by sheer force.

As for Alexei and the Crime Alliance, the Crime Alliance has long infiltrated the other world powers.

They understand one thing very clearly. The world powers are the trend of the world decided by "that one"

They could not beat that person, so they could only hide. But hiding does not mean not doing anything.

Alexei was recruited and he rose and he is now one of the Senators in the Senate, having great powers.

Even if the Senate once again reorganized the organization of power inside the Republic, Alexei would have a spot.

But for someone like the rat, it must seem weird to him that a Senator is also the member of the Crime Alliance.

He is used to it.

Alexei himself rarely shows his true identity to other people

It is only because the circumstances today are very different and the things that would be done today is very dangerous and world changing, that he had to show his face and give this rat the confidence

The rat looks at him and then said

'I hope you don't think of silencing me after this. I already have countermeasures if that were to happen and my employer would not be happy'

Alexei only smiles faintly.

There is silence between them as the rat began throwing out fish food from the pavilion.

The fishes in the lake all swim toward the food, opening their mouth to eat.

The silence butane these two is not a meaningless silence.

They seem to be thinking, of what question to ask and what to do and what has been done.

Alexei then ask

'It's done?'

The rat nodded.

'What about him? The Magician? He's here?'

The rat looks at the fishes eating the food and he chuckles. He did not answer the question

Alexei did not press on. He seems to wait for this rat to finish, whatever he is doing.

'Probably he is here. Though, it is as much as probable that he is not. Who knows? I am just someone he hires. I always prepare myself to even be deceived by the people who hire me. So, I never thought to much whether he is here or not. As long as I do my job and he pays me well, what do I care where he is'

Alexei scoffed.

He knew that this rat did not simply work for the Magician. There is a reason why this rat alongside the Magician

The longer the rat speaks, the more Alexei doesn't believe him. Alexei look at the cracks around the pavilion he is in

The cracks are very small, like a splinter. But he watched at it intently and sighed

Then he asked.

'How much time?'

'An hour. Half an hour. Along that period of time'

'It is not accurate'

'New weaponry and new chemical compound. Unstable but packs enough power. It is a test version. The Magician needs to know the type of damage it could inflict and whether it amount to anything in the eyes of those big people'

Alexei hearing this close his eyes for a moment. He seems to be thinking of something before opening back his eyes

'Is this also a demonstration?'

The rat nodded

'I think if it shows promise, your people would call my people. And my people would call the Magician' he paused for a second before saying

'The World power has been lording their influence and power all over the world. Some people doesn't like that. We were late, yes. But we could catch up. If there are heroes in this world bathed in light, then there should also be villains that uses the darkness'

Alexei did not deny this.

But, he is surprised that the Magician also has entrepreneurial mind.

he opens and closes his fist, his eyes are closed as he is thinking of the possibility of a cooperation between the Crime Alliance e and the Magician.,

The Magician is an unhinged person.

But, if it works…...and the power is really terrifying, the Red Table would not hesitate to overlook that small detail to make business with him

They need as many allies against the world power as they can. It would not be bad to add another ally.

>>