The Six Guns - 43 Chapter Forty Three
The next day, the team leaves for China. After a long plane ride, they arrived in Hong Kong, China. The first thing they decided to do was find a place to stay for a while, and then discuss what to do next.
“I have no idea how to start on this request” Siran says.
“Of course you don’t” Vivi responds.
“Well” Zia says, “we could always do what we did before. Try to collect information around town, then decide what to do next”.
“We’ll probably have to stick to that method for a while if we-” Siran begins to say before he’s interrupted by a knock on their door. When Siran opens the door, he’s met with a group a police officers.
“My name is Li Xiu Ying” The first officer says. “And we need you to come with us”.
“What for?” Siran asks.
“We already know that you’re The Six Guns” Li Xiu Ying says, “and we’re not sure what business it is you came for, but our Chief of Police wants to speak with you. Don’t worry, it’s on friendly terms”.
The crew looks at each other in confusion, but agrees to follow Li Xiu Ying. “So how did you know we were The Six Guns?” Finn asks.
“We recognized his face” She says as she points at Siran.
“You can call me Siran” Siran says, “so you don’t have to keep calling me ‘he’ or ‘him’. I imagine that’d be uncomfortable”.
“You can call me Ying” she says. “I feel like we could be good friends”.
“This is new” Alex says, “I didn’t think we could go anywhere that people might know our faces and not want to kill us”.
“Yes, well” Ying says, “we’re trying to be diplomatic. You’re not exactly our enemy, and in times like this, it’s important to have as many strong allies as you can get”.
“Is that what your Chief of Police wants to talk about?” Vivi asks.
“I don’t know for sure” Ying says, “I’m only an officer. I was simply sent to come get you”.
After a long walk, they arrive at a large police department building. Ying escorts The Six Guns to a large room where the Chief of Police waited. “You must be The Six Guns” he says, “I expected… less of you. My name is Zhang Wei”. Zhang Wei holds his hand out to shake Siran’s hand.
Siran hesitates, but shakes Zhang Wei’s hand and says “My name is Siran”.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about people complaining about The Ly’Lum recently, have you not?” Zhang Wei says. “I assume that’s why you came to China?”.
“Uh… Yeah” Siran says nervously. “What is going on with The Ly’Lum here?”.
“We have decided to no longer ally with The Ly’Lum” Zhang says, “and by we, I mean the President decided to no longer ally with Omnia and The Ly’Lum government. With the support of the people, of course. Not long after news about who you are spread around the world, Omnia and The Ly’Lum have gone through several… changes that we deem undignified. They’ve already suggested that we ourselves make changes to our government in ways that would only benefit The Ly’Lum and not our people. As if that much disrespect wasn’t enough, they’ve allowed their own nation to split in such a way that even their leaders are quitting. We’ve even heard that one of their leaders directly defected to your side during all this conflict”.
“Oh yeah” Ruby says, “That’d be me”.
“Does this mean you believe The Six Guns are the good guys in this situation?” Siran asks.
Zhang was silent for a moment before he says “Two sides of the same coin, Siran. Two sides of the same coin”.
“So you’re just looking for the lesser of two evils to kill off the other then?” Siran asks.
“That’s an accurate way to describe the current situation” Zhang says.
“Well, not all of us think you’re evil” Ying says. “Then again, some people also still believe you’re not the lesser of the two evils. So it’s hard to say where we stand on how much we can trust you”.
“Trust me” Ruby says, “I feel the same way”.
“So what is it that you need us to do?” Siran asks.
“We need you to help push The Ly’Lum out of our country” Zhang says. “If you can manage to destabilize The Ly’Lum’s activity in China, then the President of the People’s Republic of China can use that as an example of a breach of trust. When either one of the countries can display a breach of trust to the other, they can then call for a… cease of partnership between the two countries, so to speak. Whatever you do though, the rest of the world must not know about your involvement with this”.
“Sounds difficult” Siran says, “but we’ll find a way to accommodate”.
“Good to hear” Zhang says. “I’ll be looking forward to the results”.
Ying escorts the crew back to where they’re staying at. As they walk, Ying says “I hope you all are comfortable during your stay in China. Please don’t take whatever anyone might say to heart about you guys being bad people”.
“We’re used to that by now” Vivi says.
“Well, I hope it gets better” Ying says. “I personally don’t think you guys are bad people”.
“Prepare to be disappointed then” Alex says.
Rose punches Alex on the shoulder and says “What he means is, we’re always happy to make more friends. We don’t see many people like you around, so it’s refreshing”.
Ying laughs and pulls out a small notebook. She writes something on a piece of paper and hands the paper to Siran. “That’s my phone number” Ying says, “if you guys ever need more help, just let me know”.
Siran hands the paper to Satomi, since her and Mikoto were the only ones with working phones. “Thanks, we’ll keep that in mind”.
“Actually” Vivi says, “there is one thing I could use your help with”.
“What is it?” Ying asks.
“Can you point me to the nearest electronics store?” Vivi asks. “We need something we can use for communication, like an earpiece or something. It’d help us greatly while we’re trying to help push The Ly’Lum out”.
“Of course” Ying says, “Right this way”.
Night drew over the sky before Vivi returned. The crew waited in their hotel, trying to come up with a plan. “We need to find a way to keep our identities hidden” Rose says, “so that they won’t have the chance to report that we’re at work here in China, even if we fail at an attack and have to retreat”.
“We don’t even know where to attack” Alex says.
“Well, we could always use Ying” Vivi says as she enters the door. “She’s apparently so willing to help, maybe she can point us in the right direction”.
“I’m not sure I can ask her for too much though” Siran says, “she’s helping so much that it almost feels like she’s a part of the team”.
“She hasn’t helped that much” Vivi says.
“Do you think she’s Six Guns material?” Zia asks.
“I don’t know” Siran says, “and I’m not sure I could even ask her that, because she seems to really love her country so much. I don’t think we’d be able to pull her away from her home like that”.
“Whatever the case” Vivi says, “we’ll likely have to refer to her help again if we’re going to get started on this any time soon”.
“That’s true” Finn says, “we can’t keep moving around aimlessly”.
“Then I guess we’ll have to get ahold of Ying tomorrow then” Siran says. “For now, we should get some sleep”.
The next day arrives, and in the afternoon, the crew tries to call Ying. Satomi calls her but Ying tells them “Sorry, I have to finish my work for today. After I finish though, I can show you a map and where The Ly’Lum do most of their work in China. They don’t have bases here in China, but they do use some of our buildings as a sort of office. I’ll locate them for you”.
And so, later that day, Ying came over with a map and circled all the locations where The Ly’Lum operate.
“The closest one seems to be here in Hong Kong” Siran says, “so we’ll start with this one”.
“It’ll also be the hardest one to handle” Ying says. “They operate in a large palace that was created as a building used for joint work between countries. So not only is there going to be a lot of space with a lot of Ly’Lum, but there will be others there so you have to be careful”.
“Noted” Siran says, “and these other two places?”.
“One of them is on Hainan Province” Ying says, “and the other in Jiangxi Province. Hainan is an island province, and the building they use there isn’t shared with other people. Only The Ly’Lum use the building there. Same for Jiangxi”.
“That’s not too bad” Siran says. “If we take them in Hong Kong first, then it’ll be better than taking the ones in Hong Kong last. If we attack the easier places first, then it’ll give them more time to prepare here in Hong Kong. When they’re in such close proximity with people of other nations right here, who knows what they might try to pull if we give them the time?”.
“So you really do have other peoples’ best interest in mind” Ying says.
“Don’t sugarcoat this too much” Siran says, “part of our attacks on The Ly’Lum is for revenge and nothing more”.
“It’s not healthy to romanticize violent people like us” Alex says.
“I’ll… keep that in mind” Ying says.
“So how should we start this operation?” Rose asks.
“If I can have another word with Zhang again” Siran says, “or of anyone who’s capable of giving us permission to use the palace in Hong Kong, then we can easily gain access to the building without needing to sneak in and raise alarms. Once that’s done, we’ll need to find out where The Ly’Lum operate in that palace, keep them isolated from the other guests, and take them out quietly. Remember to keep our identities a secret, so that no one will know that we were involved”.
“Finally being careful for a change?” Vivi asks sarcastically.
“Yeah” Siran says, “I can’t afford to not be careful”.
The next day, the crew went to see Zhang again, and although he can’t grant them diplomatic usage of the palace, he could grant them access to visit the palace. Not long after that, the crew goes to the palace. When they arrive, they each wear different kinds of disguises. Most of them were disguised as a detective, and the rest disguised as officers. The role they were assuming were investigators visiting the palace under the permission of the Chief of Police for any suspicious behavior. It took them hours, but they managed to find out which side of this large palace The Ly’Lum resides and did most of their work. There were several rooms and offices to cover, but each of them waited inside or near different rooms. When it looked like everyone from The Ly’Lum were on this side of the palace, Siran and Holly used a digital sound barrier spell to keep any noise from escaping. This part didn’t take them long to finish. Soon enough, The Ly’Lum that were here had met a quick end. All the people that were here under the orders of The Ly’Lum were all businessmen of some sort. With no military officials anywhere here, there wasn’t much of a fight. In order to let people know the job has been done, while still not letting anyone know it was them who did it, they left the bodies in the rooms to be discovered later.
“That was disappointing” Zia says, “I expected more soldiers. Where are all of the soldiers?”.
“That is strange” Siran says. “Maybe we’ll need to ask Ying or Zhang about it”.
On their way back, they got ahold of Zhang Wei again, and asked him about it. “There were no military officials?” Zhang asks.
“No, none” Siran says.
“That’s not right” Zhang says, “there definitely should’ve been several there”.
“Why do I get a really bad feeling about this?” Alex asks.
“Because” Zhang says, “if there weren’t any military officers there, or any government officials, then that means none of them died. There should’ve been several there, but since none of them were and none of them died, then they’re all still out there somewhere. Maybe not at the palace, but somewhere here in China. Which means you need to watch your backs now. They could be anywhere at this point, watching and waiting”.
“We’re going to have to keep these disguises on for a long time then, aren’t we?” Rose asks.
“Speaking of disguise” Alex says as he turns to Siran, “can’t you just shapeshift into another form?”.
“Uhh…” Siran says.
“You do have another form you can change into, don’t you?” Alex asks.
“I never… practiced a different form” Siran says. “I have to create each form I change into and I never made any other form”.
“Whatever the case” Zhang says, “start getting your asses moving and finish the job as soon as possible! The longer you stay here, the longer you risk ruining the whole operation”.
“I’m getting the feeling we’re walking into a trap” Zia says. Please go to to read the latest chapters for free
