Look Me in the Eyes (and tell me that it's me) [Zhongchili]

Chapter 31 - Blood Brothers

A Fatui vehicle drops Ajax off in the early evening, close to the industrial site where his mission is to take place. The complex is located just outside the main city, rows on rows of warehouses lining the asphalt roads. Some units have been abandoned, their corrugated metal roofing having fallen away to create dark gashes across the sea of grey. Beside one of these units, a few pre-teens who've snuck onto the complex kick their ball between them, and Ajax catches a few stray words from their conversation, debating whether they'll go to school tomorrow or skip for the third time this week.

Outside the other units, workers hang around chatting, their work hours long over but their lacklustre marriages not appealing enough to return home to. Ajax waits for them to filter away before heading further in, his target an inconspicuous unit tucked towards the back of the complex. It's the perfect spot to conduct the sort of business that innocent folk shouldn't be involved in, which suits Ajax perfectly well, because there's going to be a lot of that going on tonight.

He approaches from an angle. The less notice they have, the better. The more of a drop he can get, the quicker, cleaner, and less painful their deaths will be. His soul may already be in the dirt for this, but there's no honour in torture.

After double checking he's at the correct place one final time, he draws close enough that he can peer through a dust-obfuscated window, and rubs a patch clean to catch sight of the ex-Fatui agents operating inside. They're carrying boxes across the warehouse floor, stacking them into a plain, white van parked in the corner. The windows are tinted, making it impossible to see into the driver's seat, but the men and women outside the van are dressed in their Fatui uniform and masks, concealing their identities from any wayward security cameras.

Not that Ajax needs to know who they are. He knows what they're doing, and he has his orders.

Soon, everyone in this building will be dead.

It's a small mercy that he's their executioner. At least it'll be quick.

He readies his mask over his face, in case he should need to use his Delusion, and slinks around the side of the building to a side entrance, the rusted door all but coming off in his hands as he pries it open. Flakes of rust flutter to the ground like bloodied snow and he lets himself in.

Let the battle begin.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he addresses the floor. "It appears that there is some illicit business occurring here, and I've been sent by your ex-employer to put a stop to it."

The room freezes, and a half dozen heads turn to look at him, including the driver of the van, who stares at him from behind the van's open door.

"Shit," mutters the closest Fatuus.

"That's a Harbinger," mutters another.

"Does anyone here have anything to raise to exonerate yourselves?" Ajax asks, drawing his Hydro blades. "Or are you all as guilty as each other?"

He knows they're all guilty, every last one of them. He saw them laughing, joking, chattering among themselves. But if one pleads to coercion, to forced labour, that's something he can take back to Pierro.

That's one more life who might survive the night, regardless of their faulty loyalties.

But there is no plea of innocence, no miracle justification that will spare Ajax's blade and conscience today.

"I'll take that as a no." He steps forward. "Then allow me to make things clear. Fatui intelligence has discovered that you've been smuggling substances for your own gain. You were supposed to confiscate and return these substances to Fatui headquarters, but you have chosen not to. Or do any of you claim this to be untrue?"