Pinkamena returned to the Saints hideout to report the death of Shogo Akuji who was literally six feet under. If he wasn’t dead yet, the lack of air supply would ensure he would be soon.

All that remained of the Ronin leadership was the Oyabun of the Yakuza, Kazuo Akuji.

However, finding him was going to be difficult, like The General. Unfortunately the same trick with hacking into the security cameras was not going to work twice as the police got wise to the Saints after the first time.

All they could do was wait until Akuji made his move.

In the meantime, there were a number of contacts that needed attending to.

Some producer wanted to film someone on an ATV while wearing what they called a “flame suit” in order to set stuff on fire as they drove around. While Pinkie might have been into the driving part, she was squeamish about the “setting people on fire” part. Since Playa was a big fan of the producer, he volunteered for that task. Pinkamena was concerned that she might have to step in to finish the job though given Playa’s driving record.

The remaining tasks were at the Stilwater Boardwalk at the marina. Another bodyguard request was made which Gilda would handle easily. Manuel’s ex had been downgraded to a drug mule and was being made to sell drugs on the street and she needed some protection while she made deals. While Pinkie could easily handle that, Treehugger needed the experience so the stoner mare was assigned that task. Finally, another assassination contract was available. This one was from Legal Lee who wanted some key witnesses to a couple of his court cases eliminated.

Once the tasks were assigned, the group left the hideout to carry out their respective tasks. Once Pinkamena arrived at the agreed meeting place with Legal Lee, he sent her the data on her next assassination targets.

The first of her set of six targets did not go as expected. As Jeremiah, who was a biker, noticed Pinkamena chasing him on a motorcycle with a katana pointed at him like a lance, he tried driving away as fast as he could. The strange part was that when he got to an intersection, a burning man riding an ATV crashed into him and drove away as if nothing happened while Jeremiah burst into flames while his motorcycle exploded.

Pinkamena frowned as she glared at the trail blazer and screamed “Kill thief!” at him.

The mare’s next target was rumored to be gambling at the Poseidon’s Palace. With or without the Ronin presence, the casino was still wary of her entry and fearful that she was going to rob them again. Rather than rob them however, she simply pulled out two SMGs and started shooting up the place and killing everyone that moved until she could confirm her target’s death.

After her initial spree, Pinkamena inspected the bodies to find her target and was able to find Nate on the ground and dead. She checked the man’s name off the list and thanked the survivors for their cooperation in her hunt before leaving the building. The survivors would later check themselves into a mental hospital for trauma therapy.

Since the ambulance driver target was done before, she simply dialed 911 and blew up the ambulance that showed up with her RPG. Thankfully for the local hospitals, she only needed to do that once.

The setup for her next target was a bit complex but when her target frequents a greek themed store, he better be prepared to deal with a movie reference.

Pinkamena approached Chris while wearing replica Spartan armor and holding a Spartan shield while pointing a very real spear at him. The man backed away as the mare continued to close in on him.

“Wh-what the f-fuck do you want with me?” Chris asked.

“Someone I know wants you dead,” she responded.

“W-wait a minute. You don’t have to do this. M-maybe if I skip town...”

“Nope. You’re gonna die here.”

“Now come on, this is madness…”

“Madness?” The mare’s grin turned maniacal as she heard the one word she was waiting to hear from his mouth.

“THIS!” Pinkamena yelled as she charged toward him.

“IS!” She turned around and tensed her hind legs.

“BUY JOVE!” The buck that followed sent Chris flying into a bundle of spears with the pointed ends pointed at him. Chris ended up impaled in multiple places and bled to death in the greek themed store.

It pained Pinkamena to have to spend some of her money on a boat that she had no plans on using in the foreseeable future but it had to be done to lure her next target out.

Just like the description said, Randy showed up to see what Pinkamena bought. An idea formed in the mare’s head about a use she could find for the watercraft. She picked the jet ski out of the water and lifted it with her earth pony strength. This terrified Randy into turning around and running away but it was too late as she hurled the jet ski at him and nailed him in the back, pinning the aquacraft on him. She then proceeded to shoot up the watercraft with her SMGs until it blew up and torched the boat enthusiast with it.

Last on her list was some guy named Nick who was staying at the Heron Hotel at the Boardwalk. It was easy to enter the hotel and keep her knife in her mouth to make the guests give the mare a wide berth as she made her way to the elevator that led to the building’s top floor. After that it was only a matter of slaughtering every guest on the top floor until she found and killed Nick.

When Pinkamena returned to the hideout, Treehugger and Gilda regaled her about their experiences with their assigned activities.

Gilda really took advantage of the scenery where she threw some crazed porn fans into the maw of a fire breathing dragon statue and roasted the guy. She threw others into an active jet engine. Most amusing of them were the crazed fans who got thrown into a group of lumberjacks with chainsaws. That would have been something Pinkamena would have wanted recorded but alas, she would have to settle for the verbal story.

However, the griffon did bring back a can of pepper spray and a chainsaw as souvenirs.

After the first couple of attempts to sell drugs on the street, Treehugger realized that Luz was terrible at selling since they ended up taking the product and running. After two failed attempts. Treehugger offered to sell the drugs instead while Luz simply drove around. The latino woman was fine with this arrangement.

While some junkies did try to take the drugs and run, Treehugger was not going to play nice. Her experiences with the Sons of Samedi had shown her that being nice in the city was going to get her fucked up in the end. With that she shot the junkie in the back before taking back the drugs and all of his money.

This trend continued for a while until Luz ran out of stock. For her efforts, Treehugger was given a coupon that made the Ronin back off from their aggression faster, which wasn’t very useful at this stage in the campaign against the gang since all they needed to do was finish off Kazuo Akuji.

Playa returned with some magical coupon that was supposed to give some protection whenever an explosion went off in his face.

With no other leads on where Kazuo was the Saints decided to mess around in the hideout until something happened.

But something did happen while Playa and Johnny were shooting cans when Pierce joined them and brought Wong and his translator with him. The translator walked around worse than Wong did since he was shot in both legs five years ago.

“Hey Wong,” Pinkamena greeted.

Wong spoke in Mandarin while the translator did his job, “Ah, there’s my favorite assassin. I see that your skills have not dulled when last we met.”

“You gotta love what you do.”

“I came here today to give thanks to the mare who killed Kazuo Akuji’s son.”

“You know Akuji?” Playa asked.

“Akuji and I have a long history. I have also had several unpleasant dealings with his son.”

“What did Shogo do?” Pierce asked.

“When he was younger he killed Mr. Wong’s dog.”

“You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” Johnny commented about the underwhelming story behind Wong’s rivalry with Akuji.

“I do not joke about Sadie,” Wong snapped in English.

Before the conversation continued, the sound of motorcycles could be heard from within the hideout.

Pinkamena gave Pierce a deadpan stare, “Pierce, remind me to give you some lessons on how not to be followed,” she said while putting a lot of emphasis on ‘not’.

While one of the Saints was late to the party and gave some old news, Pinkamena began scouring the hideout for Ronin.

During her hunt, Pinkamena gave Gilda a call to deal with the Ronin from the air outside the hideout and if she found a Ronin in a grey suit, she was to capture him immediately.

The chaos within the hideout was only to conceal the true intent of the Ronin which was to demolish the support pillars holding up the hotel. Once they found out, Playa, Pinkamena, Johnny and Pierce made sure to cover the areas where the pillars were and make sure nobody could attack them.

Once the first two pillars were secured, the four went deeper into the hideout to protect the other four pillars from the vicious assault from the Ronin. While they came in great numbers, that didn’t matter as Pinkamena sliced and diced her way through the rank and file.

It wasn’t long before the numbers thinned out and the Saints could see Kazuo Akuji fighting with pistol and katana but he could see that he was on the losing end of this battle and soon it was just him and the Ronin on a motorcycle next to him against the Saints and their demonic mare who was smiling like a psychopath out of an anime.

Kazuo quickly boarded the motorcycle and the two drove off to escape and fight another day. “All according to plan…” Pinkamena thought as she pulled out her phone.

Kazuo could not be more frustrated if he tried. While the loss of his son was more of a blessing than an inconvenience, the Saints have proven more formidable than anticipated. If he wanted to eliminate the enemy he would need to deal with them while they were divided. Only then could he salvage something from the fiasco his son called a gang.

A few moments after he and his driver had exited the back entrance to the Saints hideout was all it took for his future plans to be laid to ruin as he soon found himself being lifted into the air after being caught off guard and dropping his pistol. He kept hold of his katana though but even if he did resist, the drop would have been fatal.

The creature that grabbed him was nothing like he witnessed before. The front end had white feathers while purple coloring was seen around her eyes and at the tip of her crest. The rear end of the creature resembled a feline with golden fur. His arms were held by the creature’s talons as he was being carried to who knows where.

It was at least ten minutes before the creature lowered her altitude and descended toward the city cemetery. When they arrived the creature dropped him unceremoniously on the ground before it flew back a short distance beside the familiar figures that he had just escaped from.

The evil pony who murdered his son stepped forward with her knife in her hoof. “Hello Kazy, if you don’t recognize this place, this is where the Akuji family was, is, and will be buried.”

Kazuo looked back to see a casket that looked like it had been dug up recently but he didn’t need a closer look to know who was in it. The thought of the shameless Saints showing the face of his dead embarrassment of a son had enraged him to the point where he began attacking the pony with his katana.

He wasn’t counting on the impossible speeds that the mare could move as she giggled while slashing him from all directions, leaving cuts ranging from shallow to deep depending on where he focused his guard. However, the mare kept attacking him from directions he was not prepared to counter while the cuts were starting to bleed out and stain his suit.

With the amount of damage he took in a short time Kazuo’s stance started to falter as his body stung from the cuts all over his body and in a yell of desperation, fury and pain, he began slashing wildly trying to hit the pony.

As Kazuo’s berserk slashing continued, Pinkamena watched with the other Saints and Wong as she laughed at how silly the Oyabun looked while slashing at nothing.

Exhaustion eventually settled in as Kazuo’s fruitless attacks took their toll on him. When he finally stopped, Pinkamena charged forward and slammed him toward and into Shogo’s casket, forcing him to drop his sword.

After Pinkamena shut the casket, she pulled out a molotov cocktail and lit it before announcing her final move against the Yakuza boss, “You lose Kazy, but don’t feel bad. You get to go to Tartarus with your very own night light.”

“You dare bury me with my shame?” Kazuo yelled. “Does your cruelty have no limit?”

“I’ll let you know when I find that out.”

The madmare briefly opened the casket and tossed the molotov inside before she shut it again and made the casket descend into the ground again. The casket rocked as Kazuo tried to escape but Pinkamena was not having that as she grabbed Kazuo’s katana and ran the blade through the casket at a point that caused a high-pitched sound to ring from the box.

As dirt began filling the plot again, the casket burst into flames as the inside of the box was made of flammable materials. Wong looked in the plot with a satisfied look on his face as one of his biggest problems was screaming in agony as Kazuo lay in the casket and slowly dying.

As the last of the dirt topped the plot, Wong looked at Pinkamena with the biggest smile he had made in many years. His translator spoke his Mandarin words, “You have made this old man very happy. If I had an unwed son, I would marry him to you.”

Pinkamena was caught off guard by Wong’s statement but made sure to show respect for the elderly man with a bow.

With that, Wong left with his translator to find other things to do in Stilwater.

With the Ronin finished, The Saints claimed Adept Way and Stilwater Boardwalk as a show that the Ronin were finished in Stilwater.

All that remained between the Saints and Ultor were the overcompensating Brotherhood and their leader, Maero.

Author's Note

Only one gang to go. But first we look into the struggles of a whistleblower against a corporation in a corrupt city.