Oleandre squinted his eyes. It was an instinctive reaction to getting something like blood in them. He had not thought about the possibility of the assassin being the "elite" one there. And he should have. For operations like these, there is always one person with orders directly from the boss, with skill level to match the mission of making sure that the whole plan does not go to hell. But it was a very rare occurrence that this person would be the "assassin" - most of the time it was either a "sniper" waiting in another building or one of the thugs, just like Oleandre had operated the few times he acted on this mission himself. And if there was anything Oleandre knew now, it was that taking on this man now would be a very stupid idea. There was almost no doubt they would have won - if it was just a duel between the two of them the outcome might have been slightly less certain, but the man was no match for an entire team of ragtag slayers with skills this varied. No, it was a stupid idea because this man would not cow in to intimidation, and trying to attack him directly would leave them with no-one to get their reply to the boss. It was bad. They were not prepared to pass the message right now, and if they passed a wrong one they would lose any chance to contact with the underground bosses. That would leave them with either doing a "district clean" or as normal people refer to it "leaving the district we would fight in in ruins", or waiting for the bastards' next summoning. The latter was a foolish plan, and Oleandre did not fancy waiting for heck knows how long just for that. And then the mind-reader spoke. - "Ignore the talky guy, he's got no idea who he's dealing with now. But he's got the generals of it down." Forcing his eyes open, Oleandre continued speaking after a short pause. - "We need information about the pillar gods. Every bit of it you have, as soon as it can be given, and in exchange you'll get one a team for one task of your choice." Saying these words, Oleandre smirked overtly. - "You heard us talk to the puppet. We need to be prepared to kill the pillar gods, and we can do it with or without your help. But if we don't know what we'll be fighting, it won't be a simple kill but a district clean, and I know your influence will be cut if you lose a few streets."
Billy can kind of see where this is going, and he knows better than to try and pitch in his own two zorkmoids, so he just rests the sofa over his shoulders and glowers at the assassin, as if daring him to suggest they don't have what it takes to deal with the pillar gods.
