Interlude: A Fate Worse Than Death
A bucket of cold water is all it takes to wake the pig up after I'd rung his bell hard enough to stop him from causing any more trouble. There's something rich about the fact that he's an Enforcer, but I wound up having to kick his ass to make sure he followed the law. Well, the closest thing Zaun has to real laws. Even in Piltover what he'd been doing was illegal as fuck, they just never actually care when it's their bluebellies breaking the law by breaking Zaunite skulls.
"GRAH! What the fuck?!" The pig tried to get out of his chair but eventually figured out that he was tied down. It was too bad I couldn't see the dumb look on his face because of the bag over his head, but that was just common sense. If he got out of this thing alive nobody wanted all the trouble that could come from him seeing our faces.
Whether that would happen ... well that's what we were here to figure out. I put one of my steel-toed boots onto the chair and loomed over the little piggie. "It's funny. The way I heard it, your big boss queen pig was very clear about things after the last time you shitgibbons showed your ugly faces down here. No pigs allowed in Babette's. And yet, there you were causing a problem for everyone else. I knew you lot were dumb, but I figured even idiot attack dogs at least knew how to follow orders. You know what we do to dogs who can't follow orders?"
"I bet you eat them when you can't find a nice juicy rat," the brave little piggie spat back. "Isn't that right, undercity trash? Think you can tell us where we can and can't go? We're
Enforcers! We're the law! That means we can go wherever the fuck we wanna go, and do whatever the fuck we wanna do! You think last time was bad? Me and my buddies are gonna head down to Babette's and have us a
real good time to pay you back for this."
"You really don't know the difference between bravery and stupidity, do you?" I slugged him in the stomach, hard enough to make him retch. Which had to be extra unpleasant when he had that hood on. Though making the pig stew in his own puke sounded like a good time to me.
"Make sure he doesn't drown in it." Silco's calm voice cut through the silence of the empty warehouse we'd dragged our fat little piggie to. "I don't want him dying yet."
I scoffed but nodded to one of my crew to lift the hood just enough to make sure his airway was clear. I got where he was coming from: killing a pig might be a public service, but doing it on accident was just sloppy. Once that was done I got back to the interrogation. "Or maybe it's not bravery at all. Maybe the scared little piggie just thinks that if it keeps acting like a big strong scary Enforcer, we'll all forget that he's tied up naked in a chair and outnumbered twelve to one." I looked down, then smirked over at my crew. "Or that we won't notice he's actually a pretty tiny little piggie who's so fat he probably hasn't seen his dick in years."
"You
bitch!" The little piggie tried to squirm his way out of the ropes we'd used to tie him up, but I knew my knots. Maybe he could've wormed his way outta the ropes with enough time, but I wasn't planning on giving him much of that. "You're dead! All your friends are dead! Your family's dead! Then I'm gonna find whatever shithole they stuffed your body into and piss on it!"
"Big talk from a scared little piggie." It was easy to spit out threats when you were backed into a corner with nothing left. I'd seen people like this pig all the time. Bullies who were so used to getting their way that they didn't know how to do anything but bluster and threaten, even when they had a losing hand. He was so used to being a big bad untouchable Enforcer that his little piggy brain couldn't accept just how little of a shit we gave about his fancy badge and Piltie-given title. Or maybe he was just so scared he couldn't do anything but try to deny just how utterly fucked he was.
I turned to Silco. "So far he's not making much of a case for not stringing him up from the nearest lamppost. I doubt even the other pigs are gonna like a piece of shit like this asshole."
The side of Silco's mouth tilted up in something that would look like a smile if not for the scars on that side of his face. "Probably not, but it's a mistake to think that the Enforcers are motivated by their fondness for one another. Everyone knows the first rule of being in a gang is that you stick together and protect your own. It doesn't matter if they're the lowest, most annoying, most useless member of your crew, an attack on one is an attack on all."
I hated it, but he was probably right. For all their talk of law and order, the Enforcers were just a gang with Piltover's money and power backing them up. They wouldn't tolerate an attack on one of their own. "So what's the plan, then?"
"Do you know how revolutions are won?" Silco lit up one of his cigars. "People always focus too much on the brute physicality and numbers of war. Those do have their place, but reducing the conflict to how many soldiers a fully mobilized Zaun and Piltover can put into the field is such a blunt way of seeing things. Even in a conflict between nations, there's far more to who wins than which side has the larger army. If it were that simple the Noxians would hold the entire continent."
He chuckled and waved his cigar through the air. "Revolutions spring from the fusion of ideas and desperation. People need a cause to fight for, one they believe in enough to risk death, and they need to be so desperate for change that they're willing to risk death to achieve it. However, there's another critical component to what makes revolutions succeed that we overlooked last time: Piltover has ideas too."
"Who gives a fuck what the Pilties think?" I growled, smacking the tied-up piggy on the back of the head to emphasize my point.
"I do." Silco lightly puffed his cigar. "Because we don't just win by mobilizing Zaun, we do it by destroying Piltover's motivation. Do you know how I survived in the Lanes when I wasn't the biggest, the strongest, or the smartest? It was because all the bigger and stronger people knew it wasn't worth fighting me. They'd win, but they'd come away from it hurt and with nothing to show for their pain and injuries but the dubious honor of defeating a weaker opponent. It's the same with Piltover: ideas can destroy their will to fight long before we've exhausted their resources."
He put his attention on the tied-up Enforcer. "Tell me, how do you think Piltover will react if we kill one of their Enforcers? A member of their gang, as it were? No matter how much he might deserve to die."
I grimaced as I followed his reasoning. "They wouldn't give a fuck what he did to deserve it, because we would've killed one of their crew."
"Exactly." Silco jabbed the lit end of his cigar at the piggy. "They'll have grand speeches and parades in honor of a noble officer who died in the line of duty, and quietly sweep all his crimes under the rug. Then they'll fall upon Zaun for vengeance, united in anger. Far too many Zaunites will be scared into compliance. They'll say we went too far, that killing an Enforcer was unjustified. We lose the war of ideas."
"Then what're we supposed to do?" I growled back at him. "If I wanted to just let the pig walk I would've taken him to Vander, not you."
Silco let out a cold chuckle. "What would you do if a member of your gang was made to look like a fool? Humiliated in front of all of Zaun, shown to be unworthy of membership in your crew. Would you stand up for them, and demand vengeance on those who exposed their weaknesses to the world?"
I thought it over for a second, scoffed, and shook my head. "As long as it's not a situation like three heavies beating down a teen lookout or something, where it's a total mismatch, no. There's nothing people hate more than someone who's weak and an asshole." I grinned as the pieces started falling into place. "If I stuck with them, I would look like an asshole too. If I cut them loose … sucks to be them."
"Exactly." Silco sent another of his ghastly smiles my way. "I suspect we will see the first. Many men will forgive those who punch them in the face sooner than they'll forgive those who make them lose face. Fortunately, I have a few very creative people who've had some inspired ideas on how to bid our officer adieu." He waved towards the corner of the old warehouse. "Let's not let our guest overhear that part. I would hate to spoil the surprise."
I walked away with him. By the time he was done telling what was in store for Officer Piggy, I was tempted to giggle like a schoolgirl. "To hell with killing him, if someone took me down that bad I'd consider eating my own gun."
"I do enjoy the occasional dramatic flair," Silco agreed with a chuckle. "It makes people remember what really matters."
"One last suggestion, though." I grinned at him. "Make sure he's wearing his badge on his chest like a good little piggy."
"Even though he'll be naked?" Silco smirked. "Well, they have pins in them for a reason." He chuckled and offered me one of his cigars. "I think I'm going to enjoy working with you, Sevika."
