When the manager of the strip club suddenly went to the first floor and announced to everyone the party was over, Jessie the bartender was confused. This wasn't normal at all, and stopping the business now would mean losing a lot of clients and thus a lot of revenue. Nonetheless, she obeyed. It was the manager giving the order, and she was merely an employee. All she could do was obey.
Many of the customers were less than satisfied about their pleasure time being cut short, but aside from a few who were especially drunk, most wisely left in silence. They more or less knew about who was behind this club, and the Reese Cartel wasn't something these people wanted to mess with.
Even the few extremely drunk customers who refused to leave were tossed out by the bouncers.
Finally, the club was closed, and the only people left were employees. The manager clapped his hands and gathered everyone around in the center of the club. A handful of bouncers. Many bartenders and girls worked at the poles. Even the employees who worked in the back of the club were called out to the front. No exceptions were made.
Most of the employees expected their manager to make some emergency announcement. The optimistic ones wondered if the manager decided to give all of them a sudden raise. The pessimistic ones, the ones that composed most of the employees, were a bit more concerned. Maybe the manager caught some of the employees stealing?
This was why they were beyond confused when they realized the manager was standing among them. So...were they here to listen to someone else? A few employees next to the manager frowned, unsure if they should ask the man.
They were quickly enlightened.
Cassie casually made her way onto the elevated stage where the girls were dancing minutes ago. She glanced at the ground as she walked, and was made very uncomfortable by the amount of unidentified fluids. Despite being in her silver armor, she still felt disgusted just by being here. Still, she turned her attention away from the filth and onto the employees of the club.
Her eyes briefly glanced across Jesse, the bartender who tried to get her away from this club, but she didn't say anything.
"What the…" A few of the employees raised their eyebrows as they saw the odd figure of Cassie. The armor Cassie wore looked like something that came straight out of a Marvel movie. In any other circumstance, they would think she was cosplaying, but...things just weren't adding up!
Cassie had no intention to explain all this to them. While the manager and his goons were rounding everyone up, she found a chance to rest her head a little and recover some of her strength. This allowed her to do things more aggressively.
All of a sudden, the dozens of employees realized they could no longer move. Even lifting a finger became impossible as Cassie literally froze them in place. Something like this was only possible thanks to her armor. Still, it strained her.
Slowly, she approached one of the employees and asked him a simple question.
"What is your involvement with the Reese Cartel?"
Under the horrified eyes of his colleagues, the man, who was a bouncer, confessed everything he knew about the cartel. Apparently, he mostly stuck to his job as a bouncer and handled the not-so-occasional drunks. He also helped chase off a few harassers from local gangs working against the cartel. Still, nothing too bad.
Cassie nodded and went onto the second employee. This man was more involved with the cartel, but despite his best attempts, he still sang like a canary.
And the interrogations continued.
Jesse was standing in the crowd. Beside her, Rose was describing all the problematic things she had done. Rose was apparently tasked by the cartel with helping the cartel dealers with new customers. She would get a cut for every new customer that she pushed into the hole that was drug addiction. For more times than she could count, the woman had secretly slipped minor pieces of narcotics in the drinks she served to the customers. Just to get them hooked.
Many of her customers, like Cassie, were merely teenagers who wanted to try something new. They came into the club for some drinks and exposed skin. They went home with potential addictions capable of ruining their lives forever.
And for destroying countless lives, Rose was awarded with fate paychecks.
Jesse couldn't see the armored woman's face. In fact, the only way she knew this was a woman was because of her feminine voice. Still, she could tell the woman was far from satisfied. As she finished talking, Cassie started making her way down the line.
Jesse bit her lips. Everything that happened since the armored woman stepped on the stage had been a blur. A nightmare. Somehow, this woman made all her colleagues talk, and now she was moving onto her. Jesse sighed and braced for herself...before realizing the woman went past her and started extracting the words out of another bartender beside her.
This made Jesse freeze in confusion. Did the armored woman skip her? Why? She had a million questions, as did the others, but Cassie didn't give them the opportunity to ask them.
It took Cassie quite a while to go through every single employee. Well, almost every single one. She left Jesse out of the interrogation on purpose. She did like the bartender and what she said to her, which was why she wanted a more private chat with her.
Most of the employees here weren't bad people...at least not really. They knew that the club belonged to the Reese Cartel and they were working for a criminal group, but most of them didn't do anything bad. A few minor and petty crimes here and there, sure, but nothing major.
A few of the employees, however, were much more wicked than the rest. Two of the bouncers have been raping drunk female customers. One of the older strippers has been sexually abusing her younger colleagues. Rose and another bartender were ordered to get as many customers addicted as possible to increase revenue. And so on....
It was just a mess. A damn mess. Despite only a portion of the employees being criminals, everything that she saw and heard here made Cassie sick.
For a few short seconds, Cassie toyed with the idea of just taking matters into her own hands. The two bouncers? She would be more than happy to make sure it was impossible for them to touch another woman ever again. The stripper, well...she wasn't sure what to do with that. The two bartenders could go to hell as far as she was concerned.
It would be so easy...all she could do was flicker her fingers, and it would be done. These scum couldn't even resist her. They couldn't even hide or defend themselves! Just the flicker of a finger...
Alas, she took hold of herself. Despite what she believed, raping wasn't punishable by death, and nor were the other crimes. She couldn't just go around brutalizing or killing people. That would make her just another criminal. Just another villain. No...that was not what she was fighting for.
Cassie went back to the employees who have been guilty. One by one, she wiped their memories about what happened here before leaving them with a single instruction. Go to the closest police station and then tell them every single crime they did and everything they knew about the Reese Cartel. After that, proceed to provide any and all evidence the police require from them.
She did the same to the manager, the accountant, the bodyguards, and Mr. Patricks. The entire process was especially draining, and she had to take a break every two to three people. Yet, in the end, she got the job done.
Cassie also made sure to instruct the manager to destroy all the surveillance tape of the last two days to hide her presence here. This way, with all the employees handled and their memories wiped, the only way anyone could connect her to this place was if some of the customers managed to remember seeing her. Unfortunately, she couldn't really do anything about that.
Nearly a dozen people, men and women alike, marched out of the strip club and headed for the local police station. They no longer remembered anything about Cassie. Even Mr. Patricks, who almost lost his head in the most brutal way possible, forgot all about that. All these people knew was that, for some reason, they felt like confessing every single sin they have ever committed to the authorities. The potential consequences of such an action meant nothing to them.
Cassie processed the innocent employees a little differently. She altered their memories all the same, but instead of sending them to the police stations with orders to confess, she simply sent them home. As far as they knew, they never came to work today. Indeed, the police would ask them a lot of questions after their fellow colleagues make their confessions, but since they have always been innocent, that shouldn't be a problem.
As the club was cleared, Cassie sat down in her seat. The only person left in front of her was Jesse. The tall blonde woman was terrified at first, but she was smart. When the initial fear passed, she came to the conclusion that this armored woman must have a reason for leaving her here while somehow brainwashing everyone else into confessing or leaving.
That was when she felt the restraints on her disappearing. She could move and talk again! Now freed, Jesse turned to the armored woman, making sure to keep her voice low and polite as she spoke.
"Miss...how may I be of your service?" She saw the mechanical figure turning to her and immediately clarified her intentions. "I promise I won't tell anyone about what happened here. And if you need something from me, anything...all you have to do is ask."
Cassie paused for a brief second before giving out a silent order. Her silver mask twisted and turned, retracting itself and revealing her face to the bartender.
"Oh…" Jesse raised her eyebrows in surprise. Truth to be told, during the time she was frozen, she was running a lot of conspiracies through her head. Who was this woman? Why did she miss her on purpose? Never did she connect this armored woman with superpowers to the young girl who asked her for something alcoholic.
Then again, that would indeed explain a lot of things.
"Hello, Jesse." Cassie said quietly before staring into the woman's eyes. "I have some questions for you."