She leaned in closer, her tone lowering to something almost conspiratorial.
"Because I've been doing a little digging into your past. You've got a reputation, one that I find very interesting."
"Oh? And what exactly did you dig up?"
I asked.
The wana be witch chuckled softly, her smirk never fading.
"Almost every soldier you've trained in the past, whether in the military or civilian life, has gone on to achieve something noteworthy, you know exactly how to mold people into something better than they ever thought they could be."
The table went silent for a moment, my battle brothers listening in as she continued.
"You've got a gift, Dracula and I'm telling you, with the right recruits, people desperate to change their fate, you could build yourself a loyal and highly capable crew. All you need to do is get them to believe in themselves… or, at the very least, fear you more than the galaxy."
I leaned back, tapping my cigarette against the ashtray, mulling over her words. The idea wasn't without merit.
Corporate s*aves. people crushed by debt, were desperate, eager to change their lives. Add in my ability to train them into warriors, and suddenly, we had ourselves an army.
"Alright, I'll admit it. You've got my attention,"
I said, smirking.
"So, how do we make this happen?"
"Simple,"
The manager replied, her eyes gleaming.
"Use your fanbase. You've already got people eating out of your hands thanks to that little flipflop stunt on the battlefield.
"You make a recruitment video, one that shows off the action, the danger, the promise of power, fortune and you'll have people begging to sign up."
Julian chuckled, swirling his drink.
"She's not wrong. We've already got people fanboying over us on the 'net. Why not capitalize on it?"
Paul leaned back in his chair, grinning.
"Yeah, make it blood-pumping. Show 'em what it's like to fight with us. Throw in some badass lines like, 'Do you want to change your fate?' or 'Do you want to explore the unknown?' That kind of thing. Hell, it'll have 'em frothing at the mouth."
Darius nodded, clearly warming to the idea.
"Get the right message out, and the desperate ones will come running."
I took one last drag of my cigarette before crushing it into the ashtray.
"Alright, let's do this. We're making a recruitment video. But I'm gonna go all out with this one"
I said while chuckling as I opened dozens of screens In my HUD view with a thought while leaning back as I cracked my knuckles.
It took me a few hours, but I had just pieced together an action-packed, blood-pumping masterpiece of a recruitment video.
The footage from our past missions was raw, gritty, and real.
I started with our desperate charge on Med Karash I where we'd fought tooth and nail to secure the crashed supply ship.
The camera angles, shaky yet intense, showed me and the boys moving through gunfire while firing back with my charge Into the crater where I engaged the exoskeleton armor wearing slug merc.
Next, I cut to Airid's evacuation to Invicta, making sure to convey that we take care of our own and leave no man behind no matter what.
Then our brutal melee combat against the combat droids, where we carved through metal and wire with our laser-edged combat swords like savage warriors from another era.
I made sure to highlight the part where I dragged my unconscious battle brothers back to the corvette through the void of space.
The desperation, the raw adrenaline coursing through me as I refused to let them die, played out in slow motion, every breath, every grunt amplified by the background score.
I then layered in AI generated clips of us partying hard after surviving Med Karash I, drinks in hand, cigars clenched between our teeth, laughing like we owned the galaxy, the joy and relief of being alive after facing death once again.
And for the fun of It, I added our ridiculous stand-off against the crazed colonists with a photo we took with the tattoo artist.
For the finale, I added the final touch. A simple, but powerful scene.
It was me, sitting on the bridge of Invicta, bathed in the soft glow of the ship's lights. My eyes met the camera, cold but inviting.
"Do you want to change your fate?"
I said, my voice low but filled with conviction.
"Do you want to explore the unknown?"
The camera zoomed in, the intensity building.
"Do you want to be strong? To fight for something bigger than yourself?"
The screen flashed with quick images, our battles, our brotherhood, our survival.
Then, the final scene.
"Join the Iron Fenrirs."
The camera panned to my battle brothers standing behind me, and as if on cue, they howled, a primal, raw sound that echoed through the silence of the video.
It ended there.
"F*cking perfect,"
I muttered to myself, grinning at my work, as I looked at my battle brothers who had been lounging in various states of half-attention.
"Alright, schmucks,"
I said sending the video to their microchips so that they could watch It In their HUD views.
"Check this out."
They straightened up as the footage began to roll. The pounding music, the slick edits, the raw intensity of the battles, and the final howl.
By the time it was done, they were all staring, wide-eyed, Paul was the first to break the silence, his grin spreading across his face.
"Holy sh*t, Drac. That's bad-ass."
Darius let out a low whistle.
"That's not just recruitment material, that's a f*cking war cry."
Airid nodded, his face unusually serious.
"If that doesn't get people signing up, nothing will. It's perfect."
Julian, ever the calm and collected one, simply raised his drink to me.
"You outdid yourself. That'll light a fire under some poor souls for sure."
I chuckled, leaning back and pulling up the upload interface.
"Well, let's get it out there."
With a few quick taps, the video was uploaded to the Galactic Net, our recruitment pitch now live for the entire galaxy to see.
...
In a dimly lit one room apartment deep within the industrial slums of E*arth, the air hung heavy with despair.
The room was barely furnished, with cracked walls and a single grimy window that overlooked the rusting machinery of the planet's refineries.
The faint hum of the air conditioner did nothing to drown out the emptiness within, on a stained mattress on the floor sat two young women, twins of a*ian descent.
The sisters, Yin and Yang, had seen twenty years, but the weight of their lives had aged them far beyond that.
Their faces, pale and gaunt, were marred by bruises and cuts, remnants of the hell they'd been living since their parents died four years ago.
Yin with silver eyes, the older by minutes, had short black bobbed hair, her skinny fingers trembling as she held a syringe filled with a dangerous cocktail of d*ugs.
Yang with Indentical to her twin eyes, her younger twin with white bobbed hair, sat beside her, her head resting against her bare knees, staring at the same half-empty bottle of high percentage alcohol they'd been nursing all night.
"I don't think I can do this anymore, Yin,"
Yang whispered, her voice barely a breath.
Yin looked at her sister, her heart breaking. They had no options left. Their parents had spent their entire lives working off a debt passed down from their grandparents, but when they died in a shuttle accident.
Which was a result of the same mega corp they were s*aving their lives off refusing to buy new parts because In their eyes It was too costly, the full burden of that debt had been dumped on the twins.
The two although not wealthy but still full of hope for life girls still attending high school who had no real skills, no hope, and no one to turn to, had no choice but to sell their unsollied bodies.