The Rise Of A Porter

"Looks like Allen isn't the only one who has gone nuts." Nina shook her head, disagreeing with Arnold's comment, "You were the one who caught him. You know it better than anyone of us about the horrors of his crimes, and yet you want us to go 'easy' on him? What the heck are you thinking?"

"I agree with Nina," Nicole chimed in, "His crimes are too serious and are not something we can just let go of. Actual people lost their lives because of his foolishness."

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While the other two were calling Arnold out on his crappy idea of going easy on Allen, Nathan just quietly stood there and looked at Arnold's calm expression. Honestly, he had faith in whatever Arnold was planning to do, but neither he nor the girls could see any possible reason behind Arnold's weird suggestion, thus Nathan decided to ask Arnold about his intentions directly.

"Girls, hold up for a bit, let's see what Arnold has to say." Nathan raised his hand to stop the girls from speaking, "Go on Arnold. Let's hear what's on your mind first."

Arnold sighed heavily and massaged his temples before speaking, "Come on people, could you not go around branding me as a psycho or something? Honestly! I thought you guys would be pleased after listening to my plan. Let me clarify somethings first. firstly, 'going easy on him' does not mean that I'm telling y'all to forgive his crimes and secondly, allow me to rephrase my words... what I wanted to say was that maybe we shouldn't give him capital punishment or send him to jail or something, that'll be going too easy him and not worthy of the seriousness of the crime."

"Next time try to say what you want to instead of saying something the completely throws others off-guard." Nina smacked her face and sighed, "So what do you plan on doing now?"

Arnold didn't immediate replied to her question, instead he walked up to the single gigantic window that was present inside the conference room. Feeling the heat of the sun permeating through the window, outside the window he saw the shadows of the possible and the probable... Outside the window, beyond the far reaches of morality, Arnold had finally made up his mind, knew what he needs to do. He had never used this skill of his before as it only worked on humans and he wasn't willing to use it as he felt using it on someone else was immoral... a line which he didn't want to cross, but still he was curious about the results of using this skill and this was a great way to use the skill and take care of Allen. It was a bit selfish and immoral for him to think of Allen as a test subject but Arnold didn't care, Allen hadn't done a moral thing either by deciding to

"Brother?" Nicole reached out Arnold and grabbed his shoulder, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking about giving Allen a taste of his own medicine." Arnold said with a poker face and looked at Nathan, "But I want to ask all of for approval."

"Approval for what?" Nathan asked, confused about Arnold's remarks.

"Approval to turn him into... a slave." Arnold spoke in a low voice.

"Say what now!?" As usual, Nina was the first one to react, "How are you even going to accomplish that?"

"Hm... I see. Your idea doesn't sound that bad..." Nathan stroked his whitish beard.

"Nathan..." Nina tried to object but Nathan immediately stopped her.

"I was about to exile him either way and tell our father he went on a mission or something, and Arnold's plan is better than that. But before I approve it, I'd like to know a few things."

"I'd have wondered if you didn't ask some question. So shoot." Arnold replied, still maintaining his poker face as the QnA session between them began.

"Are you planning to turn him into soulless human-like ones you found in the church?"

"No. I'm not. He'll still have his soul and mind intact. It's just he'll have to do whatever I tell him to."

"I see. Have you ever used this 'power' of yours in anyone before? I mean have you manipulated someone into doing something against his or her will?"

"No."

Nathan stared long and hard at Arnold's face, trying to decide whether Arnold was telling the truth or not as for Nathan, it was hard to believe that someone, having an ability like this wouldn't have used it to influence others. The problem was he couldn't read the minds of the others like Nathaniel used to. He had no way to be certain about it. All he could do right now was to trust what Arnold was saying and move ahead with the plan.

"I never was good at this intimidation stuff..." Nathan smiled weakly before looking at Arnold, "A last question though... will there be any long term side effects of using this skill?"

"As far as I know, there won't. Other than the fact that my way of thinking would be imprinted on his mind. Essentially making the two of us think alike."

Arnold didn't know about it himself as he had never used the ability before and was only reciting what he could decipher from the description of the skill.

"I see," Nathan mumbled, "Thanks for answering my queries. Feel free to proceed whenever you like."

"Wait. If your way of thinking gets imprinted on Allen's mind... won't it stabilise his mind as well?" Nicole suddenly blurted out.

"That's exactly the point. He won't be a mindless slave, but instead, he'll be able to realise his mistakes and try to redeem himself. That way, he'll be given a punishment that would be sufficient to please the 'syndicate' while he'll be able to correct his mistakes."

"And here I was thinking that your perverted self was planning on doing something weird." Nina joked in an attempt to lighten up the mood.

"Why is it that you keep branding me as a pervert? Don't tell me you're one of those... what were they called again? Oh right! Tsundere. You're not a Tsundere who has a crush on me, are you?"

Nina's checks turn pinkish at Arnold's remark while everyone else was busy laughing at her panicked self.

"Why are you guys looking at me like that? It's not like that dammit!" Nina shrieked in panic.

"Yup. She is one!" Nicole joined the fray as well.

The clouds of dullness that surrounded them disappeared within a moment and got replaced by the ones of hope and happiness.