<P>It endlessly emitted a blue, electric glow from its blade, and its bite was enough to render any man lifeless in one strike. With this weapon the Red Arrow could prevail. But after the Red Arrow's leader was assassinated, its toy was taken away.
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<P>One of MJ12's countermeasures was its deployment of Maggie Chow. Maggie, a former actress, and snake as she was, came into power suspiciously after the murder of the former Red Arrow leader. Chow stole the Dragon's Tooth, in the name of MJ12. Nobody knew it. Some suspected it, but nobody could prove it, because the right people covered it up. And thus MJ12 successfully occupied both triads with each other.
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<P>The Red Arrow blamed the Luminous Path for the disappearance of the Dragon's Tooth. The Luminous Path denied. Debate spread. Guns were drawn.
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<P>For a while, the Red Arrow seemed the more powerful of the two. But after Paul's death, and then JC's, the Luminous Path began to resist and lash out with such great force that surprised the Red Arrow. Of course, fire was fought with fire, and things slipped into a very grave state of skirmishes and assassinations. Neither triad was growing. Only shrinking.
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<P>Gordon Quick reflected on all of this as he masked himself in the shadow of an alley on the Hong Kong Canal Road. All of this except MJ12, of course, which he and most others knew nothing about. To him it was just an escalating war that he finally admitted needed end, no matter what the fighting traditions of the triads might say. Good had yet to come out of the spent bullets and the bodies.
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<P>The towering structures of Hong Kong stretched endlessly above him, tossing their stonework, metalwork, and glasswork hands upward to the sky with a frowning, anxious expression. Radiantly lit signs hung at their sides, like a sad boy holding a set of brightly-colored balloons. The sidewalks running along the rows of structures had no street between them, but instead, formed a deep canal. Its water lapped lazily. A chill wind crept along Gordon's skin. Nothing else was heard.
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<P>Gordon, belonging to the Luminous Path, had been returning from business on Tonnochi Road to the triad's compound in the nearby Won Chai Market. He had been ambushed, intentionally or not, he did not know, by a small band of ill-tempered Red Arrow patriots.