CHAPTER SIX: The Secret
“Just do it, already” Blade watched from the shadows as his father asked for death.
“What’s the fun in that?” Elder Hans adjusted himself on his seat and covered his whole body with his robe, before proceeding with what he had to say, “I came here personally so we could have a talk, as the brothers that we originally were”
His father scoffed, “Brothers? … Funny how I now believe I’m your blood enemy because of how you treated me over the years”
“At least, I treated you as my blood. We are blood”
“Just say what you want, Hans. Stop beating around the bush” Elder Viper, Blade’s godfather was already tired of the headless conversation.
“Been a long while since I heard the name called without the title” Elder Hans smiled. “Took me years to get the Elder title, because I hated the way you had the better advantage. I admit. I was envious. So envious that I gave my child your code name, Viper since I wasn’t privileged to get a code name”
Elder Viper fell to the floor when his knees gave in. He was tired of standing. After a few grunts and groans, Elder Viper finally got himself to sit well.
“The mission…” Elder Viper started, looking up to meet his brother’s face, “The mission you told me was from the agency, the smoke Order, wasn’t from you, was it?”
Elder Hans smirk could be seen in the poorly lit room.
“Why does that matter?” He replied with a question.
“Let’s say you’re not the confident type to pull this off on your own without having a powerful back up” Elder Viper claimed.
“And what makes you think I was just not confident?” Elder Hans debated.
“Were you ever confident in yourself? Your self-esteem has always been rock bottom, brother”
“What if I was bidding for time?” Elder Hans Argued.
“You had many chances to kill me, Hans” His brother reminded him.
“And who said I wanted to kill you?”
“So, you indeed weren’t the one who orchestrated this?” Elder Viper took him back to the beginning of the argument.
Elder Hans clicked his tongue and shook his head, “Sometimes, Intelligence is the very weapon that kills you” He muttered, adjusting himself on his seat, before leaning forward to meet his brother’s eye.
“I need you to understand something brother, I’m not the only one that hates you and doesn’t want you here. Your mistake was that you concluded that I was your only enemy, forgetting that this is the Citadel. Even the Predator has to be watchful for another Predator, else he becomes a prey” Elder Hans began.
“So, you accept that someone is behind this?”
“Even in your last moments, you’re still a talker” Elder Hans shook his head in disappointment, before rising to his feet.
“Who is behind this or rather, what did the person offer you that made you-“
“It was an agreement, not an offer. I told him I’d kick you out in exchange, he’d give me the Citadel’s Order” Elder Hans confessed.
“To bribe you, they’d need something powerful indeed” Elder Viper scoffed.
“It wasn’t a bribe. It was an agreement! And you made things so much easy for me, by having a child with the head of the Scarlett Blades, who is against the Citadel”
“Why don’t we go down memory lane and remind ourselves how Viper came about?” Elder Viper scoffed.
“He was just a drunk mistake. Besides, I killed his mother myself but you fell in love, with not just a member but their head-“
“Does he know you killed his mother because she was way below your standard and too insignificant for you to protect?”
“Seems your wound has healed that’s why your mouth can’t stop being runny” Elder Hans replied, his irritation written all over his face.
“What exactly is irritating you, brother? The fact that you didn’t have the chance to experience love or the fact that Viper would turn against you when he finds put how you treated his mum?” Elder Viper was deliberately provoking Hans.
The tension in the room was thick and dense but what cut it into two, was the cough of the little girl on Blade’s back.
Immediately, the two Elders had their heads turned to that area. Elder Hans immediately knew that they had company.
Seeing as his location was already found, he took to his heels down the dark spiral stairway, making sure a glimpse of him wasn’t found. In the process of fleeing, he slipped and down the stairs he and the little girl rolled, he tried his best to protect the girl’s head from hitting the floor while his head continued hitting the floor like ping pong.
Seeing as they were already discovered, his father held the legs of Elder Hans to keep him from moving location where the sound was heard but just a bullet in his arm, paved the way for Elder Hans. Not even his brother can block his way now.
But the gunshot didn’t stop him from trying to get in Elder Hans way. “It’s me you want, take me instead!” Elder Viper pleaded, hanging unto his brother’s leg with that one good arm he had.
Without Hesitation, Elder Hans shot his second arm off him, running towards the place he had always wanted too.
In gritting pain, Elder Viper tried to think of a way to stall, “Why exactly do you hate my son? Is it because your son has never beaten mine?” First attempt of stalling, failed.
Elder Hans ignored him and tried looking for the mechanism to open the secret passageway.
“I’m sure you’ve always wondered how Blade got to be so powerful, even more than Regent, right?” He tried his second attempt.
“That is for Regent to think about, not me” Elder Hans replied, not deviating from his original course of finding the mechanism. Second attempt failed.
“Then, why do you hate my son?!” His third attempt.
This time, it worked, Elder Hans stopped to look at his brother on the floor, “Your son is a living threat to mankind. Too powerful to even be authorized”
“But he obeyed…every order…given to him” Elder Viper, gritted in pain.
“That was because you were there to keep him in check. Imagine if he finds out you died in the hands of the Regent, you think the Citadel will be blood free? The Serpent must be killed before it becomes a dragon and kills us all” Elder Hans replied, before moving the picture on the wall, the wall opening up immediately.
Before Elder Viper could stop him, he had disappeared into the dark stairways.
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Snapping twigs and crushing fallen nuts on the way, he held the girl to his chest like his life depended on it, while his heels were almost touching his back as he ran as his father had ordered him.
Fighting back wasn’t a problem but if anything happened to the girl his father put in his care, the guilt would never leave him, so running was the best option.
In the course of him running, he heard some shout in the distance, and some fire torches a few meters away.
Soon, he could see the gates to the Valley of skulls wide opened, giving him hope that he would soon reach his goal but out of nowhere, an extremely swift something moved past his ear, hitting the tree bark behind him before he heard the sound of the gunshot.
Realizing his ear was almost ripped off by a bullet, he stopped to see who it was, with the child tightly held to his chest.
Standing at the gate of the Valley of Skulls was Viper, with a gun in his hand, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
“Going somewhere? Didn’t Daddy teach you how to say goodbye?” Viper mocked, the gun swirling in his index finger.
Blade held the girl with just his left arm, making sure she was firmly held while his free right hand went into his pockets, standing firm and tall in front of Viper.
“We don’t say goodbye in the Citadel, but I don’t expect you to know the rules of the Citadel when Daddy’s Orders have always run in your favor” Blade clapped back.
Viper stood up straight and walked towards him, slowly but steadily, “Provoke me all you want, it’s the least I could give you for a dying wish”
Blade scoffed, “Seems your ego grew higher since our last Kai Maiter. What doesn’t beat your ass makes your ego stronger, right?”
“Who owns the child?” Viper asked, the twirling of the gun around his fingers stopped suddenly, holding the gun properly, his index finger near the trigger, the mouth of the gun facing downwards.
“Nunya. Nunya business” Blade replied in his most sarcastic voice.
The sounds of footsteps got louder and louder as the men approached and Blade knew he had to finish this with Viper before he had back up, so he charged at Viper suddenly, head booting him, while grabbing the gun from him, Leaving Viper totally defenseless in just one second.
Before Viper could realize, the weapon he fashioned against others was now fashioned against him.
Pointing the gun towards Viper, he slowly moved backwards, towards the gate of the Valley of skulls.
Viper smirked, “You would be mistaken if that gun is a guarantee that you would get out unharmed”
Immediately, he felt a sharp pain at his side, that temporarily stopped his breathe as the pain was too sudden and sharp. It made him drop the gun he held unto in a moment.
He slowly moved his head backwards to see who it was, and he was quite surprised to see Ripper with a gun in his hand. He had just been shot by Ripper.
Each breathe he took in was sharp and deeply painful, and to breathe seemed to be more of a chore, but it didn’t make his grip on the little girl loosen even by an inch.
“I’m sorry” Ripper mouthed to him, the gun still in his hands.
Soon, the other Robes gathered, most of them were Brown Cadres, Hardong was the only Black Cader who stood out among them, each holding a fire torch except Hardong.
Hardong was the only one who walked towards Blade, while Blade tried to suck up the pain and stand tall.
“I’m sure he listens to you, Hardong, why don’t you ask him to give you the child? Maybe he would listen this time” Viper shouted for everyone to hear.
Hardong got close enough, that they were just one inch away from each other, “Can you still run?” Hardong asked.
“What?” Blade croaked, pulled aback. He didn’t seem to understand him. Or rather, he wasn’t expecting to hear that.
Then he followed Hardong’s eye trail and saw Vesper in the corner, in-between two big rocks, with thunderbolts in his hand.
Knowing how suspicious Viper was in nature, Hardong put a knife to Blade’s neck before slowly walking to his back, the knife still in place.
“What? In too much pain to fight back?” Viper mocked as he slowly walked down towards them.
Blade smirked, confusing Viper.
From nowhere, thunderbolts were thrown into the air and before Viper could even go wide eyed in realization, the thunderbolts exploded right on his face and on the faces of a few of the Brown Robes. Thick white smoke like that that comes out of a factory chimney, blocked out the view of everyone.
Viper, seriously injured from the thunderbolt that exploded on him, took the pain to shoot into the smoke. He shot three bullets till the pain couldn’t let him anymore. Laying there in body anguish and in mental guilt. He should have known that Blade had something up his sleeve when he didn’t fight Hardong back.
By the time the smoke dispersed and cleared off the vision of everyone, Blade was gone, Hardong was dead, he wasn’t so lucky as the bullet went straight to his head. Ripper was gone too.
From the floor that he laid, he saw that his main target was gone. In annoyance than in pain, he coughed. Coughing out blood, the more he got angry.
The Brown Robes around rushed to help Viper, his glare didn’t leave the spot were Blade once stood. Even when he felt himself go unconscious, his only regret was that he couldn’t snatch that girl off Blade’s hands.
She would have made a good hostage.