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Transient Fire Works
Chapter 29: Test of Faith pt 2

Chapter 29: Test of Faith pt 2

While Jin left, the four members of the Meracle family and Darius were conflicting with each other for hours.

Ophelia was continuously slandering Darius, Meracle’s mother and father didn’t know what to say to each other because the father hated the mother for cheating and the mother hated the father for trying to sell her daughter, and Meracle… would get mad at everyone.

Ophelia was the first to pick on Meracle because she felt like Jin ruined the entire family. “Nice boyfriend you got there Meracle. Not only is he a hobo, he is also a douchebag!”

Meracle did not deny that Jin was acting like a douchebag. Though she did not know why he was acting like one, she still hoped that it was all an act. “Ha! Even if he is a douchebag, at least he isn’t a two faced jackal unlike Darius.”

“I’m not a two faced jackal you stupid b*tch!”

“Oh that’s right. You’re not a two faced jackal. You’re a three faced c*nt!” Meracle snickered.

“!!! T-Three faced cunt!? You b*tch! I don’t care if you are Ophelia’s sister! No one gets away with calling me a three faced c*nt. Fight me you b*tch.”

“Ha! Please. You can deny it all you want. But Jin said that you are gay, into animals, and a lying scumbag. If that is not a three faced c*nt then you surely are garbage. Also, if you want to fight, then find a way to get out of these bindings you stupid gay blue haired chimp.” Meracle gave Darius no face at all and blew up any insults she could think of.

“Meracle! I can’t believe that you are saying such foul words!” the mother tried to reprimand her. “Even if you feel angry, you should not say such words!”

“OOOOOOOOH So you are trying scold me for foul words? Why not scold Ophelia for being dumb!? If Darius was actually able to get into the family, we would all go back to being broke!”

“Meracle… that’s no way to speak to your mother…” The father mumbled.

“D-Did I hear right? Mother? How about you!? You were trying to sell your own daughter for a cheap toy all while ‘mother’ was playing naughty nun all these years! Nuh-uh!”

“I-I…” Leah was trying to find the right words to say refute Meracle. When she turn to the father for help, she saw that even he felt like Meracle was right. All because she wanted to continue to experience the guilty pleasure, she lost her right as a mother and a wife.

“I thought you hated me because I was in the wrong dad. So I felt like you were not to be blamed. But after today, I find out that my father resented me because I helped someone who ran off with your ‘legendary’ toy?

“You don’t understand Meracle. That revolver was almost one hundred years old...” the father’s lips quivered.

Seeing how helpless her father was, Meracle couldn’t get any angrier with her father. “So what if it was almost a century old? What good is it to keep such a thing if it cost you a family member!?”

“I-It was not only something I wanted Meracle. Remember Meracle, the depression made earning money hard and I couldn’t fight as a military general forever. So my last gamble was on that gun… It was something that could be sold in the future should it go past a century… Think about it Meracle. That gun, which I already appraised by many experts as the real revolver, already cost over one hundred thousand. If… it could go for a few more years… then there was no doubt that if we wait out a little longer, I could sell it for triple, no, quadruple the price I bought it for and then even if I sold you Meracle, I would use that money to find you and bring you back and we could still be a family. I would use the rest of my life make it up to you for all the grief I would cause.” He tried to explain himself. “But… I was too weak to sell my own daughter… So I had to find someone else. Someone…”

“!? So you would still sell humans dad? Living people? Weren’t we taught that all humans were created equal and have their rights? What right did you have to decide that it was alright to sell him off?” Meracle’s words were sharp like knives. Words that once believed in the one that she called her father, words that she once believed were rules to live by are now being used to reprimand her father.

The father no longer looked like a man at all now. Instead, his body expression and face bears the look of a helpless child. “P-Please Meracle. What I was doing… understand that I was planning far ahead and that it was for all of our sakes…”

“Meracle! We’re your parents! I’m your mother and as your mother, I demand that you stop speaking like you know everything!”

“Shut up Leah!” the father roared out at the mother. “I, Blake Cross, am in the wrong. So it’s fine if my daughter curses me out. Don’t butt in Leah.”

“O-Oh!? You are telling me to shut up? I’m trying to help you out Blake!”

Ophelia who was on the side mutters in a low but audible voice. “*Snort* Woooooooooow. Listen to our mother… Still trying to act like she is a good wife.”

“!? Ophelia!? You’re going against me as well just like your sister!?”

“Last time I checked, my mother was always a proud believer of being faithful to one’s lover. I tried to follow in your footsteps, but it seems like I was wrong!”

“Yeah. No wonder you were a stupid b*tch… you were born from a b*tch’s hole.” Darius mumbled on the side.

“!? What you say Darius? You three faced cunt!”

The entire family continue to bicker for about an hour. Some cried, some yelled in anger, and some were even laughing at the other’s misfortune. Soon, it got so bad that everyone actually decided to take a breather before someone kills someone else…

After the break, Leah Cross was contemplating whether or not to tell her husband the truth from her point of view. It took a while but she got the courage to speak with him. “Blake… dear…. Do you know why I got into the inner circles?”

The father, Blake Cross, took a deep breath in and was about to scream in her face until he saw his wife’s pleading face. “… Just tell me. I can’t even get angry anymore…”

Leah bit the bottom of her lip and sighed. “*sigh*. . . A few years ago, while we were at church, the Reverend and a nun there asked me to stay behind. So I did. They brought me to a hidden confession room to speak to me privately… They told me I got two mysterious recommendation letters from two people within the inner circle… but I didn’t know who it was.”

“!? … You got two mysterious recommendations?”

“Let me finish dear… They told me to come to a later date and I did. The inner circle numbers were thought to be a few. But when I entered, it was almost half the size of the church. I asked the father why and he said that the twin holy brothers of the church would always bring new and strong or even old and strong believers into the inner circles should they be deemed worthy by the twin holy brothers…”

“T-Twin holy brothers? Did you see their faces?”

“No dear. I didn’t. They would always cover their faces with masks or white hoods. They never spoke but always made hand signs to communicate with the inner circle peoples.”

“So wait… Leah. Dear…”

“*sigh* Can’t I finish Blake?”

The father felt slightly annoyed because he held back his anger and let his “wife” speak out of the little love he had for her yet she still was speaking like they were close now. “Fine. Go on.”

“... Thank you dear…” Leah was not a dumb person and clearly knew that her loving husband was still considering his love for her and was the reason why he would even listen to begin with. “So… At first, I was forced to have sex. When I tried to report to the police, they wouldn’t believe me. So I tried to take it to court but they refuse to take part in religious cases. At some point, I was threatened and blackmailed by the inner circles and… was raped for ten long months by so many people until they broke me.”

“What!? If this was the truth, then why didn’t you say so sooner!?” The father’s face quickly changed from annoyed to concern after he heard this. “You could’ve told me and I would’ve used my military status to bring them to the court forcefully!”

“Because Blake… I was broken not only because I was raped. The drugs they used were strong and changed the way I thought… By the third month, I liked the feeling. By the fifth month, I could even feel the pleasure of having more than one person inside me. After the ninth month, I lost all reason. The sensation of losing myself in a sea of lust and guilt, always thinking, ‘Not even my husband knows that I’m a cheating sl*t’. It was like a new world opened up to me. So I continued it… for six long years… Should one day you find out, I thought all I had to do was leave you long before you find out….”

Leah’s words made Meracle’s father so angry that he was about to have a heart attack from the thought of his wife cheating for so long. From that anger, he pulled himself and Leah to a corner and started to bang his head on the wall.

“!!! What are you doing dear!?”

“*Huff*Huff* Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to kill myself. Each and every one of you… My wife is a broken person… my daughter Ophelia is blind… And Meracle… she doesn’t even see me as her father anymore… I don’t even know what is right anymore… I don’t even know if some of my children are even mine! *BANG!*BANG!*”

“!!! Wait!!!! Don’t do it dad!” Meracle cried out. “Wait! Dad! Don’t kill yourself! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was wrong dad! I was only angry at you but I didn’t want you to kill yourself!”

The mother did her best to keep him from banging his head by pulling herself and her husband away from the wall. But the husband was determined to die. He did his best to die in every way possible, but Leah was there to stop him by pulling him away just enough so that he would not kill himself.

The father’s lost so much blood that he fell onto his sides which also pulled down Leah in the same direction. He faced the wall with a look of regret and softly cried. “*aaaaaaaaah*Sniff*Sniff*haaaaaaa*”

It was at this moment that she regretted getting angry at her dad. “I-I I am really sorry dad.”

The father stared lifelessly at the wall as if he was looking at a mirror within the white walls. A long time passed as he recovered from his mad state. His mind felt like it was no longer blinded by his love for his religion. He began to think back. While thinking back, he also regretted. Regretted all the things he did and was about to do. “It is I that should be sorry Meracle. I was so ignorant that… I didn’t know that I already lost the love of my life to the very religion I believed in so strongly. But I am also sorry that I was a hypocrite of a father to even think of selling his daughter. So I did my best to make it up to you all these years… But the feeling of loss was the thing that ate me to the point of hating you… I hated you because I thought that if we lost that one windfall should the depression gets worse, our entire family would crumble and it was the reason why I kicked you out…. You shouldn’t even call me dad any longer… I am also sorry that I was so ignorant to my wife’s problem that… I am a failure as a husband and a father…” though his voice contained no life in it, what was there in his words were the cold harsh and black truth that was in front of him the entire time.

The father closed his eyes as he reminisce an old memory he cherished for a very long time to think his words through. He thought about his wife, his daughters and even the children that might not be related to him that he raised with his wife. “Heh…Leah… Do you remember when we were children? Back then, our families were both people who were also strong believers. Since there was so much common ground between our two families, they set a pre-arranged marriage for us. It didn’t matter anyway. We were already in love back then. Even if they didn’t arranged it for us, we still would’ve married each other in the end because of the promise we made when we were only five years old. We promised to be with each other in sickness, in health, in hardships, and in happiness. We promised that we would do everything in our power to stay together. Remember?”

Leah’s heart sank because, in truth, she’d forgotten the promise. “I-I…”

“Forget it… Doesn’t matter now does it… Leah. Even if you’ve forgotten, I didn’t. Which is why I have to ask you Leah… Why did you stay? If you liked that world so much, if it was worth to throw your love for me and your family, why did you stay?”

Leah paused for a bit because of her answer. Her answer was so conflicting and contradicting that she could not bear to say it. ‘It is also because I still love you…’

“I’ll listen Leah. I’ll also forgive you of your infidelity because I still believe that you love me…” The father calmly said. “I’ll also say this once Leah… I-------”

No one in the room could believe what they’d just heard.

“Wh-Wha? Blake? Dear? Did I hear right?”

The father sighed out loud and inside his heart. “*Sigh* You are making me say it again Leah… Fine then. For every person in this room to hear as my witness.”

“I, BLAKE CROSS! STILL LOVES MY WIFE EVEN IF SHE CHEATED ON ME! I WOULD STILL LOVE HER TO DEATH! NOW THAT I KNOW! NOW THAT I AM NO LONGER AN IGNORANT BASTARD! I WILL DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER AND LIFE TO MAKE HER LOVE ME! FROM NOW ON! I! WILL LOVE MY WIFE TO THE UTMOST AND WILL MAKE HER SEE THAT I AM THE ONLY ONE FOR HER.” He roared to the top of his lungs. His words carried not only volume, but a strong emotion that truly told her what he said was not a lie. “Will you also forgive me for being an ignorant lover Leah? If you do forgive me… I’ll do everything in my power to also change that reason. So that if we survive this sicko’s game, I want to be the reason why you stayed. I want Meracle, Ophelia, Ania and maybe the children who might not even be related to me stay. Even if you are broken Leah, I want to be the person to put you back together.”

Leah heard each and every heartfelt word that Blake spoke. She couldn’t believe it. Even after all the time she cheated on him, even after all the time she did this behind his back, he was still willing to accept her. “… *Sniff*Sniff* I knew it. I knew I chose the right husband in my life. It is also because I knew I chose the right person that I stayed.”

“!? You mean?”

“Yes Blake… I stayed because I still loved you. I didn’t want to let you go even if the other world had so much to offer. Even if that dark world could give me new sensations of pleasure. I didn’t want to let you go.” She admitted.

“Meracle. Ophelia. Could the two of you forgive us as well? I’m sorry I was a bad father Meracle. I’m sure your mother is also just as sorry.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Both Meracle and Ophelia had mixed feelings. The two sisters looked at each other before speaking to their parents. “I-I’m sorry Ophelia… Can you forgive me?”

“No no no. I’m the bigger sister. I should be saying sorry. I’m sorry for choosing such a person like Darius and prioritized him over my own sister.”

Jin burst forth from the entrance door carrying a huge bag on his shoulder. “WOW! It’s so nice to see family getting along so well together!” A wide grin could be seen on his face as Jin places the bag in a corner. He purposely ruined the happy moment. Anyone could tell by the look on his face.

Ophelia was the first to scream. “Y-You!!!! This is all your fault!”

“Mhm. Keep on believing that OFI”

“O-OFI? What the hell does that even mean!?”

“You want to know Ophelia? It stands…. Overly Faithful Idiot. Unlike your mother, you chose the wrong man! Ha ha ha ha ha.”

Ophelia’s face became extremely red once Jin told what it stood for. “Y-Y-You f*cken!!!!!”

Jin walked over to Ophelia and raised his hand high.*Slap!*

He let his hand fall like lighting and left a bright red hand print on her face as a single tear drop could be seen coming from the corner of Ophelia’s face. Ophelia, even though she was a trained person to take a hit, never felt so weak and powerless before that she broke down and nearly cried.

Meracle’s eyes widen because he just came in and ruined the moment of forgiveness between the two. “Jin!!!!”

“Strike one. First warning OFI. I never liked you anyway. Two more and you are out. Unless, you like being hit. Keep on talking.” He walked back over to the bag he left in the corner and started to pull out human sized bags tied together with a long metal chain, a total of ten human sized bags, and laid them on the floor.

He paced around looking all high and mighty. “Now, I know you all must hate me so. And I don’t blame not one of you. But you are directing your hate in only one direction. Why not have a few more outlets?”

“What do you want you psycho!?” the father growled.

Jin made an amused face because the father was still struggling. “Ladies and male-faces, I present to all five of you, the real stars of the show! But I am going to unveil them one by one!”

The very first two people to show up was someone who Meracle’s father and mother knew!

“Our first stars! Your trusty side-kicks! And Blake’s best friends, Francis and Drake!”

Blake couldn’t believe it! His two best friends were “!!! Why those two!? How could the two possibly be involved?”

“Blake? Leah? Why are we at your house!?” The two groggily asked.

“Simple you horny dogs.” A small smile formed on Jin’s face as he slap the two men below him to wake them up. The slaps were so hard that they too were left with a deep hand print on their faces. “*SLAP!* SLAP!* Mister Cross, lemme reintroduce them. These are the very two people who helped brought your wife into the church’s inner circle, mysteriously recommended them, and forced her into having an orgy in the first place! Also the church’s scouters, staffs, coworkers, etc…. the “Twin Holy Brothers of the Bright Church!” and the two worst types of friends in history.”

“What!?” The other five looked in shock. Especially Leah. She never knew who it was that recommended her. Now that she knows, her desire to kill them sparked. “SO YOU WERE THE TWO TO RECOMMEND MY ME!?”

“Oh and not only that. They were the first two to screw your wife and to drug her.” Jin added. “If you want proof, here!”

Jin opened his duffle bag and threw out a tape. “The inner circle members may be secretive, but they still needed to keep a log on every person in the inner circle. This is the first part.”

“Wait! Why did they recommend my wife?” The father still could not comprehend why his two best friends would do such thing. They were his friends for over thirty years! They stuck with him before the depression. They stuck with him during the depression. They even were with him after the depression was over.

Jin then toss out another sp3 player and played it. “Drake: Wow. His wife is something. So beautiful with a first class p*ssy, he doesn’t deserve a wife like her. Francis: Haha! He didn’t even know that we did his wife even during the time he was doing military business! Drake: Well, remember the time he and his family had to move away due to business related problems? Well, that was my doing. I wanted to see how she would deal with me doing her all while her husband was busy helping with military tatics and earning money. Poor fool. Even if he is our friend, he should never married such a beautiful wife. Ahahaha! Francis: You had her all to yourself? God damn man. You should’ve invited me! Oh well. But I have to say, That Blake always was a dumb person. He loved god so much that he forgot his wife! Ahahaha!”  

Both Francis and Drake were now fully away and aware of the situation now. Not because Jin slapped the life out of them. But because the recording just spewed out their lustful demonic side.

“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!” The father roared.

“The reason why they recommended your wife? Simple. Just because she looked beautiful. They were horny animals. Also…” Jin pulled out another object from his duffle bag and slammed it onto the floor. It was another recording. “On this recording, it showed how jealous both your friends were when they saw how great you were living with your wife. It also got the conversation after they first forced your wife.”

Fear grew in their eyes. Francis and Drake did not know how they got here, but it was obvious that some wicked man knew almost everything about them if not everything. Their body trembled now that they saw their old friend that they betrayed.

“!!!! W-Who are you!?”

“W-Why are you doing this to us? What have we done to you!?”

They both asked Jin. If they knew what they’d done offended such a vile person, they would’ve never done it.

“Oh… it’s not what you did to me. But… you will learn in time…” Jin wickedly grinned. “In the mean time! I will bring out another guest!”

Jin walked over to the third human sized bag and revealed the person underneath. “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelcome Reverend Joseph! Leader and father of the church! Head of the inner circle and the very definition of immorality! Also one of the many to screw your wife….”

When Jin unveiled Reverend Joseph, the old man was snoozing away.

*WHAP!* “GET UP OLD MAN!” Jin had no mercy for the old guy. He knocked the old man’s fake tooth out and unexpectedly made him cry.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHH” The old man woke screaming in pain. But that scream soon stopped as Jin bent down to look at the man directly into his eyes with cold eyes.

Jin turned back around and laughed. “HAHAHAHAHA! Good. Now, I’ll start explaining this old guy. He is only the figure head of the church. He is not the one to actually start the church. Nor is he the real leader of the inner circles.”

“…. What? Only a figure…. Huh? Head!? So who? What!?” Everyone else was so confused that they could not make a real sentence.

“Oh calm down. Here are the real figure heads.” Jin then unveiled the next five people.

Four were males, one was female. Of the four males, one was really old in his late forties and the other three were in the mid-twenties. The female was a nun from the church but in her mid-thirties. Of the five, there was one person Darius could identify and another person only Leah could identify.

Darius: “Boss?”

Leah: “Sister Audrey?”

It doesn’t take much explaining about the person Darius knows. It was his boss. The one who told him to target the Meracle family.

“See, the real heads are these four fools. Blake’s old friends which plays the scouters, the person Darius refers to as boss is the shadow head, and the woman… she helps make miracles because she knows a lot about science and optical illusions. She is also one hell of a magician.” Jin explains. These other poor middle aged men? They are the funders but they could be considered pseudo heads because they take care of business when the shadow head boss doesn’t.” Jin explains. “Oh right… they’re still asleep. Lemme wake them up.”

Jin walked over to the kitchen, took the pot of nasty soup, and shoved a spoonful down their throats. All five people Jin unveiled woke up screaming

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH”

“Hahahaha That’s better.” Jin laughed as he places the pot onto the side.

Though they all wanted to ask what happened just like those before them, the person in front looked so fearful that they dared not to ask. All except Darius’ boss.

“Who the hell are-”

*Whap!*

“How dare you do that to me! I’ll-”

“*Whap!*Whap!”

“YOU!!! You don’t know who you are messing with! Once I get out of these metal bindings, I’ll-”

“*Whap!*Whap!*Whap!*Whap!*”

Was Jin over killing things by just being violent? No. In fact, if it was to actually come down to their real punishment, Jin was actually going easy on Darius’ boss by just kicking him multiple times. Darius could only watch as his boss was getting abused without getting a sufficient explanation.

Jin then took a bunch of stuff from his second duffle bag and unloaded a few books, files, and a lot more recorders. “These, are all proofs but I’ll explain. Here is the final explanation for you Mister Cross. There is a certain circle within the underworld. Human slavery is the main point in which I’m sure you know all about the main point. Yet you don’t know the process.”

“The church, the loan companies, even the normal people are in one big society called the underworld and such. Your family, was one of the many targeted victims. Your friends, Francis and Drake, is part of the church. Darius, his boss, and his co-workers works with the church along with people like Francis and Drake. The church gathers easy believers just by making complex scientific stuff happen such as re-growing an arm and sh*t like that. They can even falsify it. SO you were already hooked in. But your friends, did you know on the day you went drinking, they were the one to set you up with that legendary revolver? Did you know that they set up false appraisers just so you can believe that the revolver you had was real? It was all to get you in debt!” Jin continues to explain.

“!!!! Wait! How do you know all this!?” Everyone was baffled at how much ‘proofs’ Jin pulled out from the air and how much he knew of the underworld.

“That’s because he’s!!!!” Darius was about to shout out Jin’s identity in the underworld. But a fly foot shoved itself in Darius’ face and knocked him out for a good while.

“That’s because I work many jobs mister Cross. Being a doctor has many benefits such as information.” Jin nonchalantly said. “Oh. That’s right. Forgot to tell you, I’m an illegal surgeon but still does one hell of a job! Ah ha ha ha ha!”

Every single member looked towards Meracle with wide eyes as if they were asking if she knew. Meracle shook her head in response to their surprised looks.

“Now, getting back onto the topic, your so called friends were out to ruin your life. In doing so, not only will they get you in debt, they will also get your wife. How? By breaking your wife’s faith, they intended to make you seem worthless which they almost accomplished.” Jin quickly continued.

Blake said nothing but kept his rage in while listening to Jin’s explanation. ‘I don’t care if he is spewing bull sh*t in between truths. If he is right, then I am willing to listen to the devil’s words!’

“So, they targeted your daughters. Originally, the debt collectors didn’t want to do it but your ‘friends’ bribed them with money and enslaved believers. So, the debt collectors forged a fake contract, increase your debt, cut off all possible ways out by bribing and threatening the courts and lawyers, and pretend to be nice by offering you a nice way out. But! The daughter you would sell would be used to lure your wife in farther! They would break your daughter and use her as bait for the wife to completely succumb to their perverted plans.” Jin rambled on. “ These broken children would eventually be used to lure more believers in. If not, they would be used like Darius to be a dating toy to get the entire family into debt. Once the family is in debt, the church would come over to preform ‘miracles’ for you to believe in. Impressive no? By the way, the one they wanted was Ophelia. But if they deemed that your daughter was too good, then they would still go after Meracle or Ania.”

Leah could understand the simple logic behind such a trade. It uses not only people’s belief; it would also use their emotions as humans and their love for one another. Materialistic items such as money… it was used as an excuse to suppress others! “!!! Then is?”

“Oh… Ania is a victim of one. Thankfully, she is already gone~.” Jin reminded her. “But that is not the kicker yet. Let me show the last person!”

Jin walked over to the last bagged person with a menacing look. “Ladies and fuglies, I present to you! JASON!”

*WOOSH!*