Rinse And Repeat
Phesx Caolia thought not. Despite his blurry vision, he struck forth, aiming for their leader. But the others moved as he did, almost as if he controlled time, and they could only move when he did. They circled him while their leader backed away. Phesx chased, unafraid of incoming hits. When their leader stopped, he evaded Phesx's right palm with a slight sidestep.
Feeling a hand near his right armpit, Phesx brought his right knee up to it, but the hand left him. On the other hand, another person dashed into the air from the left like gliding upwards, kicking towards his face. Phesx didn’t even bother, receiving it with the bridge of his nose.
His body backed away 3 steps before halting. At that moment, another person came from his right, crouching, about to tackle him. Phesx shot his folded right leg like a snake snapping at the enemy. But the enemy dodged, supporting their hands on the ground before kicking his bum.
It only impulsed Phesx upwards a little, but another person came from the air again, also dashing from the left. Phesx timely reacted this time. He grabbed the person’s shin, making that person defend towards his left arm’s strike, but that never came. Instead, Phesx lunged his neck forward, pulling the leg with his right hand, and headbutted their abdomen instead.
Although the person managed to block with his arms in time, Phesx’s headbutt was good, and with the person’s sharp speed, its force increased. Of course, it also hurt Phesx. Yet, when he was hit, the world became clearer for a moment, enough to let Phesx see half a face, uncovered, whose white robes were accompanied by green.
This green was a bit of paint on the face, it wasn’t much, just barely anything, and it was like slight decorations around the corners of the eyes, mouths, on the nose, around it, forehead, temples, and so on. It wasn’t everywhere, but it was impossible to miss, and quite characteristic.
There were also equipment pieces, even armor, or light clothing that somehow felt like uniform armor with green painting, just like on the face. Regardless, the person frowned when Phesx forehead hit them with his forehead.
Immediately after, Phesx felt someone pull on his collar from the back. His jacket was forcibly taken off as Phesx kicked and palmed towards other strikes coming at him. He was pulled slightly upwards and to the sides, but he still blocked their attacks like parring against them.
Phesx even had 1 less arm, but he could still defend against many unknown people.
Phesx continued fending off their attacks. Time after time, what began as a sudden incursion turning into a brawl became a desperate struggle for Phesx. His body felt aching everywhere, with his joints heavier and heavier until even moving his hands sideways became erratic and incongruent.
Yet, Phesx still blocked everyone’s moves against him. It came to the point where he even knew where they were coming from next, and the trajectories they made, allowing him to chase them before some of them attacked. Their attacks became less frequent as a result.
Phesx was still hit by some punches and kicks, but he remained standing strong, with his body neither movement nor attitude in each move changing a bit. It continued still until he saw their leader appearing before him again after standing somewhere his senses couldn’t reach, and his blurry eyes didn’t have the time to see.
Whoosh. Phesx became bloody furious after noticing their leader. Everyone tried to stop him with the same attacks, only barraging him from the sides at his front instead of trying to overwhelm him. No longer straight out overwhelming Phesx after he got used to their attacks.
Nothing stopped Phesx, who rushed to their leader. His teeth clenched furiously, breaking whatever notion of pain or tiredness his body was horribly enduring. A simple thought encouraged him onwards, ‘Bring one with me… that’s at least something…’
Phesx rushed before the leader, who took him on a one on one. Their leader sidestepped before placing their hands on Phesx’s shoulders, arms, or shoulder blades before throwing him onwards with Phesx’s own speed and body weight. Sometimes, the leader hit Phesx’s side with their folded knuckles.
Phesx tried everything. Tackling motions, dashing into the air, lunging, long and quick strides. Yet, nothing worked. When he finally saw their leader stop and taunt him, showing how still and prepared the leader himself was against him, Phesx’s eyes turned fierce instead of looking like in a daze. His sight remained blurry, though.
“!” But, out of nowhere, just as their leader was about to receive Phesx’s palm strike, the young boy’s nails changed in an instant. Phesx didn’t look at his hands, merely striking towards the leader’s stomach with his face staring into the leader’s sternum, slowly opening his jaws.
The leader felt Phesx’s opening mouth was a threat but was too committed to the test. The leader blocked Phesx’s sharpened nails at the last moment with ease, with their sleeves getting torn apart a bit but couldn’t do the same with their chest.
Phesx’s struggled like a cat with his hands, trying to scratch and mangle the leader’s forearms blocking and fingers holding his hands and wrists together. The leader couldn’t free their hands, or their guts might be out in the open for some wounds. Thus, Phesx’s bite landed cleanly on the leader’s sternum, sinking his lower teeth in while his upper teeth slightly penetrated the skin. Blood poured, warming Phesx’s cold, weak teeth.
Pumf, pah! Phesx’s only felt a short stream of blood fall in his mouth and down his chin before strong, quicker, and furious whooshes sounded behind him and to his sides. They were from the people who let their leader test him. Who else could it be? But this time, they went all-out.
Immediately, Phesx’s body was brought into the air, rolling a bit as he was kicked and kneed left and right, poking bruises and ripping some of his skin here and there. He even felt a moment when he struck a long wall with his back before involuntarily rolling on with a few harsh strikes.
Then, at last, he was pushed with his face against the ground. He felt a foot press on the back of his head before everything went silent, and dark.
***
Proteros, presidential precinct. Near the president’s office.
“Yes, I know. We will see that tomorrow, it’s getting late. Alright? What about the neutrals? Gather everything and organize it so we can work something out when ma’am recuperates.” Walking through the hallways, Luis Heartez discussed with some members of his cabinet, turning to them as he kept walking to speak with them.
At last, he nodded at them and went into his office, with only Roam following him. Once inside, Luis noticed the cool freshness of the room. How different has it been compared to last year? He rarely escaped this place, hiding… Now, he spends only about a third of his daily work time here.
He never imagined how lonely, fresh, and lacking of certain things his office looked like. It was lavish, yes, but he felt more fond of the ‘less lavish’ furniture and surrounding decoration he found in other meeting rooms.
“Anything from Lesly?” Luis sighed a little before asking Roam, turning around before sitting on the edge of his desk. Roam shook his head, feeling at ease. “It’s nothing, sir. She’s recuperating, and her testimony has been studied again. It seems you might want to work that out from now. Once he-”
“Oh,” Luis exclaimed, bothered and sighing a bit more while shaking his head. “Don’t even speak of that matter. It will be difficult to explain… well, to make others accept it. Wouldn’t it be better to just give him up and let the masses grieve their fury out?”
“Sir, if you wanted easy ways, would you be planning to stay here for nearly 2 decades? Possibly more?” Roam didn’t know how to respond before cautiously speaking those words. Luis tilted his head and looked at Roam with strong eyes, “You’re right. And you know what? I feel like I can even go higher than that. Heh, I’m starting to like it. Really. This job.”
“…” Roam said nothing, letting the president have his moment. He added, “Well, sir. Maybe you should consider of ‘the people’ instead of ‘the masses’. You’re speaking of the country, after all, not of the world’s eyes, right? Ha- heh heh.”
“Mmn, right. That sounds good. Thanks for the advice,” Luis snapped his fingers and pointed at Roam, whose chuckles quieted, before taking his jacket off and sitting at his desk. Roam continued to let the president have his moment. Things were working well, lately.
“Oh, sir?” Roam checked his phone after Luis stared at his own for a few seconds. Luis sobered up, staring at the rooftop to relax before saying, “Sigh, they’ve found him already… It’s been quite so soon. I was hoping I’d get more time. Maybe 2 weeks at least. Sigh, the people won’t forgive this easily.”
“Sir…” Roam wanted to help, but Luis raised his palm, facing it towards Roam, before expressing. “No, I know. Don’t even repeat yourself, I know how to listen. Since I want to have my… ridiculous dreams achieved, which came from basically nowhere and drunkenness in power, then I must work my ass off.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Oh, well, sir… That’s one way to put it.” Roam helplessly laid it out. Luis ruefully smiled with closed lips and lowering his head. “I feel I’ve wasted 2 terms. But in truth, I’ve only wasted a term completely. I can still salvage this one…”
“So what if they look at me wrongly after this?” Luis stood up and walked to a window to the left of his desk. He turned to Roam and spoke before resuming his walk, “It won’t be the first time, nor the last, for a time to come. It’s all for the better purpose of the country, is it not?”
“Yes, sir. Those are your dreams,” Roam subtly nodded. Luis stopped before the window, with the afternoon sunlight slightly basking his light brown skin. “But I want them all, I want all of Lýmoca, to have the fruits of those dreams. They don’t have to dream it also. As long as they want it… to break free from these invisible chains and trickery…”
“…” Roam looked at his president’s back. Curious glints passed through, but he fell silent, allowing the president some moments to think.
Ring~. A rather soft, humble and yet somehow cute ringtone beeped from his phone in his pants pocket. Luis looked down at it before smiling. Lifting the phone to his right ear, he looked back at Roam and almost commanded, “Leave me be. I’ll visit the ‘ma’am’ tonight. I’m told she doesn’t want to have more uniformed people around her all the time only.”
“Hmf, very well, sir.” Roam blew from his nostrils a bit before bowing his head in a nod. He departed from the office, leaving a contented Luis who started talking with the other side of the call. He slowly went to his desk chair and relaxed, conversing in the phone as an hour passed.
When the call ended, he looked to the window on his left before falling silent. He sighed again before reclining on his chair, putting his shoes on his desk and closing his eyes. Opening them again, Luis looked at his shoes before putting them down. Then, he closed them again to rest.
***
Proteros, Lýmoca’s capital city, near the center. Soon to be evening.
“…” Phesx had long woken up in a PPO car. It wasn’t even someone from the PAB, let alone the SPD. This was but a PPO’s vehicle, a simple one, with only 2 people at the front as he sat at the back, with their seats close to each other. Phesx couldn’t see their faces or much of their aesthetics, only that they avoided looking at him.
Phesx, on the other hand, didn’t care about escaping and sat in the car in tranquility. Maybe the police units felt grateful due to his behavior and didn’t bother or even talk to him because of that, which Phesx was glad to experience.
He had been in the car for a few hours, perhaps. Being the young boy everyone thought was an experienced special agent man everyone in Lýmoca looked for, Phesx figured he was being brought to the capital’s SPD. The car moved slowly, and the windows were all opaque from the outside. He was clearly not supposed to be seen.
Having seen the capital city for the first time, previously simply escaping to where he deducted where the least number of people looking for him would be, be it uniformed or civilians, he was intrigued. Phesx ended up in Proteros but far from the capital city, though not by much.
There were massive buildings, structures, extremely long roads, sometimes with its width matching them, accordingly without turning infrastructure into fantasy. Furthermore, there were many people here.
The Lýmocan capital city was the city with the largest population, making Proteros’s standing in the states’ population rank one of the highest despite its small square kilometers of largeness. Its urban sprawl was also considerably the most infamous in the country.
“…” At this moment, with the car driving past the center, Phesx saw a huge banner with the Lys’ symbol etched into a pitch-black flag. It was the Silverplated Eagle. An enormous flag, with the car moving on a highway, it only went from its right border to the center after several minutes of driving.
There was a bit of a commotion nearby, which Phesx noted and looked up into the sky, identifying what it was all about with ease.
There it was, a Silverplated Eagle. It had silverish feathers, of course. Its wingspan was enormous, almost 3 meters. It had that ‘defensive’ or ‘hunting’ natural mechanism where their face’s feathers would change their characteristics, changing their appearance to look angrier, pitiful, and even proud and glorious.
Their ‘resting face’ aesthetic was sharp eyes, an indifferent aura, and a piercing intent with each of its movements. Phesx couldn’t see everything, but as the eagle flew in the direction he moved, he saw its eyes a little. The trip to the SPD continued…
When the car drove into a PPO driveway and parked in its lot, Phesx tilted his head, eating his neck a bit. The police units exited the car before a group of police assistant and units wearing riot police uniforms surrounded it. They opened the back doors before handcuffing Phesx and ‘helped’ him out of the car.
Phesx didn’t see anyone similar to those who beat and owned him in that fight. Still, he didn’t try to escape, accepting his fate.
Brought into the PPO from another entrance through a hidden parking garage entryway, Phesx entered the PPO facility. People walked around, although they also moved the people held there prisoner or questioned away. It almost looked like a mansion owner was moving to another.
Phesx was moved to a chair, with nobody covering his face. Some people saw him and became shocked, but people from one of the semi-open offices walked out and immediately chatted them up. All in all, no matter how many people saw Phesx, nothing upscaled out of proportions.
Phesx was accompanied around his seat for a few minutes before the uniformed riot police started departing his side, few by few each time. He saw movement everywhere, and somehow, Phesx felt it was all happening because of him.
He wasn’t brought to a hospital or a mighty, reputed SPD in the capital. This was but a Police Post Office, what the hell was anyone going to do with him in a place like this?
Phesx waited and waited. At some point, no ‘guards’ remained around him, and the public reception’s lobby was emptied out, leaving no one around Phesx but himself.
It felt good like this. But Phesx could only enjoy it for a short 10 minutes before someone appeared before him in an elegant, costly yet ‘polite’ suit. It was an old man. Phesx looked up at this old man who stood before him and didn’t move even after he ignored the old man for several minutes.
He was a slender, old, brown man. His height was regular, and he had a strict resting expression. When the old man saw Phesx look up at him, he kept that face, but his voice was easy going as he said, “Hello, young one. Do you know why you’re here?”
“Hmf,” Phesx Caolia blew from his nostrils, exclaiming, before shaking his head. “No. You tell me.”
“Hm, come with me. We’ll go outside,” the old man said before walking further into the building. Phesx stood up and looked at the doors that led to an exit, before following the old man through a path that did not.
Phesx followed the old man. His eyes went to the old man’s legs from behind only once before studying the place around him. He felt that whatever the reason he was here for, he might as well see everything in his surroundings, just in case.
Going through a few stairs up the facility, Phesx was brought to the rooftop. Since this was but a meager PPO, it didn’t have a helicopter landing zone, but it had a few drone garages atop.
The old man walked to the edge of the roof, looking at the evening landscape with the sun setting. Phesx joined him after looking at the old man’s back for a few seconds, with the latter not hurrying him.
Standing side by side, the old man gestured to the orange city, with the so-called famous presidential precinct, the national flag a few turns of heads away, and national structures, symbols of the people and their history in the distance.
“Keep your eyes open. Now, tell me. What do you see?”
“…” Phesx Caolia didn’t feel inclined to respond, but he looked at the city either way. It was just metal, a lot of cement, maybe some materials made from Courusel machinery, and people, be it in vehicles or walking. The helitaxis flew through strict routes, with stationed police vans prepared to arrest those who didn’t respect such regulations on the ground.
With the sun setting, the clouds looked somewhat golden, forming a group of clouds enough to form a sea, somehow protruding downwards at some places, forming ‘rings’ with the point of view from below.
“You see a nation.” The old man uttered. His voice became solemn. “Even though you were born in it, you’ve never realized how much it means. What intricacies belong to a nation, forming every part of it.”
“Yes, I know. But you ‘were from Preut’. A strange thing, I reckon. Despite how much we mock our imaginary lines, it seems to make the most unlikely to show the deepest pride. Regardless of how much is from their heart, or just the need to be obstinate.” The old man looked at Phesx to comment. Then, he looked at the city to continue, “It’s not lines or small tongues what distinguishes every political entity, Phesx. Is its people.”
“The people live through and populate, they expand and learn. Then, in the future, it is the people that remembers. It’s not the size or shape what defines a territory and their belonging, but its people. This is not to meant as a hazard for anyone who isn’t of the same home, or blood.”
“…” Phesx looked at the old man with narrowed eyes, thinking. The old man continued, sounding amicable, “We only seek what gives us peace. What lets us relax. But that isn’t for everyone. Even if the people don’t want to, they might be susceptible, which those ‘few’ leading will drive them into atrocities, regardless of the situation, morality, and truth. Yet, it is all for the sake of that peace and calmness.”
“Now, I don’t seek peace, nor do I want to go somewhere and cause atrocities, but I do…” The old man narrowed his eyes, sounding the same, despite his profoundly spoken words, and side eyed Phesx. “Want to protect the future quietness of my country with all I’ve got, regardless of the difficulties, and the worst fate any person can imagine. I’m willing. But I know you’re not willing. What you know of Lýmoca is what you do of the world. How can you understand?”
“You want me to join you?” Phesx blurted out of nowhere. The old man chuckled. He tapped his suit’s open chest before saying, “My name is Egoais Prein. Phesx, from circumstances that let me in need of an asset I could have never imagined and feel glad can now exist, I extend to you my hand. Do you want to join? Another secret organization.”
“However, I can’t promise you you’ll ever do something like the jobs you used to do. No. If you’re willing, you’ll understand, and you may be allowed to improve. But you’ll work for the rest of your life for a purpose. This is the pillar of my secret organization. It’s not about forcing you to work for us forever. You either become one of us or you’re not worthy.”
“…” Phesx frowned, looking at the setting sun whose light was mostly gone. Phesx thought of… nothing. There was nothing he felt he needed to consider, much less mentally debate. He did feel annoyed, though. He went from Preut to a nice, rich family. Then, from that to Riverlye…
Phesx has lost everything already. Would he even consider living anymore?
Phesx shook his head before extending his left hand to the old man, “I meant no offense biting you earlier, I just wanted to kill someone, drag them down with me. Sure. I can forgive one more time and give a chance again.”
‘To my life.’ Phesx’s eyes turned indifferent as he thought of this, but only he did, the old man was none the wised as he smiled and extended his hand.
The old man smiled thinly, stretching his hand to shake it with Phesx. Now came the fun part, a ‘reward’ for being simple, acquiescing, and ‘patriotic’. But then, the old man noticed something from Phesx’s words. His face fell.
“You knew it was me?!”
…
----------------------------------------
This is the beginning of Volume 3 — Door Ajar.