Published at 10th of August 2023 11:18 am

Chapter 80: Sparks

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Zayin winced as a Versian sergeant grabbed him by his long white hair, dragging him across the floor and tossing him against the wall, lined up with five other men who were wearing factory uniforms.

The women and children were huddled in the corner, their eyes stricken with fear as they stared at the barrels of the repeaters wielded by the soldiers who herded them.

“Where is the Minister?! Don’t lie to us; we know he visited you.” The sergeant questioned him.

“What Minister? I haven’t gone above ground for years; how would you expect me to know everyone up there?” Zayin grinned, earning a rough kick from another soldier.

“You got two minutes to answer before we arrest everyone here. Your lot shouldn’t even be here.”

“We were forced to live down here!” One of the factory workers complained. “There’s not enough rooms and shelters in the city – where else do you want us to go?”

“Shut up! I didn’t come to hear your sob stories. Tell us where the Minister is, or we’ll have to do it the hard way.”

Zayin kept mum, only a crazy smile on his face that infuriated the sergeant even more. “Fine. Grab them and drag them to the holding cell. We have tools that will make this fucking sewer feel like heaven.”

A soldier complied, moving forward to cuff them. However, a sudden cry of pain erupted from the soldier guarding the entrance; his neck grappled tightly by a hooded man.

Without warning, the hooded man rushed forward with the soldier as a shield before grabbing him by the belt and swinging him wildly.

Penchant for Violence.

The sheer force of the throw caught the sergeant off-guard as the soldier’s body collided with him, with Kyle overpowering the soldiers near the entrance in an instant. Shots began to be fired at Kyle, the pellets ricocheting off the walls and injuring some of the homeless, inducing panic.

Some of the men took advantage of the situation to grab the soldier nearest to them, entering into a tussle. Kyle moved swiftly to neutralise all the soldiers, taking great care not to kill any of them.

In a short two minutes, all ten soldiers were taken down. Over the next few minutes, Kyle hauled them, piling them up next to each other in a corner as they moaned, arms bruised or bones broken from the punches and kicks of Kyle.

Zayin’s confused eyes finally locked onto Kyle, squinting as he tried to recognise him. “You… you were with that fucking cunt! It’s your fault the soldiers came here in the first place!”

Kyle ignored him, instead stripping the equipment off the soldiers. Armour plates, guns, arcite fuel packs, lanterns and other miscellaneous stuff were stripped down to their bare essence.

He laid them out in front of the astonished men whom he had just saved, only twenty of them. “Pick up the weapons.”

“What?!” The men looked at each other, confused.

“Are you satisfied with living here?” Kyle asked. “Are you?”

“But, taking up arms against the – “

“Answer the question. It’s a yes or no. Are you truly happy with how you’re living here? Under the boots of those who are living better than you, under those who oppress you?”

Kyle rose up, walking towards the women and children. “Are your families happy to live here, huddling and cowering every time someone walks in with a gun? Are you overjoyed every time someone comes in to relocate you just to another section in the catacombs?”

“Are you proud to be a Versian? To not have any of the profits, the fruits of your labour, but all the hardship and suffering? To work long hours at the factory only to earn a pittance that can barely feed your family that day?”

“Those of you who are satisfied and content with your position in life. STAND UP!” Kyle roared.

The homeless did not stand, them whispering among each other.

A woman whispered to another as she cradled her baby. “Is he a lunatic? What’s going on?”

Kyle stared at her and walked up to her, kneeling right in front of her. “Can you honestly, from the depths of your heart, tell me that you are satisfied? Right here, right now. That you are satisfied and comforted by the knowledge that your kid, the very same baby that you hold right now, will be as impoverished and discriminated against just like all of you here. Can you?”

The woman didn’t dare to answer, but in her heart, she wanted to scream, to scream at all the indignity that she had to endure. For all the cold winter days she had to queue for food only to be rejected, the months spent waiting for a spot on the government’s housing scheme, only never to be selected.

“He’s right, he’s right! I’m sick and tired of this place. How many more years must we endure this!”

“Don’t, don’t listen to him! If we try to fight, we’ll only get punished just like the rest did. Don’t you remember Allie?”

Kyle cleared his throat, emulating Guang Hwa to the best of his abilities. Too bad I could not put any free points into Charisma.

“So rejoice! For I come not as a leader of you to your doom but as a messenger of your salvation!”

“Salvation?”

“Indeed. For it is our goddess, Nona, who have shaped the earth as it is. Who has laid out every food, animal, monster and plant for our needs. And the Word of the Goddess states – ‘I have created everything on this planet for the enjoyment of the human race.’ Yet here we are! Living in shame, forced to scurry like rats under the heels of those who monopolise the gift of the goddess.”

The homeless were beginning to listen carefully, no longer doubting Kyle.

“Yet the industrialists who plague the government claims that they only have your best interest in heart while they lean back on luxury chairs and sip on the wine bottles produced by your very hands. They believe that you are undeserving of the Goddess’s gift! That only the fruit of the land that she has provided belongs to them alone! Do you accept this?”

“NO!” Three enthusiastic kids shouted out.

“The audacity of those people to warp and twist the government to work for them instead of working for the people! To put you lower just because. Are you not sapient human beings who have equal rights to the inheritance given to us by Nona? Are you not capable of lofty goals? Are you not citizens of Versia?!”

“WE ARE!”

“Then thank the goddess she has sent me – her holy messenger blessed with her power. It is through her miraculous strength and leadership spoken through me that I shall burn a path for all those who are downtrodden, dissatisfied, neglected, and all those whom others call unworthy! No citizen of Versia is unworthy!”

“YEA!” The homeless crowd was really into it now, the excitement pumping in their hearts. Years of mindless toiling away to make a living had begun to hit them as they realised how low they had fallen. What other way was there to go than up?

“We shall fight! Fight for our rights. Fight with everything we got! Fight for Nona and Versia!”

“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

Kyle began to give out the equipment, handing the repeaters to the men first. “We will learn how to use this over the next few days. The rest of you spread the word. Spread as fast as you can. Let every downtrodden soul know of this reckoning!”

As the homeless shelter was stirred into a frenzy, Zayin walked up to Kyle, his face scowling. “You, you’re going to get us all killed!”

“Interesting choice of word for a former original revolutionary.”

“Did Dekar put you up to this? What did he offer you? Money? Power?”

“And what does it matter to you what I get if the people get what they truly want and deserve?”

“You’re using as scapegoats, as cannon fodder – just like fucking Johan did. Once the revolution was over, he tossed us aside like waste.”

“And what other solution do you have?” Kyle smirked. “You seemed to have done nothing to help both yourselves and them over the past decade.”

Zayin was flabbergasted but could not find the words to justify his position. Indeed, he had been lazing around as a bum, drinking half-emptied bottles scavenged from the side of high-class restaurants, languishing in his self-despair and inability to change anything. Yet the moment he met someone that could change it, the only thing he did was complain without offering an alternative.

“You can sit at the side and wait for your own death, or you can watch the people get what they truly deserve.” Kyle dismissed Zayin.

Zayin frowned slightly as he pondered his next steps before he spotted Dekar from the corner of his eye, peeking in from the entrance to the cavern. “You slimy rat, what horror have you unleashed on us this time!” Zayin roared.

“Zayin, I promise this time I’ll make everything right. I learnt from my mistakes – I’m not going to forsake my people any longer. Whatever the cost. Please, help me. You and I both led the original revolution. I need your help once more.”

Zayin sighed. Perhaps it is time for one last attempt. At least with me at the helm, I can watch and make sure my people do not suffer needlessly.

Dekar motioned for Kyle to come over, with Zayin joining the discussion. “So we got the people riled up; what next?”

“We need to finish the revolution in two months – and it has to be as bloodless as possible,” Kyle explained. “We cannot dismantle the military nor the government too violently either; it will be a waste of resources.”

“Agreed.” Dekar nodded. He did not want to weaken the state of Versia to the point of civil war – with the Yual Dominion looming in the distance; it would only be a matter of days before Count Leon learned about the turmoil, potentially launching an attack to claim more territory of Versia.

What Dekar did not know was that Kyle knew the war was a definite guarantee – he himself had built a weapons factory for Baron Cain in preparation. The Baron previously set the deadline for the factory to be one month from now – but the war might not necessarily happen immediately. I have to clean this up as fast as possible.

Setting up the factory in Versia and mines in Verisa would take time as well unless he could retrofit factories seized from the industrialists.

“Okay, that’s fine and all.” Zayin shrugged. “But that’s not a concrete action – we don’t have enough manpower, nor do we have enough firepower to even negotiate with the government.”

Kyle glanced at the pitiful arrangement of guns. It will take time to train them as well – maybe a months-long boot camp. I have to secure proper training resources for them as well. “We will need to steal and scavenge as many resources as we can.”

“Zayin, you spread the word around to the other groups living in the catacombs. We need as many able-bodied soldiers as possible. Don’t bring all of them here just yet, just make sure they know of the message. We want to lay the foundations first.”

“Dekar, you will go and speak with as many acquaintances as you can. Only those that you truly trust. We need resources and financial support wherever possible, the more the better.”

“Then what are you going to do? Stay here and train them?”

“I’m going to take out Nest.”

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