Redemption

CHAPTER XX: The Puppeteer and the Marionette

The Shadow Lieutenant "Past Virtuoso" – Phillip Graves

Graves – a man who had been fooled by his own leader, and has been treated bad by evil in the past. He lives with so much trauma to the point that he just succumbed to the darkness as it engulfed him to be part of it when the moment of betrayal hit. It has been a hard life for him, clinging to every edge of the cliff as he desperately tries to get back on – the evil pushing him down even further to make him rot in the pits of hell. But really, was that his final choice? To just let everything fall apart that fast?

No.

He had always been a strong man, but never used his inner strength to conquer the vilest of malicious intent that is trying to hold him back from ever achieving his goals.

This time, he was willing to play with fate – never letting get to him as he fights the ominous destiny it so produced for him. But as destiny closes in, he never gave up and just kept on chasing the wayward paths to victory – fighting evil at its peak.

Graves – a man who was treated with malevolence, decided to mold that evil into something else. The fuel to keep up his immovable wish. An ambition of sorts.

The start of his ode to redemption.

—-

Graves was on the move. He ran towards the escape route so that he can detain Shepherd – once and for all.

He crashed the door open as he ran as fast as he could on the stairs, trying his best to catch up to the old man. Shepherd was also retaliating by shooting a couple bullets on his emergency pistol that missed Graves completely as he dodged every bullet while also running after him.

During this chase, Shepherd didn't look that worried at all. Graves noticed this feature, so he stood safeguard while also trying his best to shoot him with his rifle above the stairwell. His bullets also missed because he couldn't see where Shepherd was because it was a spiral staircase. He could be anywhere above him as it spiraled to the top.

Not even seconds later after the firing stopped, Shepherd drops grenades on the middle of the staircase to catch Graves off guard but fails since he heard the clip being ticked.

Those grenades explode violently as Graves desperately evades most of the explosions by either running faster upwards or running back down. It heavily distorted his mobility as it also forced him to jump back down the staircase once in a while as he clung to the railings, trying to get back up as Shepherd continued to drop bombs towards him.

Luckily, he only had a few bombs in which it ended quickly. Graves was lucky once again because Shepherd didn't have anything to defend himself anymore, which had hastened the chase as they get closer to the roof – feeling the incinerating flames that engulfed the entire area.

—-

Both of them had reached the door to the roof – Graves immediately getting greeted with the battlefield of flames. He inhales the violent incense of smoke, making him cough multiple times as he tries his best to move in the ring of fire. The flames were indirectly burning him at this point as it gives him flashbacks of what had happened back inside his shattered tank at the beginning of his redemption.