The Art Of War.

17.Revealed.

•QIN•

Nothing made sense anymore.

Just when Qin thought she had everything under control, that she had the whole mastermind thing planned out, their hideout was bombed, the spy base was destroyed and their General was dead. And the old woman she thought was dead came to their rescue with Sean Carter beside her just after she and Tze Xian shared a long, heated kiss.

It felt like a dream, no, more like a nightmare.

Because everything was a bunch of tangled strings and for the first time in forever, Qin didn't know what to expect.

And she hated that feeling.

They were in a forest, lost from civilization, or more likely, escaped from it.

She sighed, her breath frothing in the cool winter air. It was snowing that day, and all of them had no winter clothes on, and nothing to keep them warm.

Qin walked back to where the others were, in a small make-shift hut in the middle of nowhere.

Through the bright windows she could see WeiTing and Tze Xian, with hands conjoined, Lu Er, sleeping so soundly, the old woman whose name she wasn't familiar with, the young Carter, and a whole lot of other people she didn't recognize.

She looked at Carter long and hard, going into his mind, reading his thoughts, his feelings, his emotional state. She still wondered how she was able to do that with only Sean and the old woman, and no one else. It was a great mystery indeed.

She zoned out, thinking far ahead, about many things.

And beside her, she could hear the clicking of a boot. Sensing, rather than seeing that it was Sean Carter.

If she could read his mind, it was obvious he could read hers too.

"That's correct." He said, smirking. She didn't like the sight of that. It reminded her of David Brown, the soldier she distrusted from the beginning.

"You distrusted him from the beginning?" Sean asked, making Qin roll her eyes in frustration.

She was starting to dislike the whole mind reading thing.

"It's not so bad really, mind reading." He said. "It's part of our soldier enhancement package. We could sense and transfer and pick up data from each other."

"Tell me why and how that makes sense." Qin said, folding her arms across her chest.

"You didn't know?" Sean asked.

What the fuck?

"What is there to know?" She asked, glaring at him.

"Oh, you know." He said, still smirking.

Qin hated that the most. She was the one that was supposed to smirk. Not him.

"No, I don't know." She replied, mocking his tone.

"Whatever." He began to walk away, stuffing his hands into her pockets.

Qin grabbed him by the collar, spun him around and smiled, seeing his terrified face.

"Tell me, Carter." She said, pulling out a gun. "You know I dare to shoot."

"Put him down, sweetie." A new voice said and Qin spun around just to see the old woman emerge from the make-shift hut with a smile on her face.

"He was about to say something!" Qin cried, flinging Carter towards the ground. "He was about to-"

"Calm down." The old woman said calmly. "I'll explain everything."

**

•TZE XIAN•

If Tze Xian was scared about what was going to happen, he did a pretty cool job of showing it. He acted calmly, even more composed than usual.

And it freaked everyone out.

Qin was behaving strangely, like she was hiding something, which was pretty bizarre since no one knows when she usually hides stuff.

Like the way she tricked everyone to believing China was nuked, that day on the boat.

Like the way she had a whole plan the whole entire time, even before they met, and yet, no one knew.

Thus, Tze Xian was worried, more than ever. What is really going on? That was the only question on his mind.

He peeked out the window, it was late, and everyone was asleep, except him, and Qin, of course. The girl was in the exact same position since morning, on the boulder out in the cold forest.

Joining her there were two other people, the young Carter and the old woman.

Tze Xian raised his eyebrows. They were conversing. But about what?

He strained to listen, pressing his ear against the glass.

"He created many different models, like you, for instance, are part of the BX982 model, heightened reflexes, and adequate healing abilities." The old woman said, pointedly talking to Qin.

"So...he was a scientist?" Qin asked, her voice dripping heavily with venom.

"A brilliant biotechnologist. This whole thing was his plan. He mastered it from the beginning." The old woman told her. "The most brilliant one of them all. A genius among geniuses."

"So...I'm not...human?" The girl asked. And never in his life has Tze Xian ever saw her face like that. She looked fragile all of a sudden, broken, scared.

"No." A simple answer from the old woman, and Qin went rigid.

"What am I, exactly?" She asked.

"You're a soldier. Like Sean, like me. Like all of Worthy's other creations." The woman explained. "You were part of his plan. You were the plan for the Armageddon."

"What exactly, was Worthy trying to achieve? And why? And...and how do you know all of this?" She asked, full of doubt and insecurities. It hurt Tze Xian to see her like this. She was the strong one. The sarcastic, short tempered bully. She wasn't supposed to be on the verge of tears. But she was.

"He became greedy after a while, after all his creations were made, after they earned him billions. Worthy wanted more. He was given the skies, but he wanted the cosmos." Said the old woman. It sounded sinister, like a ghost story, especially with her tone of voice, and the fact that it was late at night. "He wanted his creations to rule, not just to fight, but to rule. And he wanted to rule with them. Like the nazi's, like Qin Shi Huang, like every other dictator that has ever lived, Worthy wanted power."

"Then why China? Why, of all the places, China?!" She cried.

"Oh darling, what happened in China was a cover up, it was an underdog, to disguise the real plan. China was only the beginning." She said.

"What exactly...?" Qin asked.

"He wanted to rule the universe, and he had to start with Earth."

"He's not human?" She questioned further, confused beyond anything else.

"No."

"Then...what is he?"

"I don't know." The old woman gulped. "Nobody knows."

*****