"Be honest not only to the world but also to yourself. Because when you remember how much you love someone, when you realize how much she means the world to you, it might be too late; you can never tell her how much your love her because you know she can't hear you anymore.
Number Twenty-One
Krad paced around, his eyes fixed on the blank-faced girl sitting in the middle of the messy room. He casually brushed off the shards of the vase that clung onto his dark jacket with his left hand; the other had a gun – a loaded one at that. His boots stepped on the broken pieces of furniture that she tried to use against him.
He had fired at her once, when she tried to escape after managing to inject a poison into his system. Unfortunately for her, like the sleeping gas, he too was immune in it. Her injury should be painful; he purposely hit the bone, lodging the bullet deep in her femur marrow. He felt no remorse as he watched blood trickle down her leg.
It was revolting. She was so small; she looked like a child. Tied on the wooden chair and gagged, it was a disturbing sight – as if he was offending the last angel on earth. She was so still, so beautiful, that it made him sick. Defiant green eyes stared at him. They were Faye's and for that he couldn't forgive her.
She couldn't have made a worse mistake in her life.
At a length, Krad spoke. His voice was menacing and cold as it was subdued. "As an assassin, I thought I understand that I didn't necessarily have to feel anything to kill."
He caressed the barrel of his gun, idly fingering the outlines of his steel companion. "I just follow my orders. People die surprisingly easily. Before I can even feel guilty, my job is done. It was as simple as that. Nothing personal."
Krad aimed at the middle of her forehead, the tip of the gun pressed against her skin. Her expression didn't change, yet he could hear her heart hammering. He smiled at this.
One could hide his or her fear, but the heart would always betray.
"But now, after seeing what you did, I didn't understand... this feeling of hate, the intent to murder." He gritted his teeth as he kicked the remains of her touch screen phone. He was at the edge of pulling the trigger, at the edge of his control, his composure as thin as onion paper. The quiet was gone. He was a volcano about to erupt. "Yeah, I admit. You fooled me; you're the greatest con artist I've ever met. But you underestimated Creed. You underestimated me – for that, you pay with your life."
Krad backhanded the blonde girl hard enough to rattle her brain, enough to make her vision swam. It was then that her lips pulled into a smile, the vilest kind that made Krad want to kill her at that very moment. Yet he calmed himself. He knew what she was doing. She intended to make him careless, taunting him to end her once and for all. No, of course he wouldn't do that. She was a valuable witness. She had to talk whether she liked it or not. He would send her to the facility where she could be properly questioned, tortured possibly – he didn't care. He just wanted her out of his goddamn sight.
His answering smirk was sadistic. "What? You think this pet of yours is funny?"
The girl wouldn't be able to respond as he had placed dirty rags inside her mouth before using his wires to keep them in place. He terribly wanted to make her bleed, to make her cry, to make her suffer for what they did to the real Faye, but he couldn't. Not until he finds Agent 00 and she's brought back safe and sound in Creed.
He would redeem himself in her eyes, even if it was the last thing he do.
"The second time I came here, I tapped your phone. I placed bugs everywhere. I was watching you." Krad droned on, his way of calming himself as he waited for the Bases to come and bring the fraud out of Faye's apartment. "I had been suspicious ever since I saw you sleep at night without praying. Faye always pray you see. She's that kind of girl. Too bad I only proved my hunches last night when you totally dropped your façade and called this Daddy F of yours."
He leaned on one wall, putting some distance between them. "You just signed a death contract." You'll learn that there are plenty of ways to die without being killed. I plan to make the rest of your pathetic life a living hell.
As he delivered his threats, the girl's eyes morphed from bored scrutiny to one of amusement. She must be mad, he decided. She relished pain... then pain he would give her, agony greater than humanly tolerable, the kind that would make her wish he killed her instead.
Krad heard the brakes before he even saw the van pull up in front of the building. About time they came.
He couldn't wait anymore. He strode towards the girl and quickly hit the base of her neck, causing her to roll her eyes before fainting. She morphed. The sounds of her skin and bones stretching and breaking filled the room. Dark hair, cut short in a pixie-like manner, sprouted from the woman's – not a girl's – new face.
Gifted just as he assumed. He thought so after learning the events of last night... the worst night of his life, only he didn't know that time.
It was foolish that he felt inclined to nurse the feverish fake Faye earlier that day. After leaving her apartment at the crack of dawn, he underwent a sweep mission. It took him and the other Bases the whole day to track and finish off all their victims. He had just gone back to his room when his laptop connected to her phone. Curious, he had accessed the call she made just after he left her apartment. What he heard was bad enough, and then there was that video... a clip that she insisted Daddy F to show her, because according to her, she's so bored to death.
Just remembering it, Krad wanted to bash the fake's skull.
As he continued pacing inside the tiny room, the images that he had seen wouldn't leave his mind.
The cell was barely lit.
A man whose face was hidden in the shadows yanked her hair in his fist, and Faye gasped as he slowly pulled her upright. She was shaking, and she looked so cold, so hungry, so weak.
"I have a question, and I want you to answer me, senorita," the man sneered. "Where is your headquarters?"
Faye peered with one swollen eye before spitting on him. The sound of flesh hitting striking resounded. The man had slapped her with his other hand. Her knees buckled, and only the man's hold on her hair kept her kneeling.
"Answer me! Where is your Master hiding, you filthy little brat?!" He threw her down, making her cough violently, blood and bile escaping her bruised mouth. The one taking the video laughed along with several others. "If you don't answer, every single man in this building will have his way on you. You'll like that, little whore?"
When she didn't respond, the man's heavy boot slammed onto her wrist, making her cry without sound. The man didn't seem to like her response. He growled at her, kicking her once, twice, again and again. "Answer me, goddamit!"
"Easy there, H. You're going to kill her," one voice admonished, probably the one filming the whole thing.
H spat on the ground. "I know what I'm doing."
Soon, she completely passed out – the small movement of her chest the only indication that she's alive. Barely.
"M!" the man hollered. "Get your butt in here!"
"Sir?" Another man entered the scene. His face too was shadowed. "Do you need something?"
"Are you feeding the girl?"
"Of course."
"It doesn't seem so. The drugs would only make her wasted, not a skeleton! What have you been doing?!"
"Well, by the looks of it, she vomited everything she ate."
"I don't care what she did –"
The camera jostled, the screen momentarily fading in and out. Some parts went static.
" – should be in shape when I return. Is that clear, M?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now, about that other one we got..."
The video stopped there. And without wasting another second, Krad stormed out of his room and took all necessary albeit illegal steps to make them pay for wronging the most undeserving girl to ever live.
Too bad, only the copycat had been near enough to bear his rage. And too bad, he couldn't kill her. At least not yet.
Krad now wholly understood what 13 said – that he was incomplete. Losing his memories made him lose his reason for fighting alongside Creed, made him less efficient, less persevering, because he had no cause, no driving force that would make him teeter at the edge of insanity.
He had one now.
If only he had acted early on his suspicions, he could have prevented this. Faye would have been pursued before she reached the enemies' base. If only he acted on his instincts, she would be living a normal life, unharmed. If only he had been more honest to himself... but now was not the time to blame himself. He had learned his lessons the hard way. Without hesitation, he would hunt the Light and make them pay their crimes thrice over.
01 is back, for real this time.
*
Wearing sunglasses, Arashi surveyed the looming structure carefully, a seemingly harmless teenager in a middle of a dangerous city, ignored by the Mafioso who loitered at the gate of what the public knew as an ordinary printing press company.
Even at the entrance, he could perceive the sickening stench that corrupted the air. Death. It didn't surprise him, considering the wreck in which he and 13 found the Kiev branch; it was near total annihilation.
The Bases they brought with them had cleaned up the place, but the air still reeked of blood and gun powder and sweat and destruction. A few Russian-born agents had subtly kept the civilians away; too near would raise their suspicions.
According to reports, seventeen agents died, fourteen were alive but mutilated, eleven were knocked out by sleeping gas and only the five field agents who went out to scout the outskirts of the city were unscathed.
02 was missing.
No messages. No calls. He went completely MIA.
Losing agents in a mission was normal in their trade, but this issue had taken a different toll. The ones attacked were mostly trainees, not field agents. They weren't experienced enough to battle. Losing the Kiev branch was not just a failure of the agents or 02; this was clearly an aggression against Creed and its Master.
13 was inside skimming through the videos caught by the hidden cameras, but they showed nothing about who the enemies were so Arashi took the liberty to leave the old man and roam. The footages merely broadcasted the bloodbath which was likely made violent to mock Creed's credibility. The brutality of it was beyond Arashi had ever seen.
Which organization or institution or government was both bold and stupid enough to do such a thing? Didn't they appreciate the presence of Creed? Didn't they know that without Creed, countless wars could have wiped the human race from the face of the planet? It was bad enough that there were those in which they couldn't step in. Or perhaps, that was the very reason.
Creed is ultimately justice and law. Creed pulls the strings in the background; one can say that Master Kreuz is the most powerful and influential man ever alive, and the filths never come to embrace that fact. Especially those other Gifted who didn't want to hide their presence, who wanted to seek the privileges of being superior to the civilians, they regarded Creed as the only obstacle from gaining the world.
They only saw the power they possessed, not the responsibilities that entailed. Not many wanted to serve and keep the sanity of the world. No, they wanted domination, and given their Gifts, it would be easy.
Unfortunately, they couldn't be reasoned with, blinded and swallowed by their Gifts. Creed had to take the role of greater darkness to purge them out. If they pose a threat to humanity, exterminate them.
Kill, eliminate, assassinate.
It was dirty work, and most of the time innocent lives were taken too. It was a price to be paid for peace. If necessary, Creed would turn a blind eye and be a cold killing machine in a middle of a city. Probably one of the reasons why Faye hated this organization. She wasn't brought up in his world of violence. Right now, wherever she is, she must be contented. Maybe 01 was right. Maybe driving her away was –
Arashi groaned.
Damn! Focus!
"Anything new?" he addressed the older Equation as soon as he returned to the media room. The old man was bent on his seat as he watched three monitors at the same time.
"02 wasn't caught by any camera," 13 replied as he fast forwarded two videos. "Either he was outside during the encounter, or the blue print of the facility was leaked out and the enemy knew the blind spots. There's a high possibility of an insider."
He knew it. There was a spy. Arashi opened his laptop and connected to Creed's main network. "Who else is missing?"
"Only 02."
Arashi mused as he downloaded the list of the Kiev agents. Twenty-two UnGifted were present during the attack. Fourteen of the Gifted agents were younger than him. Such a pitiful bunch. No wonder they were slaughtered. Most of the veterans were sent out with other assignments. Of course, this inside information was leaked out by the spy. "The spy must've been one of those seventeen dead."
"Probably." 13 paused one of the videos and pointed out one of the masked infiltrators. "I've watched all available resources. This man is the leader. There were forty of them who attacked, all Gifted, but only seven remained alive in the end. Their corpses were disposed by the leader." He pushed the play button. "See here? When he touched them, they turned to dust."
"Disintegration," Arashi said in a uninterested tone. "There are three known families capable of that. The Squalos in Palermo, the Huas in Ningxia and the Ban Phuongs in Thai Nguyen."
"I have requested a list of their members already. I'll look onto them later." 13 burrowed his white brows as he adjusted one of the angles of a scene, zooming in. "Also, given the length of the enemies' strides, their heights ranged from five feet to five feet seven. Out of their survivors, three are women. They are all adept at close-range combat."
Arashi typed the draft of the initial report, injecting some of his own theories as well. One of the enemies had a Gift that manipulates plants. And based on his observation, there are at most six adept with telekinesis. "Some of them are Russian."
13 lifted his tired eyes, his frown enough to scare thunder away. "That's what I thought too. 02 has a soft spot for them."
It was contradictory that 02 always had trouble whenever Russians were involved. As a child, he was taught to protect his people because he is an Ilyinsky, one of the few remaining royal families from the old. The fact that his own country betrayed him and took his Gifted sister away had made him snap, and Creed became his means of doing things that needed to be done. By handling the Moscow facility, he was in a way the underground prince that controlled the nasty businesses in the formidable Soviet.
The Russian government never liked Creed, and they secretly – not unknown to Creed – placed efforts to remove the organization's roots in the Northern territories. That was why the main facility was transferred to Kiev a few months ago, a temporary action to avoid direct confrontation with the militia.
Had these unknown enemies foreseen this? Were they affiliated with Russia? Did they know that the Kiev facility's security was weaker than the original? Were they aware that the main force of 02's Bases was still in Moscow, in Tolyatti, in Nazran and the others in the Siberian plains?
Who are they, and what do they want?
"Their escape route was underground said one of the survivors," 13 stated grimly, switching off one of the monitors. "Is this verified?"
Arashi looked at him with his usually blank expression. "I checked the security cameras of the nearby institutions and roads. None were seen."
"How about the government's database?"
04 merely shrugged as he continued typing. "Nothing I can't handle."
02 was his trainer, after all. Combat wasn't that idiot's only skill; he was the best hacker in the organization. Maybe it had something to do with his Gift, but because of him, not even one managed to access Creed's network in years.
Though he was ashamed to admit, Arashi looked up to him. 02 was superior to him in all areas of the trade. Surely, there was nothing to worry about... right?
Arashi nearly jumped in surprise when his phone vibrated, only to be followed by a loud ringing sound. 13 looked at him dispassionately.
"I didn't take you for an idiot," the old man remarked.
He had no answer, too ashamed to admit how worried he was for 02 that he forgot to check on the basics. If he was in a battle, he would be dead by now. In an unruffled voice, as if to dismiss 13's reaction, he traced the call, "It's from a public booth in NY."
13 scowled at him before standing. "In case you forget again, disable first the adapter for local waves. No one should know where we are."
Of course, he knew that.
Arashi made no further comment as he walked out of the room, far enough not to be heard by the cranky Equation.
"Beta?"
"Omega."
"Blue?"
"Pearmount."
"Who is this?"
"Zero, C. Doodles."
"What do you want?"
"There is something I need."
"What do you need?"
"Something you want."
Red Alert. Highly Confidential. From 00's facility. For his ears only. Arashi's monotonous voice hardened as soon as he was done confirming the authenticity of the call. He recognized the caller, and he didn't like it one bit.
"How did you get my number, Krad?"
*
Unedited