Staring at the cloudy gray skies and bustle on the streets, Arlean sat in deep thought about what happened today. The pieces were connecting with each other but there was sometimes missing, there was a piece that didn’t explain the most vital part of what she discovered. The clouds never stopped, they couldn’t stop.

Tapping her holo-watch and then the hologram, Arlean decisively called her father, as she had hit a roadblock and didn’t know how to proceed.

---Ocano Family Manor - Roge’s Study Room---

Habitually playing with the sideburns of his lilac colored hair with one hand, Roge tapped his desk rhythmically in deep thought. The problem of the sudden oncoming war had been baffling him ever since he got word of it this morning. Was he to leave his estate behind and move to another star system closer to the capital? Doing that would guarantee their loss of power. What about staying in the Zeklon Star System? Sure that would further legitimize his Family and possibly get them more government connections, but the government would most definitely throw his Family to the frontlines. Though he held some influence using some backdoor means, he wasn’t directly in an official position of power within the government, so he couldn’t skimp out of the war if his Family stayed on the planet. The decision was one that decided the future of a few hundred lives, be it related by blood or related by loyalty.

Suddenly, his holo-watch gave a short tune before he tapped it, answering the call with a slight frown. His deep thought was apparent, as he wasn’t actually paying attention when speaking, still lost in thought, “Oh, Arlean, why are you calling? You know I’m busy...”

“Dad, I’ve been thinking about that boy from yesterday, he’s actually in the same class as me. Was his background actually real or was it just fabricated? From what I’ve seen in school and what he’s spoken, it seems like he is actually from here. On top of that, one of my teachers, who claims he’s the ‘Hidden Dirk’ said that the boy’s master was the one that Governor Vanya searched for using the star cluster’s intelligence network. I can piece it together somewhat but there’s something I can’t wrap my head arou-”, Arlean explained yet started slowing down halfway through as her father had paused, only for him to bang his hand against the table.

After not paying attention to Arlean’s monologue, Roge awoke from his daze and repeated the words in his head as he thought over his daughter’s information. Everything slowly started piecing together as his two hands washed over his face, only to reveal a serious and collected expression. Whether it was a mask for what he was feeling or his true state of mind, he didn’t know.

“Arlean. That one fight you had with him may cost us our entire Family, I’m just giving you a heads up before all hell breaks loose. And you say that some man named the Hidden Dirk was your teacher, are you sure he wasn’t joking?”

After hearing what her father had said, Arlean had a foreboding feeling rise up in her, if she had caused the downfall of the Family she had yet to take control of, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Now she had held a more apprehensive tone rather than her previous curious one, “He also said that our other teachers were called stuff like General Horus, and Wayne Armi-something.”

“Armiger?!” Roge was now on the verge of passing out as he realized that the severity of their situation expanded exponentially, he wasn’t dealing with a conspiracy lacing around the Duke Clan, that was at least somewhat manageable, though barely. No, this problem now faced with the top officials in the Dominion, those who oversaw the Dukes themselves. Roge’s previous calm expression deflated into a heavy one, one of sorrow, regret, and resignation. With a sigh, he could only be blunt with her, “Arlean, my sweet child, this is going to sound drastic, but you’re going to have to leave this star cluster, possibly the Dominion.”

“No, what’re you talking about?! I don’t understa-” Arlean couldn’t accept what was going on so suddenly. Her father hadn’t even explained the situation, why was she moving to another star cluster, why abandon the family, what caused this sudden reaction?!

Roge shot out of his chair as his arms forcefully dropped onto the desk, breaking it in anger and frustration,“God damn it, Arlean! Listen and listen good, what you’ve done has caused the demise of our Family! We are now interlocked with an internal power struggle within the star cluster, possibly the sector, and we were unintentionally forced to pick a side! Let’s start from the bottom-up, it doesn’t matter what that Kezner kid’s status is, he could be a prince or a gigolo for all I care! What matters is that the Governor views him as an essential character and dragged him to her side, whether he wanted to or not! The Governor herself then sought out the kid’s master, but he vanished into thin air. A person that could evade the entire star cluster’s network would have to be able to pull the strings while keeping everyone quiet, they would at least have to be directly related to the ruling Duke!

If it was just against the Duke, we wouldn’t be as screwed as we are, the problem is that now these three figures are teaching you, and two of them hadn’t even been considered alive for about a hundred years! These figures’ status are so high that not even the Duke could afford to breathe too loudly in front of them! Now what would these figures be doing here so coincidentally right after a mysterious figure that couldn’t be tracked had vanished the previous day?! It all leads back to the boy, Kezner! Why else would anyone bring back these major pieces to the board? He’s trying to nurture the boy, be it in the academic or the military fields!

Now let’s continue this loop again back to the Governor. The Governor is currently preparing to testify in the upper courts, and who is attempting to have her impeached? The previously ruling factions that she had miraculously beaten in the elections! These factions are backed by heavyweights, Clans that hover their palms over thousands of star systems! It doesn’t matter if the Governor gets impeached or not, we will be the first ones to be silenced, even if the factions don’t do it, it would certainly be the boy’s master! All because we were dragged into her side by complying with her!”

Roge was heaving for breath after that explanation. The more he had spoken the more that he convinced himself that the Family was bound to be wiped out of existence, he could only do his best to preserve the Family’s blood. He wanted to be angry, but after a few seconds, he could only chuckle. That’s right, he just laughed. He laughed at the amount of coincidences that could occur from such a small incident, it had to be Kezner at the park, he had to send Arlean to the slums, they had to have such a small fight, oh how cruel the strings of fate wrapped around each other.

Arlean paused to take in this information, realizing that her little fight had caused such a problem relating to the power struggle within the star cluster, facing her resigned father she could only nervously and anxiously continue asking to help look for a solution, “Why would Kezner’s master silence us or the Governor, silence us? We helped them didn’t we?”

After taking another deep breath and closing his eyes, Roge decided to just patiently explain how the real world worked to her, “Arlean, you are still so naive. Do you know why I wanted you to go live in the slums, why I barely gave you any protection, why I decided to take away all your expensive valuables?”

She still didn’t understand why she was sent to such a poor and grimy area, so she gently shook her head as she frowned, trying to think of the reason for such an action.

“It was for you to learn how deceitful life truly is. At the bottom of the food chain, most are humble and live casual lives, even if they aren’t so rich, but there will always be a few who would yearn for more. Some of them honestly work their way up to the top, some just get lucky, while a few would kill their own mothers to get what they want. It’s the last bunch that truly make it to positions of real power, almost every popular and ‘honest’ politician in the public eye are part of those last few. When you get into a position of power like I have, you’ll see that almost everyone you meet is a shark, willing to jump at the first scent of blood, however, when you’re at the bottom, these sharks could be hiding among the fish, you wouldn’t know who is who, you would have to learn how to keep your guard up. Do you get it now? It’s not just so you could humble yourself, but you shouldn’t let down your guard in front of the fish, or else the sharks would go in for the bite.”

“But you didn’t answer my question, why would they silence us?!”

“All of the big guys calling the shots don’t want any information tracked back to them, as they would be immediately impeached or slaughtered by the Emperor. We were the ones that provided the information about those two to the Governor, we still obtained the information and sent it to them! We are the source of this entire misfortune, the previously ruling factions would kill us for giving the information and siding with the Governor, the Governor would kill us to hide her tracks, the kid’s master would definitely kill us to start covering up his story! No matter who wins in all of this, we are guaranteed to die!” At this point, Roge had a migraine, and no amount of painkillers would resolve it.

Arlean, in tears, started to think of other ways for the survival of the Family that she prided herself in, “Wh-what if we get on Kezner’s good side? Yeah, yeah that would definitely work, as long as he would want us alive, his master would give us protection, wouldn’t he?”

Roge only shook his head but didn’t give up on her, he still believed he could nurture her before she set off, and so gave his response with a sigh, “Arlean, you have potential, but you aren’t living up to it, you have yet to learn when to cut your losses. The Family is going to be wiped off, so I’ll try to pour as much funds into your trip as possible. Even if you were Kezner’s wife, you would still be removed, you would be a roadblock for his future in his master’s eyes. Those old bastards from the Capital aren’t just sharks, they’re whales, they don’t stop at one or two fish, they keep moving while eating as many as possible.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault…” Arlean cupped her face into her hands as she kept sobbing, finally accepting what she had caused. Her father, though feeling slightly guilty, still had to be upfront with her. If he gave her any disillusions about their safety, she would be wiped out along with the rest of the Family.

“Listen Arlean, crying won’t change anything, only action. The best choice of action is to send you away and hope they let you live, otherwise, you’ll go down with us. As for the Family, we’ll most likely be killed off in this war. I’ll go discuss it with the Council of Elders, to come up with any other ideas, I’ll send someone to go pick you up so you can say bye to me and your mother.” And with that, Roge hastily hung up as he scrambled to make another call, yet was almost mumbling when the call was answered, “Call for the Council now, our Family is at stake.”

---NCHS - Gym---

“What the fuck do you three want?” Kezner was covered in sweat and bruises, it was obvious he was beat up pretty good.

“You’ll understand soon enough.” Mr. Flanigan answered in his uncharacteristic calm voice while he threw Kezner and his book bag to the floor, where he slid to the wall. Mr. Flanigan’s voice had an eerie tone behind it, which caused Kezner’s heart skipped a beat, realizing that he hadn’t even faced the worst of what was coming for him.

“Alright, kid, let’s explain everything we know to you and then you explain everything you know to us, that sounds like a fair trade, doesn’t it?” Mr. Bancroft squatted next to Kezner while giving his familiar smile, that same smile that almost had a blade stabbed into him.

“Okay, let’s start from the basics once more and work ourselves up. Your master, ‘Rankev’, is actually a retired official that still has his major connections within the government, especially within the Capital. The old guy managed to find where we lived and indirectly contacted us a few months ago, threatening us to show up on this backwater planet, while our instructions were given the other day, and that was to teach at this god-forsaken school. Our collective guess was that we had to basically teach you the basics of our fields in preparation for the upcoming war, after that we would be free.”

Pointing his cane at Mr. Cayne, “As I said earlier in class, that’s Professor Wayne Armiger, renowned physicist of the Dominion...”, then pointing at Mr. Flanigan, “...and that’s Carter Melchor, General Horus, a general during the last Galactic War, just one step from being a commander.”

Stepping back, in his usual slight limp, “And you remember who I was. Anyways, we’re here to do our jobs as teachers and we’ll train you for the basics of our specializations, what you don’t understand is your own problem, you can only blame your master for picking such a lame disciple. Well, it’s your turn tough guy, why did he pick you to be his disciple?”

“What the fuck do you want from me, he never told me sh-” Not allowing Kezner to finish his sentence, Mr. Bancroft put his cane in between Kezner’s eyes, a single thought was needed for the blade to end his life. Kezner was still a mortal animal, as he feared death like any other man, so he shut his mouth.

“Kid, you seem to be missing something here. Right now, the ball is in our court, and your life is in our hands, your master wouldn’t be able to kill us if he wanted to, we’re too important to the Dominion. We only listened to his threats out of respect for his position and authority, but we’re not going to lick his boots like dogs, get it now? Yeah, you’re an unpolished jade, you demonstrated a lot of potential, but in reality, millions of you exist throughout the galaxy alone, your master would only have to visit any random commercial planet in the Capital Star Cluster. So just answer our questions and save us all some time by being compliant, will ya?”, Mr. Bancroft patiently explained to Kezner as his accent accidentally slipped out. If Kezner thought he could get arrogant in front of them just because of his master’s position, he was wrong. These three still had their pride, well two of them did at least, as Mr. Cayne slowly started hiding behind Mr. Flanigan when life and death was mentioned.

Kezner weighed his options as he had everything to lose if he didn’t comply with them, but nothing to lose if he did. So he sat up, and leaned his back against the wall while looking at the three of them and explained, “To put it simply, after the Black Flame Incident, I was an orphan and put through the wringer, until last year where I was naturally eligible for a welfare program, giving me housing and a job. The job was at a quiet store on a desolate street corner, where it sold and created traditional jewelry and weapons. That was where I met my master and he taught me the basics of metalsmithing. He wasn’t my master until last night when he left me a letter before he left.”

Mr. Bancroft was staring at Kezner’s face while listening to his simple summary, checking if there was a lie being told. Seeing that everything that Kezner said was the truth he decided to question about something else, “I’m quite interested in this Black Flame Incident, tell me what you know about it.”

This question seemed to hit a nerve as Kezner stared him in the eyes and only spat out a sentence, “I don’t know anything.”

Seeing as how Kezner lied to his face, he picked up his cane, thrusted it into Kezner’s left shoulder and released the blade horizontally, barely missing a major artery and bone. Having a blade instantly puncture straight through his shoulder, it didn’t hurt at all but burned, with just heat around the area of the wound. However, Kezner was terrified, as he knew that a slight movement would have the blade pierce through his artery and bone. Having Body Energy also allowed the user to have very in-depth knowledge about the state of their own body, as the energy circulated through the major internal organs, and skin.

Mr. Cayne, who was hiding behind Mr. Flanigan, was wide-eyed at this sight, he had rarely ever personally seen any form of fighting, let alone a student getting stabbed, so he slowly walked backwards, trying to escape these two brutes.

“Armiger, you bastard, stay put, we aren’t done explaining our agreement with the kid.” Mr. Bancroft didn’t even have to look at him to know what this coward was thinking. Pulling out the cane, he noticed that Kezner’s wound started to emit a black mist as it closed up almost instantly, forcing the three of their faces to frown.

Mr. Flanigan dashed in a full sprint to Kezner, like an enraged beast, as he picked him up by the collar, and had him to the level of his eyes. His face was right up to Kezner’s shoulder wound, as his eyes pupils turned into a golden color. Some of the black mist slowly made its way into Mr. Flanigan’s nose. It was that smell again, the second time today.