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69.19% A Psychic's Scarlet Dream / Chapter 133: Chapter 69: Gambit

Chapter 133: Chapter 69: Gambit

Ro: "…"

Valdis: "…"

The two, unable to say anything despite having a lot to share, stare at each other. Upon seeing their discomfort, Reid sighs and starts the conversation.

Reid: "We heard about what your friend, Abgere, is up to."

Standing in the little abandoned facility near Julius Rome's home (which is now rubble), the trio finally start a conversation with that.

Ro: "Can't say it was unexpected for him to do all this but I don't want him to get himself killed."

Ro shows his genuine worry, to which,

Reid: "Well, I couldn't care less what happens to him. If he dies while taking out some of our most powerful enemies, that's completely fine with me."

Reid speaks in an unhinged voice, causing Valdis and Ro to turn a dejected expression towards him. Seeing that, he continues,

Reid: "That said though, Bronzer seems to find him a beneficial man, and so, he thinks we should help him on his little quest for justice or vengeance or whatever it is he doing this for."

Reid doesn't tell any comforting lies. He just casually says the truth. But, it still is relieving for Ro to hear.

Ro: "I see. I guess I should be thankful that your strategist has taken an interest in him."

Reid doesn't reply, just sighs.

Valdis: "So this man, Abgere, how long have you known him?"

Ro: "I met him for the first time years ago in a Vermillion Prison. He was working for Vermillion just like me, but he was different from me and the rest of the Embers somehow."

Reid: "You mean you were all cowards and he was not?"

Ro sighs with a smile and continues,

Ro: "Yeah, maybe. And that's probably what made me like him. He just … just seemed to not fear the dark, I guess."

*******************************

Kais: "So what's the plan now, Abgere? You are going back to killing Hellfires?"

I ask, with a bit of sarcasm in my tone which should be obvious to all listeners.

Abgere: "Yes, and I'd start with the one right here."

Gabriel: "Like hell you will!"

Gabriel cracks his knuckles and Ethan sighs, probably reprimanding how cliché that act is.

In any case, at present, Abgere would be killed if he even tried to fight a Volcano. This guy is in no shape to kill a Hellfire now. Plus, it's not like I am going to let him kill Gabriel or let Gabriel kill him. They are both one of the few possible allies, albeit temporary allies, the third faction has.

Kais: "Let's say we put all this business to a side for a while-"

Abgere: "Don't you even dare suggest that!"

I already did.

Kais: "Hah!"

I sigh, exasperatedly.

It's really annoying when someone is so stubborn about something and I don't agree with him/her on that. It's like trying to tell a 5-year-old that his favorite superhero sucks. Even if the superhero in question is universally considered a joke, there's no way you can make a child concede from his argument.

Luckily, I have someone who might be capable of using the only method that may work on these children – fear.

Kais: "You want another glare from Sona?"

I ask casually, and Abgere clicks his tongue.

It's really remarkable that even an edgy-badass like him knows how dangerous some women can be.

Kais: "Good. Now at least listen to what I have to say."

It's not like I didn't knew he was going to be hard to deal with, so I had prepared a deal for him that he cannot refuse. All I need is for him to listen.

Kais: "Put your goal to the side and help us with our search."

His face has a denial and deadpan visage already. Even so, I continue,

Kais: "In exchange for doing that, I can guarantee you will get a shot at the Phoenix."

Abgere: "What!?"

His eyes getting wide with surprise shows that my proposition got his attention.

The Phoenix, the man who is at the top of the psychic world, is not easy to get to. I know that Abgere is trying to kill him but I doubt he has any solid plan to get to him at all.

Since we are being taken to him ourselves, if he goes with us, he will be guaranteed a chance to kill him. He can kill the rest of the Hellfires later. That's the deal I am offering him.

And he seems to be considering it. I can kinda guess what he is going to ask next.

Abgere: "What is it you need help with?"

Yep, the most obvious question at this point.

Kais: "We are trying to find something called 'The Psychic Library', or just the Library for short."

And this is the critical moment.

If one thinks going through the hassle of finding that place that no one in the world seems to know the location of is too much work just to get a shot at the Phoenix, he will not agree. And yes, I still say 'if' even though this deal is totally unfair to him because, well, who knows how strong his desire to kill the Phoenix is. In fact, when our 'head of strategy department' suggested this deal, he was pretty confident that Abgere would accept; that his desire to kill Reid Vezalius Rosevelt will be strong enough for this.

Abgere: "…"

I am not so sure though but he definitely is hesitating from denying straight away, at the very least.

Ethan: "Hah!"

And so, Ethan starts to add another flavor to all this.

Ethan: "If you fight the Phoenix, he'll destroy you."

Abgere: "What!?"

Ethan: "It's not even a debate,"

He continues with his deadpan voice and expression,

Ethan: "He will incinerate you before you even touch him. No matter how cunning you may be, you can't defeat him in a fight."

That's probably true. I have heard quite a bit about the cunning of that asshole. I have also heard a lot about his creepiness by the way.

Ethan: "But …"

I see where Ethan is going with this. He just deliberately stopped to make Abgere turn to him with his ears open so Ethan could say-

Ethan: "That library might have many books on ancient techniques that are lost to this day, that even the Phoenix will never see coming."

If Abgere learns something like that and keeps his mind sharp during the fight, he maybe able to overpower the Phoenix.

That's a valid point.

And Abgere is forced to hesitate more from denying because of it.

The reason this is all working is because nothing about this whole deal is a lie or a scam. Everything that we have offered, Abgere can really have all of them by helping us. Still, will it be worth it?

Abgere: "Hah! Fine!"

Looks like a yes.

Abgere: "I'll agree to this deal of yours."

And it is a yes.

Gabriel: "Hah!"

As expected, he is not happy to hear all of this.

Gabriel: "I need to talk to you."

He says, looking at me with a fierce glare, and I return his glare with an uninterested face.

Kais: "Some other time."

Gabriel: "What the-"

Kais: "Look, we get that you have your stuff to do. But we don't care about any of that."

His expression, as one would expect, is that of anger, intense anger. Yet, I feel no fear at all. So, I continue in the same unhinged voice as before.

Kais: "Besides, it's not like the Phoenix gave you a time-limit to complete your task. So even if you take him to us after we are done with our stuff, it wouldn't matter."

I know for a fact that what he really wants to talk about right now is how we are offering to help Abgere kill his boss but,

Kais: "So buzz off!"

I am not going to touch that subject just yet.

Gabriel: "Tsk!"

He withholds his anger at me and says with a dead-serious expression,

Gabriel: "I let you play around for now. But you WILL listen to me when the time comes."

If the expression on his face right now isn't a pissed-off one, I don't know what the slang phrase would even mean.

But, at least for now, Gabriel won't be doing anything hostile to us.

He is, depressingly, the strongest guy out of the six of us. So we need to keep him under control at all times.

If he actually tries going down the path where he knocks all of us unconscious and drops us at the Phoenix' door and then kills Abgere, he will probably succeed in doing so. In fact, the only thing stopping him seems to be the fact that he has his own plans of revenge against vampires and wants out help with it.

Still, we can't take that for granted.

At a time like this, when we are following the 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' philosophy, we need to be extra-vigilant of the behaviors of both Gabriel and Abgere. And it's not going to be easy, not at all.

*******************************

Bronzer: "So how's catching up going?"

The strategist casually asks as he walks towards the three people he had left together a while ago.

They all look at him with different expressions. Reid looks at him with a deadpan face, Valdis with an awkward one and Ro with a sighing expression.

Bronzer: "Yeah, that answers my question."

With a smile, Valdis asks,

Valdis: "So what are you planning anyway? Now that Ro's friend is with them, what next?"

A fair question, Bronzer thinks to himself. And so, with a sigh, he look back in the direction he came from; he looks back at the army of Vampires ready to move out on his command.

Bronzer: "I think we should launch an attack on someone."

Reid: "Someone?"

Since Bronzer's aware that it sounded like he's thinking on attacking any random guy, he smiles and corrects himself,

Bronzer: "I think we should launch an attack on one of the Hellfires, the exact one that Abgere will target next."

Reid: "And how do we find out who … oh!"

Reid stops and looks at Ro and understands the answer to his own question.

Bronzer's plan is to attack that Hellfire that Abgere and other four might be going to attack next. The conclusion seems to be so.

But, there is something in Ro's mind that clashes with that logic.

Ro: "I think there's a strong possibility that Abgere won't be attacking anyone for some time."

The other three look at him with curious eyes so he continues,

Ro: "I think it would be pretty in-character for Ethan to do something as crazy as ask Abgere to join them. And I think they will come up with a good reason for him to actually agree to it too. Maybe it's just a gut feeling but I really think Ethan and Kais would do something like that, especially seeing how nuts they both are."

Bronzer chuckles and leans on a pillar as he says,

Bronzer: "Yes, that would make sense. That would make complete sense for Ethan to do."

With narrowed eyes and a loud sigh, Reid asks,

Reid: "So what now? Gonna change the plan?"

Bronzer: "Well, not exactly."

The strategist answers with a devious smile.

Bronzer: "But, let's delay it a bit."

*******************************


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Zyanide100 Zyanide100

Yikes! It's one of those times - the chapter was short so I published it all at once, hence no chapter tomorrow.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below!

And if you liked this story, please support it by voting with power stones, grading the chapters, and/or giving a review.

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Chapter 134: Chapter 70: Scrying (Part 1)

Having brought Abgere to our side, albeit temporarily, I leave the room we have given him to rest and try to take some rest myself.

That is when my eyes fall on the devil mask that Abgere is always wearing. It is kind of revolting for me personally. I mean, it reminds me of Abyss, even though he is actually far from the devil.

I hate what happened to him. I hate the reputation of the lord of evil that he got. I hate Ozyllus for everything that he did. If this mask should remind me of anyone, it should be Ozyllus. He is the real devil, isn't he?

And yet,

Ethan: "Even Abyss wasn't as great a person as you think he was."

This man says so with a straight face.

Kais: "…?"

Ethan: "I can tell you were thinking about that guy."

This man owes a lot of Abyss too, doesn't he? I don't know how indebted he feels towards him but he definitely would hold a good opinion of him. On the other hand, I know for a fact that he hates Ozyllus just as much as I do. So, how come he says something like that like it's a fact?

Despite feeling annoyed by his words though, I can't bring myself to refute him. Maybe that is because, deep down, I realize they are true.

Kais: "What do you think would have really happened all those years ago that allowed Ozyllus to deceive people like that?"

Just how can one pull of such a great deception and not be caught for 1000 years?

Ethan: "Quite regrettably, I have to say that I have no idea."

He does actually look seriously dismayed by the fact that he does not know.

At the end of the day, these expressions are what ensure me that this man bathing in the sea of unpredictability is really on our side.

Sona: "That seems like an interesting conversation."

Sona walks towards us out of, what she has labeled as, her room. Ethan smirks and asks,

Ethan: "So, despite how big my house is, it doesn't have enough rooms for you all to stay in separately. That being the case,"

Yeah, I think me and Sona both know what he is going to ask next.

Ethan: "You two wanna share a room?"

Hah!

Kais: "As tempting as that sounds, we have other things to do."

Ethan: "I actually don't really think we have anything to do at night."

He is really pressing our buttons even knowing that Sona loses it faster than some people do. Well, if nothing else, I have to praise his bravery.

Ethan: "Hah! But anyway, back to the topic,"

Seeing Sona staring at him with a little red glint in her eyes, he quickly changes the subject. Well, if nothing else, I have to praise his instincts.

Ethan: "We were talking about what might have really happened all those years ago, I think."

Yes, that's what we were talking about.

Sona: "Although I don't have any real clue either, I have been curious about one thing."

The glint in her eyes disappears as the conversation comes back to the topic and Sona starts speaking in a moderately serious tone.

Sona: "In the war that happened back then, many died, right? How could anyone believe that all of it was Abyss' fault? How could WE believe that?"

Thinking back on it, it seems pretty foolish that we believed in such lies. It's as if there was a force compelling us to not look at the ugly, dark and somewhat obvious truths of the past – and we were complying.

Ethan: "I was an 8-year-old shell of a boy with little-to-no knowledge about the 'legends' of the past when I found out the truth of everything. That is why, I can't relate to having ever really believed in all those stories."

Despite having the chance, Ethan is mocking us in any way. That alone is a testament to how much importance he gives to this topic.

Ethan: "To me, they were always stupid legends filled with hypocrisies and lies that I didn't understand why the supernaturals believed in."

True. He wasn't an idiot like the rest of us. But, if we are on the subject,

Kais: "Actually, there was once a time that Barry told me that everything in the legends is a matter of interpretation. He told me that if I interpreted the legends in some other way than most people do, I might find some things the world would not let me believe."

It is one of the many things that hold far too much meaning now but when it was told to that 6-7 year old kid, it didn't have any meaning at all. It was only boring gibberish of an adult.

Sona: "He said that to you too?"

Oh, so he told her as well.

Sona: "Back when he told me that, I didn't care enough to try to understand it. And soon, the whole incident of my village happened. After that point, I became too obsessed with revenge to stop and think about anything like that."

I see.

It makes sense since she would have had even less time to clearly think about it.

We only knew each other for 6 months before the incidents 12 years ago happened. Everything Barry told her, he did so within those 6 months while I had been hearing his lectures since much before.

Thinking back on it, weren't the incidents that affected us so much for our entire lives all really on the same day. Barry massacring those people, Sneha losing her peers and teachers of the temple she was a part of in that massacre, Ethan being made a witness to it and given the Eyes of Truth and Sona's village being slaughtered and her being taken to 'talk' to Ozyllus. And now that I think about that, it's also obvious how the incident with Barry directly connected us all except Sona.

That is probably why Ethan's research on us exceeded his research on her and she became an unpredictability for him back on the island.

Ethan: "Wait!"

Suddenly, his expression grows grim as he says while contemplating,

Ethan: "Tell me what he said again to both of you, in his exact words."

Seeing his expression, neither of us plays around as we start hoping for him to figure something out. Therefore, Sona starts.

Sona: "'The legends might not be as true as they look. Who knows what lies between the lines that carve up the history? Therefore, they could be a subject of interpretation. If you interpreted them in a way others don't, you might find truths the world won't let you believe.'"

Kais: "Yes, that's exactly what he told me too."

Ethan: "Hmm … 'the world won't let you believe', he said?"

I and Sona nod.

Ethan: "That's odd."

Ethan being confused – something that happens very rarely is happening now.

Kais: "How?"

Ethan: "In many old legends, the world is considered eternal and truthful. However, it is considered to still die many times."

I think I know what those legends he is talking about say. It's something about how the world will always exist but the various things that represent life on it will not. For instance, when dinosaurs died, one could a world died with them. But then, it was reborn by the birth of other species that again populated the whole planet. If humans die and some other species then evolves on the planet and starts following new steps of evolution, it can be called another death and rebirth of the world.

Ethan: "And you know who is famous for deaths and rebirths in the legends?"

Well, yes, I see where he is going with it.

Sona: "The legendary bird, Phoenix."

And Phoenix is the title given to the leader of Vermillion, currently Reid Vezalius Rosevelt.

We also know for a fact that Vermillion has been around since Ozyllus and Abyss' days as well as that they have a lot of secrets that they are trying to hide from everyone, including us.

Ethan: "Do you think I am jumping the gun here? Because I think I am going to interrogate Rosevelt for hours if possible."

Sona: "No, I think it makes perfect sense to think that way."

Of course it could be a coincidence but I don't think it is. I also think Ethan's line of thinking is leading us to the correct person to ask.

Ethan: "I had some intentions before but now they are tripled to certainty – we need to get to Rosevelt and make him talk. If anyone in the world knows anything about the Psychic Library or the past that we are unaware of yet, he is the one."

I nod. Sona nods. And then,

Sneha: "The atmosphere sure seems tense."

Sneha walks in the room – the living room – where we are having this conversation and says before anyone tells her what we are even discussing,

Sneha: "Abgere thinks he knows of a way that can help us find the Library."

Taking all of us by surprise, Sneha continues in a somewhat curious tone,

Sneha: "From his expressions, he doesn't seem to be talking bullshit either. You might wanna hear him out."

*******************************


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Zyanide100 Zyanide100

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