Pheo went to work, creating useful gadgetry that he could use to survive. He was so focused that he hadn't noticed the day pass by until his stomach began to grumble.
Looking at his remaining food, he decided that it would be time to go out for another hunt.
This time however, he had more tools to work with. He went out during the day, setting up traps with mushed human remains as bait.
He wouldn't be able to use the corpses for anything else, and he sure as hell wouldn't be eating them even if it came down to it.
He was able to find a group of jackrabbits, taking down three of them before the rest ran off. It was difficult to carry all of them at once, it made him think of making a bag.
As he headed back, he noticed the motorcycles that had been left behind by the group he had killed.
Pheo grew tired of cleaning up mess after mess, it hadn't even been a week yet so much had already happened. He could only think of one area where he could dispose of the motorcycles.
The Caverns
Since where he lived was relatively close to the place he was once held captive, he could drive the motorcycles and dump them down the hole.
It was also in his agenda to eventually come back and grab some things there. For him, it would be like hitting two birds with one stone.
Pheo awkwardly got on the motorcycle, following what he knew from reading an instruction manual he had one time and turned it on.
He gripped the handlebars with both hands, he had trouble keeping himself up as his legs were too short.
All I have to do is press this, right?
The engine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life. It was loud enough to make his whole body jerk in response. He twisted the throttle, making the motorcycle lunge forward.
He flinched at how fast it was going, but he kept his eyes straight. For a second, he held on. Face stretched with a mix of thrill and terror until the back wheel kicked out, causing him to tumble sideways into the sand.
The bike skidded around before it fell down, engine wheezing to a stop beside him.
Maybe when I'm older
Pheo went back up coughing, scratched around but smiling wide. At least he had some way of travelling long distances when he's old enough.
He also managed to snatch a saddlebag that was by the side of the bike, storing his prey there.
Pheo began pushing the bikes one by one in a hidden place nearby, hoping that there wouldn't be any more trouble coming back.
All he wanted right now was a peaceful life, at least until he had his awakening. There was little he could do now, he was still eight after all.
He needed to survive, to continue growing. Although the place he had lived in wasn't the ideal place, he was having a better life than the one he had lived with his father.
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Warhound watched as a single lightbulb flickered on and off. He was handcuffed in an interrogation room, filled with a cold steel table, two chairs, and cracked concrete walls that were stained with time.
He noticed how there was a camera panning slowly across the room. "How fancy" he thought out loud, advanced technology was usually hard to come by.
His attention shifted when the door opened, seeing a young man enter. He went and sat down from across the table, dropping the files he had on the table.
"Nice to meet you" He told him, fixing his clothes. "My name is Wing, no need to introduce yourself" He got out one of the files and opened it, "I already have everything I need to know about you"
In front of him was a detailed report of his life. Wing fanned out photos of Warhound across the table. There, he could see his previous self, each photo reminding him of his past actions.
"What are you getting at?" He asked him, "Seems to me you already have enough to make a book about me"
"That fire" Wing mentioned, "The golden one that filled the area, where did it come from?" Warhound recalled the time, "I don't know"
"What do you mean you don't know?" Wing questioned him, "Other than Don and Parquatz, who is currently dead, you were able to roam freely there"
"As far as I know, you were barely seconds away from death when we found you. And coincidentally, this flame miraculously came to your rescue" He turned to Warhound,
"Seems like out of everyone there, you're the one who got the most out of it"
"Yeah, I'd call it my lucky break" Warhound told him, "Abot time too, you know how much bad luck I've been having?" He asked him.
"Hold on, let me tell you about it" He arranged the photos in chronological order.
"So lets start with this" He pointed at the first one, "This was actually the second time I did something big" He began to talk about his experiences, making Wing sigh in exhaustion.
Through the one-way glass wall was Anora and Ikra watching. "I told you he wouldn't know" Ikra laughed at Wing's attempt. "If they had something like that on their side, they wouldn't use it for slavery of all things"
They had already solved the case of Timothy Howard, but were going in circles on the origin of the golden flame. They have been constantly pressures about it ever since it happened.
Anora knew why, she was one of the few people who did as she had a chance to witness it before. The golden flame was a symbol of the royal family, and it was only wielded by the royal family.
It was commonly known that it was the ancestors of royalty that saved the world, being the people who acted for God. They were avatars, champions who were given power to do God's bidding.
That was all she knew however, everything about that era was classified, shrouded in false information. Even a sliver of information from back then would be priceless.
"How about that kid that was with your son?" Anora asked Ikra. "Him?" He remembered how his son was so attached to the friend he made.
"We couldn't find any signs of him, might've gotten eaten or buried in the debris" He guessed. A few days after the first mission, they came back in order to find any clues.
It looked the same as it was when they exited. The place felt haunted, some reporting a constant feeling of unease as they explored.
What they all found interesting however was the corpse of Beam. There were no flesh, bones, or anything that makes a living creature inside of it.
It was just skin, almost like a snake's shredded skin. What they all couldn't figure out however was the wounds he had. They all tore further inside, leading towards an empty area inside of Beam.
Who fought him, and what was there?
Anora remembered seeing the silhouette of a person standing beside Beam's body that day, but she wasn't sure. She decided to keep it to herself, believing that it could've been a hallucination from all the blood loss.
"Alright alright" Wing tried to stop Warhound. "Are you sure you had nothing, even the slightest clue on what that fire was?"
He asked the main question, prompting Anora to activate her powers. "No" he stared at Wing, "Now when can I get out of here?"
He raised his handcuffs and broke them by transforming both of his arms. "These toys really aren't doing anything by the way"
Wing sighed, "Why do you guys keep breaking those?" He got the handcuffs from his belt and tossed it to him. "Wear them, and if you break those again you'll be staying here forever"
He slammed the door shut, heading towards Anora and Ikra. "Are you sure it's fine to leave those documents there?" She asked him.
"He just told me everything in those files and more, I'm sure we aren't going to die if we leave him with them"
"More importantly, was he lying?" He looked at Anora. She shook her head, "He's a dead end" They looked at Warhound, he was trying to find out how to put on the handcuffs.
"Maybe we'll have better luck with the other two"
They were interviewing the three survivors in the caverns. "I'll go get the next one ready" Ikra said before leaving, entering the interrogation room.
"How's it going?" He asked Warhound. His face lit up at the sight of him. "Feeling cramped in a place like this"
"Come with me, we're going somewhere else" He got Warhound up, making him follow behind him. They went out of the room and through the narrow corridors.
The walls were reinforced with steel ribs and faded hazard tape. "It never ceases to amaze me how well built this is"
Warhound looked out of the building, seeing soldiers doing their daily routines. "This is the home of the best after all" Ikra explained, "Including me" He laughed at his comment, "Can't complain to the man who beat me senseless"
Ikra was curious about Warhound, he had felt that he misunderstood him when they first met. He led him to a room and closed the door, "Lets talk, off the record"
"What more do you guys want from me?" He asked them, "I already told your partner everything I know" Ikra laughed, "Yeah, that definitely was worth his time. But I'm not looking for what happened down there in the caverns"
"I'm looking to know who you are," He told him. So far, the actions Warhound has done down there does not match him. He was faithful to a mercenary's way of life, each time splurging his earnings within weeks.
What differentiated him however was the work he took. He would always choose extermination of subjugation missions. "Why did you start enslaving children?"
"Huh?" He asked, "Why else? I wanted to hit it big" Warhound got rid of his handcuffs, this time making sure they wouldn't break. "People like me, we do all we can to continue our lives"
"I thought that maybe it's time for me to do something big and get out of the game" He watched the soldiers as they did their routines. "Staining your hands once to get out of work forever, sounds like a steal to me"
"It does" Ikra agreed with him, "But it's not the type of steal you would take"
"When I first met you, you were mercilessly murdering a child. It made me think of you as deranged, an insane psychopath. But later on, I found that I was mistaken"
Ikra could see that Warhound cupper his ear lazily, more out of boredom than curiosity, but he continued. "No matter how cold you pretend to be, your true self always finds a way out"
Warhound burst into laughter, one that came from amusement at the absurdity of his words. "You may have read my file but not my personality"
He looked at him, this time with a more serious face. "One tells you what they've done, while the other tells you why"
"That may be true, but they are two sides of the same coin" Ikra argued, "You may not see their emotions or how they talk. But you get to see their choices, habits, and patterns"
"Their personality isn't separate from what they've done, it's reflected in it" Warhound was acting as if he didn't care, but he was actually listening intently.
The ear he covered by using his arm was actually transformed so he could pick up his words better. "And how do you see my personality in my latest actions?"
"I thought of you as the lowest of trash, one that doesn't care who you break to get what you want" His words were harsh but true, "But as I continued to ask others, I saw you in a different light"
Ikra remembered when he asked about Ryu about Warhound, about how he would also check up on him occasionally after fighting him.
He remembered when he saw Warhound held Jen tightly when the golden flame came and engulfed them all, trying to protect her from the fire.
He thought that maybe his and Anora's deduction was right, that Warhound wasn't in control of himself during the time he massacred the children.
After talking to Wing as well about it, he told him that Don had said that Warhound wasn't the type to do such a thing.
"Maybe you think that you're the worst, that you don't deserve to live after what you've done. But people aren't made from their worst moments, they're made from all they've done"
Ikra opened the door, "I trust that you'll go to where you need to be" He told him before leaving. Warhound stayed there in silence, eyes fixed on the soldiers training outside, but having Ikra's words echo relentlessly in his mind.