Chapter Three – Pawns on the Board
The sun bled into the Lagos skyline, painting the horizon in dirty gold and orange. Evening was descending, and the city's pulse only quickened with the dimming light. The clatter of danfos swarming the roads, the sharp barks of bus conductors, the cloying scent of roasted corn mixing with sweat and gasoline—Lagos never slept, it only shifted masks.
Dele walked through it like a ghost.
His mind was caught between two worlds: the ruined nightmare he'd left behind and the fragile, buzzing world around him. Five years. That was all he had before the Mana Surge. Five years before the screams, the rising dead, the blood-drenched skies. Five years to turn himself from a lone, reborn man into the architect of an empire strong enough to withstand apocalypse.
"Five years isn't time… it's a noose tightening," he thought, eyes scanning the chaotic street. "Every wasted day is rope lost from my own neck."
He kept his expression neutral, his body language unremarkable, just another young man navigating the humid dusk. But inside, his mind was fire. He had lived through the end of the world. He had ruled armies. He had walked among corpses. Now, in this past, he would not waste time.
---
He spotted the small shop before the university gate—a narrow kiosk where Kunle used to hawk recharge cards and bottled drinks. Kunle. The name pulled something half-forgotten from his past life. A wiry young man with a restless energy, someone who never stopped running his mouth, always in the orbit of bigger men but never truly one of them.
In the future, Kunle had died screaming, his guts torn out by a mutant in one of the early days of the Surge. Dele remembered the scene faintly—not because Kunle mattered much back then, but because he had begged for help from leaders who never came.
Now, in this life, Kunle was still alive, still chasing scraps.
A smile ghosted across Dele's lips. "Good. A pawn alive is a pawn to be shaped."
---
"Kunle," Dele called, his voice calm.
The young man turned, surprised, eyes narrowing before recognition lit them up. He was lean, sharp-faced, with cheap sunglasses perched on his head and clothes that tried too hard to look important.
"Dele? Ah! Omo, na you be this?" Kunle slapped his hand against Dele's shoulder with that exaggerated warmth Lagos boys carried when they smelled opportunity. "Ah, see as you don fresh! Where you dey since?"
Dele let a small chuckle slip, masking his calculating gaze. "Been around. Just keeping my head down."
Kunle grinned wide. "Head down? This Lagos no dey reward quiet boys o. Me? I dey reason levels. Big men dey notice me small small. Soon, I go blow."
He's exactly the same, Dele thought. All hunger, no direction. Ambition without anchor.
Out loud, he said, "Blow, eh? With who? Student union boys?"
Kunle leaned in, lowering his voice with the self-importance of someone holding crumbs. "Election dey come. Union dey scatter. Plenty boys dey hustle. If man play cards right, e fit connect reach oga for top." He tapped his chest. "Me, I dey arrange myself."
Dele nodded slowly. His mind was already spinning. Student politics were breeding grounds for future politicians, foot soldiers for parties, pawns for men in Abuja. Small roots that could grow into thick vines if watered right.
"Perfect entry point," he thought. "From pawns to networks, from networks to thrones."
---
They talked a while longer, Dele carefully pulling strands of information without revealing his hand. Kunle, ever eager to impress, bragged about knowing which factions were rising, which thugs were backing which candidates, who had police in their pockets.
Dele listened, storing every detail.
When the shadows deepened and the shops started shuttering, Kunle stood and stretched. "Make we dey go small. I wan meet person for junction. Join me, make I show you how levels dey move."
Dele agreed, curiosity in his eyes but something sharper in his mind. "Lead me to the dirt. Show me where the real blood flows."
---
The junction was alive with the raw chaos of Lagos nightlife. Petty traders still hawked roasted plantain and suya; buses honked impatiently; music thumped from a battered speaker outside a beer parlor. And there, by the corner, a knot of boys loitered—lean, dangerous, with the hard eyes of predators used to easy prey.
Kunle's swagger shrank the moment he saw them. He masked it with a grin, but Dele caught the flicker of fear.
"Kunle!" one of the thugs called, stepping forward. His voice was mocking. He wore a red cap turned backward, his arms roped with muscle. "You dey waka pass without dropping our share?"
Kunle's smile faltered. "Ah, Seyi, make we reason. I go settle una later. Small delay dey, money never…"
The boy slapped him across the face, fast and hard. Kunle stumbled, clutching his cheek. The other thugs laughed.
Dele's body stilled.
"They're not just shaking him down. They're reminding him he's prey. Prey never becomes a player."
Seyi turned his gaze to Dele, eyes narrowing. "Who be this one? New fish? You carry am come to contribute?"
Dele's lips curved, not in fear but in something colder. His voice was even, almost polite. "No."
The thugs blinked.
Then Dele moved.
---
The first strike was a knife-hand blow to Seyi's throat, precise, practiced, brutal. The bigger boy choked, gagging, his eyes bulging as he stumbled back. Before the others processed, Dele snatched the broken neck of a discarded bottle from the ground and drove it into another thug's thigh, twisting as blood sprayed.
Chaos erupted.
Kunle shouted, stumbling away. The thugs roared, lunging at Dele. But this was no ordinary young man they were facing. This was a warlord reborn, a strategist who had killed mutants with his bare hands. His body remembered violence the way others remembered prayer.
He pivoted, ducked under a swing, jammed the glass into another stomach. He seized an arm, twisted until bone cracked, and shoved the howling boy into the path of his charging friend.
Three down, one gasping, one bleeding out, one writhing on the floor. The air reeked of iron and sweat.
The last thug hesitated, eyes wide, knife trembling in his hand.
Dele stepped forward slowly, his face unreadable. Inside, his thoughts were cold fire.
"Fear is worth more than blood. Fear will spread. Let this boy carry it."
He leaned in, voice low, dangerous. "Go. Tell them. Dele is not prey."
The boy bolted, vanishing into the night.
---
The street was silent now, save for the groans of the wounded. Kunle gaped at him, his chest heaving.
"Jesus… Dele… you… you…" He couldn't finish.
Dele dropped the bloodied glass, wiped his hand on his shirt, and looked at him with eyes that belonged to a man who had watched civilizations burn.
"You want to rise, Kunle? You want to sit at the table of men?" His voice was calm, almost gentle, but it carried the weight of iron. "Then you need protection. You need someone who doesn't bow."
Kunle swallowed hard, trembling. "And that's you?"
Dele's lips curved into the faintest of smiles. "That's me."
---
Later, as they walked away from the carnage, Kunle kept glancing at him, awe and terror warring in his gaze.
Dele, meanwhile, was silent. Inside, his mind was already aligning the pieces. Kunle was shaken, but also hooked. Men like him were addicted to power, and Dele had just shown him a glimpse.
"Fear binds faster than promises. Awe holds stronger than money. I'll give him both. And when the Surge comes, he will not just follow me… he will worship me."
He raised his eyes to the night sky, where stars struggled to pierce through the city's haze.
"Five years. The board is empty. Tonight, I placed my first pawn."
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