On 27th February 1992 at 19:57

Hugo (as First-Person View)

Bergskaer island in Finland

About the dark fairy tale I mentioned ago, I apologise. I wanted to make sure if you're still with me despite this, turns out you do. But listen, lad. This isn't the good time we used to have, but now, the fun time is over. This is the new era we are about to face. With all that said, let's move on to the story.

Real story.

Now, it all began were two people on an island, waiting for someone from the sea. One person stood on the field with his binoculars on. And the other person who sat on the coast got bored.

“Felix... How long are we going to stay here for?” A person who spoke was Duran Sugar, a 17 years old Danish teen. We usually call him “Danny” as a short nickname. What’s more about him is he likes to play video games in his free time. But his attitude was quite spoiled if he didn’t get whatever he wanted.

“Are you serious? We just arrived like two minutes ago. And why are you waiting for someone while you’re in middle of fishing?” Said the other guy.

He lowered the binoculars down and felt irritated. His name is Felix Sugar, he’s from Finland and adopted by the Sugar family who aged 18 years old, he’s sour and bitter nowadays.

“Urgh, I’m bored! My games died, so at least entertain me.” Danny sobbed his head down and leaned back forward a bit. He referred to an electronic device, console games, was used up the battery all day since arrival.

Although, he has a charger with him. But since we’re on a remote island. Danny was strictly forbidden to charge his games freely because not only would he distract himself on duty, it could drain our electricity sources too.

Felix stood there staring at him; he then facepalmed after. He returned on his watch with the binoculars on. And suddenly, he saw a boat which was heading toward them.

“Hey, get up! Someone’s coming!” Felix put the binocular away in his backpack.

“Oh shoot!? Where?!” Danny panicked and stood up to see where the boat was.

As the boat got closer and closer, the ship suddenly drifted aside and parked right next to the coast. Where the two guys are, they had to brace themselves by blocking with their bare arms from a large amount of seawater. After they got splashed and felt wet, there was a moment when Danny didn’t realise what was wrong with his hand.

“M-my… my… My fishing rod!” He gasped as his fishing rod was found snapped in half.

After they braced themselves, they glanced back at the boat to see who the culprit was. It turns out it is a tiny white boat that looks a bit fancy, but the plain-looking one beside a metallic gold bar on top of the display.

Someone from inside the boat opened the door. The Sugar brothers got the attention; they were curious to see what the person looked like. Such a scary-looking guy on Earth; as soon as they step up to reveal themselves, it went right away and said.

“Hello, fanboys! Are you guys ready for the concert?!” …A fancy-looking boy dressed up like an expensive-looking celebrity has a white suit, sunglasses on, and shiny jewellery glittering all over him.

“...Wat?” They spoke and looked genuinely confused.

“No? No. No, we’re not here for your concert!” Danny replied. “And thanks for breaking my fishing rod you piece of... crap!” It frustrated him to let someone snap his fishing rod.

“Huh? Is that how they greet people? Oh wow~ foreign people are really strange nowadays.”

“You son of a-!” Before Danny was about to charge and stab him with a sharp stick. Felix quickly intervened by pulling both shoulders tightly away from him. If not, then our job ends in waste of time.

“Hey-hey-hey! Take it easy, bro! Don’t forget what we are here for!” Felix tried to convince him to think twice before facing violence; he understood what he referred to.

“Fine, FINE! I let him go! For fanden!” I couldn’t help but feel empathy for him, but he knew his place and had to carry on his job. He was later released from Felix to throw the stick away to the sea.

“Pardon me, gentlemen.” Someone joined the conversation. “But now, you guys have a job to do. So, you guys are Dirty Rats, am I right?”

Said the person dressed up like a business person, probably a guardian, is standing next to the stranger.

On the other hand, yes. As he stated, the Sugar brothers and I are indeed called “Dirty Rats”. We run a mercenary organisation called ‘Dirty Rats’ because we couldn’t come up with a good name and only started a few months ago. So we had to stick with that name for now.

“I can’t believe this,” Felix muttered in shame. “*ahem* Oh yes, that is correct. Allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Felix, and next to me, Danny.” He greeted politely to them, as expected.

“Hi, it is very nice not to meet you, sir.” Said Danny, in a polite way grudgingly.

“And what’s your name? Both of you?”

“What?! You don’t know about me?!” The person gasped dramatically with colossal shock; he kept calm and introduced himself. “Alright-alright, my name is Justin Cyber, but all of my beloved fans often call me Justin the star!”

“...” They all froze except him, as if the conservation got more awkward, which left Danny wanting to ask a question.

“Sooo, your name is Justin... Cyber? Whys your last name called cy-?”

“You see, he’s a narcissist. Just don’t bother to ask.” The guardian interrupted; he must be tired of him too.

“Oh, uhm. Okay then?”

“Anyway, we shouldn’t be here too long. We should bring Justin to our base now.” Felix turned his head where the sun was fading away.

“Oh, yeah. But before we go that so-called base ah-ha, where is so-called base anyway?” Justin asked where he only saw a bunch of trees ahead of them.

“Uh, yes. The base is inside the forest, you see.”

“Oh, so do I get a ride or something?”

“No, sir. You have to come with us on foot.”

“Oh, no way. I’d rather stay with my boat” Justin turned in his direction where he saw the door. Until then, he suddenly got floated out of nowhere. It turns out that he was being lifted as a bridal carry by his guardian.

“No-no, just do what they said!” His guardian... thrown Justin off his boat? He then whistled to the captain to start the engine? And then starts leaving the island right away? Is he truly a guardian? It was very awkward for Justin… We didn’t get to hear from his guardian either.

“Wow. I should have put my bullet on that dickhead!” Danny referred to his guardian’s captain after he showed his middle finger next to them. I may see why the captain broke his fishing rod on purpose.

As Justin slowly got up on the field, I finally decided to join them because I was hiding from them in the forest if anything went wrong. It turns out it has gone smoothly, or so I thought. But they ticked me off for wasting my time on them because their job was to bring him over as soon as possible. But when it comes to their situation, I pretend I’m not mad at anything.

“Okay, guys. Is everything alright?” The person who confronted them was me. Hugo from the prologue as I stand right in front of them.

“Oh hello, four eyes nerd. We have been literally… stood up by them, as you can see here.” Well yeah, Danny. I can see that when you just ruined my incredible monologue. But really, he’s right about part of me being a nerd because I’m pretty addicted to computer stuff, so I got to wear my glasses because of that.

“Well, that was quite rude of you, mate.” I shouldn’t lose my temper just because of his insult.

“Bahahaha, you guys have a four-eyes nerd onboard!” Justin laughed. “Oh boy, this is getting hilarious.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot we are protecting a celebrity twat. Son of a…” I mumbled as much I shouldn’t lose my temper just because of his insult too!

“I feel you, bro.” Danny, next to me, tried to cheer me up by touching my right shoulder to comfort me.

“So can we go now? It’s getting late.” Said Felix.

“Okay, if you said so! Gay lovers!” Justin giggled at us and walked forward to the forest.

“And~ I already hate him.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Fucking drama queen.”

We did say negatively as much I hated him more than enough. Danny agreed as much as he wanted to stab him alive. And Felix felt frustrated. And then we realised we had to catch up with him before he was about to get lost in the forest.

Later in the forest, we escorted Justin to our place, where we can secure his safety. However, he kept bragging about us for not giving him a lift, like bringing transport instead walking. It was too annoying to bear our minds with him, so one of us told him to shut his mouth or else, which he ignored.

But then, we couldn't do it in time because we finally headed to a place we were supposed to.

A place we are is a small fortified building made of wood, surrounded by wooden spike fences. On the other hand, those people wandering around and doing their own business were my allies, the ‘Dirty Rats’ mercenaries.

Dirty Rats

About them:

Active: 1991-Present

Part of: Mercenary

Roles: Surveillance

Information:

Hugo and the others funded it despite their youthful appearances. With the help of money, weapons, and persuasion of propaganda. It will last for now.

Note: Hugo is not the only leader of the mercenary.

In the building where we walked into, I pardoned myself from Sugar brothers so they can look after him for “safety reason”. I bet they going to have a hard time now. Poor them.

At the same time, the leader in this island, Sigurd Brand, a Norwegian adulthood who aged 20 years old, was about to give a speech in front of the people. I tagged along with them.

“Alright guys, listen up! We have an important mission for all of us! Our job is to protect the VIP guy until tomorrow at midday. And after that, his team will take care the rest as soon they pick him up to his brand-new concert. Now does anyone have a question here?”

“...wait, is that it?” “Why do we need to protect that clown?” “Just for one day?” “What’s the point of all this?” “What’s so special about him?”

It appears Sigurd gets loads of bombarded questions regarding how easy that is. Of course, he is also prepared as well.

“Okay okay, that is a good question guys because I have two! The most obvious one would be the money of course. And two is that person, as celebrity VIP, is quite… horrifying. You see, if he gets bored, he would meet up his fans, get ravaged by fans, and now his team need to protect his ass from them.”

No, he’s not kidding. There are actual reports about Justin committing tiresome events and lots of incidents which need to be dealt with.

“Wow. He’s quite suicidal when it comes to that, right?” The other guy said, hoping what he said was entire joke by now.

“Oh, wait. There is more.”

“God dammit…”

“There are several cases where the VIP guy got almost murdered by bunch of assassins. To those who tried to kill him are all hired by his rivals because of envious success and wanted to be fame again. But they failed miserably because his team uses his fans as meat shields. So does anyone have a question left?”

Almost everyone who couldn’t understand, felt cringed. They also wanted to brag about his past too but later dropped to save time.

The real reason why we were commissioned to do this was because his team had enough of Justin to begin with. It was too stressful for his team to bear with him despite all the trouble he been through.

That was the last straw. His team decided to send Justin away so they can prepare another studio without having him around on the meantime.

“Good, because I don’t wanna talk how he survived all that…” Sigurd bowed his head down as he couldn’t imagine how scary backstory could be.

“So speaking of assassination. Why not kill him here and take their reward instead?” Someone got our attention. But.

“Well, that sounds... good simple enough. But the thing is their reward doesn’t pay well than we have now. So we spare his life for now.” What Sigurd meant was get paid after this, and then pick him off straight away.

“Well, aside of the VIP guy or whatever. What else you want us to know?” Someone I recognised the voice.

“Uhm, there is nothing much to say, uhh Darrick. Just protect him until they arrive to pick him up to his crazy concert. Then go home with five million kroner.” Exhausted Sigurd, bowing his head down once more after briefing.

And as for the money. 1 USD is equal to 6.41 NOK, so comparing to 5 million kroner, was nearly more than 780 thousand dollars. But that was just calculation of mine of course.

“Aww, yeah! With this. This could be the chance to get rich! Right guys!?” Shouted Darrick, embracing himself in front of the audience as they hurrahed and applauded for the money speech.

Oh yeah, his introduction. His name’s Darrick Jackson, he’s my old friend of mine who is 19 years old, he’s born in Arkansas state in United States of America.

He will be important to be mentioned afterword. And why is that? Well here’s the quick background from him. So his father, as a veteran, used to own an arsenal with lot of guns and ammunitions that has supplied us for half a year ago, can’t run a mercenary organisation without it. So yeah, big deal for us.

Now. Let’s not forget where Sigurd had to halt the cheering down and warned.

“Woah-woah-woah! Just don’t get your hypes up because the money wouldn’t last till a month. And also, keep in mind we not fully prepared against a fuckton of army. So we still need to invest more money on power, yeah?” He advised all of us to be remain vigilant and organised.

“Yeah… what he said.”

“Okay guys. That’s everything you need to know. You guys can go scramble whatever you like.”

With that, almost everyone left to their own business.

I am going to upstairs for computing stuff. I was then greeted by someone in front of me as soon I approached the stair.

“Oi. May I have a word with you, in private?” He whispered.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Right, so. I did what you ask for.” Said the shady looking teen, Takuma Haramoto, the only closest Japanese friend of mine who aged 17 years old. I did requested him to take some of my chores while I was waiting for Justin’s arrival. Guess I owe him later.

“You did? Good.” I said, clearly forgotten which works needs to be done with. “Thanks for the help back there.”

“No problem. But there is something I need to tell you about the report we were giving to.” Said Takuma said whilst unfolding the paper from his pocket.

“So we are commissioned to protect the VIP for one day. The reward is 5 million, which is sound reasonable. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that is correct.” I replied, took the glance of paper he showed. “What about it?”

“Well, for what I don’t understand is why they wanted us to babysit him for one day. And sending him away to strangers like us? Dangerous people, to be precise. On meantime, they were preparing a stage just for him while he isn’t with them? Are you sure we aren’t being set up by chance?”

Such as big statement he made, he then grasped the paper back to his pocket. He explained the whole commission was basically a red flag to him.

“Hmm, now I come to think of it. You may be right actually.” Quite impressing how he done his homework. “But we’re still doing it whether if it a set up mission or not.”

I couldn’t care less even though it was all on Sigurd who persisted this mission.

“Wait, if you knew this could happen, why?” He sternly asked.

“Listen. I understand your concern but, you don’t have to stay with us if can’t take the risk. As for us, we won’t leave empty-handed rather than gain nothing from it.” I convinced Takuma to make up his decision considering how we made it that way.

Takuma bowed his head frustrated, crossing both arms together simply he couldn't believe it.

He later continued. “You know, just for you… I’ll do it for you. But in exchange, you know what I’m looking for, yeah?” Takuma pointed his finger on my throat, making sure I won’t forget the promise.

“Yeah-yeah, I know what you mean.” I shrugged his finger off from me. “But hey, welcome back to Finland again by the way. Perhaps we might find your beloved one after this, yeah?”

“Thanks. Glad you remembered...” Takuma glared and walked upstairs to get himself to the rooftop.

And what did I mean by 'your beloved one' to him?

I was talking his stepmother who had gone missing for few months ago. Her last trace was somewhere in Nordic region based on clues he found so far. However, he needed help, so we provided his assistance.

Now I explained his backstory, back to me as like I said, I walked to the first floor just to get back into my computing stuff. As a security monitor.

In the evening at 20:34 PM, the mercenaries were having dinner on the first floor. They seemed to be enjoying their meal tiredly due to poor quality meal. But it’s better than nothing, right?

Till then, someone decided to crash the party and said.

“Are there any luxurious meal ready for me?!” No other than Justin braced himself in front of us, asking if his meal was already prepared for himself.

The atmosphere was so bad that nearly everyone who felt only to be displeased to hear what Justin said it out loud.

A bystander was the first one to break the silence and said. “Uhm, no? Because no one were told to do so? But hey, we have bread with jam, sugar, honey or-”

“That’s so plain and boring, I want-!”

“Alright listen here you asshole!” He snapped. “Reason why we get always boring food was because we couldn’t afford it! You piece of shit!”

He lost his cool in front of Justin for being spoiled and childish. That was his last straw to say harshly to him.

In response.

“Sniff. Bwaahahaha!!!” Justin cried?

I raised my eyebrow, never knew the same person who acted like narcissist, turns out he’s just a wimp. He fled into a small bathroom which was currently out of use. What a cry baby… we can literally still hear him crying out loud after the door was closed by itself.

Any of us better step up and deal with him. Right now.

“Don’t worry guys. Because I am the most professional caring in this world! I’ll~ handle it!” A person who confidentially stepped up with both thumbs up on his chest was…

...Darrick.

Oh dear, I mean no harm but it is bit silly of me to rely on him in this scenario. And therefore, I had to stop him before someone was about to get hurt.

“Oi, you’re not going to kill him are you?” I glared.

“What~? What makes you to say that?” Darrick shrugged off with his laugh and walked backward to the bathroom where Justin was.

I wasn’t trying to stop him because I couldn’t bother to do so. But then, someone got smacked, and wrecked something from what we heard. And after that, whoever walked out of the bathroom was Darrick himself with his refreshing breath.

“There. Problem solved!” He smirked, closing both eyes to look myself annoyed.

On the other hand, however, the rest of them ignored the incident that had gone dramatically, just finishing up the meal and left somewhere else. As for leftover, me and the helpers were patching Justin up with some bandages left due to critical injury thanks to Darrick’s assault.

Are you guys making my life more difficult?

A few hours later, the whole area is covered in dark beside some flame lamps attached around the building. We’ve been told by Sigurd that Justin’s chopper should arrive before noon at 11:45 AM. Some of us are equipped with handheld flare, ready to signal the chopper to meet up at the drop zone.

Until then, the peace didn’t last.

At 0:07 AM, we suddenly heard a loud cracking sound.

Whoever responded first was…

“What the! What the hell was that?!” Shocked Duran, just woke up by instance.

“Urgh. A gunshot? Are they pulling a prank or something?” It really annoyed Felix who just woke up in his sleep, tried to sleep again.

To me, it is unclear why they up so late recently. So I got off from my sleeping bag to my computer, opened up, and looked through the security footage to see what they up to lately.

However, my computer seemed to be off for some reason.

“Urgh, right now?” I never thought the computer decided to irritate me in middle of non-importance stuff.

So I quickly browsed through my software to see what the issue all about. It took me at least twenty seconds where I found out my computer seemed to be frozen.

Instead, I grabbed the Walkie-Talkie to communicate the other patrols from the outside. I could have use Walkie-Talkie rather than earlier. But I need to make one hundred percent sure if our patrols are safe. Or otherwise I might reveal their position in front of the opposition by accident.

I called whoever at near the south because I could tell where the big echo coming from.

Zero out of four responded to me.

I also tried to respond the other patrols but again, they didn’t reply back to me either.

Suddenly, the gunshot continued, but the way they shoot, it's way too loud.

Speaking of what was in my mind, I think my mind was telling me they might be in trouble. And not only that, I also heard someone was trampling from the stairs loudly, where the door was barged to the wall and shouts.

“Guys, get ready! We’re under attack! Go get the others, now!” Sigurd was ahead of me before I was about to warn the current incident.

As soon we heard the news, me and everyone got up and get into preparation as soon as possible before its too late. More importantly, how did outsiders like them found out one of our hidden spot in middle of nowhere?! This can’t be right…