“How bold of you to show up again here after risking the entire faction?”, Regan clapped back at Keisha slowly in a way of embarrassing her in front of everyone.

It was almost 10 pm when Keisha was on her way to her brother’s department when the people in clusters came to confront her. Nevertheless, this never kept her from walking straight to her destination. By her actions, she asked for peace.

These Ciphers however, blocked her way to not even let her pass. This was as if they were about to beat her up even though they knew they could not overpower her. Coming in with deadly weapons and groups, thought that outnumbering her would kill her soon.

“How bold of you to show up again after raping my brother?”, Keisha scoffed back at her then continued walking, shoving each person blocking her way as carefully as possible.

“Oh, c’mon. As if the people here would care after your failed task as the commander”, Regan bitched but her words were on stutter. Her guilt was too obvious. “We didn’t even know what Zhackary sees in you. You’re just a piece of junk with overpowered strength. You’re just a weapon that everybody would use.”

Keisha turned towards her then took her steps to point at her, “Then you take the job. I quit. I don’t want people like you to keep boasting about your empty courage to someone like me. You can’t even beat me with just your strength alone, so why would I waste my time to idiotic people like you?”

As she stepped away, it startled her when she received a punch with a full force – made her lose balance and fall straight to the ground. Quickly, she regained her composure then stood up back at her feet, ignoring the possible clamor from the mob blocking her way. She did not say a word and did her best to be as calm as possible.

“BECAUSE OF YOU, WE LOST ALL OF OUR FOOD AND SUPPLIES! How dumb you are to think that sacrificing our goods will give us peace from your ex-boyfriend?!” One of the townsfolk told her as they beat the crap out of her one by one until she’s black and blue. The bag of Jaden’s dinner was spilt and trampled in front of her.

“Why would you ruin my brother’s food? The food I made for him is gone… It’s all gone. And how the fuck did you know that Iyaz was associated with me?”

Her eyes watered as she helplessly tried to pick it up. However, the ruthless Regan stepped on her hands and made sure to break her bones. She shrieked in every blow she’d receive from them.

“I’m sorry, Jaden. I’m sorry!”

Keisha felt nothing but pain and emptiness as she rolled with the Ciphers’ punches. Deep in her heart was deep frustration out of their loss, blaming herself for not being good enough. Now that everyone had a reason to hate her, she had nothing to show off and to be confident enough with anymore.

“I thought you’re some sort of an overpowered lead character here, Keisha? Why are you letting yourself be beaten up by a lot of people mad at you?”, they continued to ridicule and put her into shame. Her entire face was now swollen, her body’s bruised up.

“Is there anything I could do to make it up to all of you? Just please leave me alone if you don’t want to get hurt”, Keisha pleaded while she’s being tied up so that she couldn’t move a muscle.

Unfortunately, she had no capability to defend herself as if something had been keeping her from using her abilities all day long. She couldn’t put the blame to Zhackary as she was aware that he’s still trying to adapt to her behavioural patterns. Even calling him through their mutual connectivity chips implanted in them seemed to have barriers.

“No one is scared of you now, Keisha. You couldn’t even defend yourself without Zhackary’s help. And that useless chip of yours? It won’t help you at all anymore”, a man from the distance who’s wearing a mask in pitch black said. By his tone, he must’ve known something bigger than Keisha’s secret.

“Why did you-“

“Don’t even ask about it. Now, give us what we need. We all know that Zhackary himself spoils you with everything”, he replied, holding her by her chin. “All you gotta do is unlock your house and let us take what we want.”

She had no choice but to nod her head, even though she was all against it. By the time they arrived in her house, she unlocked it with the key from her pockets. Then the men started crashing in and taking every food supply she had inside her home. The lamp that Zhackary gave her was taken away as well as her precious belongings that came from her parents.

“Please, just leave those. Don’t take it away from me, please…”

Her cries filled the entire room followed by the wicked laughter from the heartless beings invading her very home. No one listened to her plea. Minutes passed then she’s left all alone deserted in the empty room. Everything was taken away from her… Not even her G-clef necklace that Jaden gave her was spared.

The void begged to meet her once again.

*The next day at Jaden’s*

Jaden was having a timely breakfast with the twins and Zhackary discussing Keisha's sudden silence. Their faces were as pale as death himself out of anxiety.

“It’s odd. Ate didn’t meet with me for dinner last night. She didn’t even message me as she would usually do”, he wondered while taking a sip from his foamy Cappuccino mug. “I called her up early in the morning. Someone else answered. A voice of a teener younger than me.”

“Is she into handing her phone to someone else?”, Nikolai asked him to confirm something.

Jaden shook his head ‘no’ in despair. He again tried contacting his sister but this time, no one was answering it at all. “I don’t think she’d let anyone swooping through her personal belongings tho. I don’t even wanna think that she’s robbed or something. Cipher is a safe place to stay, especially that we have our advanced defense mechanism here.”

“Unless, if someone from the outside had access in Cipher… or someone from Cipher is into deceiving us”, said Nikolai and her twin, Nikkoi signed to agree with her.

“Actually, we’re getting leads towards the culprit from the games. But we aren’t sure who it was yet”, Zhackary added then dipped a piece of his pandesal on his latte. “I didn’t get the chance to head to her tent this morning ‘cause I need to check the status of your fieldwork a week ago.”

They were startled when a loud song rang from Zhackary’s phone. The ringtone itself was too embarrassing to listen to and that he, himself panicked once hearing it.

The ringtone was an Anime Hentai remix.

I was having trouble putting up a sort of humor for this one because I didn’t want the entire novel to look too dull and boring without a bit of comedic response. Yeah, I know, I suck.

“What the fuck dude?! You seriously had that on your phone?”, Nikkoi gesture that Zhackary couldn’t understand. “Oh right. He can’t even identify my cussing here.”

On the other hand, Nikolai and Jaden were laughing at the top of their lungs followed by their constant slamming on the table in front of them.

“Yo, he already cussed at your ringtone bruh. THAT IS SOOOO WEIRD!”, Jaden cackled until his face turned red in exhaustion.

“The mix was like, ‘Haah’!” Nikolai imitated the moaning from the embarrassing ringtone and everyone cringed about it. “You heard nothing.”

“I swear this isn’t my doing!”, the poor lad defended himself as he flushed in shame.

….. *picks up*

“Uhm, hi? Shino?”

He put it in loudspeaker so that everyone could hear the conversation, assuming that it was an important one.

“Heyyy, Mister Z!! How’s the steamy ringtone you got there?”, Shino from the other line began with the conversation, teasing Zhackary. “I know, I know. I had Rocky to hack your phone yesterday just to put up with this.”

The lad scoffed and answered back, “You better fix this shit you know. Good thing, there’s no one around except Jaden, the twins and I here.” Been wanting to get to the point with the talk, he said, “Let’s be real. What’s the catch?”

“Is Keisha around?”, he asked frankly.

“Sadly, but no. You have any idea what happened to her?”, Zhack questioned then laid his back flat against the backrest of his seat.

“She’s beaten up. And her house was all empty.”

Zhackary from his flushed face to being white and dull, he stood up from his chair and rushed leaving his breakfast untouched.

*On Cipher's back gate*

The air blew cold as the gate separated the Cipher from the devoid lands of outside, two people standing on the ground with dried grass. The man with the mask on handed a bottle to a girl wearing a black sweater.

"You better get everything now so that next time, that bitch won't interfere with my plans anymore", said the girl as she put the bottle inside her left pocket. She reached out to her right pocket and pulled a couple of thousand bills and handed it to the man.

"Don't worry Miss Reg, we got everything and she won't ever be able to see what you want to do", said the guy as he put the money in his pocket and walked.

The girl looked back on him and wondered, "Hey! Where'd you got this tho? I might be able to have a little discount for this".

The man looked back and pulled his mask down and smiled, "Sorry ma'am, I can't tell you my source".

The two proceeded in their different ways as the sun rose on its peak.

The man walked to the west side of the back gates, and behind the bushes was a secret passage he created himself. This way was hidden from the surveillance cameras. The path he entered was directed to a small street and leads to the main road. A black car drove down the road and stopped right in front of him. He got in and drove off.

“Do they suspect you yet?”, asked the mysterious man in black hood jacket.

“No, I don’t think they ever will.”, the man replied as he handed a flash drive. “Where’s my payment?”

“If you got what I need, as a deal I’ll give you double”, the man said as he handed a case full of thousands of bills.

“If you mean extra information that they might’ve kept hidden… I found something that is way beyond your imagination.”

“Oh really? Entertain me”, said the man as he pours a liquor in his wine glass.

“I would if I see the double payment.”

“I am asking you politely first... Please”, the man said as the car stops. Both the driver and the man in the hoodie loaded a gun and pointed at his head.

The man grabbed both of the guns and pulled them closer and pointed it on his mouth, tempting the both of them to shoot him.

“Well? You guys are afraid of killing someone?”, he murmured and removed the safety feature of the gun.

There was a brief silence between the three, “Dutch, the payment.”, the man removed whose holding signaled as he removed his hood. It revealed the man in charge and leader of Utopia, Iyaz. He handed the second payment to the mysterious guy and started counting. The guy then proceeded to open the door and threw the cases to the bushes on the side of the road.

“Well, about that hot chick that is the vice commander of Cipher, there is a hidden reason why she possesses such a strong power”, he said as he handed some photographs that were secretly taken while she’s in her office doing some paperwork.

“Care to explain?”, Iyaz seemingly intrigued by this information while staring at her photos.

“Her strength was from an experiment that took place after they rescued her.”, the man handed another set of photos of Keisha in the clinic’s bed with Zhackary holding her hands.

“That explains why she recovered from those bruises and wounds, it was supposed to kill her in a slow and painful death but she miraculously survived”, Iyaz murmured.

“That’s right, she almost died and needed to inject a type of serum that instantly healed her after a few minutes.”, the man spoke and the conversation continued, revealing her secret about her powers as well as Cipher’s future strategies.

As they finished with the transaction, the man left and picked the two cases up and headed to the secret passage that leads to Cipher.

“Oh, I forgot that these pictures are with the agreement…”, the man pulled a bunch of inappropriate pictures of girls from Cipher, “Oh well, I'm gonna add them to my collections instead.”