Shyzun’s shrine stood tall as the acidic rain poured down over the village. The clouds had grown dark and circled above as if they had witnessed calamity. A crowd gathered around and laid eyes upon a body. The red tears stroke down Shyzun’s face, the same liquid that the body indulged itself within. Medeev was already trembling due to the cold weather, but he shivered as the body gave off a familiar hint as it was in a priest’s clothing. The folk turned it around, and he saw its face. It was Remoi. As Medeev looked around, the hopelessness and despair was on everyone’s face. “Tridum at it again,” the man inspecting the body said. “Poor Remoi, what had he done to deserve this?” He took out a note from its pocket and stared at it for a bit. “Who’s Medeev?” and the man looked around. Medeev stepped forward, “I am,” and the man handed him the note. The note read:

To Medeev,

I hold great regret that you chose to runaway. Know that I will respect your wishes and not hunt you down, but for the town you have picked, holds another fate. As long as you do not cascade, it is not to your worry. Note that others still hold a grudge.

Sincerely, Tridum

“Why would Tridum address you directly?” the man asked, loud enough for the crowd to hear. Medeev knew Tridum well, but he knew this information would only anger these folks. “Hey! Where you goin’?” the man yelled as Medeev walked off.

Medeev brought the note to Chester at the church. “Dear God, we may be in danger sooner than I had thought. We must take action now.”

“Everyone’s already on their toes and prepared to move out. The problem is, they have nowhere to go.”

“They killed Remoi at the shrine, where you go to pray. What foul message laid within that awful image?”

“They chose to do this stunt on a weekend. They wanted a crowd, the message was for everyone. I’m sure they will attack from the underground tunnels.”

“The sewers?”

“Yes. Tridum uses them for illegal transportation and trafficking already. The Azmir and Conduct Castle attacks were conducted in the same manner.”

“Then we shall do something about it.”

“Yes, I have thought. Thought perhaps we could light the entirety of it on fire.”

“How will we behold such a task? The sewers run long and deep.”

“That is not much but of a little problem. The sewers were designed to regulate liquid far and wide.”

“Ah, gasoline”

“No, we will use termitol.”

Chester’s metals widened. “How will we acquire enough? I assume you have a plan.”

“In fact, I do, but I’ll need your utmost help to execute it successfully.”

“I’m all ears.”

Medeev cleared the desk of holy books, got a blank paper out and took ahold of the quill. “This,” he marked the center, “is this church. The main entrances to the gutters are as follows.” He made eight ovals in a circular pattern around the center.

“These three,” he marked three circles at the bottom, “are used to transport eintiapien. They use the same system we will use to spread the liquid.” He marked the three circles above, “here is the group in charge of human trafficking, and the drug used to destroy sperm is distributed here as well. That drug contains illidieum.”

“Ah, and eintiapien combined with illidieum produces termitol. But we’ll need an enormous supply of the drugs to do this, they are quite small, aren’t they?”

“Yes, we will need a lot. We have to strike the routes. All the way through, I’m sure, all of it is used for trafficking. There’s one thing, we might come across victims, I think it’s best we dispose of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“The people who are being trafficked. It’s men, women, and even children. I know you do not like to hurt the innocent, but with what they have experienced, death is mercy for them.” Medeev could see the way Chester’s face paused, as if he was processing his thoughts.

“No, I don’t think I would be able to do such a thing.”

“Ah, well. This is a stupid plan, we’re going to get ourselves killed. Tridum has experience with resistance, he makes sure they never last long.”

“But it’ll be different this time. We’ll try to save everyone on our way, we can—”

“Come on, Chester. You’re a priest, what are you going to do? Prayers won’t help us here.”

“You’re forgetting I am also a robot. I have no problem killing, but I don’t want to walk away from those who we can help. And we have you, you knew Tridum well, you can provide us with vital data.”

“Data is the only thing I’m useful for. I don’t think we’ll get far with it.”

“You’re also a warrior.”

“Used to be. Not so much anymore.”

“But you know how it’s like fighting on the frontlines. With your armor, we can do it.”

“No, no, I’m not getting back in that thing.”

“Medeev, you can use it to undo the sins you have committed.”

“I can’t undo anything. When you work for Tridum, you’re already a demon, but I wasn’t just a worker, I was satan's right hand.”

“Sure, Medeev. But don’t you wish to stop the awful things from happening?”

“I do, but I’m not sure if I want to be the saviour.”

“The killing of Tridum will get us out of this modern dark age.”

“Killing? Kill Tridum? You can’t kill Tridum, that’s impossible. The only way to ‘kill’ Tridum is by taking away his power, by lowering the count of his army.”

“Yes! And you in your armor. I’m no fool, I’ve heard the stories. Even if it results in our deaths, we can hurt his ego.”

“All we can do is jab at him. That’s all. Now that I think about it, any plan against Tridum is foolish.”

“Medeev, if I had the power to do it, I would. The thing is, I don’t, I— we really, really need you on our side. Let this be your duty.”

“Ah! I know Chester. I do want to do it, I know it will result in our death, I knew that from the beginning. I would never do this alone, but if you wish to, I guess we’ll give it a shot.”

In the basement, laid on the ground beside a hammer was a suit made of black steel. The hammer was smashed in from excessive attempts to destroy the armor. Medeev picked it up with ease. Black steel benefited from not being dense yet at the same time being indestructible. The armor was hollow, as in it contained a lot of space inside to move around, which also made it lighter. The armor was thin, not too thin as if it were a blanket, but thin enough to not let anything through. The advantages of having extra room meant there could be more additions. The black steel armor had many, many features which made it extremely powerful. It had its custom artificial intelligence which controlled the many systems incorporated into the armor.

“You tried destroying it,” said Chester.

“Yeah, dumb idea, I know.”

“Couldn’t you have just thrown it away.”

“Well, I didn’t—”

“Ah!” Chester caught what he misunderstood. “You didn’t want someone else to use it.”

“—want anyone else to, yeah.

Medeev equipped the armor. All the memories which he had been suppressing came out of hiding. Within the helmet, he felt like he was someone else. Still Medeev, but no longer a passenger of life but a warrior of one. A warrior who fought for the wrong side. Within that armor he was an evil warrior. The unstoppable force which slaughtered millions. Now, it were to slaughter more, but this time not of the innocent but of the guilty. “Well,” he said. “I can take out the entirety of the enemies underground. That would be the easy route, but it wouldn’t solve our problem. They would still be able to use the tunnels to attack. We’ll need a stealth mission, where none die, but the supply of those drugs are stolen.”

“We can cause the supply to run short by some accident,” Chester said. “That way we can take the drugs without suspicion.”

“I would have liked to believe so, but knowing Tridum, he wouldn’t conclude to an accident. In fact, the more obvious the accident, the more he’ll believe it’s some sort of setup. He is very aligned in what he does, and when things go wrong, he knows it is most likely due to an external force.”

“Do you have something in mind?”

Medeev thought for awhile, then said, “no, none that I can think of.”