EPISODE FOUR: Awakening of the Beast

And yes, after another set of three days of being comatose, the day has come to put an end to the Utopians. Every member of Cipher was getting ready for the coming battle that Zhackary requested for the sake of the first comers of the eastern woods. The odds were indeed high on the possibility that Iyaz and his pawns would ambush Cipher. After all, it wouldn’t hurt if they prepared the entire faction for this cause.

Cipher was organized and proper because of Zhackary’s excellence in leadership. He set up different departments and assigned outstanding people to manage the faction with him. Below is the list of all the leading personnel on every area of the Cipher base:

Battle gear (armors, bulletproof vests, helmets, shields) – Verid and Rocky

Artillery (assault and sniper rifles, handguns, Tasers) – Zhackary and Jeffery

Bioweapon (corrosive liquid, tranquilizer darts, poison arrows) – Rhianna and Jaden

Explosives (land mines, bombs, nukes, improvised explosives) – Gina and Czar

Food Production (animal hunting, food crop plantation, harvesting, food trading) – Goyo and Mono

Improvised weaponry (spears, bows and arrows, daggers, halberd) – Keisha

Medic Team (antidotes, first aiding team, medical tools and equipment) – Shino and Renz

Battle Trainers (archery, military, bio, explosives, Med) – Archery: Rhianna; Military: Zhackary; Bio: Jaden; Explosives: Gina; Med: Shino

Keisha, who was lying down in a slumber, got everyone’s attention after her sudden loud gasp. Apparently, those who wake up from a coma usually get a sort of paralysis and are unable to move their muscles. Nevertheless, this young lady was different — after removing all of the needles buried deep into her arms, she seemed to look fine; hence, she was obviously different from the usual scenario we see in movies. Her face was as serious as anybody else, moving sharply fast; this was as if she had not been in an oblivion. 

Zhackary, on the other hand, was shocked by her sudden actions but reacted quickly to stop her before she would rush outside. 

“Keish, wait up! You aren’t fine to go out yet.”

The girl stopped and faced him just to give a deathly gawk. Her irises changed colour into bloody red that matched her current mood. Her speech suddenly sounded like she came from an old era, surprising everyone. This left Zhackary freezing where he stood, his breath hitched upon seeing Keisha’s frightening state — fear eating him as if his nightmares were entrapping his soul.

“Withdraw from keeping me from getting to where Dimaunawa is, Veras. This riot he created is not yours to mind. That schmuck deserves a bloodbath.”

“H-Hey! We could at least talk about i-”

The lad then grabbed her arm with a bit of force just to stop her from something that she ought to do. As a response, Keisha shoved him off accompanied with a superhuman strength that made him blast off towards the other side of the room, crashing to a few clinic tools. Seeing Zhack bleed, her eyes changed back to its natural colour. Surprised by what she did, a few seconds later she stood there staring at Zhackary who tried to stand up from a pile of broken syringe tubes and a few sharp knives.

Rhianna gave a chuckle after seeing the scenario. Her eyes tear up in amazement as she applauds. And her current state of mind was alarming: a possible exposure of her psychosis.

“It… works! The Seditio Syndrome works on her. I knew it… it’s in her blood. Genius! Genius!”

Keisha, left confused as her heart pounds, spoke, “W-what?” She gave her scowls at Rhianna, readying herself to charge at her. Her voice was cracking and hoarse from more than a week of being asleep. “What did you do?”

Zhackary, who was still recovering from his fall and failed to get back on his feet on the ground he spoke, “Rhianna! Just leave her alone and stop confusing her more. You’re making things complicated like the last time.”

“You did. But I’ve worked for this for the rest of my life, Zhack. And Keisha is the perfect person for this bioweapon. Can’t you see how amazing this is?”, Rhianna said while her eyes glistened out of amazement. 

Zhackary replied with an obviously pissed reaction on his face, “What do you think of Keisha? A weapon?”

“Rhi, I thought we already settled this”, siding with the lad, Shino added with the same plastered response. Still, his disappointment that he expressed the last time Keisha almost got killed by the forbidden drug was noticeable from the very tone of his voice. 

Rhianna proudly walked her way around the baffled lassie and addressed, “Y’all just don’t understand, do ya? S-Syndrome is created to revive a patient from permanent paralysis and to restore the damaged nerves and tissues of their frailed human body. Don’t you want that for Keish? I know you do, Zhack.”

“Can you all please clarify this shit to me? I… I’m utterly perplexed”, Keisha also barged into the conversation among the three people surrounding her. She scratched her head and reacted as if she came from the past with the use of a time machine in a microwave. “Then how did I shove Veras as easily as that if it was only supposed to heal my wounds?”.

Ignoring the girl’s questions, Shino pointed at Rhianna with an intimidating look, “I’ve told you about my research about S-Syndrome, Rhi. It’s poison. If you did manage to fail that time, you couldn’t bring the dead back to life! And scientifically speaking, there’s no way you can bring a dead person alive again.”

Rhianna was irritated while defending herself from the negative reactions that her comrades gave her, she slammed her hand on her face accompanied with a deep sigh.

“But not with Keisha’s genes and blood, doofus. I’ve been testing the bioweapon on different blood samples for about three years, Shino. Ya hear that? I will never think of hurting Keisha, not now nor ever.”

“Are you even thinking, Rhianna? You should’ve consulted us or Keisha before executing your plans. I understand all of your effort for this, but it’s really unnecessary. We can save Keisha without putting any harm on her”, Zhackary said, supporting Shino’s statements against Rhianna’s hastiness. “And… the mere fact that you did this without consent. This is all wrong.”

Nevertheless, Rhianna couldn’t accept their words and responded as if she had heard nothing from them. We might see her as an overly confident woman in this story, but to be frank, she’s just desperate to do something good for her friend in danger — or something deeper than that. The desperation she’s having might be too deep that she did all the stakes to execute her self-centered plans.

“I’m doing this for Keisha, psychos. Sooner or later, you’ll take back what y’all have said to me.” Rhianna defended and crossed her arms, “Additionally, it saved her from internal bleeding so, you're welcome.”

“Whatever that is, I’m heading out of here”, Keisha butted in, smirking in a way that she wasn’t putting a bit of care about what just happened to her. Gaining superhuman strength didn't really bother her; after all, the only one she cared about was her brother’s safety alone. She paused for a moment after witnessing Zhackary still recovering from being thrown out from the other side of her hospital room, “By the way, Veras, I apologize for hitting you hard a moment ago. I hope you didn’t break a rib or two.” 

Offering her left hand, Keisha smiled at him; however, it was not the same as her usual bright beam she showed off to everyone. Her sneers weren't holding any meaning behind it anymore: all blank and cold. “I have heard of your plans while I was sound asleep, weren’t we aiming to prepare for that bastard plausibly coming right here for a wager?”

Zhackary suddenly grinned in astonishment after hearing Keisha getting fired up for an exhilarating clash that he planned three days ago. And at the same time, he turned out to be muddled by that little lady calling him by his surname. Typically, she would call him Zhack or something even more adorable than that — knowing that she actually had an affection for him; though right now she’s sounding undeniably odd.

“See? She doesn’t seem into complaining about it at all”, said Rhianna, winking at the two young lads a few steps away from her.

Shino smirked at her and frankly told her, “You’re just lucky that we are preparing for a fight tonight. If not, you’ll be the one whom she hit hard from across the room.” Then laughed hard at Zhackary, who was still sitting down from where he landed, “Good thing Z’s still in good shape.”

Rhianna quickly made her rebuttal and said, “Shut it, Shino. You’re a huge douchebag.”

“Oh, really? Well, your doucheness will head out”, Shino told her after a curtsy then walked straight out of the room. “Expect us to have a department meeting later. Thanks to you.”

Zhackary, who had regained strength to stand up and patched the small cuts that was caused by his sudden flight, spoke “Let’s get to work fellas.” He faced Rhianna and informed her, “You should call Jaden by now, start by making poison arrows for your crew before your target practice near the watchtower.”

Rhianna countered him with a statement while her arms were crossing in frustration, “Why don’t YOU conduct a general assembly first? Like, don’t push yourself by roaming around and reminding everyone about what’ll possibly happen tonight.”

He nodded at her disputes and flicked on her forehead, “Shut your mouth about Keisha’s condition, okay? Everything about her right now is highly confidential.”

“Ow! Yeah, yeah sure. Make sure to also shut your mouth about my own plans for her”, she quickly agreed to avoid further arguments regarding the matter.

Zhackary took a quick turn then glared at her with a tiger-like look in his eyes, “You’re prolly in the safe zone now, Rhi. We’ll be talking soon. You heard from your best friend, we’ll have a private meeting about this matter later.”

He achieved a tip-off of enthusiasm while heading out of the clinic — seemingly looking forward to the possible outcome of his plans. On the other hand, Keisha went out to search for the coordinates of Utopia at the paramilitary command center of Cipher. 

Not a jiffy longer, Zhackary called all of the members for an assembly at the main hall of Cipher base with the use of the speakers placed in specific areas within the base.