Chapter 1: Exposition
“In the beginning, there were three kingdoms: Ermanica, Anglicus, and the island of Latine. The lands were torn by the differing ideals of Ermanica and Anglicus. Ermanica was an imperialist dictatorship. Basically, your cliche bad nation. Their ideals come from an archaic way of life involving that ‘only the strongest survive’ farce. ‘Cull the weak’. They ruled by fear and brutality, with their advanced weapons of war, and their soldiers of iron. And the number of deaths from paranoid executions and starvations caused by their rule…almost incalculable. Some sources number it to be about 9 million. Others number it to 70 million. However, those at the top didn’t care. Because ‘only the strongest survive’.
On to Anglicus. Anglicus was a kingdom that was the opposite, and, hell, even decided to war with Ermanica, just because of that country’s tyranny. However, Anglicus had flaws as well. Anglicus ideals were practiced by borderline fanatical people, causing lots of hate for each other to spread throughout the civilian population. Plus, their army was no better than Ermanica’s, as they raped and pillaged their enemies, just as the opposite army has done. Neither side had any honor. And while Anglicus had good intentions, the people were too passionate, giving into fundamentalism.
Now, the island of Latine, their rule consisting of a peaceful oligarchy, heard of this mess going on in the continents. So the Three Wise Men, the leaders of said oligarchy, banded together to form a plan to assault both countries at once, thus ending the war for good. They used guerrilla tactics, superior defense-in-depth tactics, weapons from the black market, and emphasized Shock Action to defeat their foe. Finally, after many bloody battles, Latine has taken over the world. And the only member of the Three Wise Men now is the son of one of them, King Gabi. That being said, I don’t really think he’s any better than Ermanica, what with him executing people over disobeying his censorship laws. Don’t tell anyone I said that. Hey! You two! Quit fighting over there!”
In the back of the classroom, two students immediately stop their slapping about, and look straight at the teacher.
They are both wearing school uniforms, just like the rest of the class. It’s a blue suit jacket, with khaki dress pants, and shiny, slip-on shoes. But the brother has his unbuttoned, showing a band shirt with an unreadable logo resembling a thorny bush. He was mostly doing this because he thinks the suits are rather pretentious.
The female one, being smaller in frame and having a slender figure, with a height of 158cm, says to the teacher, “Sorry! Its just that my brother won’t let me copy his notes!” She says, sulking off to the side. The sister had light brown hair with braids encircling around it, while the rest is straight and smooth, at shoulder’s length. Her eyes were blue, like aquamarine, and her skin was peppered with freckles. She also had a couple of pearl earrings on each ear. Overall, she has a relatively innocent look, inherent in some freshmen.
Her brother, a slim, yet muscular man with a height of 199 cm, looks at her with irritation in his green eyes. “Because you need to take your own notes! I don’t need you copying off me just because you have issues paying attention!” The brother has long, scarlet-red dyed hair, which goes down to the middle of his back. He has black roots at the top, but they enhance the look of his red hair, rather than make it look ridiculous. His ears have quite a lot of gold earrings, and his skin was tanned, from constant outside work.
The teacher, being a 30-year-old with skin pale as snow, looks at them both, unfazed, with his tired, bloodshot eyes of steel. “My god…first day as a substitute teacher in this school, and I get treated with this? Do I need to separate you two?” He asks, his slow, monotone voice droning on like the low hum of a bassoon.
“I dunno.” The brother asks, looking at the teacher, then looking at his sister. “Do you!?” And after saying this, he gives her a cheeky grin.
The sister sticks her tongue out at him, then goes back to her loose leaf to take notes. The brother shakes his head, amused. “Pff. That’s what I thought. Dummy…”
The teacher is still unfazed, letting out a sigh. “That’s enough, Kriss. And you need to behave yourself too, Jun. If either of you continue, I will have to kick you out of the class. Got it?”
Both sigh, and they say, in semi-perfect synchronization, “Got it…” They get back to paying attention to the lesson, taking notes on their papers. The class goes by like a blur through time. And before they know it, the mid-pitched hum of the school bell sounds, signaling the end of class.
As their classmates are leaving, Kriss makes a “psst” sound to get his sister’s attention. Her sister’s head slowly straightens up, then she yawns and stretches in an almost catlike manner before turning to her brother. “What do you want…?”
They both whisper to each other. “Our sub. Over there. The fucker seems to hate the world we live in as much as we do.”
“You mean, as much as you do, Kriss? I don’t care. I just want to get through Highschool. We’ve talked about this eight times already.”
“Sorry, sorry. But still. Want to at least find out why he is willing to risk his life for that subtle roast to the government at the end there?”
“You…ugh…fine. But make it quick.”
“The hell do you mean ‘make it quick?’ This is our last period!”
“Yes, and I want to go home as quick as possible, because I’m tired!”
“Fine…fine!”
And so, they wait until everyone is out of the class…until they are the only ones in there.
The duo get out of their seats, and approach the teacher. The teacher looks up at them with interest, despite masking it with an otherwise blank and tired expression. “Greetings, students. What can I help you with?” He says, maintaining his droning and monotone tone.
“Mr. Jonas, are you going to tell either of us why you were…dangerously honest in your lecture…?” Kriss asks, in a friendly tone. Jun hides behind his back nervously. Yes, Jun does speak rather confidently with her brother. But around other people, she is rather nervous.
“Ah. Yes. Well. The simple answer to that is that I have nothing to lose.”
“N…nothing to lose…?” Jun asks nervously.
“Yes. See…my family was raided by Anglicus terrorists, 10 years ago in a humble town in Ermanica. My parents were split in half with a greatsword, while bound by the hands. My brother was stabbed in the heart with a spear. My uncle got ran over with one of their army trucks. My older sister and my wife were raped, had their limbs chopped off, and finally got left to bleed out. My daughter tried to run, but she had her head pierced by an arrow. And my son…well…I lost him. He is now under the large, concrete bridge in the downtown area. I fled to the other side of the continent, which was difficult, by the way. And I passed with the refugees into the border and into here, in the west side of Anglicus. It took me 5 years to get to here. What I was treated with, when I got here…was something entirely new. New laws, new norms, new customs, new everything. And I kind of got used to it, at first. Got a new job as a substitute teacher. And I was happy, for 5 more years. But as the years went on, I saw through the lies of this new government. How their laws of censorship are not just to ‘prevent war’. It’s literally just selective censorship. I thought I could start a new life. Just reset the movie on a metaphorical CD player. But honestly? With all the bs the government expects me to feed you kids!? The deadly punishments for speaking the truth!? I would much rather they take my life than spend another moment spreading propaganda I don’t even agree with!!”
The teacher visibly recoils, as he realizes how loud he was on his last sentence. He looks around to what he can barely see on the outside of the door. Nobody’s there. He breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank god that our security cameras are video-only, too. Seriously, just to cut down on cost, those morons invested in cameras that don’t pick up on sound! How fucking stupid is that!?” Kriss and Jun don’t respond, as they are in shock from the story he told them. Kriss is more subtle with his expression, as he is older and more jaded than his sister.
Right after he says that, a guard, who’s uniform, just like the rest of his fellow guards in the army, is black-clad with a Kevlar vest filled with tons of mag pockets, along with an intimidating-looking spike-helmet to top it all off, looks to him with his cold, dark-blue eyes. “Does there seem to be a problem, Mr. Jonas?”
“These two students were quite a handful. So I had to give them a lesson in how we pay attention in class! Idiots…” He says, scoffing.
The guard nods, grinning in amusement. “Want me to escort them out?” He says, digging at his nails. Mr. Jonas nods enthusiastically. “Do what you want. Just make them…not here, please”. “You got it!”
Kriss and Jun silently saunter out of the classroom with the guard. Kriss cautiously holds Jun while walking with the guard. The guard himself just keeps walking with them, while toying around with the sights on his rifle, which is a 565mm-length bullpup rifle of Bakelite, with a curved 35-round magazine also made of Bakelite, holding 7.62x39 rounds. The rubber vertical foregrip is integrated into the black-as-night barrel. And the sights are carry-handle types with adjustable ranges and a rail system attached to the top, which is blank in this case.
The pistol grip could be removed and replaced with a 40 mm grenade launcher. In that configuration, a single trigger controls with a separate barrel selector both the 40 mm grenade launcher and the rifle itself. It could also be swapped out for an integral suppressor. In fact, both mods are in the backpacks of all soldiers, as well as first aid kits, and grenades/flashbangs attatched to the bottom on the outside of the backpack.
“Ah, crap, the safety’s off.” He flips up the fire selector switch to safety. “Right. We’re here. At the exit. Now you two have a…splendid day.”
“Whatever. Come on, sis.” He holds her hand as they both walk over to the bus stop, waiting for their ride home. Jun sighs deeply as they sit down, looking rather distraught. “You okay, sis?” Asks Kriss. Jun sighs again. “Nothing, just…a very interesting first day, don’t you think, brother?” She says in a somber tone.
Kriss reflects her sigh. “Yeah. Sorry that you had to deal with that…” He looks up, then to the left at the road. Which was at a perfect time, since he can see their bus down the road. “It’s here. Come. Let’s go home.” He says, entering the bus along with his sister, taking their seats, almost immediately. And they both reflect on the tragic story they just heard…
