Winter Savior
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AlterOne
Chapter 9
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Chapter 9
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Past Chapters
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Akko was left open mouthed at the revelation that had been brought upon him. He didn’t know what to say. The others seated at the table waited patiently as Akko took the time to compose him, clearing him throat and looking from one man to the next.
“Which of you,” he began, “so which of you is going to explain this? It was my understanding that the Veldt were the good guys.”
At this, Nikita chuckled and shook his head slightly, but said nothing. Akko took a moment to frown at him before Niki, from his father’s left, spoke up for the first time in the discussion.
“I guess that’s where I come in,” Niki said. He clasped his hands together on the table as he looked over at Akko. “As you know, my father and I were present at the gathering your friend Alderman Regent Malk Nazore hosted. We’d gotten word that there would be something big going on at the event, but we didn’t know what. So when the Veldt came out it was obviously a surprise to us as anyone else. We watched them of course. My father noticed it first. The Veldt’s leader, that Orojin fellow, he kept a steady eye on Ulrich the entire night. My father tasked me with keeping an eye on Orojin as he kept an eye on your brother. When Ulrich left with that girl of his, Orojin said something to one of his Veldt and that Veldt went out the back door in a hurry. I got word from my men posted outside that they’d spotted the Veldt in Ulrich’s proximity, tailing him from rooftop. That’s when me and my group followed right behind. Just as we got to the house a group of the Veldt got the jump on us…”
Niki halted in his retelling of events. He turned his head away slightly, looking at nothing in particular but away from Akko all the same. His expression was one of bitterness.
“They killed all of my men,” he went on, finally turning back to Akko. “It was all a bloody mess. This one female, she was vicious. I only caught a glimpse of her unmasked face in the fight, but that look…that gleeful smile. She enjoyed it. She enjoyed it as she carved up a man’s face.”
His fist clenched in anger. He gave an exhale of air.
“I got away but I didn’t leave the scene,” Niki stated. “I doubled back around and perched myself in a tree near the house. Gave me the perfect view to see what happened next. One of the Veldt shot some sort of spell out of the wand and he dropped dead. After that I went and reported back to my father on what had transpired. We were right in the middle of that when you attacked.”
Nikita took the reins from his son, “Akko if you will, excuse Niki’s actions back then,” he said. “But reasonably speaking, if it were any other man, they’d be dead for what you did.”
“I think we can all agree that cooler heads prevail as shown here today,” Juri said. “There’s a lot we don’t know right now, a lot of questions we’ve got to get answers to. We’ll be working to figure this whole thing out.” He gestured to Akko, “In the meantime, you’ll be working with Merik’s unit here in the city.”
Nikita rose from his seat, “If that’s all, we’ll be going now.”
He looked to Dirzo, who nodded, affirming that the talks were finished. At that, Nikita and his son made their way out of the room. Merik too, stood up from the table to leave, bidding Akko to follow. Merik gave one last disapproving look to the departing Vikaelis before continuing out of the door on the opposite side of the room with Akko right behind.
Out in the hall Akko got a proper look at what he had only caught a glimpse of earlier. Posted outside of the door were a pair of what he took to be the Kontikoff’s personal guard. They stood at attention in their long crimson battle skirts and brown leather boots. The white shirts were a modern addition to the old dressware, replacing the traditional torso straps over bare chests. It was a very old style that carried over from the pre-elemental age but was itself replaced not long after the general acquisition of elemental abilities. Further adding to the old world meets modern era that they seemed to be going for, at each man’s side was a pistol and a short sword holstered upon a leather utility belt.
“They’re my father’s most loyal men,” Merik said as he and Akko walked past. “They’ll protect him til their last breath.”
“Interesting getup they have there,” Akko noted.
Merik laughed, “My father likes the old ways,” he said. “I’d love to continue this conversation. How do you feel about a drink in the middle of the day?”
They took their seats in the corner of a coffee shop.
“When I said drinks I meant alcohol,” Merik said.
“It’s a coffee kind of day,” Akko replied. “If you don’t like the place, I’m not the one who picked it remember?”
“I like to be around similar company when I can,” Merik stated.
Akko knew what he meant. He noticed it when he came in. The slick hair. The tailored suits. The way each man looked at Merik when he walked through the door. These men were Aduri, no doubt about it.
“So do you own the place or what?”
“This place? May as well,” he answered. “It’s run by a friend of the Syndicate. Members only coffee.”
Out from the back a woman walked towards their table carrying a tray on which their coffee was placed. She sat the tray on the table before them.
“Caramel North with a shot of brandy,” she said, placing the steaming cup in front of Merik before turning to Akko. “And for you, regular, black.”
Akko took the cup and smiled at the woman, “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it honey, it’s my job,” she replied. “I’ll just leave this here.”
She placed a large pitcher of coffee in the center of the table and with a small smile to Merik, was on her way. Akko took a sip of the coffee. He paused when he noticed Merik’s gaze upon him. Merik seemed to be considering on his next words.
“What is it?” Akko asked.
Merik leaned in and said in a whisper, “About what my father said, the child killing thing…”
Akko put his cup down. Merik eyed him curiously.
“Did you…?” his words trailed off.
“Everything your father said was true,” Akko said. After a moment more, “How do you feel about that?”
Merik stared at him blankly before bursting out in a fit of laugher that drew eyes from the other shop patrons. Upon seeing who it was they all quickly diverted their attention, becoming overly focused on whatever they were doing. Merik slapped the table and pointed the hand at Akko.
“You’re asking me how I feel about it?” Merik raised his hands, “Hey, I understand you have to do what you have to do, especially in the military. Takes a certain kind of man to do that type of work.” He took up his cup and drank, “A certain kind of man indeed.”
Merik watched him. Akko was an interesting man to him.
“Is that why you’re not in the service anymore?” he asked.
“Part of it,” Akko answered. “My contract was up in 1935. I didn’t renew.”
“How far up did you get before you got out?”
“Rank you mean? I was a Captain.”
“Captain Akko,” Merik said.
“Captain Adregi, but yeah.”
“So you’ve been doing professional forming for about what, two years?” Merik asked, to which Akko nodded. “How’d you manage that? You’re not that old so I’d imagine you went to a military academy to get commissioned and what not. From what I here, Alter City FC only takes guys who have been training in formist schools, something they watch from an early age. You went straight into one of the best clubs in the country.”
Akko shrugged, “My brother had been training with a school somewhere out west for a number of years. Didn’t see him much, came around sparingly. When he finished training we got really close, that last year of my service. He got signed with Alter City FC around the same time I got out. He knew I’d how my head was at the time and said fighting would be a good way to channel some of that energy. Cut a deal with management over there and talked up how I was a super soldier of whatever it is he sold them. It worked is all I know. They brought me in and my rookie year was pretty bad. Not that I was a bad fighter, but I was just not in a good place at the time and it showed in my fighting. I sidelined the majority of the guys I competed against. The result was me being forced to sit out much of the season after my initial start. They said I needed to learn form control and all this stuff. I came back the next season with a different style, more defensive and counter based. Now I’m headed to the Confederacy Cup.”
“And congrats on that,” Merik said, raising his cup to Akko.
“So tell me about this thing between the Kontikoff and Vikaeli,” Akko said. “The tension there is palpable.”
Merik sighed, “It’s a pretty long story.”
“So I’ve been told. I’ve got the time.”
“H’m, where to start, where to start” Merik said. “Well this goes back to before I was even born, when the roles of House Vikaeli and House Lambert were switched. Nikita’s father, Kontikoff Anatoly Vikaeli, led the Syndicate during one of its bloodiest civil wars. Father had shown himself a capable leader upon taking over as Head of House Lambert following his father’s death. He wasn’t too much older than either of us but Anatoly had taken a liking to him and took him under his wing. As the years passed, my father became his most trusted advisor and proved vital to the war swinging in Koff Anatoly’s favor. Rival orgs had begun taking advantage of the civil war and moving in on Syndicate territory. The org needed someone who could defeat the rebelling Duxen and reassert Syndicate dominance in the region. The other Duxen saw Anatoly as a good man, but not a capable leader in those warring times. For that, they saw the man behind the Koff, my father. The Duxen gathered in secret and planned to overthrow Anatoly and ascend my father in his place. When the Duxen presented this to him he was initially hesitant, but finally agreed.”
Within the coffee shop the people still talked amongst themselves. There was still the occasional laughter from here and there. The music still played on the jukebox, carrying it’s melody throughout the room. Yet Akko could tell that though there was still noise throughout the shop, every ear was hanging on Merik’s every word. He guessed that they were just as interested in knowing the story behind their leaders as Akko was if not more so.
This did not escape Merik, but he continued on, “My father called Anatoly to his ship and had him apprehended. He trusted my father so he hadn’t brought many troops aboard the ship. Mind you this was when it was normal for a Dux to bring a small unit at the least with them. That trust was his downfall. Father cut him down with his own sword. He sent the bloodied sword back to the Vikaeli estate with the body while a special meeting was being held aboard his ship as the Duxen declared him the new Kontikoff. This didn’t sit well with House Vikaeli’s new leader, Anatoly’s fifteen year old son Nikita, who quickly raised his forces and went to war against the newly appointed Kontikoff. With too many wars on his hands, father brokered a peace with the rebelling Duxen and promised complete forgiveness and a return to the pre-war status quo as long as they provided him with forty percent of their yearly profit for the next decade and cut their already depleted forces down by twenty-five percent. Pretty generous if you ask me considering if they had lost the war, which they were well on their way to doing, they would have lost everything, even their lives.”
By now the falseness was done. Every face in the building was on Merik. Not a word was spoken or a sound made as everyone devoted their attention to listening intently to the tale. Merik had stopped in his narration and took his time refilling his cup with more of the coffee from the pitcher. He took a sip before continuing on.
“Anyways, when father gave them time to think on their decision they instead accepted Dux Nikita’s offer of an alliance. The war dragged on until father’s younger brother tried to broker a peace between the two groups. He met with Nikita, but Nikita was an angry young man at the time. He took his father’s sword, the same sword my father had used to kill his, and cut off Hosa Lambert’s head. Had it sent back to father immediately. In retaliation, father brought the full force of the Syndicate down on Vikaeli, culminating in a battle that ultimately may have ended in a stalemate if he hadn’t been for the decision of one of Vikaeli’s Dux to switch sides halfway through the battle. With his fleet falling from the skies, Nikita surrendered sometime in 1908. For fear of invoking more war, father spared Nikita’s life. Instead, he broke Anatoly’s sword and publicly beat Nikita for all of the other Duxen to see.” Merik closed his eyes, a giddy look upon his face. “God I wish I was there so bad. In the years that followed the civil war, every Dux who had rebelled against the Syndicate either came down with a deadly illness or was outright murdered—all but Nikita. From what I hear he went off to one of his far off eastern isles holdings and didn’t show his face in Syndicate matters for a few years. Next thing you know he’s back in the capital as the man you had the pleasure of seeing today.”
“That’s quite the story,” Akko said once Merik had ended.
“Yeah, I guess it goes without saying you shouldn’t cross my father,” Merik said. He inclined his head, “Or me for that matter.”
To this, Akko simply smiled, “Noted.”
With the storytelling over, the other patrons in the shop turned in their chairs, going back their conversations, filling the room once more with the murmur of menial chatter.
“So where do we go from here?” Akko asked.
Merik’s brow furrowed, “I don’t really know in all honesty. I hate to say it but if it hadn’t been for Niki we wouldn’t have the information we have now.”
“And what we have now is…” Akko began, but Merik raised his hand to stop him.
“What we have is something that cannot be discussed here.”
Just then an Aduri walked into the shop, looked around and made his way towards their table. He glanced at Akko before bending over to Merik and whispering into his ear. Merik waved him away before turning his attention back to Akko.
“It seems I’ve been summoned back to the estate,” he said as he took a napkin and removed a pin from his pocket. “And this fellow here wants your autograph.”
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Pretty interesting stuff going on here. Makes me wanna know more*_*
