Ffion had her spark, and now, her fire. As she died, she reached into her pocket and passed her son a golden, faded coin.
**
Felix frantically opened his drawers at his office in the Eastern Outpost, looking for the book Maeve gave him. And within the lab, for Maeve and Solan. It was the one place he expected to find both. He half hoped to enter the lab on them working, having lost track of time, them missing just an innocent mistake. Her and Solan were the only other Alva's with access to the Outpost.
Dusty and amongst thousands of sheets of paper, he found it. A brown hardcovered book the size of his hand. He grabbed it and blew dust from it. It was a diary. Who was the man that gave Maeve the book? 'The Man in Red', as his son told him. Why did Maeve give him the book? He prayed the answers were within what was now in his hand. A brown and faded glimmer of hope. And if Felix had one skill he did best, it was to learn and investigate.
He opened the cover when his radio buzzed. It was his father. It was Samuel, calling from Nighthawk. He answered in a cold sweat.
"Hello, Felix. What was that offer you gave me, back at the elevator? Interesting offer. I have a better one."
He was not listening to his father. He was listening to someone else. His father's metamorphosis into the monster Felix saw glimmers of was complete. It was the total transformation into the tyrant he feared.
"The way I see it, is there's really only three people in this world who can stop me. You, Mayla, and Ffion. But wouldn't you know it, two are already dead!" His father laughed into the radio.
A chill went down Felix's spine. His father killed Mayla and Ffion. He kept silent. While he was looking for a silly book, a civil war was beginning within the Ring which he just idiotically vacated. He needed to get back to the Ring, back to Nicole and his children. He could rally the people, take Ffion's spot in the rebellion, defeat his father, put Cana on the throne. Or anyone but his father at this point.
"Here's my offer. I have cameras pointing at every wall of the Ring. You come back inside, I kill everyone you care about. Within Nighthawk, of course," Samuel again laughed to himself, and said chillingly, "Your children have already decided their fates. Your filth stood across from me today. I am a benevolent leader, but you understand, some things, well... They cannot stand. When I win this war, they will be the first traitors strung up."
Felix bit down on his hand until he tasted blood, tears filling his eyes. Nicole and Gwenta still within Nighthawk, Samuel's stronghold. If Felix returned, Samuel would kill them. If Samuel won the war, he'd execute his children. Felix believed him.
"Like I said, Felix, I am benevolent. After I win this war, Nicole, Gwenta, even you will be untouched. You have my word. This is my truth that you accused me of lacking. Think of this as me doing you a favour. I will purge these ingrates and you and Nicole can just make six more. And then we can become a family again."
"Damn you to hell, Samuel," Felix softly said into the radio, stunned.
Samuel hung up.
**
The civil war raged on for over ten months. The people began rallying behind the leadership of the Alva children against their grandfather in brutal building-to-building and street-to-street warfare. Their intelligence, strength, bravery, and selflessness for the common people sparkling in the darkness even at a young age.
Even though the rebellion outnumbered Samuel and his forces greatly, Samuel's armored forces and cunning military mind began to grind away at the Alva children. Superior improvised weaponry and the resources of Nighthawk were too great an advantage.
Samuel cut off all the power to the Eastern Outpost, leaving Felix without access to computers and the research database. Felix, in his forced isolation at the Eastern Outpost, gathered all the documents and papers he could to do the thing he did best. Learn.
And he finally learned it. The key to saving his children from the great tyrant.
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