Chapter 54: Boasting Backstabber

Three weeks of nonstop training, I can say I am exhausted. You may be wondering how I find that time with the chaos of the world I am in. Well, the answer is that this is just the beginning of the storyline. It is like that saying: the calm before the storm. And the kind of storm I put down, I needed some serious training to prepare for it.

And now I have noticed some new things. Like, for example, villains that I did not write about have started to appear. I am very sure it was due to some butterfly effect, and I am not sure how it will affect the storyline.

Now after training nonstop for three weeks straight, I now have time to focus on another thing that would help in my survival. If you are wondering what that is, I will tell you. You see, my story was not a story that favoured villains in any way at all. It was a story that just showed villains as sacrificial sheep at the hands of the heroes. The villains are even worse to themselves, even self, so I decided to change up somethings.

Now I am sitting in a bar shop thinking, while also drinking some non-alcoholic drink. Specifically, a milk drink. Yes, a milk drink. I was shocked when I heard that they are selling it. Like, what is it doing in a bar shop?

The taste of the milk drink was sugary sweet, a perfect thing to cure what I am feeling. I ran a thumb along the rim of the glass. My thoughts were plenty, but I couldn’t help but be distracted by the squeak of my skin on wet glass, the only sound in the otherwise empty booth.

Outside, the sun was a merciless golden color, setting down to welcome the moon. A perfect time for villains in camouflage to come out, to show their true selves in the midst of their people. Although I said villains can sell themselves if the right price exists, that did not mean they love being alone. Even the evilest of villains need someone they can feel among with. A place where they gather, a den or a pen of villains.

With night arriving, the shadows which were already cool began to stir with something deep, something that held the ghosts of a dozen bloody deals.

He was trying to catch unstable smoke with his bare hands. He wants to direct them to be stable. A very simple logic.

He has a target. The target was marked with a dozen different crosses in his mind, each one a name, a reputation, a potential ally... or a liability. Silas "The Ghost" Vance, a man who could walk through a locked door and leave a body behind without a sound. The Corrigan Brothers, a trio of Irish ex-soldiers who ran guns and held grudges with the same ferocity. Old Man Hemlock, a prospector who’d found something more valuable than gold in these hills and had been living like a paranoid king ever since. Although he is powerful, he is just crazy with the extra.

And then there was the other side of the coin. The reason he was here, choking on milk drink.

Although he has said it before, but maybe saying it the second time will make his mission more easier. He was here to unite the villains together, to make them stand a chance against the overpowered and also united heroes.

The heroes that were cutting supply lines of most villains, well, the villains that are not cooperative with them. They are buying off informants and turning the vast, untamed territory into a cage with invisible bars. They didn’t just want to catch villains; they wanted to erase the very concept of them. They were a noose, and it was tightening around all their necks. I couldn’t help but curse myself again. I feel that I am the person to blame for the situation, and now I have met myself in a situation filled with deep shit.

I took a slow sip of the milk drink, letting the sweetness burn a path down my throat. The problem was simple, and it was impossible. He needed a united army. The good thing is that there are a lot of potential soldiers, but it’s just that they are the kind who would sooner shoot each other than share any sort of united front with themselves. I could already see the betrayal and backstabbing that will take place. He needed to forge a blade from a pile of rusty, mismatched scrap, and he had to do it before the heroes fully decide to come down and shatter them all into dust.

Trust. Such a fragile, stupid word. In the world of the villain, it was a currency more valuable than gold and twice as easy to counterfeit. You trusted a man to watch your back, and he might just put a knife in it if the price was right. The heroes had deep pockets. They’d already turned a few. A whispered name here, a suspiciously accurate raid there. Paranoia was a plague, and it was spreading faster than any disease.

Silas Vance. The Ghost. His last known haunt was a place called the Weeping Angel, a natural rock formation that looked, from a certain angle, like a grieving woman. It was a three-day ride through hostile territory. And even if he found Silas, what then? ’Hello, old friend. I know we haven’t spoken since I don’t exactly know you, so let’s shake hands together and do you like to join a suicide mission to stand against the heroes? The heroes that love performing live execution on people like us most of the time?’

Best case situation, Silas will just laugh and tell him to get lost. Worst case situation, and the more likely to happen, his body parts would be found in all the counties of the nation. His head, hand, leg, his organs, bones, and even his manhood won’t be spared. They will be cut and split to different countries.

The door to the bar creaked open, letting in a blinding shaft of the descending light and a man shaped like a scarecrow. It was the bartender, a wiry fellow named Finch who knew more secrets than the world press newspaper. A man of knowledge, they call him. What they don’t know is that he has been alive for two thousand years, in fact. While he’s here walking as a bartender is a quagmire to me. He could be seen wiping a glass with a dirty and clean rag, his eyes darting towards a person before looking away.

"Finch, how could you? How could you sell out Sera’s location to the heroes?" a woman shouted.

"Who told you that? I did no such thing. I would never do something like that. What could I possibly even gain from doing that?" the person called Finch retorted back.

"You’re a fool if you think you can act ignorant. Think again," the woman shouted again.

"What do you mean that I am acting ignorant? I am completely innocent of the crime you are trying to put on me."

"Shut up, you annoying bastard. See how the lie keeps pouring out of you. You have no shame whatsoever. There’s evidence of you confessing to your crime," the woman replied.

"What evidence? What crime? You are just bluffing. There is nothing. I did nothing, and you can’t prove otherwise," Finch said with certainty, but if you look close, you will notice an increase in his voice pitch.

"I am bluffing? You said I am bluffing? Don’t worry, I will show you. No, I will show everybody. We will then see who was bluffing," the woman said in a crazy, angry manner.

She then brought out a device that brought out a projection.

The projection showed Finch in another bar drinking and boasting to his friends on how he sold the girl called Sera to the heroes for some money and for some information. It even showed him describing to them how Sera was begging, angry, and cursing out at him when she was being raided.

By the time the video projection was over, the main culprit had disappeared. The son of a bitch called Finch had sneaked out and escaped. Although villains backstab plenty, but they still beat the hell of those who were caught backstabbing. So their rule is that if you want to backstab someone, backstab with no evidence. No evidence, then no proof of backstabbing.

This is what I am talking about, and it’s happening in front of me. Betrayal of villains selling themselves out, and yet they are the ones I have to bring together to survive. I couldn’t help but curse myself, and also curse the person that brought me inside my own novel.

I stood up, tossing a few coins on the table. The clatter was loud in the silence. "Thanks for the drink, Finch the backstabber."

I walked out of the bar and nobody even bothered to ask where I was going now. Well, if they ask, I will tell them, "I am going to see a man about a ghost." That’s what I would have said. He had to change his approach. The old ways, the direct ways, were dead. He couldn’t just walk up to these men and expect them to listen. The heroes had poisoned the well of trust, as he has already seen. He needed a new strategy. He needed to be more than just a man with a plan. He needed to be a symbol, a ghost story, a truth they couldn’t ignore.

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