Season 3 chapter 51
The Blueprint Interrogation
Deep inside a heavily guarded corporate office building in KDC, a key royal syndicate member was sitting at his mahogany desk at 2:00 AM. He was surrounded by sprawling maps and radio transmitters, sweating profusely as he meticulously drafted out the tactical riot schedules for the next day's fake protests.
The heavy oak door of his office was suddenly kicked completely off its hinges. The heavy wood slammed into the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Kniya and Malesh strolled into the room shoulder-to-shoulder, completely unbothered.
"Oh, hello there," Kniya greeted cheerfully, dusting off his lapel as he looked at the sprawling papers on the desk. "Are you currently designing a tactical insurrection blueprint? Because honestly, the font choices you are using on those maps are absolutely terrible."
The royal syndicate member jumped out of his leather chair in sheer panic. He frantically scrambled backward, ripping a heavy revolver out of his desk drawer.
"Stay back! I'm pulling my gun!" the target screamed, his hands shaking violently as he aimed it at the two billionaires. "Don't you dare come near me! Who the fuck are you?! How did you even get inside my secure building?!"
Kniya let out a deeply exhausted sigh, crossing his arms.
"Obviously by completely slaughtering your own fucking security team on the way up the stairs," Kniya replied, rolling his eyes. "And honestly, it was a really great experience. Five stars for the cardio workout. But I was genuinely surprised that you are even planning this much detail for a fake riot. Can you tell me what your main operational plan actually is? I really want to hear the evil monologue straight from the architect's mouth."
"I will kill you!" the target shrieked, completely ignoring the question as he pulled back the hammer of his revolver. "I will kill both of you right fucking now!"
Before the target's finger could even squeeze the trigger, Malesh smoothly raised his custom-machined pistol.
BANG.
The heavy, unsuppressed gunshot deafened the room. The bullet tore straight through the royal member's right kneecap.
"AGGGHHHH!" the target shrieked in absolute agony, dropping his revolver and collapsing onto the expensive carpet. He clutched his shattered leg, writhing in a pool of his own blood.
Malesh calmly walked over, kicking the dropped revolver across the room. He looked down at the weeping, bleeding man with a perfectly emotionless, deadpan expression.
"Your threat assessment was highly inaccurate," Malesh stated coldly. "Now, you are going to die forever. So tell me, what is your last wish?"
The target choked on his own tears, staring up at Malesh in pure terror. "You... you can't do this! You can't just execute me!"
"Okay," Malesh nodded slowly. "I will interpret that as a refusal to answer. This means your last wish is smelling the unwashed underwear of a grown man."
Kniya's eyes widened slightly, completely taken off guard.
Malesh reached into the deep pocket of his charcoal suit jacket. With absolute, robotic seriousness, he pulled out a pair of incredibly dirty, foul-smelling white briefs.
"I just went into the private laundry room behind your office before we kicked the door down," Malesh explained flatly, dangling the filthy undergarments right over the bleeding man's face. "I got this exact thing from your unwashed clothes basket with my own hand. You want to smell this?"
The target's eyes bulged in pure, unfiltered disgust. The pain in his leg was entirely overshadowed by the sheer psychological horror of what was happening.
"What?!" the target gagged, trying to crawl backward away from the laundry. "No! No, this is fucking disgusting! Keep that away from me! Don't do this!"
"Yeah. Smell," Malesh ordered, his deadpan voice dropping into a dark, twisted register. He shoved the dirty briefs closer to the man's nose. "Smell the fabric. Respect the cotton."
Kniya watched the entire exchange for exactly two seconds before he completely lost his composure. Kniya threw his head back and burst into a loud, echoing fit of hysterical laughter.
"Oh my god, Malesh!" Kniya cackled, clutching his stomach as he watched his ruthless, highly logical business partner torture a royal syndicate boss with dirty laundry. "You are literally a psychopath! This is the greatest interrogation I have ever seen!"
Malesh didn't smile, but a dark, extremely rare spark of amusement flashed in his eyes.
"I learned it from a telemarketer," Malesh noted dryly.
Still laughing uncontrollably, Kniya raised his gold-plated handgun. Malesh tossed the dirty underwear directly onto the target's face, instantly blinding him.
Together, they pulled their triggers.
The target went completely still on the carpet. Kniya wiped a tear of laughter from his eye, stepping over the body as they exited the office to continue the purge.
The Scorching Sands
From the industrial hub, they drove their heavily armored steam-truck straight into the unforgiving, blinding deserts of WDC.
The heat was suffocating. The mission was becoming an absolute grind on their physical and mental endurance.
A royal shadow-broker had set up a covert command tent deep in the dunes, paying local mercenaries to protect him. Kniya and Malesh didn't even bother with stealth. They initiated a brutal, chaotic shootout, using the heavy steam-truck as cover while exchanging heavy gunfire with the mercenaries.
After ten agonizing minutes of combat in the scorching heat, Kniya kicked open the flap of the command tent and shot the broker directly in the chest.
Kniya leaned against the tent pole, gasping for air, his face covered in sweat and desert sand.
"This is relentless," Kniya panted, wiping blood off his cheek. "Every single state we visit, there is another bastard pulling the strings. It never ends."
"We are systematically severing their operational nervous system," Malesh analyzed coldly, checking the remaining ammunition in his belt. "It is tedious, but it is highly effective."
The Iron Roots
The purge continued relentlessly south into SDC and Pesol.
Both states were a brutal mix of high-altitude plateaus and thick industrial logging camps. They hunted down protest instigators who were trying to sabotage the mining infrastructure, executing them in the muddy logging roads and vanishing before the local authorities could arrive.
Finally, they reached the absolute bottom of the map: Sulwai.
Most of the state was a vast, empty wasteland with a severe lack of connectivity. The dirt was barren, and the horizon was bleak. But as the armored truck rolled through the desolate landscape, Kniya looked out the window, his eyes softening slightly with a rare sense of nostalgia.
"You know, Malesh," Kniya murmured, looking at the distant, rusted smokestacks on the horizon. "A lot of people look at Sulwai and just see a wasteland. But this is exactly where the very first factory of Kavilson Steel was established. Right here in this dirt. I built my empire from this dead soil."
"It was a highly strategic industrial starting point," Malesh agreed quietly, staring out the window.
Their moment of reflection was cut short. A high-ranking royal informant had built a heavily fortified concrete bunker right in the center of the wasteland, thinking he was entirely off the grid.
Malesh casually walked up to the heavy steel door of the bunker, slapped a massive block of high-grade explosive onto the lock, and walked exactly thirty paces away.
KA-BOOM.
The heavy steel door violently blew completely off its hinges, kicking up a massive cloud of Sulwai dust. Malesh calmly walked into the smoke-filled bunker, fired three suppressed shots, and walked back out exactly four seconds later.
Target eliminated.
Kniya was leaning against the hood of the armored truck, completely exhausted. Malesh walked up to the vehicle, his suit covered in brick dust, desert sand, and blood.
Malesh reached into his coat, pulled out the thick assassination dossier, and pulled a pen from his pocket. With a slow, deeply satisfying motion, he crossed a thick black line through the name of the guy in the bunker.
He stared at the final page of the dossier for a long, quiet moment.
He looked over at Kniya, his dark eyes entirely devoid of emotion.
"The list is almost clear," Malesh stated, his voice a perfect, exhausted deadpan. "There is exactly one motherfucker remaining."
The Bleeding Reserves
The assassination list was technically empty, but the war was far from over.
Several more agonizing weeks passed. The purge dragged on, mutating from a targeted strike into a sprawling, chaotic guerrilla campaign. Kniya and Malesh were no longer just hunting the names in the manila folder; they were actively executing anyone they found exploiting the displaced citizens or actively aiding the royal conspiracy.
Standing in the ruins of a burned-out supply depot, Malesh ejected a spent magazine from his pistol. His charcoal suit was effectively destroyed, stained with weeks of mud, oil, and blood.
"Kniya," Malesh stated, his voice a flat, exhausted drone. "Why are we extending the operational parameters? We are currently killing people who are not present on the original list. This is statistically inefficient."
Kniya wiped a streak of soot off his forehead with the back of his sleeve. The arrogant, untouchable billionaire was completely gone, replaced by a gritty, battle-hardened warlord.
"It just has a simple answer, Malesh," Kniya replied, his voice heavy with grim resolve. "We cannot witness this level of evil happening right in front of us and keep doing nothing about it. We can't just walk away because a piece of paper says our job is done."
"It is deeply, profoundly annoying," Malesh sighed, rubbing his temples. "There is a massive, decentralized network of people who are participating in this organized plan against the Republic. It is like fighting a hydra. What else can we realistically do?"
"We have no other options left," Kniya declared, his eyes hardening. "We have to save the people eventually, and we have to kill those motherfuckers who are burning our country. There is no alternative. None."
Malesh looked out over the horizon, where the smoke of a distant refugee camp was rising into the sky.
"We had to spend a massive amount of operational time helping people rather than just saving them from dying in crossfires," Kniya muttered, leaning heavily against the armored truck. "It is really, really difficult. We had to set up entirely new civilian shelter camps in almost every state."
"You are completely true for that, Kniya," Malesh agreed, his analytical mind constantly crunching the devastating numbers. "Literally, it is taking a huge amount of capital. Actually, this shadow-war is actively bleeding us out of our corporate cash reserves. We are burning billions of credits just to keep the refugees fed and hidden."
Kniya looked down at his dirt-stained, million-credit shoes. A small, sad smile crossed his face.
"We cannot do anything about that," Kniya whispered. "Let the money burn. We have to save them."