Season 3 chapter 69
The "Angry" Citizen
Down in the crowd, Kniya had slipped into a heavy coat and pulled a hat low over his eyes. He leaned against a support beam, pitching his voice into a mocking, gritty tone.
"Hey! Enough about the neighbors!" Kniya shouted, his voice cutting through the murmurs. "I didn't lose my house to hear about Mandorian street lamps! Show us the facts of the war! What the hell are you hiding up there?"
Malesh, standing in the shadows nearby, leaned over and whispered, "The voice is a bit much, Kniya. You sound like a disgruntled cobbler."
"It's called 'immersion,' Malesh. Shut the fuck up," Kniya hissed back.
The Rhyme of Ruin
On stage, Filoska ignored the heckling and stepped closer to the image of the two Royal Elites.
"In this picture, you see the 'morality' of the people leading you," Filoska stated coldly. "They preach sacrifice to you while they indulge in secret."
She paused, delivering a sharp, rhythmic idiom in English that mirrored the bite of her original thought:
"Saints by day, but when the sun goes down, they're the biggest sinners in this godforsaken town."
Malesh, watching the crowd's reaction, let out a slow, dark chuckle from the shadows. "It's almost poetic," he remarked quietly. "To see the pillars of the state crumbling under the weight of their own scandals. Truly pathetic."
Kniya suddenly stood up, shedding his "citizen" persona like a snake skin. He marched back toward the stage, his patience finally snapping.
"Alright, that's enough of this tabloid shit!" Kniya barked, pointing at Salesh. "I'm not paying you to be a gossip columnist. If I see one more photo of a Royal's bedroom habits before I see a military casualty report, I'm cutting your entire fucking department! Stop this nonsense and show them the actual footage! Give the people the truth, now!"
He turned to the crowd, his eyes flashing with a sharp, dangerous energy.
"We're done with the warm-up! Let's look at the real war!"
The Savior's Mask
On the stage, Salesh didn't wait for the crowd to stop murmuring. He saw the doubt in their eyes and decided to crush it.
"Oh, you want the truth?" Salesh shouted over the microphone, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You think those fancy bastards in the silk robes are actually bleeding for you? Let's change the view."
He aggressively cranked the projector. The grainy image of the intimate royals flickered and vanished, replaced by a much more damning photograph. This one wasn't a bedroom secret; it was a cold, calculated business meeting.
In the frame, the very same Elite Royal members who had been seen "leading" the local protests and acting as the people's voice were caught shaking hands with a high-ranking Military General from the Republic. They weren't fighting; they were smiling, sharing expensive drinks over a map of the scorched religious sectors.
The crowd went deathly silent. The shock was visible—the realization that the "saviors" protecting them from the cruel military were, in fact, the military's silent business partners.
"Look at those hands!" Salesh pointed with his stick. "Those aren't the hands of people fighting for your freedom. Those are the hands of people shaking on a deal to sell your homes as scrap metal!"
The Evidence Drop
From the shadows of the stage wing, Malesh stepped forward. He wasn't smiling. He was carrying a heavy, mud-stained jute bag. With a grunt of effort, he hauled it over his shoulder and threw it across the stage.
Salesh caught the bag with a thud and immediately ripped it open. He didn't just pull papers out; he grabbed the bottom of the bag and dumped everything out in one violent motion. Hundreds of photographs, official military ledgers, and signed documents spilled across the wooden floor, fluttering toward the edge of the stage like autumn leaves.
"Don't take my word for it!" Salesh roared, kicking a stack of documents toward the front row. "See it with your own eyes! These are the actual signatures of the Royal House alongside military orders for the 'cleansing' of your temples! These 'saviors' aren't just mixed with the government—they are the ones who handed the government the fucking matches to start the fire!"
Filoska stepped to the edge of the podium, her aristocratic poise making her words feel like a death sentence.
"Look at the irony," she said, her voice cold and piercing. "They organized your peaceful protests. They told you to stand in the streets so the government would look like monsters for firing on you. They used your bodies as political theater just so they could step in later and claim the throne. They don't want to save you; they want to own you again."
The Grand Conspiracy Explained
As the crowd began to roar in a mix of fury and confusion, Salesh and Filoska began to lay out the cold, macroeconomic rot of the Royal Plan.
"It's a twofold trap, you idiots!" Salesh shouted. "Step one: The Royals bribe the President. They give him the dark money to fund his illegal mining operations. Why? Because those sacred statues you worship? They're made of ultra-rare earth minerals that the President wants to hoard. The government gets the minerals, and the Royals? They get the land. Your land. The confiscated temple grounds and the ancient scriptures go straight into their private vaults."
Filoska leaned in, her eyes sharp. "And Step Two is even more disgusting. Once the government does the dirty work of destroying your cities, the Royals leak the news themselves. They spark the protests. They make the Republic look like a bloodthirsty regime so they can destabilize the democracy. They want the federal structure to collapse into ashes so they can crown themselves as Absolute Monarchs over the rubble."
The Invisible War
Down in the shadows, Kniya adjusted his collar, watching the crowd begin to turn into a frantic, angry sea. He leaned toward Malesh, his voice low and dangerous.
"They played the public like a cheap fiddle, Malesh," Kniya whispered, his billionaire intellect working at a mile a minute. "The Royals are smart. They fund the protesters from the back, let the country burn, and then wait to be 'invited' back to power. And since our companies—Kavilson Steel and Malesh Energy—are the only ones secretly keeping the democratic infrastructure alive, we're the only target left on their board."
Malesh nodded, his face a mask of lethal certainty.
"That's why Leon tried to kill us today," Malesh replied flatly. "We're the only ones with a bank account big enough to stop a monarchy. They want us dead so they can have a clear path to the throne. But they made one mistake."
Kniya smirked, his eyes flashing with dark humor. "What's that?"
"They left us with the microphone," Malesh said, looking up at the chaos on stage. "And we're about to tell the whole goddamn world their business plan."
Kniya laughed, a sharp, jagged sound. "Alright, let's keep the heat on. If they want a regime change, we'll give them one they didn't fucking plan for."
The Bulletproof Truth
Filoska stepped forward to the very edge of the stage, her shadow stretching long over the stunned faces of the crowd. She pointed a gloved finger at the projection of the Royal elites shaking hands with the military generals.
"Look at their clothes in those photos," Filoska's voice was like ice. "Not a single speck of dirt. Not a single drop of blood. Have any of you ever wondered why, during the most violent crackdowns, the 'leaders' of your protests never took a bullet? Why the military rifles always seemed to aim two inches above their heads while they mowed you down? It wasn't luck. It was a script."
The crowd murmured, a low, dangerous rumble of realization.
"You didn't want to believe the Priestess because the truth is terrifying," she continued, her voice softening into something deeply sincere. "It is easier to believe in a fake savior than to realize you're being led to the slaughter by the people you trust. But look at the signatures. Look at the handshakes. The Royal Family didn't just watch your homes burn—they held the fuel."
Salesh nodded, stepping up to provide the final nail in the coffin. "The secret is out. The 'regime change' they promised you was just a fancy way of saying they wanted to put a crown on their heads using your corpses as a staircase. We're done talking about them."
With a sharp nod, Salesh and Filoska exited the stage, their job of dismantling the lies complete.
The Phase Two Reveal
Kniya and Mallesh marched back onto the stage. The chaotic humor was gone, replaced by the grim, soot-stained reality of two men who had just returned from a long-range assassination mission.
"We need time," Mallesh stated flatly, his eyes scanning the horizon as if he were still looking through a sniper scope. "We are in the business of destroying narratives. These bastards destroyed your lives and thought they were playing a safe game from their villas. They thought they were untouchable behind their military escorts."
Kniya stepped up, his face unusually stern. "I know you're angry. I know you want blood. And honestly? So do we. We spent the last few weeks on a little field trip—Phase Two of the Gleb Operative Plan. And let me tell you, those Royal elites didn't look so 'divine' when they were begging for their lives."
Kniya clicked a remote. The projector flickered, showing a new set of images.
The crowd gasped, then cheered. The screen showed the same Royal officials and Military generals from the previous photos—but now, they were slumped over desks, lying in dark alleys, or caught in the wreckage of their armored carriages. They were dead. Each photo was time-stamped and verified with the signature 'K&M' mark of the operative plan.
"We didn't just collect evidence," Mallesh said, his deadpan voice carrying a new, lethal weight. "We collected heads. Every single person involved in the betrayal of this country—whether they wear a government suit or a Royal robe—is on our list. We are the actual clean-up crew. Just give us the time, and we'll ensure every last one of them pays the iron price."