Season 1 chapter 3
The Lucky Day
"Hey! Stop right there! What the hell are you guys doing?!"
A booming, authoritative voice suddenly echoed from a few yards down the busy road.
A heavy-set police officer, dressed in a cheap, sweat-stained blue uniform and wielding a thick wooden baton, was sprinting clumsily toward the square.
The four upperclassmen froze instantly, their heavy boots stopping mere inches from Kniya's face. The sheer panic of legal consequences hit them immediately. The second senior, still breathing heavily, leaned down and spat a thick glob of saliva onto the cobblestones right next to Kniya's bleeding head.
"Well, consider this your lucky day," the upperclassman sneered, his voice shaking slightly with adrenaline. "You survived this. But next time, your big mouth won't be spitting shit, because you will be dead."
The leader of the group violently grabbed his friend's shoulder and yanked him backward.
"Move, idiot!" the leader yelled in a sheer panic. "Do you want to get beaten to shit by those cops?!"
Without another word, the four towering students turned and sprinted desperately down a narrow, steam-filled alleyway, completely abandoning the scene and leaving the two battered kids bleeding on the ground.
Buttons For Eyes
It took a few more seconds for the two out-of-breath police officers to finally jog up to the concrete bench. They stopped, leaning on their knees and panting heavily. They looked down at the two heavily bruised, bleeding kids lying in the street. Their faces didn't show an ounce of public concern; they just looked deeply, profoundly annoyed at having to run.
"What were you two doing?" the first officer demanded roughly, crossing his arms. "What exactly was happening around here?"
Kniya pushed himself up slowly, wincing as his bruised ribs protested the movement. He sat on the cobblestones, looked directly up at the overweight cop, and plastered a massive, incredibly fake, and overly polite smile across his bloody face.
"Well, Mr. Officer," Kniya began, his voice dripping with such heavy, toxic sarcasm it could have melted the pavement. "Those four fine gentlemen were taking a massive, steaming dump right here on the public street, and we were just sitting on this bench watching them do it. Tell me, Mr. Officer, do you think that is an exciting activity for us to watch?"
The police officer's face immediately turned a deep, furious shade of red.
"What the fuck did you just say?" the officer yelled, aggressively pointing the tip of his wooden baton directly at Kniya's face. "Do not talk shit to me, you little brat! Where do you get the nerve to speak to an officer of the law like that?"
Next to Kniya, Malesh slowly pushed himself up from the dirt. His nose was actively bleeding down his chin, ruining his white shirt, but his facial expression remained completely, terrifyingly deadpan.
"He is just answering your direct question, Mr. Officer," Malesh stated flatly, his monotone voice cutting through the tension like a blunt knife. "They were clearly beating us. Do you not have your own functional eyes to see the blood on the street?"
The Corrupt Republic
The first police officer glared down at Malesh, his jaw clenching. He absolutely hated the blatant, unapologetic disrespect coming from an eleven-year-old.
"Oh, I have eyes," the officer lied smoothly, completely rewriting the reality of the situation to cover up his own incompetence. "And I saw it myself from down the road. You two started the fight."
Malesh stared at the corrupt cop with absolute, unblinking disgust.
"Then you do not have eyes, Mr. Officer. You have buttons sewn into that place," Malesh replied mechanically, completely unfazed by the threat of authority. "Because how can you even imagine that kids our age could start a physical fight with four giant guys like that, you idiot?"
The second police officer stepped forward, completely losing his temper over the relentless backtalk.
"Hey! Shut your damn mouths!" the second officer shouted, his voice echoing off the bank walls. "You don't have to say anything! Just come with us! You talk way too much shit to the authorities!"
To finalize his authority, the second officer reached down and violently shoved both Kniya and Malesh hard in the chest. The sudden force knocked both of the battered kids backward, sending them crashing right back down into the dirt as a physical punishment for their disrespect.
The officer stood tall over them, laughing coldly as he looked down at the bleeding boys in the soot-stained street.
"If you two are telling the truth, and you didn't start this fight," the second officer mocked, lazily adjusting his heavy leather utility belt, "then I am the fucking President of the country."
The Core Reason
The second police officer grabbed them both roughly by the collars.
"Just come with us," the officer growled, dragging them toward the street. "We are not going to listen to any excuses you make."
Malesh dragged his feet, looking up at the officer with his completely flat, deadpan expression.
"Sir, I know the real reason why you are blaming this entire situation on us," Malesh stated calmly, ignoring the blood dripping from his nose. "It is because you are entirely too lazy to catch them. You were literally panting when you walked over to the bench. How can you basically investigate anything when you have zero stamina?"
The officer's eyes widened in sheer anger. He pulled his fist back and delivered a hard punch directly to the side of Malesh's head.
Malesh stumbled as the officer violently shoved both of them toward the heavy, steam-powered police vehicle parked on the cobblestones. The officer grabbed the heavy iron door of the back passenger area, threw the two kids roughly onto the hard wooden seats, and pointed a thick finger at them.
"Don't talk shit to me, you fucking brat," the officer threatened aggressively. "You are going to pay a lot for that in the jail."
The officer slammed the heavy door shut, locking them inside.
The Backseat Strategy
The police car began to chug forward, the steam engine rumbling loudly as they left the city square and headed toward an empty, forested road on the outskirts of the capital.
The back of the police vehicle was entirely separated from the front driver's cabin by a thick, criss-cross metal chain grate. Kniya and Malesh sat in the dark criminal section, their uniforms ruined and their faces bruised.
They leaned close to the metal grate and started talking to each other in quiet, hushed whispers so the cops in the front couldn't hear them.
"Look at those fucking officers," Malesh whispered, rubbing his bruised jaw. "I knew the police were corrupt, but I didn't calculate they were lazy enough to arrest the victims just to avoid running after the actual culprits."
"Yeah," Kniya whispered back, wiping dirt off his face. "I don't give a shit about these officers right now. But those seniors are going to pay heavily for what they did."
Kniya leaned back against the hard wooden seat, looking around the confined space.
"So, Malesh," Kniya asked quietly. "What should we do then?"
Malesh stared blankly through the criss-cross metal grate at the back of the two police officers' heads.
"Well," Malesh whispered flatly. "I originally thought we were going to use these against those seniors. I was preparing to pull them out during the fight, but we got interrupted by the cops. Since we still have them saved in our pockets, let's keep them out of our pockets and use them right now."
The Chili Powder Audit
Kniya smirked. They both reached deep into the pockets of their uniform trousers.
They pulled out a handful of small, custom-made sand bombs. They were tightly molded out of a cheap cardboard-like material. Inside the small, hard paper shells was a highly concentrated mix of fine street sand and extremely spicy chili powder.
They waited in total silence. Through the windows, the dense, tall trees of the forest region began to blur past them. The road was completely empty.
Kniya and Malesh stepped right up to the metal grate. Without saying a single word, they threw the sand bombs forcefully directly at the heavy metal chain grate separating the cabins.
POP. POP. POP. The cardboard shells crashed hard against the iron bars and instantly burst open. The broken cardboard bounced off the grate and stayed in the back with the kids, but the momentum carried the payload forward. A massive, thick cloud of fine sand and heavy chili powder blasted straight through the gaps in the metal chain, instantly filling the entire front cabin of the police car.
The Market Crash
The reaction was immediate. The driver gasped in surprise, inhaling the highly spicy powder directly into his lungs. Both officers started coughing violently, blindly throwing their hands up to their faces as the chili powder burned their eyes.
"Ahhhh!" the driver screamed in agony, slamming his hands against his face. "My eyes! It is itching!"
"I cannot see!" the second officer yelled, desperately rubbing his burning eyes as tears streamed down his cheeks. "What did you brats do?!"
Completely blinded by the chili powder and choking on the sand, the driver panicked. He blindly jerked the heavy steering wheel to the left.
The steam-powered police vehicle aggressively swerved off the empty dirt road. It lost its balance completely, violently bouncing over the rough ditch, and crashed head-first directly into a massive tree.