Season 1 chapter 4
The Hostile Takeover
As Kniya reached through the window to grab the officer's heavy steam-pressured revolver, the first officer suddenly groaned. His eyes fluttered open, red and swollen from the sand bomb. He weakly grabbed Kniya's wrist.
"Hey..." the officer coughed, spitting blood onto the steering wheel. "Don't you run away..."
Kniya looked down at the bleeding cop with a completely cold, arrogant smirk.
"Looks like you are going to pay for that," Kniya replied flatly.
The officer aggressively tried to yank his revolver out of his leather holster, pulling Kniya forward in a messy physical struggle over the weapon. But the officer was severely concussed. Kniya didn't hesitate. He lifted his heavy boot and violently stomped directly onto the officer's crash-pinned leg.
The officer screamed in agony, his grip loosening instantly. Kniya ripped the heavy revolver from the holster, stepped back, aimed downward, and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The heavy bullet tore straight through the first officer's leg.
The deafening gunshot jolted the second officer awake. Panicking, the bleeding passenger officer reached for his own weapon, desperately trying to take aim at Kniya through the smoke. But Kniya was already pointing the barrel directly at him.
BANG.
Kniya fired a second shot, putting a bullet straight into the second officer's leg before the man could even level his gun.
The Price of Laziness
The loud ringing of the gunshots faded, immediately replaced by the sound of sheer, agonizing screaming. The evening sun was setting, casting long shadows over the empty forest road. There was absolutely no one around to hear the two corrupt police officers crying out in massive pain.
Malesh watched the bleeding officers with his signature deadpan exhaustion, slowly adjusting his ruined silk tie.
"What should we do, Kniya?" Malesh asked mechanically. "Should we leave them like this, or should we kill them?"
Kniya lowered the smoking revolver, casually chewing his mint gum as he watched the cops writhe in the dirt.
"Killing them is not a great idea in my opinion," Kniya stated smoothly. "We should leave them exactly like it is. They need to see what laziness feels like. They are going to pay the price for their laziness."
Kniya raised his hand, giving the screaming cops a highly sarcastic wave. "Yeah. Goodbye, officers."
Asset Liquidation
Kniya grabbed the first officer by the collar of his blue uniform and started dragging his heavy body out of the wrecked vehicle.
Malesh didn't help. He just stared at Kniya with a flat expression.
"Why are we moving them?" Malesh asked.
"Because this gun only contains six bullets," Kniya explained, sounding highly annoyed by the mathematical limitation. "We need more."
To stop the annoying screaming, Kniya lifted the heavy brass handle of the revolver and aggressively struck the first officer directly in the side of the head. The officer instantly fainted. Malesh casually picked up a heavy piece of broken metal from the car wreck and hit the second officer over the head, knocking him out completely.
In perfect silence, the two eleven-year-olds grabbed the unconscious cops by their uniform shirts and dragged them off the road, pulling their heavy bodies deep into the dark forest. They aggressively searched the officers' utility belts, collecting all of their spare ammunition, heavy brass cartridges, and loose coins.
With their pockets fully loaded with stolen ammo, Kniya and Malesh left the bleeding officers in the dirt to wake up in agonizing pain later. Without looking back, they walked away deeper into the forest.
The Forest Trek
The woods were dark and quiet, far away from the hissing steam engines and the blaring sirens of the city. Kniya and Malesh walked quickly through the brush, the heavy stolen rifle bouncing awkwardly against Kniya's shoulder. After they were far enough from the crashed police car, they stopped near a large oak tree to check their inventory.
"How many do we have?" Kniya asked, panting for breath as he leaned the heavy iron weapon against the bark.
Malesh reached into his uniform pockets, pulling out the heavy brass rounds and counting them in his palm with a completely flat face.
"Okay, let's look at the financial assets," Kniya said, popping a fresh piece of mint gum into his mouth. "This is a six-round gun. We used exactly two rounds on those lazy idiots back at the car. That leaves four inside the chamber. Plus the eight you just pulled from their pockets. So we have a total of twelve bullets."
Malesh looked down at the heavy weapon, frowning slightly. "So, how does this thing actually work? I saw you pull that metal handle on the side."
"It's a bolt-action, obviously," Kniya explained confidently, completely inventing the mechanics on the spot. "You pull this handle up and back, and it makes a loud clicking sound to show the gun who is boss. Then you push it forward, and the bullet slides into the hole using... steam friction. If you don't do the click, the gun is basically just a heavy stick. It's a very scientific process."
Malesh stared at the rifle for a second, accepting the entirely flawed explanation without a single question. "That sounds highly inefficient, but since we stole it for zero credits, I accept the quality."
An Unexpected Sight
As they pushed through a thick cluster of bushes, they suddenly stopped dead in their tracks. A few yards away, near a large tree, they saw a man and a woman being intensely intimate, completely convinced they were alone in the dark woods.
Kniya's eyes went wide. He lowered the rifle in pure, unadulterated disgust. "What the fuck?"
Malesh let out a long, heavy, deeply exhausted sigh, looking completely distressed by the scene.
"What can we even say about this thing?" Malesh muttered, his voice a perfect void of emotion. "The youth nowadays... lust is completely taking over their brains. It is a total biological disaster."
Malesh looked at the rifle in Kniya's hands, and a rare, mischievous smirk suddenly crossed his face. "Hey, we should disturb them. Fire a shot right over their heads. Imagine how fast they'd run away in their underwear."
Kniya immediately gripped the rifle tighter and shook his head violently, looking at Malesh like he was completely insane.
"Are you crazy, or what?" Kniya whispered urgently. "Bro, listen to me. Each of these bullets has a serial number stamped on it from the ordnance factory. If you fire a shot, that bullet stays stuck in the tree trunk. The cops will find it, check the markings, and know exactly that it came from the officer's gun. We'd be traced and caught in a few hours. We aren't wasting a single piece of inventory on a joke, you idiot."
Malesh looked at the bullets in his hand and then back at the couple, realizing Kniya's technical logic was completely unassailable.
"Fine. No jokes," Malesh muttered, his deadpan expression returning. "Let's just move before this degeneracy permanently ruins my vision."
The Command Center
Inside the central police department of Seistain, the atmosphere was chaotic and running on pure panic. This wasn't just a local precinct matter anymore; the military in-charge of the city had completely taken over the operation.
A massive map of the Seistain forest was spread across the table. Standing over it, his uniform tight and his face boiling with rage, was the General. He slammed his fist down onto the wood, making the inkwells rattle.
"I want thirty thousand troops deployed by dawn!" the General barked, his voice echoing fiercely off the concrete walls. "Block every exit, every dirt road, and every sewage pipeline! If those two kids breathe out there in the dark, I want to know about it immediately!"
The junior officers scrambled to obey the directive, practically tripping over their own boots. The government couldn't afford to let two eleven-year-old children escape after completely overpowering armed transport officers. It made the entire state apparatus look incredibly weak, and in Seistain, a public display of weakness was a permanent death sentence.
The Deliveries
While the army was locking down the streets, the actual administrative fallout was being delivered far away from the chaotic precincts.
Two heavily armored, high-end military steam-vehicles glided quietly into the elite residential district. They bypassed the standard city transit lines entirely, pulling up directly to the massive, wrought-iron gates of the Anderson Mansion and the Bulwadi Estate.
High-ranking military messengers stepped out of the vehicles, sweating heavily through their pristine uniforms. They didn't dare drag the heads of these powerful, elite families into a common police station for an interrogation. Instead, they walked up the grand marble steps and delivered sealed, official government letters directly to the estate staff.
The letters detailed exactly what their eleven-year-old heirs had done, crashing a state vehicle, blinding officers with a mixture of sand and chili powder, stealing weapons, and causing a city-wide military emergency.
The messengers didn't wait around for an executive response. They handed over the letters, turned on their heels, and immediately retreated to their vehicles, driving away into the morning smog as fast as the steam engines would carry them, terrified of the families' immense corporate wrath.