The Gamer Chapter 1566 – A Deserved Betrayal [Vier POV] (Patreon)

“Leave us,” Mengele ordered.

The soldier saluted and immediately stepped away from the door. It snapped shut automatically behind him, leaving them in the room aboard the ship.

Immediately, Mengele began to pace up and down. The thick, luxurious carpet ate the sound of his steps, much like the enchantments within the thick walls ate up the presence of the submarine they had used to get here.

Out of the halls, as swift as they could go, Mengele and his companions had moved to the harbour. Where the majority of soldiers had sailed out with the boat, Mengele and Vier had instead taken an attached submarine to move along a different route. It was just the two of them in there. The lobotomized Fateweaver used to keep the Mobile Barrier running could not be counted as a person anymore.

The ship had united with the main fleet, out in the Mediterranean, while the submarine had gone to a singular ship that would sail on its own. Mengele always loved his independent missions. Even more did he love not spending too much time aboard ships filled with similarly powerful individuals as himself.

Vier kept staring blankly ahead, as he always did. Until yesterday, he would have been joined in this by Arkan, but the crafted Father of Arcane had fallen out of favour now. Vier could not fall out of favour, for Vier was not regarded as a person. As far as Mengele was concerned, the clone of the Betrayer of All was a dependable advisor.

That was what Vier had pretended since he had realized that was his expected role. That was how Vier had stayed the fourth and, if all went according to plan, final entry into the series.

“Inept,” Mengele suddenly said. His gait was getting more agitated by the second. A habit that his creator had picked up long before Vier had been raised from amniotic fluids was to rant. Vier believed that this habit had only worsened since Mengele had created for himself someone that would listen and never disagree. “Wouldn’t you agree, Vier?”

“Inept,” Vier said in a neutral tone that could be construed as agreement.

“Inept,” Mengele repeated, quietly, to himself. He folded his hands behind his back in an effort to control his body language, while pacing up and down the room. They soon were back at his side, dangling as he took large strides. “I give them bodies more valuable than entire guilds and they cannot win against an upstart. Legendary forefathers of the arcane... that’s what you get when trusting Africans to do anything right.”

Even the carpet failed to entirely suppress the sounds of Mengele’s heavy footfalls by this point. The self-engineered superhuman walked with ever greater intensity. His eyes darkened.

“Inept… everyone is inept!” The rant began in earnest. “Inept and filled with guile! From beginning to end, I am getting betrayed and lied to! They were confident and THAT was the best they could do?! I should have jumped down there and broken the Gamer’s neck myself!”

“As you certainly could have,” Vier dared to encourage.

“Easefully,” Mengele growled. “It was an ORDER to win. Their victory was an ORDER. Not one of them showed the necessary initiative to bring about the world we deserve. They aided our enemies.”

“Should I schedule the purge of Singed and Karia?” Vier asked, innocuously.

“YES!” Mengele shouted, his voice barely going down afterwards. “One a failure, the other a traitor! I’ll have to reconsider who is worthy of fighting for the Purest Front. Orkos will do us no good in a proper battle, Liakan and Malot are compromised, Arkan may yet still be useful, as can be Laurence.”

“He did give a poor showing,” Vier egged on.

“A terrible showing,” Mengele hissed. “An utter disgrace, incapable of keeping his composure around the pariah. Him and Arkan both, utter failures when it comes to discipline! Had they acted in measure, they could have made the pariah fade and we would be one enemy shorter! One less pet project of the Rat running around!”

Vier said nothing, just letting Mengele stew in his own juices for a few moments. It didn’t take long for the ranting and raving to continue.

“INEPT!” Mengele screamed. “UNCLEAN! I give them all chances to prove themselves to be worthy to live in my world, and they can’t even get the single tasks done that I allowed them to move for! They had their purpose in the long war and they failed it! Now I have to draft it all up again! The Gamer has to die, that much is clear! Can’t let that arrogant curr continue to amass power. Once he dies, Fusion falls with him. He’s the only thing keeping all of that together; plus, his strength raises their strength somehow. A shame that his Innate Ability can’t be used for our side, but it’ll have to do to have it removed. If they can’t see the wisdom of the supremacy of the human being, then they cannot be allowed to stand against us.”

“Your enemies are many,” Vier poked.

“Ever multiplying… a disappointment on a planetary scale! Everything is-“ Mengele stopped suddenly. “Are you… smiling?”

Vier had to reach up to his face to verify the question. He was indeed. His lips were curved in a trembling grin that soon collapsed. The muscles that pulled the corners of his mouth up were simply too weak to hold the expression for long. Mengele kept staring and Vier could not help it. He started to laugh.

Mengele growled. “What are you laughing for?! You do not laugh! You lend me your intellect, I decide, I laugh, I tell everyone where we go next!” Vier just kept on laughing, until Mengele asked, “Are you broken?”

“That’s just the issue, Josef,” Vier dropped all the pretence, “I never was.”

The butcher’s face turned red at the realization, even redder than it already had been. The paces up and down turned to paces towards him. A blackened hand gripped Vier by the collar and slammed him against the ornate wall of the highly decorated room – the only decorated room aboard the entire ship.

Vier kept on laughing, until the godlike strength of Mengele pressed the last bit of air out of his lungs. His eyes began to bulge, pain began to rise. “Listen to me, you product,” the failing creator hissed, “you’ve chosen a very bad time to reveal your defects. You think I’ll wait until we’re back to pick you apart and see what went wrong with you?”

“I chose the last time I get to tell you this,” Vier pushed out.

Realization dawned on Mengele’s face, paranoia overwriting anger. If Vier was compromised, then so was the information he had, and if that was true then… well, the man knew where it had to go. “You think we can’t leave them in the dust? Doesn’t matter if you tell them exactly where we are, this ship is still the fastest sailing vessel in the world.”

“Oh, I’m just a step in the plan,” Vier gloated, when Mengele gave him enough air to do so. “A convenient way in. They knew where to go already.”

The Gamer could be accused of many things, but not of being untimely. Just as Vier finished his explanation, a part of the ship exploded – the engine block. “HOW?!” Mengele demanded to know.

Vier just shrugged. The parts of the plan he had been given access to were enough to paint a picture of them knowing more than they should have about the location, the routes, and the alternative escape route Mengele always kept open. All Vier offered for this whole endeavour was an ease of initial infiltration. “A seer, probably? They knew enough for me to smuggle my shadow in.”

“Too bad you won’t get to enjoy it!” Mengele returned to squeezing Vier against the wall. The action was slow and deliberately cruel. The failing creator was not thinking straight and that made him vulnerable. “Doesn’t matter! I’ll let you drown in your own blood, then get out of here! I can take care of whatever the Gamer throws at me. You picked the losing si-“

Vier’s ribs were about to give in when a second explosion marked the complete annihilation of the ship’s engines. Not a second later, in blood and rage, a shape tore through the wall. The clone did not even catch anything about the form of Eliana, besides a streak of white and red. Intelligence, that Mengele had made sure he inherited, but neither his genetic origin nor the creator’s intent had made him strong.

Grinning again, despite how much that made his untrained muscles burn, Vier ran for it. He ran while the goddess of genocide screamed. The clash with her creator made the massive vessel sway under the impact of their impossibly powerful blows.

Half running, half climbing through the corridors, Vier manoeuvred his way to the internal docks. All he needed was to reach the very same submarine they had arrived in. The lobotomized Fateweaver would serve him one more time, then he’d do the fellow slave the favour of liberation. Useful as the being would be, Vier had that little bit of empathy in him.

The tempered Elementium alloy of the hull creaked and broke along one of the welding lines. Vier continued through anyhow. ‘Too slow!’ he told himself. His gloating was starting to cost him.

The ship tilted and he fell down a previously horizontal corridor. Moments before an incredibly painful impact against raw metal walls, he was suddenly caught. Deep blue and black claws held onto him. Eyes of lunar silver, surrounded by black and constellations, stared at him.

“Aren’t I lucky?” he asked with a dry attitude he had needed to swallow for years.

“Are you?” Siena asked. The elemental effortlessly aligned both of them, while the distant battle repeatedly swayed the ship. “You’ve outlived your usefulness for my saviour. Seems wise I take care of you now.” Her second hand closed in on his neck.

“He wouldn’t enjoy it very much if you broke your word, would he?” Vier teased.

“I’m no puppet on strings,” Siena hummed. The claw of her thumb cut a line into his chin, soon pearling with red tears. “He might be annoyed. I can work around that.”

“Are you that much of a monster?” The question was intuitive and it cut right to the heart of the matter. Siena hesitated, then hissed and threw him down the corridor he had meant to go. “Much obliged!”

“Slink away into obscurity, Vier, and never let your face be seen among my John’s enemies again!”

That was exactly what Vier intended to do. He ran and crawled his way to the internal deck. Soldiers were running around like busy bees, making space for him wherever he went. They were much too obedient to question Mengele’s favourite puppet going where he wanted to. They did not know the difference between questioning authority and death by firing squad.

Soon, he hammered the access codes into the hatch of the submarine. Moments later, he was inside the small vessel. He slammed the emergency release button, overwriting any and all onboard commands. The ship opened, the submarine descended, the distant battle turned from dull to no sounds whatsoever.

“I’ll need a new name,” Vier hummed to himself, while sinking into the abyssal darkness. “I’ll think about it after I settle somewhere.”

And the clone disappeared from the clash of titans.