By the end of the long winded explanation, Aniyah was left speechless. Her whole view on the Protectors had shifted. It sounded too much like a sci-fi movie to be real to her.

Ismail's explanation could have come straight out of a coked up 11 year olds imagination. But most of all, his explanation left a gaping hole in her head, one that she couldn't fully understand even if she troed to force her head around it.

He explained how the Captain had suddenly started trusting him with this information after the day they attacked La Morte, the attack that left the Protectors with 4 less men.

He distinctly remembered that mission, a rescue mission.

A week before the Protectors had attacked, La Morte had ambushed the group in one of their less hidden hideouts, taking with them 10 hostages.

One of them was his own sister, Angeli.

Days on days, 17 year old Ismail had cried to the Captain, begging him to hurry up and to rescue his sister but he still remembers the stone cold expression the Captain held when he refused every time, telling him that they were gathering all the men they could from around the country. Because every division would have been in a different mission already, it was hard for them to gather everyone however once they had enough men, the attack was in motion.

Ismail had respected the fact that the Captain thought clearly enough to realise that we needed more men to carry out the task. Even then, not everyone out of the 75 made it out alive. The fifteen hostages were rescued but there was something different about around five or six of them.

While all the hostages looked exhausted and shrivelled, a few of them looked truly lifeless, one of which was his sister.

Her usually deep skin was ashy and thin, like she hadn't been fed enough.

Looking over all of the rescued, he realised that none of them looked like they'd been fed.

He remembers the heart break, knowing that for a whole week, his sister had been suffering but he thought that her complexion really was because she didn't have enough nutrients in her.

They hda rushed her away, leaving him in agony, drenched to the bone in the night's rain.

During the escape, there was only one thought on his mind: getting his sister back to normal health.

That thought changed quickly when he saw Guy Teller's ghost-like face telling them to get all the rescued to the medical room and to leave them there. Ismail had ran his sister in, trying to get her in there first. Her pulse was too low, he could hardly feel one but he knew it was still there.

Guy had ushered them out, locking the medical room in the process and covering the window panels in the process, effectively keeping prying eyes out of view.

The next half an hour was filled with emptiness for him and he had a feeling in his gut, like Angeli wasn't going to make it.

His gut proved him right.

The next moment when Guy walked out, he talked about four more deaths, one of which was Angeli.

The next day, another one had died.

The day after that, the Captain had approached him, holding a small pity present.

"Angeli was beautiful, I'm sorry that she had to go like that."

"You don't get to apologise. I'd asked you day in and day out for you to attack them quicker."

Instead of entertaining Ismail's anger, the Captain sat him down instead.

"I'm becoming old now, so is Guy. We need to trust you with something that you need to promise me on your life that not a single other person will find out about."

Ismail already didn't like the sound of how this was going but given the look in the Captain's eyes, he knew he couldn't decline.

"What happens if someone does find out?"

"We'll know it was from you and... I don't think you want to know the answer to that question."

The deathly look in his eyes was enough warning for the young boy.

"You are aware of how La Morte and the Protectors were once on the same side, fighting for the protection of Ripley, right?"

Ismail wasn't alive when this partnership existed but he'd heard enough stories about how Rayan's father and the Captain's father were once fighting with each other, not against.

"I know you don't know how the partnership broke up though. When me and Rayan were around 20, my own dad and his would have been 50. It was time for the two groups to make us the next leaders and they did so. A few weeks later without consent, Rayan had started to inject babies with a serum, a serum which in essence made the 'perfect' agent."

He felt his heartbeat stop for a long second, the truth of what happened to his younger sister hitting him like a strong swung bulldozer.

"I'm telling you all of this because once I learnt that Rayan was doing this, I promised myself that I would finish that man off. It's getting late for me now but I know that you'll fight tooth and nail to destroy La Morte once and for all."

It was then, that the 17 year old realised the real reason his little sister had died.

The Captain just gave him a solemn look. Ismail had always just thought that his sister had gotten the good fighter gene but if she was genetically modified as a literal embryo, it would have meant that she was in danger the moment she was born.

"How's she been kept alive for so long then?"

The Captain then explained to him how the medicine worked. He told him about how the rest of the people who had died were also modified.

The new onset of information left him without thoughts, the only thought occupying his mind being how during her life, his sister was always in danger, how death could have been imminent for her at any given point.

It wasn't much that he knew but he sure knew enough to know that whatever happened, after he became successor, he wasn't going to give in until La Morte was nothing but ash.

"So wait, you weren't kidding when you said you'd never left the Protectors. It wasn't because you wanted to stay, it's because you needed to." Aniyah said to Ismail, trying to piece it together herself.

"I made a promise to myself, that whatever happened, I wouldn't let what happened to Angeli happen to anyone else, ever again. To do that, I'm going to need to beat Rayan and anyone that would ever come after him."

"And I promise you, right now, that I'm going to help you every step of the way." she said, her hands still firmly in Ismail's hold. All the worry had dissipated, leaving only determination in it's midst.

---

a/n:

so i just wanted to give a small shoutout to two of my readers that are always giving me a boost and just giving me that energy that i need to carry on writing Donniedrako15 Dseehusen thanks for being so amazing :)

if you think the chapter deserves it, please leave a vote and a comment ;0

hope you have a good evening, my lovelies <3

Lolaalvilivi