24 Years Ago

             "You think the others found each other yet?" Shiny asked after a few days of walking. "Shit probably" X sighed, exhausted already. "Where did we agree on going?- Copper Creek or Dallas's cave?-" Shiny mumbled to himself. X couldn't remember and neither could Shiny himself. They were both exhausted and running low on water once more. They were ok on food but their water supply worried them. "You think there's a stream or something nearby?" Shiny asked but X just shrugged, clearly exhausted. Shiny just grabbed his arm and they walked to the shade of a tree. They sat down to eat a little bit and rest their feet. Both of the men have been walking for hours already. X laid down on his back while Shiny rummaged through X's bag since he had the food. As he did his fingers brushed something that felt like plastic. "What the?-" he mutter and grabbed the object he had accidentally touched. He pulled it out and saw a black camera in his hand. This was Jet's old bag and Shiny had never seen this before. "Aye X I found a camera" Shiny nudged him but he was asleep. He shrugged it of and curiously clicked the power button to see if it would turn on.

            The screen flashed on to Shiny's surprise. He decided to look through the camera roll and there were videos upon videos that the twins took. A lot of them were of Cypher when she was a bit younger. Most of the videos were taken by Jet and Shiny chuckled sadly while watching a few of them. He did really miss those three, they finally had a chance to make things right but that was taken from them all. Shiny watched the video for awhile before finally clicking to one that starts with the twins talking quietly while a man and a woman were yelling at each other in the background. Shiny could tell the twins were still pretty young, 16 or 17 is what he assumed. "Oh shit-" one of the twins said in the video and the camera fell. Shiny couldn't tell which one had dropped the camera and which one was talking due to them sounding exactly the same but neither of them picked up the camera. From the angle it was at Shiny could see around 30 year old Tiger arguing with a woman with long coal black hair, pale skin and grey eyes. The woman looked to also be in her 30's and appeared to be injured. There was also a baby babbling somewhere but the kid was not in view of the camera.

            Shiny couldn't understand what they were yelling about but his smile faded as he watched in horror as Tiger grabbed the woman and threw her down. She could not get back up due to her injured leg and another kid screamed. One of the twins darted past the camera and grabbed what looked to be 7-8 year old Cypher while the other picked up a little girl who looked to be about 2-3 years old. She also had coal black hair but she had tan skin like Tiger. The 3 year old was wailing as Shiny assumed Ret was the one trying to comfort her. The twins quickly ran out of view of the camera with the two young girls as Tiger continued to yell at the woman. Shiny had to put the camera down for a moment to try to process what he was watching. After a few minutes he forced himself to pick the camera back up and continue a watching. The yelling died down and now it was just Tiger beckoning Little Cypher over to him. Once she finally went over to her father he knelt down and was now softly talking to her. He had a sly grin as he handed the young girl something but Shiny couldn't tell what it was on the camera. Tiger seemed to be instructing her to do something and Shiny's heart stopped when a gunshot came over the audio. Little Cypher was knocked off her feet and blood splattered her face.

           Shiny could feel tears pouring down his cheeks as he watched. He wanted to look away from the small screen but couldn't bring himself to doing so. Tiger seemed to be congratulating dazed  Cypher who held a pistol in her small hands. "Momma?..." was all the poor baby could mumble before Tiger picked her up and while standing up. Another gunshot was heard, followed by the twins panicked scream. The crying of the 2-3 year old had stopped after the gunshot and Shiny only assumed the worst had just happened. "You boys don't say a word about this." Tiger's stern voice could be heard as he cleaned off Cypher's face and that was it. The camera died before the video ended. Shiny just blankly stared at the dark screen, tears streaming down his face as he now understood why Cypher despised that man as much as she did. Shiny finally set the camera in the grass and pulled his knees to his chest. He quietly sobbed until X woke up. X looked up at Shiny confused for a moment and laid his head back down. When he realized Shiny was crying he quickly sat up again. "Woah woah- what's wrong Shine-" X asked while hesitantly putting his arm around the sobbing man.

         At first Shiny said nothing. X looked down and noticed the camera in the grass and picked it up. "What's this?" He asked him and Shiny spoke. "A camera that belonged to the twins..." he mumbled, his voice cracking throughout his sentence. After awhile of X coaxing him to tell him what's wrong asking finally explained what he watched. The camera was now dead so Shiny couldn't show him, not like he wanted to rewatch that horror show anyway. X just rubbed his back as Shiny choked on his own tears. He didn't know who the woman was or the other little girl but he could only assume it was Cypher's mom and sister. "That sick bastard...." Shiny hissed under his breath. "She was only 8 Xavier he made her kill her own damn mom!" Shiny gripped X's shoulders and shook him a little. "And then he fucking shot her sister that was in one of the twins's arms! Right in front of them all!" He yelled but was cut off by X covering his mouth with his hand. "I know you're upset- but you have to be quieter I'm sorry-" X quickly warned. He was afraid Shiny's yelling would attract the monsters they had encountered. Shiny just shoved him away and got up. "That poor girl was only 3! But her own fucking dad shot her! The man that was supposed to be her hero killed her!" He screeched while pacing around. X did his best to try to calm him down but Shiny went on ranting. Finally Shiny was cut off but not by X. Loud snarling is what quieted both of them men as they realized it was too late, unwanted attention was already attracted.