The Dream

Tallis placed both his elbows on the table, interlocking his hands before resting his chin on them, his demeanour becoming more perceptive than carefree like it usually was.

"Y'know, Lyra used to be our top scorer, and she broke her own record today and came second, as you can likely guess, that made her pretty pissed."

Tallis smiled slowly at Kael, some sort of intimidation tactic maybe? His messy black hair falling slightly forward as he spoke, Kael thought something was off with Tallis Wren, and spoke back, his green eyes locking with Tallis' hazel ones.

Kael spoke shortly and coldly.

"So?"

His black hair flipped back as he looked at Kael, slightly surprised by such a cold answer. He realised he was going to get nothing out of him if he kept like that, so he changed strategy.

"My, how cold of you… Brother Killer."

Kael's brows furrowed at the remark, but he chooses to stay silent, glaring at Tallis.

"Disgrace of the Ranz family, Wraith's Reaper, The Withered's Bait, The Bloodstained Child, these are all names you've picked up over the years."

Kael tried to keep calm, barely holding himself together, he had never heard these names until now, how could they have been around this long?

Silas began to glare at Tallis too, assuming that his goal was to rile him up, and he was obviously going to back Kael up if it came to it.

Taryn simply looked nervous.

Silas spoke up.

"What are you doing?"

Tallis' eyes darted over to Silas, looking at him through his hair.

"Don't you think it's weird they let him into the platoon with his reputation? I get he's incredibly skilled, but doesn't that make the death of Dren Ranz even more suspicious?"

Kael spoke again, losing his intimidating look and changing to a slightly more hurt one as he spoke softly.

"He's not dead."

Tallis turns back to him and grins.

"Then where is he, Kael? What happened on that day?"

"I've already told you."

"You really think we'll believe he's still fighting to this day? Can't you accept he's dead? You killed him, Kael, IT WAS YOUR FAULT!"

Kael swiftly stood up from his chair but before he could do anything Tallis was already being met with a punch diagonal from his left, from Kael's right, and was knocked out his chair onto the floor.

Silas had punched him, he didn't hold back as Tallis nose was bleeding horribly, probably broken.

Silas walked over to Tallis and towered over him, everyone had turned to look at the two as Silas picked him up by his collar.

He spoke in a low, husky tone, but his anger was evident. He glared at Tallis through his hair, as if Tallis was absolute filth.

"You clearly don't know shit."

He dropped Tallis back on the floor.

Lyra wasn't looking at Silas or Tallis, she was looking at Kael, his expression was angry but before that she noticed it was solemn. She assumed it was from the guilt of killing his brother the first time, but perhaps it was something different, seeing how Silas reacted first, maybe Kael really doesn't know his brother's fate? No, that's absurd right?

The hall was still silent, Tallis looked up at Silas with a cocky grin, even though it was Kael he was trying to get a reaction out of.

Silas and Kael sat back down whilst Tallis went and sat next to Vex.

Kael turned to Silas and thanked him before Taryn spoke up.

"I've never heard those names before, he made them up on the spot."

Kael and Silas looked at Taryn with intrigue.

"No one outside of the Phantom Line really knows about your part in Dren's disappearance"

Kael then realised something and decided he'd ask about it.

"How does he know about my relationship with my family?"

"I have no idea, I'm guessing it was an assumption made by the idea that you killed your brother."

"Right."

——————————————————————————

It was now 11pm, Kael was lying on his bed in his dorm with Silas, who's bed was on the other side of the room, Silas was sat on his bed, his forearms on his thighs as he looked at the floor contemplating the earlier event.

"Hey Silas."

Kael turned his head to the left to look at Silas.

"What is it?"

"How do you think I'll convince them it wasn't my fault?"

"Kael we both know it was your fault, just it was an accident."

"You know what I meant."

Silas chuckled.

"I don't know, just wait until our first mission, it's likely they'll see how you truly are."

"Will that be enough though?"

"Only time will tell."

"Right."

Silas laid down on his bed and rolled over.

"I'm going to sleep now."

Kael looked back up at the ceiling.

"Right."

"Goodnight Kael."

"Goodnight."

As Silas went to sleep, Kael couldn't stop thinking, it couldn't have been a coincidence that Tallis knew of Kael's banishment.

Kael's mind was racing as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

——————————————————————————

Kael's eyes opened, he was no longer in his dorm, he had his mossy green phantom line uniform on with his gas mask and two handguns sheathed while attached to his utility belt, in fact, he wasn't anywhere, he was surrounded by a black void, it was completely silent, then an old, familiar voice spoke, but not with the same tone it used to.

"Long time no see Kael."

Kael turned to see his brother, the same he looked 6 years ago, the two were now the same height and age.

Kael was frozen, after all he was seeing his long lost brother again, but he hadn't aged a second.

"...Dren?"

"You killed me, Kael."

Those words struck Kael through the heart like a knife penetrating the skin.

Kael's eyes widened.

"What?"

"They're all right."

As if Dren was their leader, voices began to speak, both voices from the platoon and voices he didn't know, all blaming him for Dren's death, a death of which Kael thinks he knows never happened.

Kael was frozen, he could feel his fear mix with his longing and despair for his brother as water began to spill out of Kael's eyes.

"...No-"

"It's your fault."

Kael was cut off by another voice, his mothers, he turned and looked at her, she had grown older, her hair getting some grey strands and her face was more wrinkled.

"You're wrong, it was The Withered! And the Dren I know wouldn't die so easily-"

"Then you know nothing about me, Kael."

The voice felt like it came from right next to his ear, but when Kael turned, there was nothing.

Everything was empty except the small eyes Kael could feel watching him as he wandered the empty void.

Then he saw Dren again–he was walking away

Kael started sprinting to catch up, but Dren grew further, The withered began to separate the two, Kael drew his hand guns, blasting their heads from point blank with them.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Withereds were shot, his 6th missed as usual and the withered started grabbing him, knocking him to the floor as Kael pressed his gun to the side of the Withered's head and pulled the trigger.

As the shot fired, Kael's eyes shot open again.

——————————————————————————

He was back in the dorm Silas had awoken from Kael's constant shouting in the night and was standing beside the bed, it was him who woke Kael up.

"You okay Kael?"

Kael was sweating and panting, his arms hadn't moved from where they were fighting the sixth withered.

It was all a dream

"Yeah, bad dream that's all."

Kael looked at the clock above the dorm door, it said it was 3:50 in the morning, he was going to have been woken up 10 minutes form now anyway

"I suppose we should get ready now anyway."

Silas helped Kael out of bed by pulling him up, agreeing that they should get ready.