**Zulphithos**
**
Dark Age of Apes – Year 519 post-Agreement
Buenosz Region, Southern Border of the 7th Lunar Battalion
(where the wind carries the smell of gunpowder, wet fur and fresh paint)
Christopher Miklosko wasn't just big.
It was colossal.
A giant ape with pitch-black fur, shoulders wide enough to block the citadel's false sun, red eyes that looked like forgotten embers.
He was not born a leader.
He became one because no one else dared to say "no" when he spoke.
Rejection shaped him.
Hundreds of years ago, when monkeys were still "just" rich pets, the werewolves of Buenosz's old pack kicked him out of an initiation ritual for being "too big, too wild, too unpredictable."
That word — "too much" — stuck in his chest like a silver stake.
Since then, every death he caused was a delayed response:
"I am exactly what you said I was.
And now you will pay for being right."
He killed werewolf military teachers.
Not foot soldiers.
Teachers.
The ones who taught strategy, the ones who shaped the next generation of fangs and claws.
Because Christopher knew:
war is not won by killing warriors.
You win by killing those who teach you how to fight.
After each execution, he dipped his enormous hands in industrial black paint—the same used to mark radioactive waste containers in ancient times—and pressed his palms to the chests of the dead.
Five giant fingerprints, black as an abyss.
A signature.
A challenge.
A radar.
And he left the bodies exactly where the 7th Lunar Battalion would find them.
Always.
As if he wanted to be seen.
As if he needed to be hunted.
In Buenosz's makeshift headquarters—a former port warehouse converted into a bunker—Karma was hunched over a map stained with dried blood and cold coffee.
He was the sub-leader of the human-werewolf front in the region.
Not the commander.
Never the commander.
Just what kept things going when the official leaders started to doubt themselves.
The report arrived at 04:12.
Another teacher.
Black hands.
Message written in the dead man's own blood on the wall next door:
"Do you still think I'm awesome?"
Karma felt his stomach drop.
Not out of fear.
Of recognition.
He knew that hatred.
It was the same thing he had already felt when the system divided him in half, when Ana became a wolf and he became a shadow, when the world decided that they were disposable parts.
But now the hatred had a body.
It had a name.
He had black hands.
"I need to stop him," he muttered to himself.
— Before he gets to her.
Ana.
Your half-sister.
Or reflection.
Or the part of him that still believed in saving lives instead of destroying them.
But then came the whisper.
Not in the ears.
Inside the mind.
Sweet.
Warm.
Too familiar.
"You don't need to stop him, Karma.
You need to use it."
He turned around slowly.
She was there, materializing from the dim light of the warehouse as if she had always been there.
Translucent shadow wings.
Liquid mercury eyes.
A smile that seemed to apologize as he stabbed the knife.
The villain.
The manipulator that no one named because naming gave power.
Bastard daughter of a forgotten fairy lineage, master of bending minds and emotions like wet paper.
She had been manipulating him since the first day he found the Lost Key.
Maybe before.
— You… — Karma growled, his fangs lengthening involuntarily.
She raised her hand.
The air between them rippled.
His anger softened like hot wax.
— Shhh.
I'm just helping you see the right path.
The path you always wanted, but never had the courage to admit.
She held out an ancient scroll.
It wasn't paper.
It was sacrificed fairy skin, written in ink made from new moon tears.
The plan was written on it.
Step by step.
Necessary.
Irrevocable.
1. Let Christopher Miklosko keep killing.
Each body with black hands increases panic in the battalion.
2. Fuel the rumors: Ana is a direct descendant of the former traitors who expelled Christopher.
Use the false memories I planted in the soldiers' heads.
3. When the war council questions her loyalty, present the "evidence": a moon bone fragment found at the scene of a murder.
The same bone you gave her.
4. Ana will be expelled.
Dishonored.
Alone.
Vulnerable.
5. At that moment, you convince her to escape to monkey territory.
6. There, you offer Christopher an alliance: monkeys + fairies (represented by me) + the "traitor wolf" as a symbol of redemption.
7. And then… the war turns upside down.
The werewolves lose their best soldier.
Humans lose hope.
And we won everything.
Karma read.
Every word hurt like molten silver.
He wanted to tear up the parchment.
I wanted to rip out my own mind to get her out of there.
But his hands were shaking.
And the emotion rising in his chest wasn't anger.
It was acceptance.
Planted acceptance.
Watered.
Harvested.
- Why? — he managed to ask.
She approached.
She touched his face with cold fingers.
— Because you always wanted to be more than your stepbrother.
More than the reflection.
You want to be the savior.
And saviors need villains to save.
She kissed his forehead.
Take it like a broken promise.
—Now go.
Do what it says.
Or I make you want to do it.
Karma left the shed.
The map was still open on the table.
The black hands marked points increasingly closer to the barracks where Ana slept.
In the cracked sky of Buenosz,
One of the moons blinked as if laughing.
And deep in Karma's mind,
a voice that was no longer just his whispered:
"It's time to paint your own hands, brother."
**End of Chapter 8**