Some people *shots a pointed glance at Druid* have
complained that the formatting sucks. So, with a wave
of my magical wand, I've made the formatting unsucky
and am posting the chapter again. Have fun.

He was born twisted and depraved as the heir to the
oldest of the great houses in the land. Sadly, by the
time of his birth, his family had fallen on hard
times, having been brought to its knees by an upstart
house acting at the behest of the Emperor.

He grew up in a world that continuously hurt, rejected
and humiliated him. The kids treated him as if he was
a pariah and to the adults, he was less than a worm.
As he grew, his bitterness slowly turned to hatred.
The inborn propensity in his soul towards the dark
provided the necessary fertile ground for the seeds of
malice sown by a cruel world and the malevolence in
his heart flourished, unchecked and unknown. So great
did his hate become that soon, his heart turned black
and blacker still.

In essence, he became a demon.

Realizing instinctively that the world would abhor him
even more if he revealed his true self � perhaps even
hunt him down � he hid his hatred and kept it sealed
until such a time came when it was safe. When that day
came, he swore, he would help the world reap its
deadly harvest of hatred. He would return a thousand
fold the pain visited upon his soul and person. He
would make the whole of creation suffer, with special
attention given to the never to be sufficiently damned
house and clan that had destroyed his world even
before he was born. And of all the people in that
nonentity of a clan, he hated none more than �him,�
the consummate bastard who had architected his
family�s fall from grace with style and panache.

And so, he bore all the taunts, deprecating himself in
front of the world to curry the favor of the scions of
noble houses. Houses that were noble in name only - if
they were truly noble, they would not have permitted
the Emperor to hamstring his clan as they watched from
the sidelines, as scavengers would, while �his� house
tore the roof down on his parents� head, would they? �
but whose helping hand he needed to bring his plans to
fruition. To further his ends, he joined the army,
where his impeccable tactical and strategic sense
stood him in good stead. He quickly rose through the
ranks, until the day came when the unsuspecting
Emperor made him the chief of staff.

He truly set about pursuing his work that day, passing
secrets to the enemy and undermining the kingdom in
every way he could. He spun plans within plans within
plans and wove a web of deceit that had everyone in
the land fooled. So successful was the mask he wore
and so well did it fit him that they awarded him the
highest medal in the empire for service to the crown.

Then the day came when his plans begun to bear fruit.
He still remembered the astounded look on the
Emperor�s face as he announced the outbreak of war � a
war that he had promised them as impossible. He had
savored that air of stunned disbelief, as he had
relished the expression on the Emperor�s face while
his chief of staff ran him through with the very
symbol of the Emperor�s office, the onyx sword.

All that paled when compared to his crowning
achievement, however, which was the fall of his
people. They lost the war not because the enemy troops
were better, but because his treasonous acts broke
their back even before the enemy struck the first
blow. Their cities were wiped off the face of the
planet and they themselves massacred first by the
thousands and then by the millions. In fact, all his
plans worked out perfectly, except for one small cog
in the wheel. �He� had survived the attempt on his
life. And having escaped the assassination, �he� had
went on to unmask the traitor in the ranks, made the
enemy pay a hefty price for every square foot of
ground he yielded and shielded a small remnant of
�his� people from the genocide pogroms, derailing
every plan to wipe them off the face of the earth
forever. So successfully had �he� shoved the enemy�s
face into the dirt and so frequently, that at last,
they had resigned themselves to the fact that they
could never wipe out �his� people, but had to contend
themselves with �simply� imprisoning them in another
plane. A plane so removed from the real world that it
was practically uninhabitable.

Thus it was that at the very hour of his triumph, he
found that his nemesis had snatched a small victory
from the jaws of oblivion, and successfully
shanghai-ed vengeance from his grasp. But more
maddening than the disappointment was the discovery
that the banishment had also taken out of his hands
the ability to act decisively against the bastard once
and for all. His hate grew to unheard of levels � so
much so that his allies, the Gods christened him
Demon. It was a fitting name, admittedly, but he
preferred the humble sobriquet given by his people:
Betrayer.

They feared him, his allies. They would have killed
him themselves, if not for the fact that they valued
his military genius even more than they feared him. To
secure his loyalty, they created a new brigade,
stocked it with the worst scum they could find and
swore by The Code that they would help him have his
revenge. The prize was not nearly enough, for it was
by their actions that �he� had made �his� successful
getaway, but Betrayer had taken the job anyway, mainly
because he had already formulated new plans and set
his sights on greener pastures; plans that would see
him crowned as the king of all creation.

He was able to ascertain early on that his new working
environment was a lot more constrained than in the
court of the Ashuras, but that was because the Gods
did not trust him at all. Against his genius, however,
the constraints were nowhere near sufficient and he
had quietly gathered a small group of likeminded Gods
around himself - the core of his future army. Then he
set about corrupting the medium sized fry in the pond;
the middle class Gods. The actual process, of course,
was tiresome and had dragged for millennia. Finally,
when his plans had advanced enough that they were
moving along smoothly on their own accord, the Council
informed him of the imminent breaking of The Wall, and
thrown a real spanner into the works. But like any
true master of the battlefield, he had not let the
setback get to him. He had improvised and woven his
plans to account for the impending invasion.

And the Council, which was as blind to his plans as
the Emperor had ever been, had unwittingly delivered
the golden goose into his lap. Thanks to the
machinations of his supporters in the court, they had
asked him to guard the senshi!

Betrayer has assumed personal responsibility for the
mission and tasked the most loyal of his conspirators
to the task. His men were outcast Gods whom the rest
of their race reviled and abhorred, which Betrayer
admitted gleefully to himself, worked out to his
advantage. They were his most fervent adherents
because he welcomed them into his brigade and gave
them a home when no one would. For one week, he
coordinated the efforts of his men as they shadowed
the senshi as well as their human enemies.

Their efforts had paid off handsomely, for who should
stand below in the middle of the street negotiating
with the senshi but Betrayer�s archenemy, that
thrice-damned, twice-accursed bastard Indiran. The dam
of rage and hatred that drove Betrayer had almost
burst at the sight of the Ashuran General. Until
Betrayer realized the unprecedented opportunity that
Indiran�s presence entailed for the furtherance of his
plans, that is, for much as he hated to admit it, he
was the military genius he was because he had studied
Indiran�s campaigns extensively, and made the Ashuran
General�s tactics and strategies his own. And because
Indiran always subordinated tactics to strategy in his
campaigns, Betrayer knew that Indiran would not follow
Chola�s orders blindly in the field. He would take one
look at the neo-senshi and decide that there were
flaws in the intelligence reports in Chola�s hands. He
would then look at the overall picture to determine
his course of action rather than make the mistake of
looking at the here and now.

There was, of course, only one course of action that
was viable in the strategic sense and Indiran chose
exactly that. Betrayer congratulated himself at having
read his enemy correctly and turned to his second in
command, the commander of the platoon, already decided
upon his course of action. He would eliminate Indiran
and his toadies, and maybe even a senshi or three
while he was at it. The General because his penchant
for working miracles in the battlefield posed the
greatest danger to his plans and the senshi because
killing them would destroy any budding alliance
between Chola and Serenity. Then, he would report on
the senshi�s treasonous behavior to the Council and
thus, retain the trust they had placed on him � what
little there was, that is � for the time being.

�Karthikeya!�

�Yes, General?�

�Inform Sgt. Thirumaran that he is to take his squad
and circle around the block. He is to take position in
that building to the left of that lamppost. On my
order, he and his squad will open fire on the
positions of the human degenerates. Start with their
command post and move on to successively cheaper
targets,� he said, pointing to the skyscraper Indiran
had used as his observation post.

In turn, Karthikeya turned to one of the two
messengers standing nearby.

�You heard the General. Go!� he barked, though not
loudly.

�In the meanwhile, Second Squadron will get ready for
action,� Betrayer continued in the same vein, �When I
give the order, I want everyone in the squad to shoot
at that bastard yacking with the senshi on the middle
of the street. I don�t care if you have to blow away a
senshi�s brain to get a clear shot at him, but I�ll
skin anyone who so much as harms a single strand of
hair on Serenity�s head. Make that clear to your men.
They are good troops and I�m reluctant to execute even
one of them, but that doesn�t mean I won�t if my
orders aren�t obeyed to the word. Do you understand?�

Karthikeya snapped to attention.

�Yes, Sir, General, Sir!�

Betrayer nodded and turned his back to Karthikeya, his
eyes once again focused on Indiran and Serenity.
Silently, for the next few minutes, he observed the
two negotiate the terms of the new alliance. During
that time, the messenger returned, bearing Sgt.
Thirumaran�s communiqu� that his squadron had moved
into position and was awaiting further orders.
Finally, Serenity and Indiran reached some sort of
acting agreement and Serenity made to swear the oath.

Boom!




		
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