Leeva grabbed Kai's shoulder with a squeezing grip, her delicate digits surprisingly strong.
"What's happening?" she asked. "How's this…god? Cooperative?"
"I think we've reached something like a mutual agreement," said Kai.
"It won't jack your body or do anything crazy?
Kai gave her a thumbs up. "Nah, don't figure so. I mean, I don't know if gods can keep their words and all, but I got the feeling that the guy inside me sticks to what he says."
Leeva let go of Kai's shoulder, but her expression was still worried.
"If that's what you think, I'll go along with it."
Kai one-upped her and put both hands on her shoulders. He stared her straight in her eyes and said, "Trust me. No worrying, alright?"
Leeva patted away his arms and looked away. She gave a nod.
"I…have a few restrictions on me," said Kai. He had to spread chaos. He had to kill. "But none of those will ever hurt you, and I'll always be in control."
"You don't have to skirt around the truth with me. We don't do that. What restrictions? What's that god telling you to do?"
Kai put it in the best way she could understand. "To fight against Elsia."
"What!?" Leeva sat up . "That's insane. Elsia? You and what army? Because you can't do that yourself. The biggest fighting force in the Isles is the Don's mech unit, and those bots are made from blueprints that are already thirty years old. Elsia has that and a hundred times more."
"We'll see how it goes," said Kai.
"No, we won't." Leeva crossed her arms. "I will NOT sit by and see you just throw yourself to death because of some bogus god."
Kai had to voice the truth. The god said he was a perfect vessel, that he had the burning ambition and desire for vengeance to set chaos alight. And the god was right.
"It's not because of him. It's for me. I want to do this. I want to see Elsia fall."
"You and everyone else. But look at us right now. Hiding from Elsian drones. Because we're weak. You don't have the power to do anything."
"Oh, but I do. I haven't seen what my powers are like at full throttle, but I'm confident that it's more than enough to punch a hole right through Elsia."
"Okay then." Leeva pointed up, towards the droning of copters overhead. "Then why don't you take those out? Something stopping you?"
"Maybe I don't have the strength right now, but I know for a fact that I'm going to get stronger."
Leeva stared at Kai for seconds. The seconds drew into a minute, and he felt uncomfortable. She looked so sad. But for what? He had the power to give happiness to everyone in the fields now. Break the yokes of Elsian oppression that'd sat tight on the necks of the Isles for more than a century.
"Look, Kai," said Leeva. "I respect you and your decisions, and I'll try and stand by them no matter what. But I need you to tell me, from the very bottom of your heart, is this what you want to do? Do you want to fight?"
"I do." Kai put a fist to his heart. "For myself and for everyone in the Isles that've suffered because Elsia wouldn't open its walls or sent their Cleaners to pick us apart for their experiments. I told you before, didn't I? If I ever became a god, I'd make things right. I'm going to do just that."
Leeva sighed and looked at the floor for a second. Then, to Kai's surprise, she hugged him. Even through the thick layers of clothing they wore, he could feel the pressure she put in that embrace, all the feelings she held dear to her pouring out. When she broke off the hug, her eyes were watery, a little red, as if touched by droplets of blood.
"I don't want to lose you," she said. "We've been family for so long. Spent our childhoods together, went through our struggles together, survived together. There's so much you have to live for, and yet you want to just throw it all away."
Kai felt a pang of regret ache in his heart. He'd only thought about himself and his cause. His desire to topple Elsia for what he thought was the greater good. Made him ignore the person in front of him, so close and so precious to him, and he felt ashamed, red hot tinges of shame rising up in his cheeks.
Yet he couldn't back down now.
"I understand how you feel, I do." Kai held up one of Leeva's hands. "But I already made the deal, and I want this. I really want it. If I had this power and let another family get slaughtered or another child get sent to starve on the streets, then I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
Kai interlocked his pinky with Leeva's in a promise. "So how about this? Brings up rusty memories, eh? It's a pinky promise – I won't die. Not to Elsia nor to anything else. I'll make sure I stand by you and the family the whole damn way through."
"I'm going to hold you to that, you know?" said Leeva. She smiled, her eyes fine now. It was remarkable how quickly she could compose herself.
"Wouldn't be a real promise if you didn't," said Kai, returning her smile.
_____________________
The drones stopped searching for them after an hour, which passed so quickly it hadn't felt like time had passed at all.
With the drones gone, they made their way back to the bunker, reaching it right as the sun was setting and the dark started to creep in, painting the desert sands of the Isles with dark. When they got to the bunker's entrance, Kai pressed a switch hidden in the sand, right where he'd stepped on to get the platform to lower them.
Something like an alarm would ring in the bunker, and whoever was closest to the main room – probably Pops – would pull a switch to get the platform to open up and lower them in.
The response came instantly, and the twin titanium doors opened, the platform below lowering the two into the main room where pops and Grunt stood patiently.
"Something wrong, pops?" asked Kai as he stepped down from the platform, Leeva following suit.
It wasn't normal for the two to be up in the main room like this. Grunt usually worked at the generator room while pops coached him on what valves to turn and what buttons to press. They made a decent duo. Grunt had the arm strength to do most work and, most importantly, could still see while pops, though blind, had the brains to make sure Grunt didn't blow the place up.
"Whatever you did, I regret asking you to do it," said pops.
"Very bad," affirmed Grunt.
Leeva and Kai blinked in unison, questioning, but they knew the situation had taken a dive for the worse.
"We had the radio on," explained pops. "And the Screws gave the whole Isles an emergency broadcast. And the situation is grim, to say the absolute very least."
"How bad?" asked Kai.
"Elsia has declared that all settlements in the Isles hand over every single Daemon to them. They are serious about this. More serious than they were thirty years ago when I lead a rebellion against them, because they knew we weren't threats. Just malnourished halfwits with stolen guns.
But now, they are doing everything they can.
They say they will send all they have within reason, their soldiers, their mechs, and go from settlement to settlement, village to village, rounding up every single Daemon. All those that do not cooperate will be killed. The entire Scrapper community that lives in the Isles has but twenty four hours to comply with their orders or face eradication."
Kai and Leeva stayed silent, their expressions twisting into grim frowns.
Pops sighed and said with weary words: "This is war."