Part I: The Terrance Montgomery Ploy
Edmond had no idea what he’d gotten himself into. His superior—who was a Boroughman—had told him to go with a small troop to Avarier Theater, one of the largest theaters in Everton Borough. He had been told that there had been an incident. An incident regarding the Everton Family - the Great House that ran Everton Borough. Edmond didn’t think much of the Great Houses outside of the fact that they were all posh imbeciles who let innocent Circulions die for their politics. So naturally, he assumed it was some minor issue, but once he got to the theater, what he saw shocked him to his very core.
It was a bloodbath.
Everyone who had attended the opera that day was lying dead on the floor in puddles of blood. Some seats had holes in them from gunfire, bodies were left hanging from the upper balconies, and even the actors on stage were not spared from the brutality.
“Why did they kill the actors? They were human,” Edmond asked himself. The murder of humans wasn’t rare in Hatlynshire. The Circle itself was no stranger to having its hands covered in the blood of innocent casualties both human and Circulion; Edmund knew that from experience. But there was no question about who had committed this particular atrocity, for the grisly nature in which the victims had perished was the signature style of the Order of Man and their vicious Hunters. And while Edmond wasn’t the biggest supporter of the Great Houses, he still wouldn’t wish such a gruesome fate onto anyone.
“Look, the swine even hung the bodies on stage!” shouted Jack, one of the other soldiers. Edmond looked towards the stage. He saw seven bodies hanging just above the stage floor with nooses around their necks. There were two men, two women, and three children. It was the sight of the children hanging from the ceiling that disgusted Edmund the most.
“I never thought the Order of Man would be so brazen,” said Jack, morbidly observing the hanging bodies.
“The Circle will get their revenge. I suspect it was a trap, a sabotage. The Order of Man isn’t supposed to know where members of the Great Houses are at any given time,” Edmond muttered.
“Right you are. I hear it was an intentional betrayal. I’ve heard rumors that it was a Guildsman in the Actor’s Guild. Someone they were threatened or bribed. Rumor has it that the poor fool handed himself over to one of the companies at Brunsfort when he heard about what happened here, so I imagine they must have tricked him somehow.”
“Maybe, but how?” Edmond thought as he inspected the bodies strewn around the stage. How had the Order of Man gotten to a Guildsman? It should have been impossible. If what Jack said was true, then that Guildsman would be tried and most likely executed. An incident like this could even spark a war between the Circle and the Order of Man.
“I still can’t believe a Great House has been extinguished! This is more certainly the doing of that Montgomery fella. He must have been planning this for years! This is the most damage the Order has done to the Circle in centuries! Curse that entire dynasty is what I say! His forefathers must be singing in their graves over what he has done here!” Jack cursed.
Edmond went silent. He walked along the corpses, covering his boots in blood. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, since it wasn't like any of them were alive. Just as he was about to turn around and leave, a faint voice echoed from somewhere in the theater.
“Help...” it said. “Help…”
Edmond immediately rushed to where he thought he had heard the voice. It sounded like a little boy. He began to move the bodies around him, suspecting that maybe he was trapped beneath the bodies. He pushed aside all the old and bloody corpses until he spotted a small hand sticking out from under a large man. The fingers of the hand twitched and moved.
“Help me…”
“Hey! I think I have someone here!” he shouted desperately.
Edmond began to lift the body on top of the boy as Jack and some other soldiers came rushing to his aid. Once Jack reached him, he and Edmond pulled away the body of a man. Still lifting the body, Edmond spotted the boy lying on the floor, completely covered in blood. His eyes were closed at first, but as they watched, he let out a large gasp as though he had been choking on the blood coming out of the man. Edmond immediately grabbed the child and hoisted him up to a sitting position. The boy started to breathe rapidly as though he were in a panic, but Edmond tried his best to calm him down.
While comforting the boy, he took some time to examine him. He looked about twelve years old, and was neatly dressed in a three-piece suit. Edmond noticed the Circulion pin he had, so he knew the boy was a member of the Circle.
“You, boy. Are you alright?”
“The men with… the-the angle faces. They killed… they killed everyone!” The boy gasped. Edmond held his hand and instructed him to take deep breaths. The boy obliged.
“Do you have a name?” he asked. The boy turned his head towards him and gave a scared stare as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“My name is… is… Uly-Ulysses. Ulysses… Everton.”
The moment the boy said that name, a wide stare enveloped Edmond’s face. The shock nearly overwhelmed him, and by their faces, all the other soldiers too. He saw Jack’s mouth drop.
“Impossible…” he told himself while in his surprised state. A state that Jack brought him out of by coming close to him and whispering into his ear.
“Edmond, take this boy out of this theater. We’ll have to burn it to the ground to avoid suspicion.”
Edmond simply nodded and lifted the boy up into his arms, ready to carry him out of the theater as the soldiers set fire to the place.
“The Order’s plan had failed.” He thought to himself. “The House of Everton lives on.”
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