Guys, a word of advice before you continue reading this story: if you want to read my story or any story with ease follow these instructions. Refer to the bar just above this paragraph and click on the icon with the four black horizontal bars above.

See "Full 3/4 1/2"

Click on "1/2".

Now click on the "T" icon, and then click on "Tighten".

Is that better now? :D

JACK

Let me tell you a story.

Kelvetica was the name of the favela where I found Merida DunBroch. The winds were wickedly cold. A mangled squirrel breathed its last breath on the snow-crusted mud steps. Garbage and human excrement clogged the open sewers snaking down the slopes. Below and above were a maze of shacks, but in the distance alongside the beach stood the gleaming white homes of the rich.

Her opal blue eyes flashed with a kind of furious determination. Food was terribly scarce this season. Among the less fortunate, marasmic children could be made out for skeletons in the cracked brittle mud shacks unless you looked closer. And it pained Merida, I could see it in her eyes. "This was not the prosperity I had imagined for the Haddock-DunBroch village," she had said to her father. "If we let this persist any further, we will decay into nothingness, leaving empty abodes and a putrid stench in our lands. Or worse. We might end up like the other villages – defenseless. And left for those filthy Republic soldiers to pillage. "

I watched the young girl from above and traced her steps of determination. She had sidestepped a dead cat covered with maggots as she tightened the string of her bow. Based on the direction she was going, I figured she was making her way down to the dragon stables. Intrigued, I followed her, wheezing past barren tree branches.

A boy with rugged brown hair approached her. He stood a few inches taller than her. They wore the same fitting attire – a combination of plant fibers, flaxes, linens, cottons, and hemp. The people of Haddock-DunBroch ruling are survivalists out of necessity. They had to multiuse. Hoods shaped like tents could be rolled down into capes that blanket the back. Jackets could be unfolded into tent shelters. I always admired the recycling element to the material the Kelvetica inhabitants used.

"I really think you should give this a miss," the boy said.

"Come on, Hiccup, you know this is my thing! You've seen me pull it off every single time, ever since we were – "
"Ever since we were eight, I know!" Hiccup threw his hands up in frustration. "But they're starting to figure out how we move. We can't be careless! YOU can't be careless!" he exclaimed, jabbing a finger at Merida. "Last time I remembered, they managed to get a bullet in your side and your face on international tele – You're not listening, are you?"

"No, no, I am!" replied Merida, as she rubbed a handful of snow on her soil-crusted shoes.
"Merida! The penalty is now capital punishment! Once you're caught, that's it! Nada! Zilch! Zero!"
"Aw I think you look fine bro! Don't forget to feed Toothless and the other dragons," Merida smacked her childhood friend's cheek a couple of times, before sprinting off down the steps.
"Ugh! You know I hate it when you do that!" Hiccup yelled after her, rubbing his sleeve to his cheek. "And stop calling me 'bro'!"

But she was out of earshot to catch what he said. I watched as the friend-zoned boy threw his black beanie on the floor in frustration and kick at the snow. Two seconds later, he picked up his beanie and marched off to the dragon stables.

MERIDA

The adrenaline was coursing through my veins. When I finally heard the roaring wind and thundering echo of train on tracks, I burst through the bushes and sprinted straight for the vehicle. Electricity cackled in the air and even through my mask, I could almost taste it. Oh, didn't I tell you? The filthy rich Republicans had paid to instill a metal-netted ground charged with a lethally high voltage around the train tracks. Thankfully, Hiccup's electric-insulated rubber boots comes in handy here.

Why the shock, you ask?

Because of people like me. The media call us 'Runners', but government officials label us 'Looters'. Because we loot a few of their cargo trains containing imported animal products and vegetables. Pretty impressive work, since we Runners only carry out a raid in numbers less than five.

Hiccup once said we should be called 'Robin Hoods'. You should know that name! The heroic outlaw who steals from the wealthy and redistributes his stealing to the poor. Oh, and like us Runners, he's a skilled archer. Hiccup loved reading about him. I never really understood his love for books. But all the random factoids he would eagerly bring up were a good distraction from the blistering cold that frequents Kelvetica by night. That is, when we weren't too busy running the village.

I edged myself towards the seventh carriage. The tracker beeped, confirming the gold's location. As I hung to the bullet train, I finally caught the familiar sight of Hiccup and Toothless petering into sight from the clouds above. And then several other dragons. The dragon population's numbers have dwindled. Some starved to death, Many killed during the Great Revolt that finally ended five years ago. And then there were several baby dragons abducted for experiments or slavery by the ruthless Republic that took over after the Great Revolt. I had never felt so much anger before back then, as Hiccup and I fought to free as many as we could from heavily guarded concentration camps disguised as paramilitary and commando training installations. That rage had never left me, and had never dissipated.

Fire rained down and the electric netting on the roof of the trains was charred to dust.

Astrid raised the green flag, signalling the next step.

I swung myself onto the roof of the train and knelt down. The other two runners followed with simian dexterity and barely a sound. Bow in position and arrow hooked, I took a shot at the metal beneath my feet. The metal corroded under the acid that greedily ate at it. It was a something Hiccup had concocted out of a particular breed of dragons' spit.

The soft metal gave way beneath my feet and I was in the train. As expected, Republic soldiers stood guard with the cargo. As expected, they were startled. As expected, one of them hand reached for the emergency button. And I let them. Because my gaze was transfixed on something else. There it was. In the center of the heavily carriage, blocked by four armed soldiers, the Pink Star Diamond.

Don't let its childish name fool you. The Pink Star Diamond's value is a much bigger deal than what its name makes it out to be. It was mined in 1999 in South Africa. Weighing in at 59.6 carats, its market value stands at above $83 million. Hiccup had read about it in the news. He learnt it was the Elector's gift to his little sister, the Republic's darling. So he and I did our usual routine of hacking into the Republic's transit database to track down the gem's transportation location. And I was going to steal it.

The moment I settled my sights on the gem, one of the guards probably realised what I was planning to do.

"Guard the diamond!" he yelled.

Just as he raised his gun at me, I released the tear gas and the whole carriage was smoked. They could not fire off their shots now. I switched my goggles to smog vision and headed for the diamond. One by one, I muffled the guards' face with a cloth moist with benzodiazepine sedative and knocked them out. And then I grabbed the diamond. It was mine.

As soon as the smoke cleared, the remaining soldiers caught sight of me escaping through the safety door I had busted through. With the stealth I acquired over the years, I swung onto the top of the neatly stacked cargo crates and kept running. I shot another arrow as the metal wall that blocked off the sixth carriage.

"Get that Looter!"

Bullets started to fly as I reached the sixth carriage. That was where the artillery were. I sent a couple of arrows flying their way, setting off more tear gas as I sprinted off to the fifth carriage. They kept shooting blindly through the smoke. With an arrow hooked, I made a shot at the red metal crates, labeled 'HIGH EXPLOSIVES'. Grenades rolled out onto the floor. And I continued running down toward the fifth carriage.

The smoke had cleared and the dumbfounded soldiers saw the lethal instruments that littered the floor, rolling about with the train's movement.

"Make a move and I'll shoot," I shouted through my mask. I positioned an arrow at the explosives, and the guards stepped back. I had stabbed the tip of it into a fat piece coal alit with a large blue flame. More guards had arrived on site as the alarm continued to ring, leaving the other carriages containing precious food sparsely guarded. I had to buy them more time.

JACK

What happened next is too painful to describe with detail. All I can say is, there was fire and bloodshed. Plans backfired, the looting ended up fruitless and a home was taken apart.

I saw blood percolate through the pores of Kelvetica's soil.

I saw loss. I saw grief. I saw death.

So let me spare you the distress, and bring you to a slightly later time that is less agonising, but painful nonetheless.

CONNOR

"How did you end up in this place?" she asked. I kept my lips sealed.

You will refer to them as detainees. Not prisoners, the Elector had instructed.

But something about the infamous Runner disturbed me, stirred a weird feeling in me. The sight of that flaming red hair and opal blue eyes. And the nagging memory two months ago, of how she went berserk when she first laid eyes on me, screaming 'Hiccup' over and over and over again.

The Elector was right. The detainees were deranged, brainwashed to madness by the rebels at The Periphery.

I recalled how the other guards had to wrestle her down as she screamed and kicked and bit like a rabid dog. Like she has lost all her wits. Like she was dangling dangerously at the edge of madness It all stopped the moment they injected her with a tranquilizing shot.

"I thought you were someone I knew," the girl continued, as she leaned on the door I guarded on the other side. "Someone I saw died before me."

Still, I kept silent. Block her out Connor, I told myself. Block her out.

But for some reason, I couldn't.

"It's been a very long time, me waiting here, wondering how long it's gonna take for all this to end. Especially at the field."

The field. That was where I saw her last night, trapped in a square fish cage net. Shivering in the cold. Breathing hard. Staring helplessly at the other detainees forced into their own cage. Looking sadly at his fellow colleagues who pointed their rifles at her. As if she knew them.

"Why can't these things change?" she whispered.

There was something else the commando had said. Do not let them get inside your head.
"Don't waste your breath telling me this," I muttered. "You have dishonored the Republic. And you should serve your sentence like a good citizen."

She faced me as I averted my gaze. Her palms were pressed to the glass with a sad kind of urgency. "What did they tell you?"
"They didn't need to tell me anything. I saw you lead terrorists into the cities and kill innocent civilians."
"Or more like the Republic impersonated me and killed their own people."
"Anti-Republic propaganda," I dismissed.
"Not when what you see is not the truth."

I kept silent again. The commando was right. There was no use talking to these detainees.

Still her words nagged at me. What did she mean when she said what I see is not the truth? Did she really think she could dupe me into actually believing the Republic would impersonate her?

"The Elector brings order for the people of the Republic. Your attempt to make your own ruling and create your own despotic regime threatens the peace of the Republic. You deserve your life sentence."

"Call it what you want. While the people of Kelvetica starved because I failed to protect our farms from the Elector and his council, they had peace and freedom under my reign. And yes, the people of the Republic might have enjoyed peace as well under the Elector's extensive control as well. So think about this. The so-called problem at hand is that your young Elector and I rule differently. And your precious Elector just can't accept that."

And then what she said brought uneasiness to my heart.

"Why must my people follow your rules just because we are different?" she whispered. It almost sounded like a plea. A desperate plea. "If we follow your rules, it means we are admitting you have the right to give us rules. Which you don't."

I looked at her suspiciously. Upon close inspection, I saw that one of her eyes was a lighter shade of blue than the other. I frowned. It wasn't like that previously.

MERIDA

It has been two years since Hiccup snapped out of the Republic's hypnotism and helped me break out of that concentration camp. Three weeks after Astrid managed to release the footage revealing the Elector's daughter behind my impersonation as a leader of terrorists. And three days after I got onto a train that rode the tracks within the capital of the Republic.

I had pulled my hood down to reveal the red locks the world had learnt to recognize. And as I tore off my mask and lit the blue flare that the world now knows symbolises my call for freedom, Republic citizens on the streets roared and cheered, pumping their fists in the air at the sight of the blue flare. The blue flare that Hiccup and I thought resembled the fire Toothless can no longer breathe. That reminded us of the home we no longer had.

Apparently, cameras were raised to capture the images of the blue flare in my hand. That one moment became iconic as those images flooded cyberspace news. There were talk of the scars on my arm, and the paling of my left pupil: evidence that I was experimented on at the concentration camp. The Elector's council tried to dismiss those as the effect of cosmetics meant to spark suspicion. But the outrage sparked would not dissipate, and the situation quickly spiralled out of their control.

I had gotten up just this morning and looked up the cyberspace for news. A myriad of images and data and videos greeted me. One headline read 'Merida DunBroch's Rise Against the Elector'. Another showed a video compilation of me racing on top various bullet trains. In another video, the scene of an oriental lady was speaking in a choppy foreign tongue. Another headline read 'DunBroch Amongst Two Thousand Detainees Tortured'.

The memory of the young Elector at the concentration camp came back. He had sneered at me behind the metal bars that separated us. "You will not succeed," the young Elector said. "You cannot make the change you want."

I exhaled and looked away from the floating news archives. Do I feel exhaustion? Yes. But have I given up? No.

There are those who say fate is something beyond our command. That destiny is not our own, but I know better. Our fate lives within us, you only have to be brave enough to see it.

As the memory of the young Elector's taunts resurface, the raging beast in my chest thundered and roared.

The fight had only just begun.

The end.