Redemption in a war

Chapter 12: Brother

Nexus almost fell out of his bed when he got rudely woken up by Rax literally yelling at him.

It took him a while to understand anything with his tired mind so he just looked at the old medic with an annoyed and confused look, making Rax repeat himself with the same urgency but less loud.

"Nexus, we received a transmission from someone who isn't apparently one of the Oppressors with a message and it's directed at you! We haven't opened it yet because we would like you to take a look first! Hurry!"

"Alright, alright! Let me put my armour on fir-"

"We don't have time for that! It could be something very important!"

Rax didn't even give him a second to get out of bed before grabbing his wrist and pulling him out of his room and through the hallways towards the main room.

As soon as they entered, the others that were already crowding the room, ushered him towards the biggest monitor.

"Calm down guys, it's just a message!" Nexus tried to assure.

Upon looking at the title of the message it just said 'Nexus' and the sender was simply 'Unknown'.

'Kinda weird I guess..' he thought but still calmly opened the message and started reading.

"Nexus

I will find you.

I know you are near.

You have to pay for betraying our glorious leader who shall bring us salvation and you, as his second, have thrown such opportunity away.

But of course you are nothing else but a failure.

See you soon brother.

-Cultrum"

He once again stood there with open eyes, completely shocked and enraged, not believing that after all these years, his horrible excuse of a brother has contacted him with this.

He was about to rip the metal table under the monitor with a keyboard off it's hinges and throw it against the monitor when he flinched at the sudden touch of his shoulder which was only covered by a flimsy T-shirt instead of his safe, thick armour.

"Nexus..what does he mean with" brother"..?" asked Prax with concern and confusion. It couldn't be that CULTRUM was Nexus' brother..

"You can read, don't you?" he hissed back.

Prax held his hands up in a way of defense and was taken aback by his teammate's tone.

The others in the mean time looked at Nexus in concern.

"What does this message mean?" Red now asked carefully.

"That someone is gonna die today." he answered in a grim tone.

"No one will die today!" claimed Onyx. He did not want to hear such thing from the one he cares about the most.

Nexus in turn grabbed Onyx's shoulders and looked at him in the eyes with piercing blue eyes that send chills down the leaders spine.

"You know who he is Onyx! Either it's me or him and I will not let this abomination walk upon this earth any longer!!"

"Um..and who is he exactly? I've never heard of a 'Cultrum'." asked Red once again.

Nexus slowly turned his head towards Red, making the boy feel creeped out and worried for the mental health of his brother-like-friend.

"He is part of the Oppressors but does his own despicable things and chooses to work alone. Not only does he kill Defenders and Ex-Opressors but also civilians and overall innocent people. He's just a bloodthirsty murderer who uses war as an excuse even though he's now a war criminal instead." Nexus answered with barely held together patience.