Clover Madden and the Order of Ivan

Prologue-

May 17th, 1935; The previous Traitor of the Year ceremony:

Cassius stands before the Flipped Earth with an air of unwavering confidence and indisputable superiority, his gaze locked upon the wife and children of this year's traitor.

He doesn't remember the name of the man he is about to shoot, let alone his family's. They are scum from Dreth—not of much use to him.

Nobody in Dreth is important enough for their names to be remembered.

After a moment, he glances down to his pale hand where the name got scribbled out in neat penmanship. Arthur Booker.

Just staring at the unholy man causes that stupid name to reverberate in his head like the repetitive beating of a steel drum. He wants to shout at Booker for even existing.

The urge to inflict suffering on the criminal until there isn't a single trace of humanity left in the man's soul becomes more tempting by the second. He wants to see Booker mutilated beyond recognition—painted with so many bruises, wounds, and broken bones that he looks like a dead man walking before the execution has begun.

However, he must let the show start now. There is already enough to work with, seeing as Booker's face is puffed up from the psychedelics that the Order had force-fed him. He wasn't capable of falling asleep for Ivan knows how long, leaving his red-tinted eyes manic-looking.

Snapped back to reality, he sees that Arthur Booker is staring madly out in the distance, pupils dilated to the point that the whites of his eyes are hardly visible anymore.

Despite the pain that it must bring him, he has a wide smile plastered onto his battered face. He looks delirious with insanity. Nearly foaming at the mouth.

Cassius soon decides that he'd better make a speech before the crowd gets bored. It's custom that he does this, otherwise he'd be a terrible leader. Without his speeches, he wouldn't give them anything to hope for. He wouldn't be able to continue making them fear him. That's what power is, anyway. Fear.

Once he has finished speaking, he raises the gun to the man's head....but before he pulls the trigger, he turns to the wife and children to make sure that they are properly watching. The oldest of the man's two sons, who can't be much older than ten, is staring at Cassius, horrified. He gives the boy a toothy grin in return. The younger one, probably about seven, covers his face with his hands. The moment that the mother notices Cassius looking at them, she directs her youngest son's hands away from his eyes.

Booker seems to have gone even more demented with the anticipation...that becomes clear the moment the poor sinner begins to laugh. And not just light chuckling—full-body laughter, as though this situation is the most hysterical thing that he has ever experienced. Each snort that he lets out sounds increasingly deranged, like the howling of a crazed wolf on a full moon. The temerity of him!

"Just kill me, yeh bas'ard," Booker grunts out after a long while of the rest of the crowd just staring at him. He is no longer cackling, "What're yeh waiting 'fer?"

Enraged, and without waiting another second, Cassius pulls the trigger...

The gunshot reverberates through the audience like an echo in a cave as Booker's brains are blasted from his skull.

The crowd is silent for a moment, as costume before the applause.

However, his moment of heroics is ruined by the sound of the younger son's screaming.

It has been ten seconds and nobody is clapping for Cassius.

They are supposed to applaud him but nobody is following orders because of that damned little boy. Something must be done...

He must be punished...

Cassius gives his recruits the look and they move to take the boy toward him. The wife begins to cry out, begging for the Order to take her and not the pathetic weakling. To show mercy to her family. But Cassius Anwir never shows any mercy.

Not when justice has to be served.

Another one of the recruits restrains the mother while Cassius decides to deal with the child. Maybe a week in Ancead will do them both good...Or a week in the capital...

However, his recruits must have misread the order because, after what only feels like a millisecond, two more gunshots ring through the air and the oldest son is left to stare at his family of corpses.

It isn't long before the crowd begins to applaud.