"Betrayal cuts deeper than any blade… especially when the traitor once called you hermano."
---
Jungle of Knives
It was raining in Bukidnon. Not just water — it was raining lead, sweat, and old regrets.
Juan gripped his bolo tightly as he and Isko trudged through the dense, slippery underbrush. The trees whispered of war. Every snapping twig, every fluttering bird, could be a sniper's breath.
> Isko: "He's close. Tommy's good, but he leaves crumbs."
Juan: "He always did. Like a rat."
Their boots were soaked in mud. Their rifles damp. But their hearts? Boiling.
Tommy Brown — once a friend, now a Judas.
He had given Los Tigres Negros their locations, their identities, their lives.
---
Flashback: The Deal
Weeks before, Tommy had entered a bar in Surigao.
He sat with a foreign agent, one of the Pearl Cartel's European arms dealers. In his suitcase: files. Names. Photos. Coordinates.
> Tommy: "I want out. I want a cut. You get your intel, I disappear."
Agent: "And your friends?"
Tommy: "They were never my friends. Just people I worked with."
A signature. A handshake. A future paid for in treason.
---
Isko's Trap
Back in the present, Isko rigged a booby trap on an old bridge — tripwire attached to a flash grenade.
Juan baited Tommy using an open comms line.
> Juan (radio): "We're done running, Tommy. Come face us. Be a man."
Hours passed. The jungle waited.
Then—snap! BOOM!
A flash of light. Screams. Movement. And then…
Tommy Brown appeared. Machete in one hand. An old pistol in the other. Shirt torn. Eyes bloodshot.
> Tommy: "You think you're better than me, Juan? You think this is justice?"
> Juan: "No. This is personal."
---
Knife Fight at the Falls
They clashed under the Kinakin Falls — a roaring cascade where the mist made everything slippery. No guns now. Just blades and knuckles.
Tommy slashed, fast and wide.
Juan countered with clean strikes — bolo against machete.
The waterfall roared behind them, like nature demanding blood.
Tommy landed a cut on Juan's cheek.
Juan stabbed Tommy's shoulder.
They fell. Rolled. Bit. Screamed. This wasn't a duel — it was a reckoning.
> Tommy: "You were always too righteous!"
Juan: "And you were always for sale!"
Finally, Juan disarmed him.
He pressed the bolo to Tommy's throat — but paused.
> Isko (arriving): "Do it. He'd have done worse."
But Juan didn't kill him.
> Juan: "I want him to rot in a cell. Let the people see what betrayal looks like."
---
Public Justice
A week later, Tommy Brown stood trial in Davao.
The evidence was overwhelming. Leaked videos. Confessions. Testimonies.
But what shook the nation… was Juan's televised statement.
> "This man betrayed not just us… but the memory of every hero who died for this country. He sold our past. He endangered our future. Let this be a lesson:
The shadows are always watching."
Tommy was sentenced to life in solitary confinement.
---
The War Continues
The Pearl Cartel wasn't dead. Not yet.
But they were exposed.
Their routes dismantled. Their agents hunted. Their name — tainted.
Juan, Maria, and Isko stood by a burning crate of stolen artifacts — returning them to the soil of Mindanao.
> Maria: "One traitor down. One tiger to go."
> Juan: "Then let's go hunting."