The Matters of Power

Chapter 44- The Guerra Family [6]

We tell Quarter, Benson, and Jackson about what happened in the last few minutes, or what felt like hours for me as we hear the chaos that ensues inside their hideout. Carl tries his best to fix my bruises and scratches, though I can barely feel any pain for some reason. "It's amazing you held out for so long." Quarter sighs, "Y'all did good, I appreciate it. You can rest here for now; the duo and I will take it from here and reach J.J." They try to go through the entrance, but Yan just manages to grab the end of Quarter's pant leg. "Friend, I don't think you know how crazy that guy is. Marcus just barely managed to hold him down and I'm afraid that he'll do a lot worse to you now that he's in full rage mode." He kneels down and reassures him, "You know I won't let that happen. Worry about yourself, more of our guys are on their way to help y'all." He says nothing else as the three of them go inside the building where a full-on war is still going and there's no sign of calming down. I use my Sixth Sense View to get the view of inside and I sense complete chaos as there is fighting in practically every room, but what concerns me the most is the room closest to the roof where there are only three figures confronting each other. I've got to help stop this, before this gets any worse for us and all of the stray kids. I easily manage to sit up straight despite all of my injuries. "Dude! What are you doing, you're badly hurt enough that you shouldn't stand up with so much effort?" Carl tries to stop me, but I easily shrug him off as I walk towards the entrance. "I gotta help Quarter and the rest of 'em, I know how he fights enough to stop him." "You're crazy! You could possibly die if he hurts you even more than what he did! Marcus!" I ignore their protests and pleads and hurry on inside the hideout, knowing that every second spent is more of a chance that J.J's night of revenge will succeed.

The noise is almost unbearable as I walk through ever floor of the hideout, shouts and sounds of fist fighting erupt around me where I can only do nothing but stop the occasional stray who gets in my way. I get to the topmost floor and see that the door is broken off its hinges and inside the room, where I find Talia and Oscar fighting him in a 2-on-1 fight. They look to fight so well in-sync, but J.J is somehow still fighting and seems to know most of the moves that the twins use on him. Suddenly, as Talia runs at him with a high jump kick, he manages to grab hold of her leg and throw her back against the wall in a loud thud. "Sis! No!" Oscar tries to get to her, but he blocks him and punches him so fast that I barely process his hits. When he stops, he lightly pushes him backwards with his leg and falls flat on the ground. "I always did hate siblings who always looked out for each other so earnestly. Having the only family that supported you despite being abandoned must feel nice, huh?" J.J crouches right on his chest and taps Oscar's cheek. "This is no longer about survival, 'Father'. It's only a matter of returning the favor." Before I even think, I call out to him and enter the room. "Stop it! How many more strays have to get hurt before your anger consumes you!?" "Wha-?" He looks at me, surprised by my presence. I then hear footsteps behind me and see that Quarter and the duo have finally arrived after me somehow. "Marcus! I thought I told you to stay back down there!" He looks more concerned than furious at me, but J.J cackles so loudly that it gets our attention. "Oh, what a twist! You are someone special if you couldn't even stay down from that fight! This night is nothing but surprises for all of us!" I limp towards him, "You're being no better than the terrible adults you despise so much! Being a bigger bully that you can't move on from all this, nothing good comes from it." "Oh yeah!? If you're so sure, then how about you tell me what's so great about them!"

My legs move on my own and ignore all of the shouting from everyone else, seeing only the one man in front of me that caused all this. I see it, he focuses so much on his arms and legs that he hardly ever blocks his torso, and I can more than likely knock him out in one hit if I don't screw up. He closes in, my body reacting at an all-time high, I see the future outline of his attack, I take the lunge and just as he would hit me square in the jaw I duck and hit him in both sides of his stomach using both of my fists, then finishing it off with a roundhouse kick that sends him flying across the room towards an emergency exit door. Silence. My legs almost give away and I kneel down as Quarter approaches me and the duo check on Oscar and Talia. "...Wow." I look at him and see a mix of surprise and relief. "You are an absolute idiot for risking that. But good job, nonetheless." Coughing, I reply, "Sure. I guess I was always an idiot." I hear Talia and Oscar starting to get up, clearly having it rough from their fight with J.J. "God... even with my strength, I never thought he could take that many hits..." Talia tries to comfort Oscar, "It's fine. Good thing Marcus was here, but we can't be lazy now, there's so much that happened that the family is gonna be in shambles in its current state." "Right, right..." He looks towards me, staring at me as if I had done something so cringe. "...You ok?" "Oh, yeah, yeah." He snaps out of it, "Yeah, sorry. Too much has happened that I let my thoughts go overboard." "Right... now, we gotta talk about-" A door slams behind them and we see that the emergency exit door is wide open and J.J is no longer near it, meaning that he just booked it to the roof. "Crap, come on. What's that guy going to do now?" We waste no time arguing as we rush through the doorway and take the flimsy stairs to see the roof, the bright lights of nighttime San Anton, and J.J hanging around by the roof ledge.

What is he going to do now? Don't tell me... "J.J! What are you doing, get away from there, we gotta talk about this!" Oscar runs ahead of us to try to talk to him. J.J turns around to face him, but there are streams of tears coming down his face. "So this is how it all ends, huh? To think that everything I thought was going to be justified was just a lie. Look at me, all the chaos I have unraveled in this town, and for what? It's the end of the line for me." "Jack, what the hell are you talking about?! Get away from there, we can still talk this out!" He doesn't budge though and extends his arms out with a forced smile. "Marcus is right, I never was any better than those adults who wronged all of us. Remember what you said to me the first time you met me? 'The world will be against us, but we have our own powers that can change our ways?' It looks like I made everyone go against me, even the Crimson Group." He takes the leap off the ledge, and I instantly try to use my levitation powers to grab a hold of his shirt and pull him back up, but he falls away from my view that I can't get to him. Just like that, it's all over. None of us dare try to look over as it's obvious that he couldn't have survived such a height from the roof.

We hear sirens quickly approaching the hideout and Oscar grabs a hold of me as he rushes towards the stairs, "The cops are coming! Quick, we gotta get outta here, we'll use the fire exit to escape!"

Time goes by in a haze, and I can safely say that the fire of the Guerra Family has been snuffed out, for good this time.