The Matters of Power

Chapter 57- One Final Night [4]

Man, Quarter must have been worried out of his mind if he just hugged me after seeing me wandering around in their base. We both know that I can handle myself in a fight especially if it comes to petty thugs like the ones in the Crimson Group, but to see him in such a state... man, it kinda hits me in the feels. "Dammit man," Quarter gives me a heavy sigh, "don't scare me like that. I know that you wouldn't go down easily, but you still had me worried. What happened?" As much as I would like to give Quarter every detail about what has happened since I infiltrated Red Buster's, we're still in the middle of an alerted gang hideout who are actively hunting me down. I gotta explain it to him as quickly as possible, about my infiltration before getting caught, my imprisonment, and after I broke free.

Current Perspective: Quarter

It's amazing how Marcus managed to break out of his cell and managed to sneak his way here before they sounded the alarm, even more so that he did all this while in the heart of the enemy's den with only his psychic powers. After quickly explaining his situation, he adds more information that he found out. "While I was moving up the floors, I overhead a group of talking about where my stuff is since it wasn't on me or in my cell room when I escaped. Turns out, that bitch and her bodyguard snatched it for themselves and are probably on the third floor with Phinn and the others I saw in that VIP room." ...'That bitch'? As far as I'm aware, I assumed that the Crimson Group had all-male members within their ranks, and to hear a female in this crowd is very concerning for me. Unless... "Hold on-" Marcus's twitching interrupts my train of thought as he tenses up and looks back in the direction where he came from. "Quarter, I sense a large amount of people- dozens, maybe- heading our way from the lower floors. Crap, we don't have much time, we gotta go! Where are the stairs?!" I quickly follow Marcus as I give him the directions to the stairs that I used from the floor above, swiftly moving to stay ahead of the mob of thugs on our tail. "How'd you even get here, Quarter? What about Yan and the others?" He starts pelting me with questions as we're running and I answer him as quickly as I can, "That pin you gave me earlier was a helpful tool. It helped me gain access to their hidden entrance that their elevator uses in Red Buster's to go down here. I arrived on this floor (B5) because of the elevator so anything above that I don't know what lies ahead." "Go down? You mean we've been underground this whole time, underneath Red Buster's?!" It takes him as a surprise to learn about it, though I guess it's understandable since they did use knockout gas on him before taking him here. "If you're the only one here, then what happened to Yan? How come he hasn't gone-" "Oi!" Our conversation is interrupted by some Crimson Group thugs who are in our way to the next set of stairs. "Looks like we found the brat who didn't stay in his room! How'd the other one gets down here, anyway?" "Who cares, the boss says we stop any intruders, we do so! He wants the good-looking one intact, beat the other one as much as we need to!" Dammit, they're rushing over in a swarm to stop us! Even though they hold various melee weapons while we only have our fists, they don't hold a candle to our skills. Marcus strikes first, feinting a winding fist to let the first thug guard with his baseball bat, but changes stances at the last second and delivers a palm strike under and over through the gap between his weapon and his body. He stumbles hard and lands hard on his ass but drops his baseball bat for Marcus to pick up. "Hey! There's more than one of us, you know!" Another thug gets my attention as he swings his crowbar haphazardly not able to be close to hitting me, yet I use his momentum against him as I grab the crowbar and yank it from his hands, stumbling him forward before delivering a strong swing to his head.

Current Perspective: Marcus

The both of us at least have some weapons to defend ourselves with, but we are still outnumbered, and they are slowing us down far more than what we can afford to. "Uh, dammit! Come on guys, there are more of us than them, and they're just high school kids! Beat 'em to a pulp!" They rush at us once again, but with the odds slowly with us, we quickly make short work of them and can no long stop us from moving forward again. "We can't stop, we gotta keep going." I urge Quarter forward as we finally head up the stairs leaving floor B5 and up to floor B4. As the alarms still ring throughout the base, I'm still surprised that they are still concentrated on the lower floors, and we've only encountered paltry resistance. Suddenly, my Sixth Sense View kicks in again. "Watch out, I sense more Crimson Group thugs up ahead and they're hiding just ahead of when we get up the stairs. Don't let them hit you by surprise." Damn, just as I finish saying that we ascend the last steps of those stairs and see just how close those thugs are to where they could ambush us and it's thanks to my warning that Quarter manage to block a surprise attack with his crowbar and knock him flat on his feet. "Stupid little... how'd they figure out it out?!" "Can it, it don't matter! Surround those little shits and let the others know we found 'em!" They attempt to surround us just by using their numbers alone, but we manage to keep them at bay thanks to our melee weapons we took from the group before. I manage to see one of the thugs toward the rear on his phone, no doubt calling for reinforcements to this floor, but because of the human wave standing between us and him we can't do anything. "Hold on Quart, give me some room, keep 'em away from me!" I suddenly had an idea that could work in our favor and it's a good thing he believes me because I see him immediately follow through and keep them as far away from me as he humanly could. My idea has me using his baseball bat as if it were a javelin, aiming beyond the human wave of thugs and then throwing it as hard as he could beyond their heads and to the thug who is calling reinforcements, smashing both the phone into pieces and knocking the thug onto the ground. "Got 'em! Quart, we gotta go, we can't hold them off like this!" "Got it!" Quarter reply as he grab hold of one of the thugs attacking me and swinging him towards the human wave so that it can give us a running start. "Go, go!" "Hey! Come back here, you got nowhere to run, you little shits!" We ignore their threats as we hightail it in the opposite direction where we run into a hallway intersection and a furious mob of thugs on our tail.

Before we can make a decision on which direction to go to, Crimson Group thugs start appearing in all directions and slowly flood their way to us, as if they want to bask in their genius idea to corner us like this. Dammit, I was so focused on the ambush that I didn't sense the others hiding away to corner us like this when we got here! We ready ourselves for another close-quarter brawl, but they surprise me by pulling out guns! The muzzles of pistols and submachine guns are pointed directly at our chests and ready to spray away if we make one wrong move. I know for sure those aren't toy guns! "No sudden moves, you little shits! Even you aren't stupid enough to go against a guy with a gun, huh! Not so tough now, are you?!" Shit, shit, shit, what do we do now?! Run in one direction against all odds? No, we get shot from the front and back. Jam their guns with my psychic powers? Too risky, I never done that before, and I can't guarantee that they won't notice, or their guns won't go off. Take my chances being captured? Heck no, I can't fight my way out of a whole mob holding me hostage and that crazy bitch Mina will probably do some horrible things to Quarter and I when she gets her grubby little hands on us. "Hey! You deaf or something? I said on your knees and hands behind your head, the both of ya!" One of the thugs with a gun starts shouting that my train of thought got interrupted. "...Marcus." I hear Quarter whisper to me as he puts his hands behind his head and the thugs get even closer to us. "...You better have a plan for this." Dammit, man, way to put even more pressure on me! Uh, uh, think, Marcus, think! Look around, there are doors, ceiling lights, fire sprinklers, fire sprinklers... ah, got it! Okay, I think I got it, if I just use my Levitation ability to manipulate the inside of the nearby ceiling lights and fire sprinkles... mess up whatever parts they use so that they can turn off or activate all their water... God, I have no idea how that stuff works- "I won't say it again! Get on your knees, now! "They're getting dangerously close to us that if I waste more time they'll directly on top of us. "Quarter," I quickly whisper to him, "I got a plan, but ya gotta trust me. When the lights are cut, run directly behind us and plow through the-" "No talking! Guys, cuff 'em." It's now or never, I gotta go through with the plan! I can feel the parts that are just ready to be yanked on by an imaginary line that are all connected to an imaginary hand that is my psychic ability, and a firm tug is all it takes for all the ceiling lights to go dark and the fire sprinklers start pouring out water on top of us, stunning them and blinding them for a crucial amount of time.

"Run, now." I don't need to say anything else to Quarter as we do a 180 turn and frantically run through the thugs in our way that are still in a state of shock. Thankfully, we manage to quickly pass without stopping and run across the hallway where we can see the stairs with what little vision we have with the lack of lights. "Uh, dammit, where'd they go?! Find them, after them, guys!" I can hear what I assume to be one of the Crimson Group leader's act of frustration. Jeezus, that was awfully close, too close than I would like to experience in one night. My hands are shaking, my legs can't stop shivering even as we head up to floor B3 and we still have gun-wielding maniacs after us and I really would like to avoid having guns being aimed at me if I can really do so unless I can do something about it with my psychic powers. I sense more people up ahead, but this time these aren't the figures of more Crimson Group thugs... no, they're Swift Cross! Ah, thank goodness they got here! "Quarter, I can sense Yan and the others up ahead, we gotta tell them what's goin on." "Agreed, at least we have some backup."

Thankfully, we turn around a corner and we find Yan leading his group of Swift Cross members, waving us over with a smile as we catch up to him.