The Matters of Power

Chapter 60- The Crimson Group, One Final Night [END]

All I can do is think, not feel. Whatever happens to me in the moment is what matters. Survival. Survival above all else is what matters and has always mattered to me. It was all I knew to do in this world, where the strong reign supreme and the system was always true, faults and all. Yet after all that, when I got some strange stone stuck on me and got supernatural powers, what then? I could think beyond survival, but what could I feel then? Joy, anxiety, confusion, frustration, apathy? To go so far yet go nowhere... what do I do after everything? I might as well be a freak, an anomaly of nature, to have these powers. What do I do? There are things I must do before I answer that question, but whether or not I can commit to the end is another question...

"...Wake up! C'mon, just open your eyes! You ain't dead yet, so don't go sleeping!" I feel a slap in the face, and I finally open my eyes to a plain ceiling and resting on a comfy leather couch. I turn my head to find Yan and Quarter looking their faces showing a mix of worry and relief. I try to get up from the couch, but a sudden pain flares up across my whole body and I force myself to lay down again. "Woah, woah, woah, slow down. I'm not sure how much damage you took fighting the bodyguard, but it doesn't take an amateur doctor to see that you are nearly damaged beyond repair." Now that I think about it, every part of my body is nearly covered in bandages, mixed with various medicine and my hands being severely bruised as well as my fingers nearly turned purple. "You're lucky we found all this stuff in this room. Hell, I didn't even think you would recover this fast and the two of us would probably have to go on without you." "...What happened?" They give a look of disbelief, "You... don't remember?" I feel like I made a big mistake. Quarter gives a look at Yan, then back to me. "It looks like you don't know. Ugh, looks like I'm gonna need to recap quickly, listen closely..."

Minutes ago, Quarter's perspective

When I saw Marcus stand up from the ground, my immediate thought I was hallucinating, my mind was probably making me see things I wanted to see differently. Those thoughts were dashed when I saw him through June away from me and to the door he was guarding, followed by a brutal lashing that I never thought Marcus could do. He got plenty of good hits in before June recovered and kicked him back, but he didn't manage to throw him off balance or knock him down. "You just earned your death sentence, brat." He retaliates with pole attacks that I can even barely see their motions, but Marcus doesn't even try to dodge and easily blocks all of his attacks with minimal damage. I see him prepare a thrust to target his neck that even he couldn't block in time, but to my shock Marcus grabs the end of the pole and yanks it towards him, pulling June to him and grabbing a hold of his face before slamming it to the ground. He still has such a strong hold on him that he lifts him up and throws him back to the door, then slamming the back of his head on it one, two, three times until finally he kicks him so hard that the door busts wide open. Somehow, I regained some strength to be able to stand up, and I trudge slowly beyond the doorway to find a huge room that is filled with every aspect of a house you could imagine: living room, kitchen, dining area, office, study, bathroom, even a bedroom with a luxury bed. "Wha- June! June!!!" I'm brought back to my senses as I spot the supposed leader of the Crimson Group, the woman that Marcus had told me earlier: Mina. Except she wasn't covered head to toe in all the frilly, girly stuff that he said he saw her wear then, rather, she had the same appearance that the funny-glasses man, the one who had 'invited' me, Carl, Yan, and Oscar to that closed restaurant days ago. I had assumed that there something off about him when we were there, but now that I see it with my own eyes, I now understand what that was: they're the same person and they tried to put a facade in acting like a guy instead of a girl in charge of the Crimson Group. 

Yet she disregards any idea of secrecy and rushes to the aid of June who has been in a wrestling match against Marcus on the ground and struggling immensely. "Evil!" She wails on Marcus with clumsy and wide hammer strikes. "Evil! Get off of my June, you horrible man! Stop it!" He didn't pay any attention to her strikes until she landed a pretty good hit on the top of his head, where he stopped attacking mid-swing and looked directly at her. He let go of June and went straight to her, knocking her down on the ground and prepared to go round 2 on her, but somehow, in every ounce of what can be a miracle, June could move even in such a horrid state that he managed to pull him off and that somehow knocked him out of his crazed state. He pulls himself up, looks at me with an intense stare, then suddenly grabs Mina's hand and slowly but surely trudges away from us and to the other side of the room where an elevator appears and they take it up, just as Yan arrives and sees the doors close and see the aftermath of the fight. He cursed at himself for not arriving sooner to help, but I had to remind him that we had more pressing matters to, mostly taking care of Marcus and treat him before anything else. Somehow, we found any and every medicine-looking thing that we could use on him, and we even found the other VIP people that Marcus was talking about that went missing with him. Amazingly, they had yet to wake up from their unconscious slumber, so whatever stuff they pumped in that room to knock them out had little effect on Marcus. We had debated on whether or not to leave Marcus to the other members of the group while we went on to pursue June and Mina, but not even 5 minutes had passed, and Marcus appeared to gaining strength and consciousness back from whatever possessed him before.