Chapter. 64

Vincent awoke to the morning sunlight, rubbing his forehead Vincent blinked to clear his vision. Vincent took a long breath when the door opened and a nurse walked in. "Hello Vincent, how are you feeling?" She asked as she checked the IV.

"I feel numb."

"I'll lower the morphine drip a level. Can you raise your arm, I need to change out you bandages."

Vincent lifted his arm and watched the nurse remove the wrappings and show the pads over the wound, the nurse removed them to be replaced with clean ones. Vincent froze when he saw the wound, almost wide enough to see through. Vincent had a bitter taste in his mouth as his mind went back to when he was shot.

The monitor went off as Vincent's heart rate spiked. The nurse covered Vincent's eyes with her hand and turned him away. "You can't look at this!" The nurse waved her hand down and pointed a few spots in the air, a sedative came through the IV to calm Vincent down.

When Vincent regained his senses the nurse was gone and his bandages were replaced. He placed his hand on his chest and cool chill ran down his whole body. A message came up to take Vincent away from his thoughts, he lifted his hand to open it.

"Hello Vincent, or Eminence Tyrant as your avatar name. I know who you are, I know who your friends are. In this message in a link to a private chat room. At four in the afternoon it'd be best to come in for your own protection."

Vincent started to panic and started massaging his friends to check in on them. Before his finished his first one Vincent's arms began to hurt, Vincent lightly rubbed them then went back to typing but much slower.

The first reply was from Rebecca. "The massage knew who I was in brain burst. If you're going then I'm going too."

A few minutes later Lyle replied. "Corina and I are going. If you think you are up to it then we'll see you there too."

An hour had past but there still wasn't anything from Levi. Not sure what to do Vincent decided to leave her be. For now took a hold of the bed railing to pull himself up, pain coursed through his arms. Vincent stopped to breath and let the pain fade away. When it was over Vincent found a remote connected to his bed and raised it to let himself sit up.

...

The clock struck four and Vincent logged into the link given to him. Entering the cyber world Vincent found himself in a theater lobby. A few seconds later Rebecca appeared."V!" Rebecca tackled Vincent and hugged him.

"Hey Reby."

"Are you feeling alright? Should you be here?"

"I'm good Reby. I don't feel the pain in this place."

Lyle and Corina appeared a moment later. "Hey Vincent!" Corina waved as she and Lyle joined their friend.

"Are you feeling any pain?" Asked Lyle.

"I'm good. Let's get this over with."

Levi entered the lobby though she keep a small distance from the others. "Hey Levi!" Shouted Corina.

"Hey." Levi nodded to her. She glanced to Vincent for a second then looked away.

The lobby doors opened, leading to a large gold and red theater. Bright lights filled the whole room then pointed to the giant red curtain covering the stage.

"Great, a show off." Vincent took the lead into the theater.

The lights dimmed behind them as they walked down the red carpet to the stage. The curtain raised to reveal a stage set with props to create a scene of a mountain range. In the center of the stage stood one person in a bright white long coat, pants, shoes and blond hair. The person's left hand was in their pocket with their right hand out snapping.

The person spun around to face the group, wearing a gold face mask. The person dances as they drew closer to the group before them, when they reach the edge they held up their hands. "Welcome to my theater!" They spoke sounding like a teen male.

"Get to the point. How do you know about us?" Asked Lyle.

The person bowed. "Since I know of you all. It's only fair you know of me. I am the leader of the topaz legion. Topaz Trickster's the name."

"How did you learn about us?" Asked Levi.

"This day and age? Information in everywhere and easy to get if you know what you're looking for. More so for someone like me who lives on the internet."

"Sounds like Catherine." Said Vincent.

Topaz nods. "Catherine. The opal spy. I know full well she was going to backstab my legion, or was before she ended up arrested. Still, let's get to the point of your summons here. I'd like you all to join the topaz." Topaz turned away from the group and walked along the stage edge. "Now before any of you ask why let me fill you in. See for Vincent the former members of the opal still want his head for the death of their leader. True or not they don't care, they want a scapegoat. The rest of you are his friends, guilt by association. They'll come for all of you too."

Topaz turned back to the others. "I can give you protection, keep you safe from the lynch mob."

Vincent crossed his arms. "As long as we fight the emerald legion."

"You got it!" Topaz pointed at Vincent then raised his hands to clap. A crowd cheered all around them. "Amber, sapphire, ruby. All fell at your hand Vincent, you're a king slayer Vincent. Though it's not too shocking, Vincent does mean victory so it's expected of you to always win."

Topaz waved his hands and the cheering stopped. "The rest of you, I know about your system to find legion leaders. I'll protect you all from the mobs if you can find me the emerald leader." Topaz stomped his foot and a staircase formed in front of the stage. "We're all actors in the play called life. Will you stay bit characters or will you come up and claim the spotlight?"

The group looked to each other until Lyle spoke up. "We'll need sometime to meet and talk it over in the real world."

Topaz snapped his fingers and curtain came down slowly. "Understandable, but don't take too long. The play is set, your parts are ready, all that's left is to take them." The curtain came down and the lights pointed to the exit.

...

An hour later Rebecca walked into Vincent's room. "Hey V!"

"Hey Reby. How have you been?"

"Never mind me what about you?"

"Bored but still alive so you know. Can't complain."

"HEY!" Corina swung the door open as she and Lyle entered.

Behind them Levi crept in but stayed by the door.

"Hey Everyone." Vincent waved to the new comers. "Should we get to business?"

Corina stood by the window and crossed her arms. "Well on one hand we can go online again without people coming after us. We can also fight to keep our homes safe from the amethyst."

Lyle shook his head. "On the other hand we'd back to how things were in the opal, under the legion leaders thumb. Our action would be dictated by topaz who might not want us not to defend our homes, letting them go to amethyst so we need his protection."

"Well we can't stay like this forever. We're going to have to pick a side in this war eventually or we'll always be hiding, and topaz is the only one offering a hand."

"But we need to pick a side that will look after us. Topaz is the first welcome us but they aren't the only."

Rebecca looked over to Levi. "What do you think Levi?" Levi didn't answer. "Levi?"

"What?" Levi kept her sight away from anyone.

"I wanted to know what you thought."

"I don't really care."

"Are you-"

"I'm fine! I just don't want to be here!" Levi grabbed the door handle and threw it open, revealing Elizabeth hiding behind it. "Move!" Levi stormed past Elizabeth.

"Levi!" Corina and Rebecca rushed out to catch up to Levi.

Elizabeth watched them confused as she stepped into Vincent's room. "What was that all about?"

Vincent glanced to Lyle then back to his sister. "How long were you listening?"

"Long enough to hear about trusting topaz and brain burst."

Vincent groaned and laid back. "Fine. Might as well tell you about the hell we're stuck in."

! #$%^&*()_+}"?:{

Please review, it keeps us writers going. Till next time, CG out. PEACE!