(A.N.) Hey, sorry about that delay, and unfortunately, the next chaoter may take even longer. My exscuse? School sucks. Sorry =P This chapter has a little action, with finnishing off the battle that was started last chapter. I hope you all enjoy. Please remember to review so I know what needs to improve!

Awaken: Book of Bonds

Chapter 15, Bonds of Brotherhood

Cold rainy nights, these were perfect for my job. All I had to do was steal what was already stolen. Take the sword of the great Ferric Dublin, who leaded Ireland in WWIII, which had been stolen by a petty swordsman, who believed that great swords made the master, rather than the other way around. I cornered him, not that he was running, e simply walked right to a dead end. "You sure you want to face me, mister?" He chuckled "I have the sword of one of history's bravest bladesman; you believe you can handle it?"

"It's the man that makes the sword powerful, in the hands of a careless bastard, like you; it's little more than a sharpened twig." I retorted.

"Oh, really? Then bring it on!" He shouted as he unsheathed the saber, charging me sloppily. I wouldn't even have to make this a sword fight. I easily side stepped him, and caught his leg from underneath him, his face hit the unforgiving concrete of the allay in which we stood, and cracked his skull. The sword of my old friend lied a few meters away, carelessly dropped by the now unconscious buffoon.

"Not everyone is meant to be a swordsman." I shrug, as I sheath the fine sword, and return to Farric's house. 'Kid's these days; they make my job too easy.'

"Ah, George Jury! What can I do you for?" Asked my old comrade.

"Just returning what is yours." I smirk.

God, lightning was fast. It was using all of my concentration to find where it would hit, and pushed my limits to respond, striking the bolts with my own streams of electricity, or touching them with my element blades to absorb the shock. I took a brief second to check Robert's progress; it looked like he was still hard at work disabling the bomb. More and more lightning kept shooting for the rod… Damn that fucking artifact.

I took another glance to see Tyson having an easy time with the Dr. who was impaired with his magnetic glove, which kept making him lurch toward Tyson with every swing of the blade. It appeared that the sword was too heavy to be moved by the magnet. I focused on my task once more. I can't let a single bit of lightning hit that rod.

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This fucker wouldn't give up; he quickly learned that the weight of my blade was greater than the magnetic force of his invention. After about 5 minutes of dodging, he remembered he had a gun in his hands, and began to shoot at me. I dodge his bullets, just as I had learned to, but I had some difficulty here in the dark. My night vision made everything appear in green, and bullets were tough to discern from everything else. Not to mention I couldn't see anything when the lightning stuck. Every now and then, a shot would hit, but my bullet proof suit allowed me to brush it off. However, I couldn't make any mistakes; one shot to the face could still be fatal. So I had no choice but to keep my distance.

Come on guys, finish up… I thought as a bullet whizzed by my helmet. There's no way I can do this forever.

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I spent a large amount of time distinguishing the wires in the dark of night, and then I had to carefully disable and remove each explosive pack. I nearly scream as my hand slips, and I nearly pull an active wire, which would trigger the explosion. Fuck… This is way too intense. I hear Tyson's giant blade whoosh near my head, but I ignore it. From Zimmerman's grunts, I decided that Tyson was having little trouble. It was Devante, who was desperately jumping about, stopping lightning from striking a mere meter or two away from their target. Just a little longer… I had disabled and removed about half of them already. After I finish them all, I'll just have to carefully remove the rod. All the thunder was very distracting, though. It took all my restraint to not jump when it hit, then, gunshots started from behind me.

This could only mean that the Dr. had gone on the offensive, not only did this mean that Tyson was in danger now, but the distraction made it incredibly harder to concentrate on the wires. More and more close calls were made as the minutes went by, nearly setting off explosions that would kill thousands of innocent people. Damnit, I hate pressure… Devante was doing a great job of redirecting lightning, without him; we'd all be dead right now. Tyson was without a doubt important here too, if he wasn't taking on all of Zimmerman's attention, I would have been killed a while ago. This was a much larger strain on our teamwork than anything we've ever experienced.

"One explosive pack left…" I mutter into the transmitter.

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Robert was almost finished, that meant that I had to get rid of this Zimmerman bastard, ASAP. If he rewired this rig, even without the rod, shit would hit the fan fast. I dodged his bullets with difficulty, looking for an opening in the night. I bided as much time as I could, and waited. Finally, he had to reload. I ran up to him and kicked him square in the jaw, he stepped back to catch his balance, and was left right where I wanted him.

"So long, doc!" I shouted out to him as I threw my sword in a saw blade motion, circling through the air at a deadly speed. He sidestepped its trajectory, just as I expected.

"Your weaponless now, kid!" He yelled back as the blade passed, and then he realized the gravity of the situation, rather quickly. His magnetic glove covered hand helplessly flung toward the metal, but wasn't strong enough to stop it, so it followed it by force, pull the Dr. along with it.

His scream pierced the air as he fell; he probably hadn't even realized how close he was to the edge of the building after I kicked him. My sword had lodged itself into a steel girder in a nearby skyscraper. Suddenly, his voice came to a dead stop. It's way too early for him to have hit the ground… Looking over the edge, he was hanging off of a metal spire in the structure. He looked above to see me pull out my revolver, and wave goodbye as I ended him. One less psychotic asswhole in my way.

Turning to my friends, I see Robert remove the final wire of the bomb. "Success!" He cheered, falling back in relief. Devante and I walked over to him to help him up. After we all caught our breath, we began to walk to the edge of the building.

"Oh, wait, the staff!" Devante exclaimed as he ran over to grab it, as soon as he lifted it from its resting place, a bright flash filled the sky, and blinded my night vision.

I couldn't see, but my imagination told me what happened, Devante had just been struck by natural lightning, while holding a conductive rod, and he had his guard down. My screams were drowned out by the thunder. I ran over to my friend, who I saw on the ground, unmoving as my sight returned. As I shook him, he didn't respond.

"Robert, return the artifact, get our pay, and meet me back at our pick up zone!" I yelled frantically. "I'm getting Devante to the ship now, he's really hurt!" I hoisted up my hopefully unconscious friend onto my back, and took off. I pressed a button on my cuff, signally transport to meet me at the designated spot.

Live damnit… Tears stung my eyes. My chest was clenched, my mind raced to places it shouldn't. Don't even think about dying on me you bastard!

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I quickly ran to the curator, who took the staff with gratitude, and presented me with $4,500. I immediately darted out of the building, only leaving behind my card. Awaken Merc – Robert.

I ran faster than I ever did before. I couldn't even grasp the idea of losing someone else… Not now, not of the first damned mission! I ran until my lungs burned, my calves ached, and my body begged for mercy. I climbed the final building in my way, the hospital.

On top was the hover pad we had arranged for pickup prior to the mission, on top of it was our hovermech, and there was Mike, helping Devante onto a stretcher alongside Tyson. "How the hell did you manage to fuck up your first assignment?"

"Shut your Goddamn trap, and help your fellow member!" Tyson raged back. His helmet was off, and his tears were evident on his face. He's usually so resolved, so calm. When he's in hysterics like this, it scares me more than anything. "Robert, Mike and I are going to sustain Devante!" The brown haired boy called out to me. "Get this thing in the air, and back to base!"

I only nodded, and entered the cockpit. Mike soon came in too, and gave me the 'ok' to fire up the engines. Within minutes, we were in the air, and going as fast as the thing could fly. The last thing I need is for my friends to die, when I have to choose between them, and the Renegades…

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During the ride home, several times, Devante's pulse would come and go. We constantly were reviving him with a defibrillator. His boy jumped slightly every time we tried to restart his heart. We had taken off his suit, only to discover his entire right arm, which he had grasped the artifact with was a sickening charred black. His chest looked black as well, and was much darker than his normal dark brown complexion.

His eyes were open, unmoving, his mouth was the same. Fuck, fuck, fuck! The only other constant thought was Live, live, live! Earlier, everything had gone so fast, I thought I was dreaming again. I thought I was being tested. I tried to break the illusion, but nothing happened. I was on the brink of insanity.

"Robert, does this thing go any faster?" I yelled out for the hundredth time.

"I've already told you, no!" He was irritated, and just as freaked out as I was. I liked to think of myself as a leader. But right now, I wasn't fit to be one. I was a broken man at this point. I would have sunk to my knees, and screamed out if I wasn't occupied with keeping my old friend alive.

"You goddamn idiots!" Mike yelled at us. He was noticeably concerned as well. "If you had just grabbed the thing in the first place, you wouldn't have had to go through this!"

I pounded the table hard as Devante's heart stopped again. "Damnit!" Tears continued to streak across my face.

"We're almost there!" Robert called back. Mike went to take his place, so he could land us in a secret hanger. Robert and I forcefully started his heart again. The ship landed, and we carried our immobile friend's stretcher out.

Doc and Jim were waiting for us; they immediately took Devante to the medical wing. We raced after them. When we entered the white room where they had placed Devante, we saw Michael was standing in wait.

While Doc went to work on stabilizing Devante's circulatory system, Jim prepared a serried of injections. Michael led Robert and I out of the room, and asked us about how it came to this.

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After we finished explaining, I handed Michael $1,125, 1/4th of our total income, as we were supposed to.

"Ok, so it was a natural accident, but it still could have been avoided." Michael stared coldly at us.

"We know, instead of catching our breath, we should have simply completed the mission, a moment longer, and the lightning might have activated the bomb." I said with my head hung. All this damn drama was too much for me. All I wanted was for Devante to be ok, so Tyson and I could sleep tonight.

Michael nodded, and placed a hand on each of our shoulders. "Don't worry, he'll be ok." He said after a long, awkward silence. He then walked away.

Tyson and I looked to each other, and then walked to Devante's room together. 'We can get through this, together.' That's what just looking into each other's eye's conveyed.

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We waited in his room, we ate and slept in his room, we didn't leave his room for anything short of a disaster. Three days, that's how long it was before he woke up. Three, long, stress filled days. Doc had managed to fix up his arm, but his chest was still a lot darker than normal, his lung was swelled, and had broken many blood vessels, causing a terrible bruise. But that should go away in about 2 weeks. His back was also pretty badly bruised, and he had nearly broken his spine. Our African friend was in bad shape to say the least.

"The hell happened back there?" Were the first words out of his mouth once he had come to. Robert and I practically jumped for joy at hearing his voice. We had to explain everything to him and Robert presented him with his cut of the pay. We all held our money, $1,125 each. "Wow, I haven't held money in…"

"Over a year." I finished the sentence. We always did things digitally since we lost our home. Getting out and making a living was… So different. We all felt the gravity of our lives press down on us when Devante was hospitalized.

"From now on, we have to protect each other." Robert says aloud. We all nodded in agreement. In one swift motion, we all, without hardly even thinking, placed our hands together in the center of our triangle, and swore to watch each other's backs… So we'd never have to again experience this pain.

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It wasn't long before Devante was on his feet again, only about a week. We began sociallity again, eating in the mess hall with the other members, cooking with Morgan, and we began sparring with Richard and Cory. Life became normal again for a time. No more building weapons, or recovering in the infirmary. For a while, I even forgot about the whole thing with the L.A. Renegades, until Tyson brought it up.

We were eating lunch with our normal group, Devante had lost a bet earlier in the kitchen, so he had just left the table to wash everyone's dishes, leaving Tyson, Morgan, and I free from the chore. "So man, you don't have a lot of time left to choose… What's it gonna be? You need to know in 2 and half weeks…" Tyson asked, the seriousness of the question only made the unsure tone of his voice press down on me more. Morgan, Cory, and Richard fell silent, looking to me for an answer.

"I don't know." I practically whispered. My hands shook slightly in a mix of anger and fear. I cover my face in palm, and prayed he'd just let it drop.

"You can't run away from this." His tone hardened. "You need to choose what's best for you." I heard him get out of his seat, within a moment; his hand was on my shoulder. "Think about what you need, and forget about everyone else. Be selfish, and think about what makes you happy, being with your friends, or your family. Devante and I will support you no matter what you choose, so don't even give a fuck about us. The only factor in this choice, is you." He removed his hand, and walked away. Soon, Richard and Cory also left, probably to run a training session with Tyson, and Morgan came to my side.

"He's right you know." She whispered in my ear, one of her hands on my back.

"Of course he is." I dropped the hand covering my face, which was contorted in stress. "Isn't he always? The great leader Tyson, and his damn words of wisdom…" I was acting rather harshly, but the whole situation was so fucking annoying. Added on to Devante nearly died not two weeks ago, Tyson suddenly feels it's his place to regulate my life, subliminally trying to choose for me. The problem was, I couldn't figure out which side he was on. I know he wants me to stay, but most of all, he wants me to be happy, wherever he thinks I'll be happy is where he's trying to push me to.

I think I'm losing my mind. How can Tyson be influencing my situation if I can't tell where he's trying to make me go? He's a sneaky bastard, but he's smarter than to be overly vague.

"Tyson is only the leader because you let him be." Morgan continues to consult, slowly rubbing my back. "He only wants what's best for his friends… You guys are really all he has left, which is more than most of us can say, and because of that, he wants you to be happy, even if that means losing you." She removed her hand, and slowly backed away from me. "None of us can blame you if you choose your family over us; don't get me wrong though, a lot of us want you to stay."

"Tyson would still be the leader even if we opposed him. He knows how to handle almost every situation. He's not perfect, but he's the bravest bastard I've ever met." I nearly sneer. I don't even understand why I'm so pissed at him right now. My best guess was that he was right, and I simply hated him for knowing my situation better than I do. "Not only can he coordinate a ragtag group like us, but he can do it with flare, find a way to not only make us stronger than we alone could have conceived, but to raise our moral as we do it. To make us closer to him, so we can be all around better, like him." I slam my fist on the table. "I can outshoot him any day, but would I be able to stay calm at a time like now? Look at me! I'm goddamned mess, and he can just go around, and give advice as if I were having trouble memorizing how to build a firing mechanism for a gun! Like it was that simple! Like everything is to him! I just ca-" Suddenly a pain erupted in my skull, and I heard Morgan gasp.

"Could you take 5 seconds, to stop badmouthing Tyson, and actually think about what he said?" I heard Devante's voice. Looking at the broken ceramics around my body, I slowly piece together what just happened.

"Break one of plates again, and I'll slit your throat in your sleep!" Morgan shouts out in a sudden burst of aggression.

"Oh please, as if you could do that better than me!" Patricia had appeared out of nowhere. Devante immediately came to my side.

"Who do you think is going to win?" He whispered as the insults went flying between the two sisters.

"At slitting your throat, or the argument?" I smirk.

"Argument."

"Morgan." I stated simply.

"I've got $50 on Patricia."

"Fine, I'll match that!" I shook his hand as Patricia and Morgan both pulled out their blades soon, the sounds of metal hitting could be heard across the base. A few members, Fredrick, Doan, Angel, and Joel all gathered and came to our table, placing bets of their own. The sparks really flew when Patricia's mask got a new scratch on it.

"You bitch!" She flung across the room like a cat with murderous intent.

"Angel, shouldn't you be stopping this?" Devante inquired.

"And get between those two crazed people with knives? Are you crazy? I'd rather just kick back and watch the fun. I've got $50 on the line anyway, why lose it just to protect one of their prides?" The bright woman responded.

"For a woman named Angel, you're pretty damn sadistic." I mutter. A hearty laugh went across the table.

"Robert, in this business, if you aren't sadistic, there's probably something wrong with you." She leaned on one palm, with her elbow on the table. "Besides, who's to say I'm not corrupted?" She winked. The question was obviously a bold statement about what she and Michael did, so I began to blush, while Devante whistled. I couldn't tell if he was gesturing at Angel, who was now laughing at my face, or Morgan, who had nearly gotten a lung punctured by her loving sister.

The two wild women continued to brawl, Patricia was beginning to tire out, evident by her breath, which was amplified by the mask covering her face. She decided to gain the upper hand by kicking her sister square in the jaw, Morgan fell back onto the table, scattering everyone's money, and her medium brown hair sprawled wildly across the table. Everyone quickly scrambled to get their money back, and Morgan ducked quickly to avoid the crescent blade that nearly stabbed her eye out, which happened to land right in front of Devante, handle up. He plucked it from its lodging in the table, and tossed it back to Patricia, who muttered thanks before thrusting a stab toward her sister.

Angel, Doan, and I continued to root our favorite brunette chef on, while Fredrick and Joel cheered on the masked assassin. The two of them fought it out for another ten minutes or so before Morgan slipped in her sweat. Patricia, who had made for another stab at the exact same moment, ended up carrying herself farther than she expected, and tripped over Morgan's body on the floor. She hit the floor with a hard thud, and her weapon bounced out of reach. The chef's blue eyes gleamed as she recovered and returned to her feet. She threw her knife down centimeters before her sister's skull, and simply held out her hand for her to take.

Patricia's groan sounded throughout the room as she reluctantly took her sisters hand. The asked girl pushed Morgan away as soon as she had her footing about her again.

"Come on now Patty," Morgan feigned insult. "I hate it when you're angry at me." Morgan stared with wide eyes and had the stance of your ideal shy school girl.

"Stop calling me that already!" Patricia tipped over the money table in aggravation as she stormed out. The money again scattered, and this time, Angel, Doan and I collected it all, claiming our winnings.

"Damn it!" Devante groaned watching me pick up his crumpled betting money.

"Well, you should know better than to bet against me!" Morgan winked.

"Whatever, I'm going to bed." My black friend grumbled as he got out of his chair.

"Remember, I'll slit your throat next time you break one of my plates!" Morgan called out. Devante's gulp could be heard across the room, and everyone got a good chuckle before leaving. Again, it was just me and Morgan, sitting at the table.

"Hey, if you enjoy that, I'll fight with her more often if you stay." She assured me.

"Bribery? That's a little low, don't you think?" I tease her.

"Only of it works." The chef smiled. We joked on for another few minutes of idle chat. I told her I had to get some sleep so I could get some early morning training in, and wished her goodnight.

Walking away, I pondered again, at my options. My blood family that I never knew, or my friends that I've always known, and all these members who were just like a family in their own right. Blood was thicker than water, but some bonds are stronger than blood… But what exactly did I have?

As I approached my room after exiting the elevator, I notice a glowing orange mark on my door, when I observed it closer; it was a message from Devante, F U. Welded into the door. I knock on his door in irritation.

"You're going to fix that!" I shout to him, I heard his light laugh from within. I growled slightly as I entered my own room. I plopped onto my bed, and looked at the clock, 10:55. I lay down on my bed, and my eyes closed as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I love you guys.

Awaken

(A.N.) Hope you guys liked the chapter. Sorry, but my schedual of every ten days is kinda dead. So the next chapter will out sometime next month, but it's vague as to how long till it'll be ready for release. So please hang in there! Again, reviews are apreciated as always, and as long as you have a profile, you will get a responce. And thanks to all of you who've commented on my improved writing, I'm glad I'm getting better! The story is meant for me, but aI still want it to be as enjoyable as possible for you readers who take time out of your scheduals to read this!