CHAPTER 14 (PART 2): SHOCK OF REALITY _
Alan fell to his knees, an annoyed expression crossed his face as he looked straight ahead, his arms were restrained with special handcuffs that denied him the use of any magic.
The Argentinean watched as the woman who had restrained him advanced forward, her body was now much more visible thanks to the fact that she was wearing a beautiful crimson dress. Said woman turned to give him a look, her dark hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and her eyes as dark as obsidian gave her a beautiful touch as well as a dark one. Her white skin stood out even more thanks to that mole under her left eye.
"¿What do you want from me?" Alan decided it would be best to continue with the theatrics, though his challenging expression never disappeared from his face.
"Five poison bombs." The woman spoke suddenly, to which she caught Alan's interest. "¿That's not a normal thing to say, who do you work for?" She spoke calmly throughout, but Alan felt her eyes seem to be piercing his chest.
"Give it up, Jessica." What once looked like a huge white wall slowly ran away, implying that it was a large curtain. "It doesn't matter if they work for someone or not." The curtains were drawn all the way back, there showing a young man who was in his late 20s to early 30s, wearing a ragged lab coat that was covered in blood. "Anyway, you'll never be able to leave this place again." The guy stated with a slight smile.
Alan didn't pay much attention to him, as he looked much more focused on the amount of strange contraptions and experiments that were behind the man.
There were tables, gurneys, different artifacts, blood, bodies piled in a dumpster, and the remains of Fallen Angel wings that looked like they had been mutilated by the product of rage and neglect.
It was like a large laboratory.
A bloody laboratory.
The more Alan saw, the more disgust he felt, and his face made it clear.
"Yeah, some people react that way when they see this. Most end up peeing their pants." The man sneered as he looked at him, to which Alan simply gritted his teeth.
"¿Where is that bastard William?" Alan accused angrily.
"I told him they were undercover agents." Jessica stepped in between the two of them. "They need to be killed now." Before the woman could make any move, the man grabbed her waist and planted a big kiss that surprised even Alan.
One hand went to one of her breasts, to which a somewhat exalted moan emerged from her lips as they parted.
"Don't worry, no need to take drastic measures just yet. It's been a while since the project has stalled, maybe one of them could help." The man's words earned an awkward nod from Jessica, who seemed to be ecstatic about the kiss.
"All right, there's something you need to understand..." The stranger walked over to kneel in front of Alan, then cupped his chin with a somewhat creepy smile. "The only one asking questions here is me, ¿understood?" Alan simply turned his face away from the man roughly, to which the man stood up with a chuckle.
"If you want to ask, just ask." Alan shot back with a dangerous tone, to which a somewhat sick smile crossed the nurse's face.
"I'm going to reward you for your willingness. But for now, let's start with some basic questions..."
_ LINE BREAK _
"¿Are you sure that's going to work?" Issei broke away from Raynare slightly after she whispered in his ear.
"¿Can you think of any other ideas?" She interjected, to which the brown simply looked between Rick and Yung Len, who simply nodded.
"Very well..." Issei sighed, then smiled. "¡But don't apologize to me later!" Issei slapped Raynare hard on the cheek, who staggered backwards until she bumped into some prisoners, who were confused.
"¿¡How dare you!?" Raynare yelled through gritted teeth, a sneaky smile emerging from her lips as she made both her elbows back, delivering short but hard blows to the poor man behind her.
Raynare punched him back just as hard, so Issei staggered backwards until finally crashing into one of the tables, flipping it over and knocking everything off it, something no one received very well.
"¿What...?" One of them tried to say something, but it came to nothing as Yung Len impacted on the man for being thrown by Rick.
"¿¡What the hell are you doing!? ¡we don't feel like wasting our time with these stupid disputes!" One man shouted angrily, to which Rick just let himself be grabbed by him and thrown against a large number of men, slamming them all to the ground.
And just like that, a huge pitched battle broke out, where everyone was fighting against everyone.
_ LINE JUMP _
The stranger looked at the small notebook, then back at Rick again.
"Let me get this straight..." The man went over the notes in the notebook. "¿You were born in Pakistan but you have African nationality and at the same time you were raised in Colombia?" The man looked at Alan, who remained unmoved. "¿Do you really think I'll believe such stupidity? You're not even black."
"I had a disease in my skin pigmentation." Alan replied instantly.
"This is ridiculous..." Jessica couldn't help but rub her temple in annoyance.
"¿What's your name?" the stranger asked another question, to which Alan opted for the most serious face he could.
"My name is Walter White." The man and Jessica looked at each other after hearing the answer.
"So, you're a Pakistani of African nationality who grew up in Colombia and has an American name..." The stranger tossed the notebook away as he took a couple of steps to crouch down in front of him. "All that's missing now is for you to tell me you were a drug dealer wanted by an entire country."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Was Alan's simple reply, to which the man simply smiled.
"All right, we tried it on the good side." The man stood up, watching the woman. "I have no problem if you make him one of your puppets, Jessica." Those words caused a somewhat psychopathic, hot smile to emerge from the woman's face, so Alan couldn't help but sweat.
"Oh, that sounds pretty funny..." Jessica had the intentions of approaching Alan, but a strange sound stopped her.
Jessica wasn't the only one who noticed it, as both Alan and the stranger were confused.
The stranger approached the edge of the large white glass in his lab, and disbelief soon struck his face as he saw that the prisoners were making a big fuss downstairs.
"¿¡What the fuck!?" The man's disbelief turned to fury. "¡Jessica, calm this ruckus down now and bring the obvious culprits here to me!"
Jessica said nothing, just retreated towards the big door with a clearly annoyed look on her face, to which Alan just smirked.
"Hey..." Alan looked ahead, and was surprised to see how that seemingly calm man was delivering him a death stare. "From what I can see, I'm going to have to teach you and your friends some manners."
_ LINE JUMP _
One of the two giant gates began to slowly open, revealing a really annoyed Jessica.
"¡STOP NOW!"
The huge commotion that was going on stopped almost at the root, and silence soon followed after a few seconds.
No doubt that silence was deadly, as all the prisoners watched in fright as that woman made her way through them until she finally reached the center of the site, where she saw how Issei was grabbing a man by his t-shirt, but quickly released him. The poor guy slipped away in four steps so as not to fall victim to that woman's wrath.
"Troublemakers are always there, but this is the first time someone has generated such a fuss." Commented Jessica with her arms crossed, watching as Raynare, Rick and Yung Len stopped in front of Issei to support him.
"¿Where's William?" Issei asked, materializing his gauntlet and activating his spear.
"¿Whele is my sistel?" Yung Len asked, materializing his scythe with a distinctly hostile air about the woman.
"I don't even know who you are." Jessica replied smugly, to which Yung Len narrowed his eyes.
"Neithe do I. But I don't need to lemembel you face to know you'le that whole of a..."
"Yung Len." Rick placed a hand on his chest, the Twice Critical already activated in his hand.
"¿Oh? So you're the leader of this peculiar group..." A sly smile emerged from Jessica, and just then her eyes glowed pink.
Rick's eyes darkened from one moment to the next, and his hand slowly moved away from Yung Len. Neither realized that something strange was going on with their captain.
"¿Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?" Raynare's ring glowed and turned into his sword, which soon emanated some flames.
"Hum, I think you've already made that decision yourselves." Jessica gestured with her finger to goad them into attacking her, or so it seemed at first.
"¡Alright, you asked for it!" Issei exclaimed energetically and lunged at the woman, but just before she could do anything, Raynare and Yung Len's eyes widened in quite astonishment.
"¡ISSEI, STOP!"
Issei stopped dead in his tracks just at the last second, as Rick appeared in front of him so he could protect Jessica.
"¿¡Rick!?" Issei couldn't say much more as he jumped back after seeing Jessica pull out a large dagger from under her dress.
Everyone was speechless as Jessica pressed the cold metal over Rick's throat, causing a small trickle of blood to run freely.
"Now you will do exactly as I tell you, ¿is that right?"
_ LINE JUMP _
A few minutes later...
They all fell to their knees beside Alan, who watched him rather uneasily.
"¿Are you all right?" The Argentine asked with concern.
"Rick is acting strange." Issei forced against the handcuffs in an attempt to break them, but couldn't.
"¡Hey, Rick!" Alan called out to his captain, but fell silent when he saw that the man was unresponsive.
Meanwhile, Raynare watched as that woman handed the sword and spear to the strange nurse, who looked quite happy with the new found toys.
"¡I told you they'd be worth leaving alive!" The man's yell caught everyone's attention.
"You're always right. You're unbelievable." Jessica blurted out with a dreamy look on her face.
"¡Hey!" The man approached the group, watching everyone with a big smile. "¿Can someone tell me who owns this spear?" the man asked, tossing the sword to the ground as he grabbed the spear with both hands, as if it were an object beyond divine.
"Get your hands off my things." Issei was quick to respond, to which the man smiled.
"¿You know something? I'm in a better mood thanks to you." The man knelt down in front of Issei, who just watched him through gritted teeth. "I don't know if you know this, but this Sacred Gear is a divine weapon. That means it contains great pure power within it, something I need." Those words caused a smile to appear on Issei's face.
"No matter what you do, you won't succeed in extracting its power." The brown man stated, to which the man looked at the spear.
"Listen to this. You can free me and these people. You can turn in your boss, and even if you behave yourself your sentence may not be to lose your head and live in peace." Raynare was the one to speak on this occasion, to which everyone looked at her.
"¡Raynare!" Issei complained.
"¿What? I just think negotiation can work." Raynare bowed her shoulders in protest.
"¿Did you hear that, Jessica?" The man looked at the woman, who just smiled. "Release that man."
Jessica watched Rick as his eyes glowed again, and the man seemed to come to, though he was very agitated.
"¿Rick, are you all right?" Issei asked rather worriedly.
"So... ¿You want me to turn William in?" The man stood back up to look at everyone. "You know, I've lived for a long time, but this is the first time I've come across people as hopeful as you guys. You know, those typical people who think everything will turn out all right, even when they find themselves in a really screwed up situation..." The stranger approached towards Rick. "I admire that, the world needs more people like you." The stranger grabbed Rick's handcuffs to pull him to his feet, then pulled him closer towards Jessica. "¿Do you have the keys?"
They all looked at each other noticing that they had been able to convince this man in such a simple way.
Just as Rick was about to be released, the stranger broke his leg in such a way as to force him to the floor, earning a loud scream in response, to which they all watched in some shock.
"¡You damned bastard, leave him!" Issei exclaimed, rising from the ground to attack him, only to be knocked to the ground once again when he received a hard kick to the abdomen.
"Demons, Fallen Angels and humans. There can't be a more corrupt and disgusting composition" The man stomped on Issei's head hard. "And yet, you all think you have any chance of negotiating with me." The man squeezed Issei's head even harder and placed the spear on his neck. "¿Do you not realize the situation you are in? ¿Or do you just not want to see it?" The man began to stomp on Issei's head brutally, to the point that he left him on the verge of unconsciousness.
"¡Stop!" Alan wanted to leap to his defense, but was easily repelled as he struck him with the spear using its blunt end.
"There is no negotiation, no salvation. You are merely disposable puppets from now on." The stranger turned away from Issei to look at them all. "There is no script for me to save you, ¿is that clear?" The man paused to look at everyone, and seeing that no one said anything just settled for a satisfied nod.
The man walked over to Jessica to hand her the spear and take Raynare's sword. At that moment a rather tense silence came over the place.
"A script, there is no such thing as that in real life. Never forget that..." The man stood with his back turned as he held Raynare's sword in silence.
The hostility of the site dropped quite a bit after those words, signaling the end of the first confrontation...
"¡THIS WILL REMIND YOU!"
Issei closed his eyes tightly as a large amount of blood splattered on him.
His eyes opened, and he could only watch as Rick's head rolled to stand in front of him.
_ END OF CHAPTER! _