It had been about a week since Johar fought Ash and Ken, and Emily had been avoiding him ever since.
At a large hospital building, a tall man wearing blue jeans, and a brown flannel shirt walks through the hallways with a boquet. His dark stubble matches quite well with his chiseled face. He then enters a certain room on the right to see Ken sitting in a wheelchair. His red hair slightly unkempt – due to his broken hand – he had not put too much effort into his looks at the hospital.
"Son, are you ready?" Ken's father asks.
"Yea old man, the doctor just gave me a bunch of pills and instructions." He motions to the brown bag in his lap. "But damn, I can't believe you or mom didn't come visit me once at the hospital." Ken shrugs.
"We talked over the phone didn't we? Besides, I was busy investigating them for you."
After the father and son pair leave the hospital, his father gingerly helps Ken into the passenger side of a large red SUV. "Shit, this sucks!" Ken complains. "Goddammit! I don't wanna be on a crutch for 5 months!"
After a short break - filling the vehicle with a hefty amount of nicotine smoke, Ken's father starts up the SUV and begins driving away from the hospital.
"Lemme have one too." Ken reaches an open palm towards his father to recieve a cigarette.
After watching the traffic lights pass by for a few moments, Ken then turns to his father "Did you find out anything about that kid, old man?"
"Yeah, that Emily girl's brother is named Johar Heiluck. Surprisingly he was easy to find because there was a case on him a few years ago."
"Really?" Ken sighs.
"Their father was killed a few years ago."
"Serves them right."
"Are you sure you wanna go through with this?" His father asks.
"Of course I do! I won't be satisfied until I see that cocky little bastard begging for forgiveness on his knees! I'm the alpha dog, how dare he humiliate me like that!" Ken shakes his fists.
"Heh, that's my boy." His father reaches over and ruffles his hair.
"You said you had some guys who owe you favors yea?" Ken asks.
His father nods "They owe me favors for looking the other way and sweeping their crimes under the table. As long as there's something in it for them, they should help you out."
His father then raises his eyebrow "But borrowing the muscles of hardened criminals just for one little boy? Don't you think that's a little overkill?"
"He broke my bones, and Ash's leg. He's not normal." Ken narrows his eyes as he hisses. "He knows karate or something, but it won't matter so long as I kidnap his sister."
"But don't rape the girl, we can't have your DNA on her. It'll be a pain in the ass to destroy the evidence." Ken's father lectures him as though they were having a normal father-son conversation.
"Tch." Ken looks away dejectedly. "Fine. I'll just have your guys do it. That should be incentive enough for them to help me out."
◈━◈━◈━◈━◈
At the Tiny Hope Orphanage, Johar had made his way into the library after classes were over. He is checking his email on one of the aging computers lined up on the far end of the wall. (It's been a week since Emily had been avoiding me...) He then exhales (...It sucks, but I don't regret doing it to proect her. I guess I have no choice but to give her some space for now).
After a while, Johar slumps down in his chair after seeing that the author of 'Extinction of Etheria' still hadn't responded to him.
"Hey." Rosie slaps his back as she passes by. She then sits in the empty chair next to him.
"Hey Rosie." Johar nods. "How's Emily?" Rosie had become the go-between for Johar and Emily. Seeing that she's Emily's friend, it's easy for her to keep tabs on Johar's sister.
"She's still a little down, but other than that she's doing fine." Rosie gives Johar a re-assuring smile. "Ken and Ash hadn't shown up since that day. There's a rumor going around saying that they suddenly transferred out."
"That's good. One less thing for me to worry about." Bale shrugs.
He then glances at her. "So, how long have you known that I was Bale?"
Rosie then smiles as she scratches her head "Right away actually." She then says "I thought it was odd how you knew the Etherian language, yet knew nothing of that novel."
"Oh, since the beginning." Bale exhales. (So it didn't slip past her).
"Yup. But I still can't believe it. This is still the past for you?" Rosie smiles at him.
"Yes. I died at 25, so....I'm from 15 years in the future."
"And it seems you also re-incarnated into Etheria's past." She ponders out loud.
"Aparrently."
"You wouldn't happen to know any upcoming lottery numbers would you?"
"Unfortunately I didn't pay any attention to the lottery or stock market." (Nobody carries on every day as if they're going to go back into the past you know?)
"What about crypto?" Rosie asks.
"Not a damn clue." Johar shrugs.
"Ah...nevermind..." Rosie sighs, deflated. Her dreams of getting her own fancy computer and smartphone seemed so far away once again.
"Don't worry, when I get older we can work together to make you some money." Bale chuckles.
"Really?! Alright!" Rosie pumps a fist into the air.
"Quiet in the libarary!" The agitated librarian shouts at her from across the room.
"Oh sorry, hehe..."
◈━◈━◈━◈━◈
The next day, Johar is back in the library of the orphanage with headphones donned – surfing through Yowtube. He's browsing through a list of old music hits that don't require any keyboards, electric guitars, synth bass, or anything too high tech (I've managed to make a simple vacuum amplifier in Etheria, but it seems that an electric guitar is still too far away. Better just stick to simple songs for now).
After a few hours, Johar stretches and looks around. (How odd, Rosie hasn't showed up at all today. Normally she'd at least peek in to say hello...). And as soon as he began to wonder, Shelia's voice could be heard over the loud speaker "Johar Heiluck, please report to the deans office."
As soon as he heard Shelia calling for him, he suddenly felt a knot form inside of his stomach. He felt that being called for on the same day that Rosie didn't show up in the library was no mere coincidince. Before he knew it, Johar was already leaping down the stairs and scurrying towards the dean's office.
"Miss Shelia! I'm here!" Johar shouts as he hesitantly walks into her office. His eyes nervously dart around before settling on Rosie quietly sitting down in front of the director's desk. Her eyes are red with tears as she turns around to face Johar.
"Johar!" She sniffles. "A bunch of thugs took her!"
"Who did they take?!" Johar shouts, somewhere in his mind he clung onto the hope that it wasn't Emily.
"Emily!" Rosie shouts. She then lowers her head into her hands to muffle her sobs.
"Fuck." Millions of thoughts race through Johar's head at once, but he quickly zeroes in on one thought (I knew it, I should've killed those little shits!). An image of Ash and Ken quickly pop up into his head as he grits his teeth.
"Here, they gave Rosie this note and told her to give this to you." Shelia slides a folded piece of paper on the desk towards Johar. He then picks it up and reads its contents as Shelia gives him a sympathetic gaze.
"I've already called the police, someone should be here shortly."
'To Johar Heiluck, if you want to see your sister alive again, come alone to the Regal park parking lot by 7 pm tonight.' He then quickly glances at the clock (It's already 6pm!).
"I gotta go now!!" Johar quickly leaves the office.
"Wait! Johar! It's dangerous!" Shelia reaches out to him. "Someone stop Johar!" She shouts as a nearby female staff grabs onto his shoulder. "KYA!!" Johar easily shoves her away into the wall. "Wait Johar! They might have guns!" Rosie worriedly shouts as Johar seemingly vanishes into the distance.
◈━◈━◈━◈━◈
The lights begin to flicker on at the nearly empty parking lot of a park. There was only a single brown vehicle featuring tinted windows and rust-eaten panels parked away from the lights. It contrasted from the nearby bright green - well-maintained - grass and trees and stood out nontheless. Johar could be seen dashing quickly across the nearby intersection at inhuman speeds as he slowly approaches the vehicle.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
"I'm here." He utters as he approaches the vehicle. The window rolls down as a hooded man with tattoos on his face peeks at him. "Ya Johar?" A grating voice could be heard from behind the window.
"Yes, now take me to my sister." Johar demands.
"Get in the back seat."
Johar quickly opens the back door and hops in without hesitation. "You're pretty eager eh?" The driver chuckles as he looks at Johar through the rear view mirror. Johar quickly asses his surroundings and notes that there are 2 people sitting in the front, and a large bald man wearing a leather jacket sitting next to him.
"Gimme yo hands." The bald man orders as he pulls out a large heavy duty black ziptie from his pocket.
◈━◈━◈━◈━◈
An hour later, the brown sedan arrives at a large dilapidated wooden building. It had boarded up windows and an extremely large rising roller door at the front. The three men get out as the large muscular man grabs Johar by the arms and pull him along. His hands had been ziptied behind his back. "C'mon hurry up." The large man pulls him grins. "We can't start the party until you arrive."
It was dark, but since Johar is wielding the black Zodiac stone he could see just fine. He could make out about a dozen people through the cracks in the boarded up walls as he approached.
The group enter through a small door next to the large roller door. "Hey we brought him!" The tattooed man shouts as he raises an arm. "Alright!" The men cheer as Johar looks around. There are people on either side of of the room, 17 in total. Some are sitting on foldable chairs, others are sitting on empty buckets scavanged from around the area. They're about 15 feet away. (And in the middle is...) The lights flicker on as a familiar voice could be heard.
"Johar!"
Johar quickly locks eyes with the owner of the voice. "Emily!" He shouts "Are you alright?!" He could see that she was tied up and had been crying for some time.
"Y-yes! AH-!" She gets interrupted as Ken yanks her hair. He's leaning on a crutch, and standing next to Ash. "Heya Johar." He grins and waves at with his hand poking out from the cast. "Remember us?" Ash gives him a menacing glare.
"Let my sister go!" Johar demands as his blood slowly begins to boil at his sister's maltreatment.
"Still acting tough eh? That's great." Ken laughs. "I'm going to enjoy breaking your stupid pride when your sister gets fucked in front of you." The thugs around the 2 boys fill the room with laughter.
"Body Enhancement." Johar effortlessly breaks the ziptie cuffs. "Emily, hang on! I'm coming for you!"
"Hang on just a second!" Ken releases Emily and raises his hand as the men pull out various pistols and aim them at Johar. "Unless you wanna get pumped full of lead, I suggest you stay right where you are."
"Yeah, no matter how strong you are there's no way you can dodge bullets." Ash chimes in.
"Don't worry, you'll get front row seat as old man Nelson here plows your sister." A middle aged fat man with tattoos on his arm walks up next to Emily and grabs her hair. "AH! No!!" Emily screams in terror. "He's got the biggest dick among all the guys here!" Ken mockingly laughs.
"So it's okay if I do whatever I want with her? I won't get in trouble?" Nelson grins as his smelly breath makes Emily wince and try to turn away. Seeing the girl before him squirm in agony and disgust made it increasingly hard to hold back his lust.
"You already got away with it twice because of my pops, it's fine." Ken shrugs.
"Man what a fuckin' waste though! I really wanted to fuck her first, but you just had to piss us off!" Ash laughs while he runs his hands through his hair, overflowing with confidence.
"Mind enhancement. Telekinesis." Johar mutters.
"What was that? What did you say? Did you just ask for forgiveness?!" Ken sticks out his tongue and mocks Johar.
Johar then glares at one of the thugs and wiggles his index finger.
BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!! Nelson suddenly clutches his chest in agony as blood explodes from it. "WHA?!" He barely utters his surprise before falling over dead. "!!!" Emily cowers in fright as he slumps right next to her.
"Hey what the fuck?!" Everyone turns to see one of the thugs holding a pistol with a smoking barrel. "Why the hell did you shoot Nelson?!" Ken angrily shouts.
"I-It wasn't me! The gun went off by itself!" He then points into the opposite crowd and begins firing some more. BLAM BLAM BLAM!!! "SHIT! What the fuck?!" Everyone suddenly begins to fire at each other. "S-shit! It won't stop!!" One of them shouts.
"T-the gun is aiming and firing by itself!!" A thug throws his gun away only for it to fly back up towards him. It then points at him as he looks right into the barrel - like a deer caught in headlights. BLAM!! He crumples to the floor as the pistol blows a hole through his forehead.
After a few seconds - which felt like minutes - the gunfire stops and the room was silent once again. "W-what the fuck just happened Ken?!" Ash is sprawled on the floor next to Ken. "I-I don't know." Ken replies, nearly choking. They dove for cover and had miraculously not been shot...
After confirming that they had no new wounds, Ken and Ash hobbled back onto their feet. They then slowly scan the dead bodies on the concrete floor in front of them in disbelief. "Shit....everyone's dead!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Johar interrupts them with his laughter. "Everyone's just dying to fuck, aren't they?!" They watch in terror and confusion as his foreboding laughter fills the room. "But you fucked with the wrong person!" Johar begins walking towards them. "What the fuck?! You made them shoot each other?!" Ash barks at him. It wasn't really a question, as they understood the situation quickly. But he just had to ask out loud to try and make sense of the situation.
"That's right." Johar flashes a grin.
"You monster! Do you know what you've done?! You'e just killed over a dozen people in cold blood!" Ash points at him. "You're definitely going to rot in prison!"
"Oh just shut the fuck up!" Johar shouts as he waves his hand to the side. THONK!!! Ash's eyes suddenly fly out of their sockets and onto the dirty concrete floor.
"UWAHHH!!!!" Ash suddenly falls to his knees as he drops his crutch, clutching his face. "My eyes! My eyes! AHHH!!!!!"
"Go ahead, call me a monster or whatever." Johar grins as he leisurely approaches. "Your stupid mind games won't work on me, you damned hypocrites. You're not getting out of this."
Johar then raises his hand and opens his palm towards Ash. "You may not remember, but I am the monster that you created."
Ken watches frozen in terror as Ash suddenly sits up - as if being pushed by an invisible force - and leans forward.
Ash's throat couples perfectly with Johar's hand as he begins squeezing. "ACK!!" Ash grasps at Johar's arms as he struggles to breathe. His efforts to free himself was in vain however, as Johar's arm strength has been multiplied roughly eight-fold – stronger than the strongest man in the world. After a moment, Ash's sweaty hair - painted with blood and dirt – begins to whip around as he shakes his head and makes gurgling sounds.
"Y-you're killing him!" Ken stammers, worried about the friend that he grew up with.
"No shit?" Johar chuckles sarcastically.
He then casually makes a conversation with Ken while keeping his eyes on Ash. "Oh, so you said these were your fathers men, right? I guess I'm going after him next."
"W-what?! N-no I didn't...."
"I'll kill him too after this, just like I did Renalt and his entire family." Johar then gazes at Ken, hoping to gain some sort of amusement from his reaction.
(R-renalt?! That was him?! Did he kill them using these powers too?!) "P-please let me go." Ken sinks to his knees – like his heart into his stomach - and bows deeply. "I promise I will never bother you ever again!" He pleads with all his heart and soul.
After a moment, Johar then exhales "Will you really keep your word this time?"
"Yes! I promise!"
"I'll let you go if you promise to take the blame for all these deaths...."
"Yes! I will!"
"...and swallow these eyeballs." Johar kicks the eyes of Ken's best friend towards him.
"What?!" Temporarily forgetting his situation, Ken defiantly looks up at Johar's absurd demands.
"Do it or else!" A sickening crunch could be heard from Ash's neck as he goes limp and his head falls backwards like a teather ball. "Do you want to end up like your friend here? Show me your conviction!" Johar shouts in a menacing tone.
"A-alright!! I'll do it!" Ken hesitantly grabs the dirt-covered eyeballs of his friend as an audible gulp could be heard from his throat.
He stares at it for a moment, trying to fight off the vomit climbing up his esophagus. Johar watches on in amusement "Hurry it up."
"AHH FUCK!!" Ken shouts as he quickly gulps the squishy organs down his throat, hoping that they wouldn't pop on the way down. He then covers his mouth as he begins to dry heave.
"Don't puke them out." Johar commands.
"URP!" Ken desperately tries to obey as if his life depended on it – because quite frankly, it did. Johar watches in amusement with a wide grin plastered on his face.
And after a few minutes of struggling, Ken calms himself and looks up at Johar. "A-alright, I did it. A-am I free?"
"Yes." Johar smiles, tossing Ash's body aside.
"T-thank you very much!" Ken then exhales a sigh of relief as he once again begins to think about how to get back at Johar. (Next time I'll just kill his sister outright! No more games!) He thinks silently to himself.
"Oh wait." Johar brings a finger to his lips. "It's not fair that you broke your first promise and I didn't."
"W-wai-" Ken's protest gets cut short as Johar quickly grabs his throat. His eyes begin to bleed as he too, struggles pointlessly against the strength of the young boy clearly enjoying himself before him. (S-shit, I can't even move him! How is he so damn heavy?!).
"P-Please...!" Ken manages to plead one last time before his eyes roll back (I will never pick on people ever again, I'm not the alpha dog...) he lamented as the pain of death violently overtook his consciousness. The echoes of his neck snapping could be heard reverberating in the otherwise deathly silent atmosphere.
Quickly tossing Ken's body aside, Johar kneels next to Emily and rips off the zipties binding her hands and feet. She had been in a trance for some time now, seemingly resigning herself to a horrible fate.
"Emily! Are you alright?!" Johar shakes her gently.
"Johar!!" After getting her face lightly slapped a few times, Emily promptly embraces Johar in a big bear-hug. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" She sobs uncontrollably. "I was so stupid! I know that now!"
"It's alright now." Johar pats her back.
"I'll never doubt you ever again Johar, I promise!" Emily's tears soak into Johar's shirt as she leans her head on his shoulder. "No, you were right to doubt me." Johar exhales. "Even I am scared of what I've become."
"You became that way because of me Johar. I will accept all of you, I swear it." Emily joyfully yet tearfully smiles at him.
"Did they do anything to you?" Johar asks worriedly.
"They fondled my chest alot, it was disgusting...." She says in disgust. "They didn't go any further because they wanted to wait until you showed up." Emily then frowns "I want to take a shower..."
"Yeah, let's get outta here." Johar puts his sister's arm over the back of his neck as they both walk out of the building. Johar had her wait a few minutes outside as he poured gasoline all over the bodies and vehicles, then lit them on fire with a match. (There wasn't much evidence to begin with, but now there shouldn't be any physical evidence of us being here).
The siblings returned home after a few hours by using the money taken from the thugs to get a taxi. After they got back to the orphanage, Johar played it off as a bad prank by Rosie. Thankfully Rosie played along, just glad to have her friend back safe and sound. They got scolded by the dean and the policemen who were frantically searching for them.