Holding her left cheek, Emma stared at the people in front of her once more, “You did not have to hit me to wake me up, you know?” she said with a grumble. Ela let out a hmph in response while Damien just stared at her intently making Emma feel somewhat uncomfortable under his scrutinizing gaze.
Finally unable to take him staring at her like that anymore, she spoke, “What? Why are you staring at me like that it’s freaking me out…” Instead of responding to her question, Damien asked one of his own. “Why”
Emma looked confused. “Why? What do you mean, why?” she asked back, but after a few seconds of silence, it clicked as to what he had meant. Now that she understood, a smile started to spread across her face before she let out a light chuckle.
“Why, you ask?” she said with a sneer. “Because you picked her, what other reason do I need Damien? You knew we both liked you. We were all childhood friends, but I met you years before she did. Unfortunately, you only had eyes for her and her alone. You would not even glance in my direction,” Emma stated while glaring at Ela.
Disappointment was the only expression on Damien’s face after hearing her explanation, “So because you were jealous, you had me locked up in some fucked up experiment where they had me go through thousands of simulations and experience thousands of different lives while constantly wiping my memory. You had me go through all of that simply because I did not fall for you?”
Damien honestly had no way to describe how he was feeling at the moment… he and Emma had known each other since they were 2 years old, she was one of his closest friends, someone who he confided in and trusted on an extremely deep level. So, learning that she was why he ended up where he did, Damien did not know what to think or do.
“I can see the look you're giving me, Damien it’s the same way I felt after putting so much of my time, energy, and heart into wanting to be with you just for it to get smacked to the ground the second this bitch shows up. Betrayal, that is all I felt. Do you understand how that feels now? Do you? Emma asked with a wicked smile, happy to see the expression she always wanted to see him have on his face.
After a while of silence, Damien adopted a light smile and looked up at Emma, “You know, Em, regardless of what you have done and what you put me through, you really were a good friend.”
Without saying anything else, he turned around and grabbed Ela’s hand before walking towards the door, “Really, Damien? REALLY?! After everything I just said, you still have the nerve to call me that!? You better kill me right here and now because if you don’t, I will never stop chasing you.” Emma kept screaming as Damien walked away, but no matter how much she yelled for him to kill her he did not turn around and kept his head straight never turning back.
Once they were out of the room, Ela looked over at him with a worried expression, “Are you alright?” she knew what he had just done took a lot out of him, even if Emma was the reason he ended up where he did that could not simply erase the years of history and friendship that the two of them had. Damien was not a cold-blooded monster who could simply kill someone he was close to his whole life over something like this.
“I'm fine, Ela, let's just focus on getting the hell out of here, shall we?” Nodding her head, they both made their way up the stairs and to the front door but before they could walk out Ela grabbed Damien by the shoulder to make him stop moving and put her finger to her lips indicating for him to be quiet.
Outside the front door, a massive group of people could be seen on their knees in front of the group was something that made Ela gasp before adopting a grave expression and whispering to Damien, “Those four at the front are Ruby’s group.”
Looking at the four in front, Damien could see one woman and three men the woman Damien assumed was “Malia” she was a nerdy-looking type with big glasses on her face, even though he was pretty sure glasses were now useless as with the system everyone has perfect vision. Looking closer, the woman was pretty petite she was too far away for Damien to make out anything else.
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As for the three men, the one closest to Malia had a super lanky build with blonde hair while the other two were pretty average-looking dudes both having black hair and being what Damien imagined was average height.
Right when Damien was about to ask what they should do, a voice spoke out, “I know you are there; come out unless you want these people to suffer the consequences.” Looking for the source of the voice, Damien and Ela were unable to find where it had come from.
Sucking in his breath, Damien was surprised they had been detected, but then again, they were not in their forms and were just standing inside the building, peeking out the windows. Looking around at the surroundings, Ela was also worried as, from what she could see, there were way too many opponents for them to face.
“If we try to fight them, we’ll run out of mana long before we can defeat everyone out there.” She glanced at Damien, who wore an equally grim expression. “We need to come up with a plan. We can’t walk out there without one; otherwise, we have no chance of winning if a fight breaks out, and it surely will.” Ela hand-counted at least thirty guards out there from what she could detect but there was no telling if more was out there.
Nodding his head in agreement, they both started listing off ideas in rapid succession, and after about 2 minutes the voice spoke again, “Alright we can do this the hard way then.” After speaking one of the guards standing around the kneeling people walked up to Malia and went to grab her by the neck.
The three men next to her struggled to break free, but three more guards stepped forward and put swords to their throats, making the men freeze before glaring at the man reaching for Malia. Right as the man was about to grab her, a loud sigh rang out before a figure of a woman could be seen walking out of the shadows.
“Alright, alright, don't touch her.” Looking at the newcomer, Damien and Ela were once again surprised as the person who walked out was Ruby.
Shortly after she walked out, the guards all drew their weapons before quickly forming a circle around her, “Stand down for now. Let me have a chat with her, and maybe we can come to an agreement.” the voice once again spoke out.
After hearing the voice’s words, the men gave Ruby some space but kept their weapons drawn. “What do you want? And if you want to have a chat, how about you show your face.” Ruby spoke aloud while looking around for the voice she had heard.
“Very well,” the voice responded calmly before a man stepped out of thin air 10 meters in front of her. Upon seeing the man, Ruby’s eyes narrowed before a look of anger spread across her face.
“I should have known it was you and your dirty organization only you people would go so low as to kidnap an entire town to threaten someone,” Ruby said while sneering at the man, who seemed completely unbothered by her words. “Now, Ruby, no need to be harsh all I want from you is one simple thing and I’ll let the people I have here go free. What do you say?”
Ruby adopted a look of disgust seeing the man’s “smile” before responding, “Stop wasting my time and speak before I help you get rid of that disgusting thing you call a smile.
The man laughed lightly in response before folding his hands behind his back, “All I want is for you not to get in our way when Ela Heart and Damien Atlas make their way out of this building in front of us. You let me detain them without causing trouble, and I let your town go and we can pretend like this never happened.”
Hearing the man’s words, Ruby smiled brightly, “Oh sure, sure, one issue though if you agree to it I have no issue letting the organization take them how about it?”
“Lovely, what do you need us to do?”
Listening to the conversation between Ruby and the mysterious man, Damien looked over at Ela. “She would not really let him take us, right?” to which Ela just smiled in response and said two words. “Just watch.” confused, Damien turned his head back around and waited for Ruby to speak.
“Well, it’s pretty simple I need you and the organization to do one little thing for me…. I need you guys too…” Ruby's expression turned into a crazed smile giving Damien a bad feeling.
“Go fuck yourselves.” Imeaditly after saying those words Ruby raised her hands and snapped her fingers
“BOOOOM!”