Four of a Kind

Feeling Refreshed (Not)

It was once again another pandemonium. Just like what happened back at the Akai. Only this time we had to deal with murder instead of robbery.

And there I was fazed and lost in thought. The shouting of Glasses into my ear seemed null and ringy. I was getting weak myself. I thought to fake myself a collapse and pass out to let Glasses handle the rest. Like back in the Akai when Andy and Red took over after I passed out. Or when Ada knocked me out and they both had to again take over… this time it could be Glasses’s turn to take one for the whole team.

Thinking like that snapped me back to reality. I was supposed to lead these guys I should be taking responsibility not them. Glasses may not be my responsibility but Red and Andy was. Right before I “collapsed” I punched the floorboard with my hand to wake myself. I turned to Glasses and helped him. he was carrying Red on one arm but Red was too heavy to be lifted alone. Andy snapped his emotional state onto Ada and demanded the keys for or car and forcibly took it from her back pocket. He walked over the corpses and opened the locked door to find a woman who seemed to be too heavily in shock to even do anything as she watched what was in the room of the opened door. Andy took the chance to bolt out. It was slightly harder for me and Glasses with the weight of Red bearing down on us. But we used our legs to push the corpse aside, much to the horror of Ada’s mom, who was screaming from outside the room again.

We made our way outside as fast as possible. I tried to clear my head and make heads and tails of the situation. We killed three members of the Bandits…or whatever they called themselves. But other than Ada and her mother everyone else was too busy to notice what with the death of a person due to me running my mouth off. The voices that were raised were probably going to alarm fellow Bandits since they have neckbelts on. and if that was true. Our problem wasn’t the townsfolk or Ada and her mother, it was the Bandits who would know we don’t belong here.

Praying that Andy had the car waiting for us outside the saloon. We made our way out as quick as possible. And there he was Andy, with the car waiting for us. I had to give him props. He really came through.

We put Red in the backseat and I took over the wheel. I slammed the pedal and made our way out with fingers crossed so bad one would’ve thought I won’t be able to hold a pen anymore.

It went really well for the first 15 minutes. There wasn’t anyone on our tail so I thought that meant we were finally sailing with nothing but clear skies ahead.

“That was really noble of you, what you did back there.” I told Glasses once the other two were asleep.

“I just did what anyone else would’ve done so in my situation.” He replied coolly. He took off his jacket. I could see he was building up a sweat. We all were. We hadn’t had a shower for quite some time now. I felt like washing my face and brushing my teeth.

I turned to Maqius. “Do you have anyone money?”

“Only Zoolots, I barely have enough normal money.” He replied sleepily.

I sighed in frustration. We all needed a break. I whipped out my wallet. Inside I had a few Zoolots from the kind old lady who gave them to me. Then I had my credit card. The one Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday. I never liked my parents when it come to this sort of stuff. They never had any problem just throwing cash on me whenever a holiday comes up. At first I was fine with it since I got more allowance. But overtime it got annoying to the point I had money to burn. That might’ve been a contributing factor to why I have no friends.

We were in a desert like place. With only more and more roads up ahead. Until God decided to shine light on us and show us a motel with a strip mall called Blueside View. I pulled over. Got us a good room and both for each of us a full set of light clothes and a pouch we can wear around our necks and not look stupid for our weapons, phones and other necessary items.

Everyone seemed to have awoken after a cold shower, what’s more satisfying was dumping our sweat-stained clothes in the bin to wear our new light clothes. Other than the similar black shoes we all had on, there wasn’t much room for uniform clothing for the four of us. We all seemed in higher spirits once we headed down to the motel restaurant to decide our next move.

We ordered. And waited for the food to arrive. I decided it was time to speak to Maq and ask about everything.

“Where were you born?”

“I was an orphan, I was adopted by my boss and his gang.”

“Were you the only one?”

“No, there were six others. I was adopted at around 11 years old. At first I was scared they might force us to do drills and become a solider or something. But whoever the boss was seemed to have a soft spot for kids. They taught us the ropes. How everything worked in this world. And how we can have a place in it.”

“Whose your boss?”

“I’ve never seen the man, but his last name is Nato.”

“…How can you work for someone who’ve you never seen before?” I pressed him.

“It’s not that. I’ve only been doing recon and stuff like that. Others took jobs like making Zoolots or vials and stuff like that. I only took this scout and recon job cause I thought it sounded cool.”

“I thought ya said you were a merc?” Andy asked between bites of pancakes. He seemed to be enjoying himself watching us talk.

“No, I said that to give off a great first impression to you boys.”

“To you “boys”?” what the hell are you gay or something? You swing the other-”

Before I finished my sentence the entire restaurant got darker. The other customers looked at why the windows, the light source, was blocked. And they left after a glance. I thought we should follow suite. But seeing we had our weapons I didn’t think anything in the upper world could harm me. Maybe if we went to a Synedrate-producing factory, they’d make me a shield and I’d be invincible.

People with dark street clothing came in the restaurant from all exits after everyone left, including the chefs and our waiter. That’s when I knew this was serious business. I felt really angry. This was our moment to take our breather. Maybe I got what I could out of Maqius but Red and his blackouts seemed different. They happened only in serious situations. I could tell all those biotic class Synedrate vials we injected in him must have rejected  it and was causing some sort of fever to run up. He was having one of those fevers right now I can tell the tank top I bought him wasn’t giving him enough ventilation as he was sweating buckets…again.

Andy looked scared again. I told him to get his gun out and shoot like he did back at that state fair. He was the best marksman in my opinion. For him to shoot a perfect 8 at those plastic frogs was amazing since he told me beforehand the guy operating it was scamming people with bent bullets.

Those goons surrounded our table. There were 12 of them. 3 for each of us. I wished the waiter could’ve given us our food before ditching us. We would’ve looked cool if we didn’t give a damn and continued eating as if they weren’t worthy of our attention.

“Andy, listen, if you don’t fight, then we all die. I know I forced it upon you to do this but I really need your sharpshooting skills here.” I pleaded urgently. But he seems to be frozen stiff with a very callous look. Red was hunched over his share of the table having difficulty breathing. From the looks of Maqius I think he was just as much help to Red as I was to Andy.

Why do these things always happen when we’re in serious trouble.

“Nothing to worry about, mate. You got me right Reeves?”

“Uh huh” I said followed by a grunt. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him I’d prefer Andy over him any day but seeing as we’re in a life and death situation…

“You take these guys I’ll take them.” I said pointing over to my side.

One of them made the first move. It was from my side. He was carrying a sledgehammer similar to Red’s hammer. That reminded me…where was?”

“FYUUU!”

That wasted second of useless mind wandering could’ve costed me my head. If not for Andy’s quick thinking and arrow that went through that guy’s brain.

“Sorry for the spacing out… I guess we all have our fair share of doing it in times where we’re in mortal peril.” Andy said coolly.

“No problem. We all got each other’s backs right Maq?” I asked. I didn’t even care how corny it sounded. I was just happy to see Andy back on his feet with the will to survive.

“Yes, my man. We all gotcha!” Maq replied while taking his dagger out from one of the bad guys.

Once those guys saw how serious we were at the cost of two of their men, the remaining ten moved in at the same time.

I felt like in a epic scene from a superhero film. Whoever these guys were, they must’ve underestimated us bringing primitive weapons. We had the technology of Synedrate on our side. Maqius threw each dagger with deadly precision at their necks and when someone tried to literally stab him in the back all he did was disappear and reappear where the last dagger he threw was at.

Andy was like a different person. Every shot he aimed hit it’s mark with one shot. The first three fell without any problem. When the remaining 7 saw how dangerous he was they backed off and went for Maq. Andy didn’t shoot in case he might hit Maq or me accidently. Which was very thoughtful but naïve. If he had no problem going gung-ho on three guys in a jiffy there was no way he’d miss or kill me or Maq. But I guess the terrible consequences shook him and didn’t take a chance. They tried taking Maq out as he seemed to be more weaker close ranged. But I was there to surprise blast them with my shield. Andy took another one out after careful aiming. Maq killed another one totaling his kills to three. I blasted three at the same time tying with Maq. One got away and ran with his tail between his legs… and came back with the car they came here with in the first place. All three of us were huddled together as if sitting ducks for a storm to sweep us away just when the mama duck came in to save the day.

And I mean Red. He was….well red. His skin was red. And he looked bigger. Really bigger for someone already huge. I don’t know what happened to him but he seems to look really angry and strong. He was pushing the car back with his two arms. The guy in the car must’ve panicked and tried to get away. But Andy, who was smiling shot the man in the chest. He seemed to have survived though and stopped the car and ran out with the will to survive. Which was cowardly. I lifted my spear and threw it… hitting it’s mark. Piercing it’s skull and blood splattering everywhere.

“Cross the ring and middle finger of the hand which you used to throw the spear.” Maqius said. “It’ll come back.” He said with a smile that made him look like a psychopath what with all the blood on his face.

I crossed the two fingers of my right hand and sure enough it came back. I was impressed but more importantly we had to leave. People were watching us normal people primitive people. Red seemed to have cooled down a bit and went back to normal but naked. But we had to go. It wasn’t safe to be here. I ran to the counter and grabbed some hard cold cash enough to last us a month. We all worked in sync.

Red went over and used the car to cover up the dead bodies that can be seen from the hole make by the car smashing into it. He dragged all the bodies in one place to make it… “Simpler” Maq swept and made sure to not find any evidence that could link us to the crime by doing whatever he did with his tools in his pockets. Andy packed our stuff and all the essentials. After we all were fully clothed and ready we hit the road.

But not after causing a crowd to come investigate. Some people were on their phones pointing at us and presumingly calling the police.

It wasn’t until a an hour once we were back on a highway we realized that it didn’t make sense for there to be a lot of people.

“There were people of different classes, old, young, the elderly and many others. Why would they be in a small strip mall with a motel?” Andy asked.

That very question was intriguing me as well. The whole reason we went ham on those goons in the first place was because I thought there’d be less witnesses. But I panicked at the sight of a ton load of ordinary people that we had to make a dash for it.

“Maqius… can illusions be made with Synedrate?” I asked him.

“With today’s technological advancements in groundbreaking state of the art research. I say this with 100% seriousness… you can never tell. And that’s me being serious mind you.” He said with raised eyebrows.”

I laughed. This wasn’t normal. Other than Red we had committed a series of murders which we seemed totally calm about. Maybe it’s different when you kill one specific person by accident rather than killing one of many who tried to kill you first I don’t know but either way we weren’t scared…

But what were we gonna do after this is all over? Will they forgive us for the murders we’ve committed? Are they gonna throw us in jail for killing bad people? What will happen to us after we do leave jail? Won’t people try to kill us for exposing the hidden society?

Maqius wrapped his arms around me while I was driving. Which I didn’t feel comfortable with for that reason alone and due to the fact I’m driving.

“Don’t worry about it. After we’re done with our mission. I can introduce you to the boss and we can work like this forever.

“Do I really want that? I know that the comfort of my home will only hinder my progression in life. But is taking a giant leap with no preparation something I ought to do?”

And someone crashed the car from the side. Knocking us unconscious because I was staring off into space.