55 Chapter Fifty-Five: The Right Thing (1/2)

Tory and Kyle rush at the same time. As the rest of the crew fights them off, Rose sneaks away towards Demetri to check up on Finn and Blake. Rose was mostly concerned about Finn, however, they were both still unconscious. There wasn't anything she could do to help.

”What are you doing here?” Demetri asks. ”Shouldn't you be helping rest of crew?”. Rose was speechless. She couldn't think of what to say, nor did she know exactly why she came back. ”Do you have a plan or something?” Demetri asks.

”Not... exactly” Rose says.

”Then you're just concerned about friend” Demetri says. Rose was silent again. ”If you want to save them, the only thing you can do is end fight faster”.

”How do we do that?” Rose asks.

”The same way Siran always tries to end scuffle” Demetri says. ”It's worked for him so far, so maybe it will work for you”.

”How Siran does it?” Rose asks. Rose looks behind Demetri, at the bikes they rode on.

”Make another plan” Demetri says, ”be more flexible. The best chance we have at saving these two and the rest from death is to end this as soon as possible. This will give me chance to heal them in proper environment”.

”Another plan..?” Rose asks herself.

Tory and Kyle attack, one after another, keeping the crew busy with defending themselves. All the while, Garreth simply stood behind them and observed. Tory jumped at Alex, and as he tried to dodge, Kyle kept him from moving too far by attacking Alex from behind. Alex was trapped, getting pinched from both sides. Holly tried to use shields to slow them down, but they tore right through them. As Tory was about to strike Alex with armament magic, suddenly a blade rains down from above. One blade, at both Tory and Kyle, ignites with a blinding spell. From above, Rose was quickly approaching on her motorcycle. Tory and Kyle were caught off guard, and both of them left blinded. Vivi pulls Alex out of the way and Rose ramps off of a tall rock pointing out of the ground. The rock was slanted and created a steep slope, and was large enough to park a bike on. As Rose ramps off of the rock, she uses the boost engine to make the bike lift high off of the ground.

”PLAN B!” Rose shouts as she jumps off of the bike in mid-air. The bike lands right on top of both Tory and Kyle. The weight of the bike from its metal plate armor crushed them both, caving in their skulls and killing them. Rose hits the ground and tumbles.

”Are you okay?” Vivi asks as she helps Rose get up.

”Yeah” Rose says. She then dusts off her shoulders and says ”I'm fine. Just a little bit of pain, I'll live”.

”That was insane” Vivi says as she smiles at Rose. ”I'm starting to like you guys more and more”.

”Thanks” Rose says, ”glad to see you come around. Can I call you sis?”.

”Don't push your luck” Vivi says.

”Cool” Rose says, ”that's fair. Also, what does a concussion feel like again?”.

”Uh, guys?” Alex says as he points at Garreth. Instead of Markwood, Garreth stole both Tory and Kyle's endo this time. The skin on Garreth's face began to crack, and the cracks appeared like a black and endless void. Staring into the cracks of his face was like staring into an abyss. The ground began to rumble as Garreth says ”Let's begin”. Garreth vanishes in the blink of an eye and appears behind Alex. Alex was sent, face first, into the ground from Garreth's elbow. The impact of Alex's body hitting the ground created a shallow dent in the rock beneath them. Alex narrowly avoided sudden death by using a stability buff spell with reactive endo. As Alex rolls over onto his back, Garreth pulls back his fist to prepare a punch. Alex rolls to his side to avoid it, and Garreth's fist digs right into the earth. Rock, dirt and grass shattered in an explosion simply from Garreth's fist. As Garreth prepares for another punch, Vivi tries to kick him off of Alex. Garreth takes the kick, but he barely budged. Alex sweeps Garreth off of his feet with a kick. As Garreth began to fall onto his back, Alex gets his distance. Mikoto charges in with an armament punch, but Garreth blocks with with his bare hand. Without using any spells to block the attack, Garreth negated Mikoto's attack completely with his bare hand. Holly aims her sniper rifle at him, waiting for the perfect shot. As she prepares, Satomi tries to shake up Garreth with her bat. As Satomi comes down on his head with her bat, Garreth grabs her bat with his other hand. With one of the Ueda sisters in each hand, Garreth tosses both of them onto the ground. Tanya charges at Garreth this time. Tanya delivers a punch, but Garreth parried her punch with his wrist. As he does this, he prepares to punch Tanya back. Before he has the chance, Tanya counters with a faster punch. Hitting Garreth in the jaw, Tanya forced Garreth to look straight up from the punch. Above him, Rose came down with a knife. The knife flashes before hitting Garreth, blinding him. However, while blinded, Garreth caught the knife before it hits him in the face with his right hand. Ying approaches from Garreth's right with her baton in hand. Strong electrical elemental magic surrounding the baton, Ying strikes at Garreth. Garreth blocks the baton with the knife he stole from Rose. The electricity passes into Garreth, causing him to seize up and twitch from his nerves being overloaded. However, although it was hard for Garreth to move, he still stood on his feet. Vivi jumps at Garreth, wrapping her right arm around his neck. While coming down, Vivi drives his head into the ground. After Vivi gets off of Garreth, Tanya comes down on his stomach with a drop kick. Using buff spells and reactive endo to strengthen her kick, Tanya drove Garreth deep into the ground. However, Garreth got right back up. As he sits up, he pops his neck and opens his eyes. Upon opening his eyes, he's greeted with a gun barrel from Alex. His gun blasts Garreth backwards, and Garreth is once again sent onto his back. Robin comes in for a distortion punch, but Garreth blocks it with another distortion spell. As he does that, Alex hits Garreth from the other side with yet another distortion punch. Garreth tumbles backwards but lands on his feet. Suddenly, a powerful beam pierces through his back. Holly took the shot, blasting a hole through the center of his body. However, Garreth was able to withstand a lot of the impact from her rifle with buff spells of his own. Garreth didn't seemed bothered by the pain. It seemed as if he couldn't feel it at all, but he now directed his attacks at Holly. Charging at Holly, Garreth prepares a punch packed with a powerful fire spell. Holly creates twelve digital shields, but all of them shattered upon simply touching Garreth's spell. Ruby uses elemental magic to create a small wall of rock from the ground to block Garreth's attack. Most of the attack was stopped, but the rock shattered and some of the impact hit Holly. Holly was knocked onto her back, and could barely maintain consciousness. Garreth picked Holly up by the collar of her shirt and lifted her off of the ground. Holly looked down on Garreth and smiled. Suddenly, a shield wraps around Garreth's head and the shield lets off a bright flash. Holly used a similar trick as to what Rose uses. In his frustration of sudden blindness, Garreth drops Holly on the ground. Ruby charges at him, running at a high speed. Ruby tackles Garreth in a way that lifted Garreth onto her shoulders. When she stopped running, Garreth began to fall off of her shoulders. Before he could touch the ground, Ruby hits him with a concussive wind spell and sends him flying. As he flew, Ruby throws a ball of reactive endo at Garreth and it pierced right through his chest, just above the hole in his stomach. Garreth hits the ground and the reactive endo explodes. There was a silence as the dust clears. When it finally cleared, Garreth still stood on his feet in the rain. His body barely holding together, Garreth slowly walks up to the group. The crew prepared for a counter attack, but suddenly a small beam pierced his skull from behind. As Garreth fell, Robin sat behind him. Crouched on his knees for stability while holding his sniper rifle, Robin held the smoking gun.

”Boom” Robin says. ”Headshot”.

The crew held their breath, hoping that Garreth would not get up again. Watching and waiting, a tension rose over the crew. However, Garreth did not get up. The crew took in a deep breath, but their troubles were not over. Siran and Zia once again passed by the crew while chasing down Markwood. Markwood stops at Garreth's body and tries to take his endo.

”Don't let him take his endo!” Siran shouts.

Rock spikes shoot up from the ground beneath Markwood from Siran, but he jumps away from Garreth's body. The crew tries to plan a counter attack, but suddenly, Alex jumps up from behind Markwood and tries to blast him with his gun. Markwood deflects the impact and the force hits Alex instead. Alex was sent onto his back, and the crew rushes up to Alex to make sure Markwood doesn't try to kill him. Markwood keeps his distance between himself and the crew. As Markwood gets his distance from the crew, he says ”I've got a surprise for you!”. Two Predators jump from rooftops and land in front of the crew.

”I hope you like repetition” Markwood says. ”You've kept coming to me with friends, so I figured you might like it”. The two Predators stand up and cock their heads at Siran. ”I'm taking my Endoindustria back” Markwood says, ”and you're not stopping me”.

The Predators start to crouch over to prepare to leap at Siran. Suddenly, the rain on the ground began to freeze in a snap. There on the ground, behind the crew, Blake was crawling on his stomach. One eye open, barely awake, his hand on the ground and a trail of ice from his hand. The ice went around the crew and snap froze the two Predators. The crew looks back at Blake with surprise in their eyes.

”Blake...” Siran says.

Blake laughs, reaches in his back pocket with his left hand and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He puts one in his mouth and says ”It's what I do” then lights his cigarette. Blake coughs up a little bit of blood and his head slams on the ground from the weakness in his body. He was still conscious, but he no longer had any strength left. As the crew looks back at Markwood, Markwood had already lifted up Garreth's dead body. The endo from the Predator robots were drained by Markwood and then a massive wave of endo poured from Garreth's body and into Markwood. Markwood's face had already begun cracking like Garreth's face before. However, now blood began to slowly spill out of his eyes. Markwood fell to his knees, and coughed up more blood. The blood instantly turns into smoke upon touching the ground and dissipates.

”This isn't good” Alex says. ”It took all of us to beat Garreth and he only had the power of three Mages endo. He has all ten now”.