Chapter 4 What's left

"Grey, I can't go into detail about how you'll come into our plans, and besides. I still don't have a plan on how'll we take a thresh hold onto this world right as we speak, because of humanity tendencies to blow thing out of proportion when a disaster happens." she sighed while another explosion happened, "We'll wait for the chaos to stop and see if we could deploy our company's influences to help the chaos simmer down in each country, and I'll get a hold of my parents and asked them to lend a hand as well and deploy their private army as well to our others companies in the world." she explains while she was on her phone, doing much typing and sending out a lot of messages and emails once you heard all the beeping noise that came later.

"Hmm, you seem to be very busy at the moment." I couldn't help to only hear her phone being the only one talking here.

"Yes, I dropped all my personal work and left them on hold to search for you. The lack of your presence was more important then dealing with this." she only looked at her phone to still see the on barrage of emails and messages come through one single phone.

"Hmm, I'm more surprised by the fact that you could still used your phone in the first place." I was more curious on how that phone was still able to send and let alone receive anything at all.

"The reason behind that is. Once you were unconscious, a group of students composed of the welding class, programming class, and even some students who were in the athletic class," she hummed, "Went on mission to fix our communication problems, and it's was lead by a very agnostic person who had a very muscularity built for a female." her eyes never left her phone through out the who explanation.

"Elizabeth?!" I couldn't believe it she'd leave me all alone just to go play hero, "Was there a big fella who looked to be a bigfoot as well in that group?" I asked, really wanting to know if they're were playing hero without me.

"Yes, I sent Damien as well to accompany them on their mission. I'm now glad that's Damien's time wasn't wasted on protecting random unimportant peoples." she kept on typing.

"...There not gonna get mixed up into this..." I stopped midway from walking to talk to myself, but not expecting her to actually stop as well; with her now shutting off her phone and giving me her full attention now. I didn't actually meant for her to pay attention to me in this moment, it was just me to be all dramatic and how'll I'll protect them from getting into this craze plan while talking to myself.

"Grey, I'll tell you the truth," she came up to me, "I want your friends to work along side us as well." she looked straight into my eyes, "What I heard from Damien was astonishing-"

"I won't let them get dragged into this." I cut her off before she could finish.

"I'll let you do anything to me and I'll do anything you say, but if you drag my friends into this," placing my hand on her shoulder, "I won't be holding back in our fight." I looked her dead in the eyes.

She only laughed at my whole seriousness, "Okay, okay," she patted my hand, "I understand you're feeling about your friends. But what I'm trying to offer you're friends and yourself is a partnership to my company, like a branch to my company, and I want you to be the leader in this branching experiment." she again offers another hand to me.

"I.." sighing at her offer, "I can't speak for them in this offer," I started scratching the back of my head, "I'll talk to them.." I couldn't deny that offer bluntly because of my awful past in the way of an offer that could benefit them greatly.

"I can see you care a great deal about them Grey," she gently removes my hand from my shoulder, "And what Damien said about them, then I'm sure both of our team could benefit from our partnership." she then fire up her phone again, now being bombarded by loads of emails and messages; with her face now looking grim by screen.

"Yeah." I looked somewhere in the distance, "There's the only friends I have." smiling at how they're the only friends I ever made, "But I'll take your words on good faith, because of are newly found partnership." smiling at her, hoping she won't betray them, or used them till they aren't useful anymore use.

"Hmm, I thought you said, 'Oh, this is going to be a start to a beautiful friendship', but now we're back to partnership only?" she laughs at my quick change of heart.

"Ha, yeah-" I was interrupted by her hand coming up to my face.

"Forgive me Grey," she only looked down on her phone, "It's seem I can't afford to give you anymore of my free time..." she sounded discouraged by all the emails flooding in by the sounds that poor phone was getting left and right, "And could you please not disturbed me while I'm in the process of sorting out all these emails." she only sighed at her phone, while her other free hand was place on her temples, trying desperately to not be overwhelmed by the amount she needed to go through.

Seeing how hilarious this was. The person who beat you up to the point where you needed to submit to her whims, now suffering because of her work loads she needed to sort out. Being a great friend to her, I when up to her and started patting her back while afterwards started rubbing her back for support, "There, there, there. I'll support you boss." giving her a smug grin with my thumb up to show her that she's doing a great job and my wink to top everything off.

"I can start to see why you only have two friends now." she only sighed out while in the middle of me doing this.

After that, we just continued walking through the hallway while Nicole was stuck to her phone, with no intention of getting off of it with all the emails spamming her. And just leaving the only source of sounds in that moment was her phone going off, with a hint of explosions coming from the outside shaking the whole experience of silence up every now and then.

Finally after a few minutes of slowly walking towards the others, we finally made it to the entrance of the building hallway, full with students who managed to survive the blast. With fewer students then before we started with, with some of them injured or having a panic attack at this reality; while some of them were either helping the injured and the mentally injured, while the others with weapons were on guard duty and looking out for danger over by the huge hole that been replaced the old doors we once had.

"That's a lot of bodies.."

Looking at the massive pile of students and adult's bodies kept in a pile that tried to keep the dead in a place where they won't bother the living, but they did it so poorly that it looked more disrespectful towards the dead. And thinking it can't be worse, they're weren't done with the bodies; they still were still useful, even in death. They started putting something into the corpse once they grabbed one of them.

"You get it right?" she shut off her phone, "The disrespect towards those lost souls." she stopped, "Well at least there's being useful in death," she then started heading somewhere in the crowd, "Well then," she looked back towards me, "I'll be seeing you soon Grey; hopefully you'll find your friends in time for our meeting." she waved me off.

"But you didn't do anything to help?" I then watched her move into the crowd. And with her saying nothing in return, she only faded away into the crowd; never to be seen again.

Now just alone with nobody I knew here, or nowhere to go to look for my idoits in this madness, I just started wondering around at all the things that been going on without me when I was knocked, "Now," scratching my head, "Where do I find some idoits-"

"Oi!" Someone shouted, "If you're not doing anything, then go to the forging classroom!" I then looked at the person shouting, "They need a person there to help and be a lookout!"

"Me?" confused if he was yelling at me or somebody else.

"No, I'm yelling at that person besides you with his arm gone." he sarcastic sounded.

"Aww, I could see why you'd pick him, he'll really be-"

"Don't you fucking finished that..." being cut off by the person whose arm is gone.

"Just get going already!" the one yelling, now sounded more frustrated then before.

Seeing I'm not winning this argument between the both of them, I just quickly walked towards the exits of our little base of operation. Now once I finally gotten out from that's awkward situation and how I was about to shed some light in our darkest moments with some harmless laughter at the wounded and maybe at the disabled to lighten there transgressions to this new lifestyle of their.

Now again wondering the hallway, in search of the forcing classroom I needed to go for support or something, is now my mission instead of finding my friends. But convincing myself that there wasn't in there anyway, I kept my searching for them while wondering in the hall, looking for an anvil looking sign that'll tell which classroom to go into and keeping a eye for them at the same time as well. And thinking it'll take me about a hour to find what I'm looking for, but as I moved more into the hallway, I seen two students loitering around the entrance of their classroom.

"Are you the new guard?" said a feminine voice coming from one of the two.

"Ye-"

"Of course he his you idoit! Look at all those scars all over his arms!" the other female pointed at my ruffled up arms

"You're the idoit! Idoit."

"Said the one who mess up on that simple project!" she then grabbed the other shirt's collar.

They kept on bickering about how one of them mess up on some projects, but too annoyed about their childish behavior; I then started shutting them off to look at my arms.

'Right..I'm freak with these scars.' All I saw on my arms were the awful scars left on my arms.

"Well anyway," she hummed to me, "We're glad you're here. Our others classmates are too tense to working without any guard protecting them." the one who won with the another in a chock hold said.

Confuse by her actions to this point, I just follow the both of them into their humble classroom. But it was even more worse then in here then out there, students working as hard as they could with this die look to them, "Horrible right." the one who seem like the leader in this class came up to us, "We been working since the explosion went off," she gave the two of idoits from before a hint to start working, "none of us been able to take much breaks since they been attacking us non stop, and our order for shields isn't helping either." she sighed.

"Do you know who been attacking us? Or are you in the blind as well?" asking, because she sounded like she didn't know as well.

"Huh, so you just woken up today?" she hummed, "I would expect all those who were sleeping would now be up by now, huh." we moved through the busy classroom, full with students working their hardest on making shields or some form of fence with spike tips, "Okay!" she pointed at two others students, in the middle of working, "You two! Break for five minutes!" she clapped her hand at them.

"Finally..." one of them said. But the other one she picked to go on break didn't even bother to get up from her work place, "Valérie!" the one leading me yelled at the person who was deeply invested into her work to hear.

"w-What-" she couldn't finish her sentence, from her hitting her head on a big light thingy that was used to keep her area lighted above her head, after hitting her head on the light source; she only fell to the ground from that impact.

"..."

"..."

The three of us just went quiet after she didn't respond to her demand, and thinking she actually hurt herself; I just when up to see if she didn't actually killed herself from her clumsiness.

"I'm okay!" she sprung up from her work place. Surprised from her jump scary, I backed way from her, now feeling silly I worried about her a second ago.

"Valérie! You need a break!" the leader pointed towards the door, "You been working since they ordered us to make shields for them!" she yelled at the poor girl.

"I know! You don't need to explain in out loud!" she state the obvious out loud, "Why are you even saying that anyway?!" she was now confused.

"Because! Our new guard is one of the person who just woken up!" she pointed at me, "And I thought explaining our job would give him some light in our situation!" they kept on yelling each other.

"And here our leader showing off why she in charge of us!" Valérie sounded amazed by her leadership or something, "Yes! But I'm almost finished with my personal project, so I can't take a break now!" she gave us her eyes of determination once she said she was almost done.

"Fine! But once you've done with your project, you're going on break straight afterwards, okay!" the leader shouted at her.

"Yes ma'am!" she did a little salute sign to the leader. After that, she when back down to her desk; probably looking for something that happened to fallen down her desk for her to reenact her injuries by this time bumping her head into the desk.

"Since she ain't going for a break, can I take her place!" one of the background character shouted at us.

"What are you talking about!?" another background character yelled at the one before, "You had a turn before not that long!" he then stopped working, and started turning off his mechanic thingy? A forged?

"Hey!" another person came into the faze, "What about letting girls go first!" a female barked in the background.

"Two girls already had a turn!" the first person who complained yelled out.

"Yeah!" the second person agreed with the first one, "We deserve a break as well!" they gang up on the female to stay out of this conversation.

"ENOUGH!"

With the loud bursts of sound coming from their leader, making every students stop what they're doing while giving their full attention towards her.

"If you're done acting like children, then get back to work!"

she continued to walk towards his workplace, till someone tried to challenge her.

"Come on Cristina, we all been working hard since we gotten here," came a tired looking person in the background, "We can't keep going on like this!" he then yelled at her.

"Yeah!" cheered another person within the background.

"There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to take a day off!" they just kept on coming

"Yeah! A day off!" they all agreed on.

"We CAN'T!" she snapped.

Again beginning silence to the classroom, now everyone too shocked at her snapping at them. She only replied to the silence with somber crying, terrifying to see a strong willed person just a moment ago, now reduce to her crying for some reason.

"We're behind our set goal.." she only sighed out, now done with her crying.

"b-But, you said our goal was to make at least twenty shields..." one of them sounded confused by her statements.

"Yeah! We made about fifteen of them since we started!" one yelled out the progress they made since they started.

"..We actually need about fifty shields..." she only turned her back to them while looking down. Expecting them to be shocked by this sudden realization about the amount they needed, they only scoffed at that number when she said that.

"If that's all the problem is, then we got it covered!" one of the girl yelled in excitement.

"Yeah!" agreeing was the same person who started the whole controversy in the first place, "We have a whole week~!" he smiled at this fact.

They all looked happy about their time to finish, and now knowing the actually number for the order, they were feeling great about the number they produced in two days. But with all this facts and happiness happening in front of her, she never looked back toward it; probably knowing that there were either wrong or overconfident about their time.

"The time been moved," she corrected them, "we only have at best three days to finish the order." she told them the real time for them, "But Mr. Jackson expected we only have about two more days till they come." once she let everything out, she finally turned towards the whole class, "That's why we can't afford to take a day off, I'll still allow us to take a short break." once she gave them the real situation and the problem set in front of them, they were only filled with regrets for letting their hubris for getting in the way of the realization of the amount they needed in such a short amount of time.

"But at the rate we're going," when everyone started thinking it was over, "we'll get it done! Are we not the ones who kept us armed and well defended with our craftsmanship?!" she yelled at them with encouragement behind her yelling, "Where's are the proud craftsmen who I been working hard with for the past two days?!" she questioned them, "Will we not live up to our expectations for our forging!? Have our past experiences that lead us to here going to end here!?"

"NO!" everyone shouted towards her question pointed towards them.

"That's right! Everything that lead us to choose the path of forging will define us now! Give it's everything you got it! This is do or dead!"

YES!" everyone again shouted, but with determination behind their cheer.

They all started going back to work, now turning on their furnace and mechanics alike. The room now no longer in it's depressing state that it been once I stepped into this room, but now a classroom filled with determination and compassion for the work they been doing since they started working in their craft, with the room temperature doubled before when I first came here, with all their furnace set to high and their determination to take into account for the heat.

"Hey," someone came up to me from behind, "thanks for coming here." said the leader that made everything happen, "If you'd haven't came, I would have probably kept that secret with me." she gave me a signal with her hand to follow her, "And I bet you're wondering why a student like myself is leading this classroom right?" she mentioned my now question at why she leading them now.

"Oi! I thought we'd all be working after that speech!" one of them laughed at her, but with no tone of harm; but with only harmless laugh at her quick change of mind.

"I need to show this one around! For helping me explain our problems!" she yelled back, now the entire classroom laughing at her statements.

"Well take as much time you need! you deserve it!" he yelled back to her.

"So you either want the awful news or horrible news?" she question me.

"Both are enticing options..." I had to sarcastically wait to think about this, "I'll go with the awful news." choosing the one that sounds better then the 'horrible' one.

"All the teachers are dead or missing once the explosion when off." she bluntly said, like ripping off a bandage, "So only a handful of students is leading the entire school, and the ones making the choices around here." she sighed out, "And I'm one of those handful of people!" she ended that explanation on a high note, instead of leaving it as grim.

"Mmm." I nodded at her for my response, "And I take that this 'Mr. Jackson' is one of the leaders as well?" remembering her mentioned somebody by the name of Jackson.

"Yes," she sighed, now remembering that said person, "he the one whose in charge of our guards, lookouts and peoples up helding the law in our school. And man he's uptight..." she explains one of the leaders, "I'll tell you the others leaders in time, so I don't want to derail my explanation about talking about them." she said, "Plus there five of us, if you don't know what a handful is." she quickly pointed that out.

"So next one is the horrible news huh." we kept on walking through the classroom, "Well we're basically fucked in about a week." she again, bluntly said it out without no hesitation, "Again on the first day, when the entire world decided to completely give up. Everyone started panicking about the huge explosion at American, and guessing that all those articles were right about American being targeted, and having the government not say anything wasn't putting the country at ease-" she got caught off guard after something devastating happened midway.

"Come on people! Is it's that hard to pile your work in a neat pile!" she started shouting at the peoples who were working on a different project instead of the one making shields, "And why are they piling up this much?! Where are the welders at anyway?!" she question them.

"They haven't shown up yet!" the female who been piling them up yelled back at Cristina, "They're probably running late!" she gave their lateness a explanation.

"Just pile them up neatly next time! We can't afford to have any injuries towards us!" Cristina yelled at them.

"Sorry, they're working on our defenses. We had to split our workforce into two groups, one group has the job of making fences, spikes and iron boxes. And the other one is making shields that could deflect bullets, or that could minimize damage towards the shield." she explained why half of them were working on two different things.

"Now back to our news. Since the government decided to abandon us in our time of need, every state broke out into chaos; and the world probably followed suit since we haven't had any words on any countries because of our communication problems. But that problem been solved by a group of students who went out to fix a nearby cell tower, and thanks to our brave group; we managed to get ahold of our current problems. And that's was the only bright side I could manage to say." she sighed.

"Once we gotten our communication up and running, peoples who wanted to take shelter in our school from the chaos came. And the pervious guard that's been guarding us before the explosion started shooting at those peoples, even while they had their back in turned against them..." she stopped, calming herself down, "And one of those person happened to be in a very powerful gang..." she tried to continue, but she needed to calm herself more from all memories to come.

"Once word gotten out that we killed a innocent person who just wanted him and his family out from the chaos; we gotten a call from the boss of that gang, and all he said is that he'll avenge that person death by us paying back with our blood. The guards only made it worse when he spat at him, only making their temper grow worse when he said those lines..." she didn't want to say his words and just went on, "The only thing after that was a explosion to the building."

She sighed, forcing herself to remember the things that happened, "They quickly attacked us from the front, I.e why they're a huge hole in the front door entrance. And from the huge moment of confusion, they attacked us with their guns and explosives, killing any students that happened to be standing in the middle between their fight; and you already seen the numbers when you entered the base..." she couldn't keep shaking from the experience, "You don't-" trying to make her stop from remembering, but only met with slapped to my face.

"I won't do the same thing again.." she said, "There are our enemies through and through, they aren't humans." she waited for me to recover from that slap, "Remember that, when the time comes. Don't hesitate to kill them." she coldly stared at me.

"Back to the story." she when back, like nothing happened, "After that fight was over, with both numbers low on each side; but with our side having heavy injuries and more bodies then we could count." she gave me the explanation on why there were so many bodies in the front, "Then we gotten the same call from the same person, telling us he won't stop till our school is just pile of rubles for our mistakes." and she now explained our current state and whose our enemies, "Oh, btw. We managed to capture one of their scout today, and got information about when their attacking, and how much we're expecting on that day. But now thinking about it, it's kinda dumb I expected them to follow through with there plan with their scout was not coming back to them." she laughed.

"Well that's was a lot..." I couldn't see anything bright point I could bring up, "Yeah, sorry for telling you all this when you just woken up." she genuinely sounded sorry for me, "Any questions?" she asked.

"Yeah, where's the 'guards' you spoken about through the whole explanation? I only seen students working at the base, and no adult in sight?" I asked my only question about this whole thing.

"Would you place your trust into people who brought this whole problem in the first place?" she answered my question with a question of her own.

"No."

"Exactly, our leader quickly disposed of them after the fight, seeing how they only brought harm to us since they taken control of us." she didn't have any sympathy for them when she talked about them, "And beside, our leader been keeping us alive with her leadership to this point, so there wasn't any need for them to live anyway." she finally answered my question.

"If that's all," we made a full circle around the classroom, "I'll be going back to my work." to her workplace, "And could I ask you a favor?" she stopped midway before going to her workplace, "Could you go persuade Valérie into taking a break? That girl been working all day and yesterday with her personal project, plus she been working in between making our shields as well." she said while shaking her head, "She have a gift in our craft, but that still doesn't make it better when she working on both of them at the same time; you could smell the disaster right?"

"Sure, better then pretending to be busy in here." I waved her off.

With the whole story now unfolded to me, and now knowing who was behind the explosion before in my class. I didn't know what to do with this sudden information, and now contemplating on how to proceed this; I just worried about what in front of me now, but what's in front of me only confused me more when I went to Valérie's workplace.

"Heya." making my presence known when I made it to her workstation, and it disgusted me when I seen how of a mess her workstation was. Tools litter through out her workplace, and drawing skater all over the place to no end; the only thing I could think about her mess was, 'Who could work in this?'

"What!-" she again seems to be underneath her desk, and like before, she quickly reacted to my call when she tried to stand up from her desk; which in terms, she bumped her head against the desk. When her head met with the desk, the whole desk shook from the impact; worried again if she off herself from the impact, I quickly when to underneath her desk to see if she was okay.

Now dragging her out from underneath the desk, "You okay?" I asked her once I dragged her to the middle of her workplace, "n-No," she place her hands on her head, "I think that bump did it from me.." she then did this fake mini roll around, "I think the only thing that'll help me is helping with my project." she lifted up her head and winked at me trying to give me a hint, "Huh, then I guess we lost a very gifted craftsman today," I gotten up from my kneeling position, "Cristina-" I couldn't finish once she launched at me to cover up my mouth, "Don't! They won't hesitate to take me to the medic!" she whisper into my ears.

Nodding at her to not do anything rush, she slowly lifted her hands away from my mouth, "CR-" she then punched me at my injured side with more force then I should have expected from her, "I not lying!" she pulled me down to ground with her pure strength.

"Just please help me okay," she whispered to me, "I'm having trouble with the locking mechanic and I can't find my tiny screwdriver!" she kept me pinned down waiting for my answer, "Okay, but afterwards you'll take a break?" not wanting to mess with someone who was strong enough to pinned me down with ease, "Mmm.." she actually needed time to think about our deal, "Okay..." she sighed out, "I probably need a break for pulling a all nighter."

After she stopped pinning me down and now getting up from the ground, she then offered me a hand up; not seeing the point in refusing this offer, I then reached out my hand to her. And she surprisingly lifted me up with ease, "Dam, you're strong." complimenting her for strength, "Of course I'm!" she brought up her arm, "I put my all into my craftsmanship!" she started flexing her arm to make a muscle while wearing a smile.