Chapter 6 Having no choice left pt 3

As he punched me straight in the guts without any hesitation or remorse; my vision only started to blur out as my body was completely out of adrenaline, but was more severe than before when I was completely out. My whole body felt like bricks that only multiply by me trying to fight off my pain, but pushing through his hit to the gut; he only brought back his fist from me.

But didn't know that's his fist was keeping me up this whole time instead of me using all my willpower to keep awake; as he pulled it back, my entire body just dropped without any warning, now onto my knees.

"Don't persist Grey." He only shaked his fist once we brought it back. Now holding my gut from the pain too unbearable, looking up to him to see what he's doing, for him to only look emotionless at his actions while bringing back his knee.

About to pull out my blade with a flick, but my attempt was effortless as I felt a hand on my head.

"Just rest."

Was all I heard once his knee contacted to the head, the blurriness now turned to complete darkness coming back and forth as I fell, the only thing I seen going down was something dark standing in front of me instead of my attacker.

"..Grey..."

Opening my eyes from someone calling me, but only be met with complete darkness, with silent only being heard in this darkness. Trying to move in this darkness, but was more confused if I was even moving or if I was only floating in a constant place without moving at all.

'heh,' now looking at the void, 'having felt like this-'

"Hey..."

Hearing something within the darkness that was surrounding me.

"...Why..."

As the darkness started forming a form that I didn't want to see anymore.

"...Is he...?"

It was only getting closer then I would have liked.

"HELP!"

"..."

"WHERE ARE GOING!?"

"..."

"...."

"....."

"....cowards...."

As the darkness only continues to fight each others in front of me, they only stopped fighting once they seen me floating near them. And once they stopped, they only looked at me with no face to them, but with this feeling they didn't like me at all as they moved closer.

"COWARD!"

As the two darkness that once fought now combined with each other to take the form of a small child, he only jumped at me with the only feeling coming from him was pure hatred at me. Instinct taking over my body, quickly swinging my arm at the incoming darkness to stop it from leaping at me.

"Whao, take it easy amigo." Now feeling someone place their hand on me. Opening my eyes up to not see darkness anymore, but to only see a real person instead of that thing that been staring at me, but instead of placing my attack at that monster, it only swung at him.

"You're fine," he than started pulling me down to the makeshift bed I was on, "Major injuries to your arms and your ribs as well," he then roughly pushed my body back to the bed after me trying to escape his hold, "Surprisingly you're still active huh?" He then grabbed my left arm that had a needle in it, and stopping my movements as I noticed that they needed to go this far for my injuries, "Stopping?" he noticed my lack of resistance to him now, "Smart." he then plucked the needle out once I was done acting up.

"You show be able to move about now." after finally taking care of me, he then gotten up from the ground, and started kicking me to get up, "Now beat it," he started pointing his thumb to the curtain that was covering us, "I have more injured pacientes that need my help," he then started fish for something in his pocket, "and I'll be needing this room."

"Wait-" about to get up from the bed, but the pain in my sides, arms and chest were keeping me down, only hearing sighing coming from doctor, "I was expecting someone who gotten this much injuries to be more tougher than that.." he sounded disappointed at me, and tried of hearing or people looking disappointed at me thanks to that Travis person I fought, "Here." he extended his hand to me.

Confuse by his generosity, I took it on good faith, and to my surprise; he gave me a single painkiller for me, "Wow, thanks?" confused by the small amount he gave me, "Trust me, this is the best thing I could give you in this moment." he scoff at my ungratefulness to his kindness, "We started limited our medical supplies," he sat down again while bringing up a smoke from his coat, "The people whose protecting us are always getting injured, or worse not coming back," he than offered a smoke, but declining his kind offer, "So students like you who went through a all of injuries just because they were simply in the way of a fight or disaster, are and well be second priority to us sadly." he only showed a sadden look to his face as he mentioned our predicament and his role.

"Heh," he stopped being sad and tried his best to wear a smile, "Don't worry new blood, you'll get a hang of it." he gave out the best smile he could while giving a thumb up, "Actually I'm not one of those 'awakened' I just got knocked out on the-" being stopped by something hitting my face, it wasn't anything hard or dangerous, as the thrown object was his smoke, "Give me back my feelings." he said once I looked at him in confusion.

"Kinda hard once you show them." now in a long time before any of this mess, I gave him a smudged smile that felt nice in this moment, "estúpido." he only laughed back on my statement.

As the moment dyed down, I was only confused why my right arm felt lighter than it should, and as I looked down to see my hidden weapon was now gone from my wrist; and me now noticing that my left arm was still covered by the same bandage while my right arm was completely open to see my ugly scars.

"Don't worry about you weapon." he then again threw something at me again, but this time it wasn't anything random as the thing he threw was my missing weapon, "Needed to take it off as I worked on your arms," he only stopped midway to scratch his head, "And it's makes so much sense why you had this kinda weapon on you if you weren't an 'awakened'," he only gave out a low laughed at me, "I'll be kinda weird if you'd wear that on your own free will." he only continued his snickering at me.

Now placing my blade back to my wrist, "Mmm, since you have that, you're probably that special case on why we needed to work on you both huh?" he questioned while getting up, "Valérie!?" now stopping my wrapping as he mentioned two people instead of only me, "...Yup..." he only looked away as I mentioned her, he only sighed and looked away from me, "You should see for yourself." he then opened up the curtain that was covering us to only show the reality we were living in while they needed to work.

Seeing the room that would have been empty back then in the old world, but to only be filled to the brim with injured students who were either had heavy injuries or life threatening injuries that they managed to stop, while the pile of bodies shown how lucky I was to even retrieve their's treatment in the first place. Moving pass all the injured students who were on the ground, either being helped by some doctor or were suffering from the pain they gotten while fighting or defending without any medical treatment to ease their pain.

"Awful isn't it?" he broke the silence, "We aren't real doctors, and we barely have any experience in this real situations we trained ourselves to face," he stopped midway of his speech to tilt his head backwards to see me, "Except for me though." the smoke that I once thought to be he held in his mouth was actually a candy smoke he broke as he bite into it, "So generally they made me their leader." as he stared at me, I gotten to seen a broken person who was barely holding it together, "But hey," he only shot me a fake smile, "at least you gotten to met one of the leaders that actually been keeping all of us together." after explaining the situation that the medic team had to face, it was clear that everyone had it bad when working in the field they didn't know they'll be thrust into in just a single day.

As we continued to moved passed all of them, we finally made it to another closed curtain that blocked everyone vision. Concerned that they needed to use the curtain, "You should prepare yourself." he then when inside to notified them that I was coming, "Mmm, okay you come in." he gave me the okay to come it; moving the curtain away to get in. To only be gifted with the sight of the person I once met as this person who loved jokes and being this carefree person, now turned into a empty shell of that said person who now was only crying in pain while she couldn't bear to look at me in this moment

"Did you do that on-" she stopped midway to calm herself, "...purpose?..." she worked up the courage to look me in the eyes while tears overwhelmed her.

"...." only silence was all I could answer to her question.

"The bullet that hit her managed to penetrate her spine cord," the medical leader started explaining her condition to me, "meaning she won't be able to continue her work do to her inability to walk anymore." he only then fished for another candy smoke from his pocket after he was done explaining.

"Yo...u, you didn't mean to right?" she only asked weakly to me, "It was a mistake right?" she started tearing up, "You did- didn't just use me as a body shield right?" she only sounded confused while trying her best to stay calm about this.

"I..." Couldn't come up with anything to say to her, "I'm sorry..." couldn't bear to look her in the eyes anymore, as they were once filled with happiness when she finish her work, now turned to a look that only broke me more as I continued to look at them. As I turned my head from her, she only answered that with a burst of crying to only make this much more worser than before. As she continues to cry, it slowly started to stop midway then hearing a small laughter come through.

.

The once cry that made me feel broken, now turned to full on laughter on her part really surprised me.

"I was kidding Gris." continued to only laugh at me, "I'm not paralyzed!" she turned full on happy from my reaction, "Maybe having a bit of a trouble in running but still can walk." she finished explaining her actually condition, "Man," feeling her wiped her tear away, "I should go to acting if smiting isn't going to work for me, or quit." as she said those words, the whole room started laughing at her joke.

Filled with anger at her, walking up to her; as the people in their was about to stop me, but failed as I started rubbing my knuckles at her head, "Make another poor attemp at a joke like that again," harden my rubbing on her head, "Then I'll definitely have to punch you out." smiley at her for making an awful joke.

"Protective much!?"

As someone yelled that out from behind the curtain, the room once again filled with laughter and now change from a sadden environment that didn't have any room for anything fun, to now people actually laughing and make small jokes over the curtain we were in.

"Sorry!" she whispered at me, "I had to do it." she raised her hands up for me to stop me from continuing me rubbing my knuckles on her head, "I know," only continued my assault while acknowledging her awful plan, "once you said those last words I understood what you're doing!" whispering back at her, "I'm just doing this as a play!"

After my onslaught of attack on her head was over, everyone in the private room that they made thanked to curtain were now calmed by me not actually being mad at her and me actually trying to harm her with actually harming moves I could've done instead of my knuckles attack.

"Explain." was all I said to her, "Why?!" she looked confused, "You basically know everything once you played along!" she whispered back.

"Well I wanna know the 'whole' reason 'why'" using my fingers on the 'why' part to give her my reasoning on asking.

"Fine..." she only looked defeated when she complied, "When you're still out from pushing yourself to your absolute limit, I.e what they said because you weren't waking up at all yesterday." she quickly finished that last sentence, "I was forced to be here for an entire day..." she only sighed out as she remembered something, "it was the absolute worst thing I had to do in my life." she look only saddened by this, "They tried their best Gris." she looked at the silhouette of the pile bodies that was here, "And I had to watch their best efforts go to waste as the person took their last breath, or simply give up..." she couldn't bear to look at that pile anymore as she brought her hand to cover her eyes while lying down on her bed, "And you know?" she only questioned me, "Everyone here had to watch or hear them die." after saying that, the leader only looked down in disappointed at himself.

"So we planned to lighten the mood by using you." she finally gotten to the part where I came into this, "I'm so sorry Gris..." she only looked down in disappointment at herself as well, "We really needed to change the mood here instead of this grime reality we're living in." she tried to gave out a smile underneath her hands, but stopped midway because she couldn't bring herself to smile.

After hearing her side of the story and hearing a good reason on why she made a fool of me in front of everyone here, sighing while fixings my poorly wrapped bandage, "Well I'm just glad your okay." letting her off the hook this once, "But if you've haven't give out that hint before I acted then I would have actually punched you for doing that." now laughing once it was actually funny.

"I knew you would have!" she yelled at me, "Haha, so glad you remember my story." she gave off a sigh. After the awkwardness was over, she quickly when on full on talkative mode, "You were so amazing!" she was about to try and move, but the same doctor that healed me didn't allow her, "I didn't know you knew how to fight! And going against someone who was a former UFC fighter while you only used your own fist was very impressive!" she kept on hyping me up as she continues to explain what I done quietly so only the three of us could hear, "...But you didn't even used my weapon at all in that fight..." her hair now covered her eyes as she looked at me.

"Through out your entire fight, you didn't even use my weapon once!" she was keeping quiet as she vent, "Did you even use it at all?! Did you even know how tv o use it in the first place!?" she then again tried to get up from her bed, but again was stopped by the leader, "Plus you made took off my shirt! You were like 'give me your shirt' but it made it worse when you didn't even say anything and only gave gestures to when you brought me down!" she then started throwing anything she could find near her, "But," she slowly stopped attacking me, "it was more awful seeing you taken all those hits..." as she completely stopped and now finally getting to see her eyes now were filled with tears, "You could have been killed yourself!"

Completely confused by her moods swing now, but as she was done her outburst about me and how I didn't use her blade properly. Sighing at her for acting like a children, walking up to her to pat her head to calm her down, "Well I zoned out on the part where you showed me how to use it, but I only figured out how to use it once I was in real danger." now ruffling her hair up because it was funny as her hair was hella wavy.

"You should listen!" she huffed at my answer, "But I'm glad you're okay Gris." she sighed now letting go of her angrily facade.

"You too." now leaving her side, "Wait Mr. Gris." the doctor stopped me before I left.

"It's actually Grey." correcting my name right to him.

"And my Alejandro." he opened his hand to me, "Well met Rucio." bringing my hand to met his.

"That is completely far from my name." we just kept on shaking our hand together.

"It's okay camarada," he pulled back his hand from me, "Just a name, plus since you're up," he gotten up from his chair and now stretching his back out, "Jefa want to see you." he said.

"Yes I know my Spanish, I know what you mean." sarcastically explaining my ability to understand Spanish magical, "Just follow smart ass." he then left the private room to only then be stopped as he started talking to another doctor outside, leaving me and Valérie alone.

"You going to be okay?" actually questioning her on her condition, "If you needed to stay for a day in bed then their's something wrong right?"

"I'm fine Gris." she only looked happy at my concern for her, "There will be problems with running, but if I could still walk," she brought up her arm, "then I could work!" she gave out off a genuine smile while showing off her muscles.

"Sure, sure Val." as I was about to leave.

"Gris." she stopped me before I when out, "Please use my blade properly when you're in that situation again..." she pause, "...I can't lose my first real friend..." she again looked down while thinking about something grim as her face when back to being sad and worried. Couldn't answer her pled as she basically told me to a life if I used her weapon properly, but silently nodding at her for a lackluster answer, she didn't say anything after me leaving her room.

"Took you long enough Rucio," Alejandro looking pissed that I was in there for a minute, "Come," he started leading the way from the room, "I'll take you to our jefa."

"Finally taking a break huh!?" one of the person on the ground who looked to be almost died with all his injuries, but still have a sense of humor after everything done to him.

"Nah camarada," he passed him a candy smoke, "I need to check our culinary friends in the kitchen." winking at him.

"Stay safe then!" he yelled at us while we continued to our walk to leave this now slightly happier place than before.

"Good guy you know." he spoke as we walk through the hallway filled with injured students and guards alike, "They brought him to me while he was knocking on death's door," he again offered me another smoke, and seeing I didn't eaten in like two days because of me sleeping; now taking it for it's nutrient, "yeah, surprisingly he made it through with the limited resources we had when he came in," he continued to move, but looked up to the ceiling, "People like him who were heavily injured don't survive," he then shot me a tired looking look on his face, "or we just simply ignored them and only heal the ones who aren't in critical condition like him." he again snapped his smoke as he finished talking.

And having this feeling that he might trying to tell me something, "Did I do something or is my calming presence making you open up to me so easily?" humored that he been talking about his problems so easily to me without being afraid, "Nope," he only kept on walking, "Just seeing how's talking about your problems would actually work and stuff."

As he said those words, I understood what he was trying to do and where's this is leading me, "Probably.." now sighing at him, "Look Rucio." he stopped to look somewhere in the hallway instead of looking at me, "I'm not a fancy psychology doctor, and I don't know much in that kinda field, but I do know when my patients aren't fully healed, physically and mentally." he only laughed at his speech, "Maybe we don't have the luxury of worrying about our mental health now in this war, but it should be noted." as he finished, he once again started walking.

As we continued to walked, we just let silence be our entertainment throughout the walk, with the explosions now stopping from before as not that consistent like yesterday, so the silence was more deafening. Once we gotten far from the medic room, we made stride as we walked through the hallway, and expecting to see again a sad and depressed entrance to our base of operation.

But as we gotten to our base of operation, it was the opposite to what it was yesterday when I once seen it. People were now looking actually happy to some degree, but what was more impressive was how they're look weren't the ones that was over come with the crushing reality, but a look that had a semblance of hope in them.

"Amazing right?" he once again talked, "But I'll have our jefa tell you why." we just went passed them as they continued to work on our defense and tending to the wounded that had light wounds.

Moving pass our base of operation, we made it to the principal's office that was now close off to the public with cardboard covering the window up so no one was looking in.

"Knock on it and wait for someone to answer, then say you're the special person they been waiting for." he said all that while he continued to walk pass the office, "And Rucio! Gracias!" he waved to me as he walked away from me as he raised his hand up.

Taking Alejandro words, knocking on the door and expecting to take awhile to answer back, but as they expected me and my arrival the door was answered right away. But by the same person who kindly knocked me out once I was done fending off the attacker that tried to destroy everything we made.

"Hmm, so you're wake huh?" he sounded unimpressed, but nevertheless he nodded to me to come on in. Once inside the true base of operation that kept all of us alive while planning our moves, it wasn't what I was expecting, with the entire was a hell of a mess....

With a sizable amount of students working on the cam while the room was littered with papers. And seeing the person who let me in now making me follow him to another room instead of this mess, following him to next room inside this room, and thinking we're finally going to the room that kept us all alive while they planned our move. But was once again was a huge disappointment to the image that I had in my mind, where all the leaders would come together and plan our next move and stuff. But in actually reality the great room that kept us alive for last three days was a complete mess where papers were littered all over the room with the grand table that used to make our plan that had a cute looking drawing that a kid would draw of a school.....

"Sit." was all he said as he as well when to a chair to sit at the makeshift grand table they made by combining four set up table to make a long table.

"This is pathetic..." sighing out as I took a seat.

Excepting him to at least comment on my remark, but he didn't care for my comment or critique for their base of operation much less. And seeing he wasn't talking anymore, we just sat there in complete silence for five minute straight.

"Soo.." attempting to break this silence, "You going to tell me why you needed to knock me out back there?" while finishing saying that sentence, only silent followed through. And taking this silence as his answer, as we again stayed in silence for another five minutes.

Now completely bored of waiting, I when to check out kid's drawing on the table they drawn of our school. And by looking at this, I was completely blown away that I scoff off this masterpiece of a work; the drawing showed the schematic of our entire school from the inside and out, while showing our defense and the attack we been hit by our enemies, and now taking interest in this drawing instead of trying to make conversation to this wall.

Well taking a complete look at this without any judgement towards how childish this look to someone from afar because it was a drawing, this drawing is, if not been holding us together this entire time. The drawing been worked on and still being worked on when looking at the circles all over the drawing, and seeing a familiar looking room that I was guarding before now had a giant X on it; now more interest in the X's all over the drawing, I seen another X by the side of the school where I first woken up. With four big X's across the drawing of the school, with only one of the X's I don't know about, but the three I did see, were ones that I seen or were in, in the process; now done with the X's, then now moving onto the next two shapes I didn't pay attention to, now choosing the circles to look at.

With the difference between the circles and the X's were completely different, with the circles having more spots on the drawing then the X's, and having a percentage besides them was more interesting then anything else. And seeing their were a total of sixteen circles all over the drawing, it was more terrifying seeing one of the X's I was in had a circle over it before it became a X's in the first place from the shadings that the X had. Looking at the numbers besides them, they had a range of twenty to fourth percent on each of the O's on them.

But the most terrifying thing I seen on this drawing was a singular triangle underneath the X's room I was in to defend...

"HERE WE ARE!"

Now hearing a familiar voice bombings into the silence room that me and this wall of a person been sitting in for like ten minutes, but her cheerily entrance stopped once she looked at me. Not expecting to met Cristina so quickly then I expected to, we both just stared at each for a awkward five seconds till another person made her move.

"Might wanna move for our jefa."

As Alejandro started pushing her into the room while he followed her in, once they both taken there respectfully seat at this table, but as they both were seated, Cristina did everything in her power to avoid looking at me or acknowledging my existence at all when waiting for our leader to show.

"*Sigh* Sorry for the hold up everyone."

As I heard those words shot out to the room; joy overflowed my body as I could tell whose voice that was, and as my body reacted like my mind did, they were both in sync wanted to rushed that person at the entrance.

"Elizabeth!"

As we were about to connect and me about to hug the shit out of her, even if she likes it or not. But like a familiar feelings coming from my face as I tried to get close to her but was only with her hard fist in the face once again like the first time we met in this school before.

And once everyone in the room thought that something or someone sneaked their way into this private room because they heard me get hit or someone getting attacked. They all instantly grabbed their own signature weapon tied to their work, as Alejandro drew some empty needles from his coat, and Cristina reached for her hammers from her pocket; while the person I sat in here for ten minutes now gotten up from his chair to now pointed his gun at my head without any hesitation.

As the four of them now concentrate their weapons on me in a instant without looking at the person who got attacked, a.k.a me. But as she looked at me again now without that cold look to me as she brought up her leg to probably smash me in, she quickly let go of her need for fighting as she looked closely at me.

"Gray?"

She looked confused by my presence here, let alone find me here, but as that confusion only lasted about a second till her face was washed over with sadness with tears coming down to her covered face.

"Yeah," now getting up from the floor without any concerns from the others, "sorry for taking this long to find you." extending my arm to met her's, but she instead came up to met with a bear hug. Trying my best not to howl in pain from her unexpected hug, and seeing I had the same idea as hers, we just simply hugged it out.

Till I ruined the moment as we all heard my blade started reacting as I flicked my hand up to tried and hug back, almost ruining the whole embrace by stabbing her with the blade on my wrist will ruin any moment if it came off while trying to hug someone. After my blade was out to see for everyone here, it was pretty awkward that after meeting my friend for a second to me now committed attempt murder on her.

Expecting her to yell at me or bitch slap me for my mistake, she only looked unfazed by this while puffing up her cheek a bit, with her only bring up her hand to flick me with.

"Idoit."

As she done with her flick, everyone in the room eased up while slightly amused at our failed attempts at a heartwarming meeting. Now that they know it's wasn't anything dangerous once they heard me getting punched in, they once again sat down in their respectfully seat again; now seeing everyone putting back their weapons and seeing their wasn't any need for it, doing the same as well with a simple flick again to retracted the blade sticking out of my wrist.

"I didn't know you were the leader that been keeping us all alive." as we were up, I than started patting her shoulder at this surprising outcome; once she seen me trying to pat her, she instantly moved away from me almost making contact again.

"Yeah I should take it off." now feeling dumb as I tried again to stab her accidentally, and after being pointed out that I needed to take off this dangerous weapon before I actually stab someone, or at least make sure I don't use it accidentally on someone on our side. So deciding to just take off the ring on my finger so it basically like taking off my weapon, "There." giving her a smile for my genius idea.

"Sure," she gave out a tired smile, "But I'm not-"

As she tried to finish her sentence, we both were attacked from behind us by something slushy hugging us.

"I'm so glad you're up Grey." now hearing a familiar voice that I'm not all to keen on meeting, "Now we can start our next move since everyone here." once she said that, three people walked pass us to only walked to a seat that looked to be the leader's by being much better then the rest of the seats in here.

As almost everyone was now seated, and now waiting for us to be done. Nicole only patted both of our shoulders, to only moved passed the both of us to get to her seat with the rest of her team; the once happy looking face when she seen me now turned to a serious look, without any room for any others emotions.

"We'll begin our next step."

"And this time."

"We truly don't have anymore choices left."

After she said that, she only gave out a small smile that looked she gotten everything she needed.

And once she gave that smile out, everyone but her team and Jackson only looked terrified by her statement.