Pleasure and Pain Epilogue

When I heard Enternus' voice, I almost thought that I saw the light. Except upon seeing a black blur out of the corner of my eye, I realized it was him. When my eyes entirely refocused, though, I wasn't exactly impressed, as my fearless leader had landed from the rooftops, black cape restitched and reequipped in a faceplant position. With such a comical sight, Knuckle and Quill partook in the laughter that probably would've ripped me half if I had joined in.

"Seriously, you freaks keep on coming out the woodwork; what even was that supposed to be?" Quill said while howling.

"Hopefully, a good distraction for my teammates to hand your stupid asses back to your boss in a body bag," Eternus said with demon-like spite.

At that moment, a masked Fury and Port closed in with a pipe and bat, respectfully clocking both men in the head from behind! In perfect sync, the two switched-up opponents with Port surgically striking Quill from gallbladder to groin.

By the time he got to a wall, Quill had tried to recover, sprouting two medium-length spikes from his hands, using them as his self-made melee weapons! In one mighty swipe, the pipe got slashed in 2, but before Quill could close in, Gum fired off a well-timed shot that stuck him to the wall.

Fury meanwhile evaded Knuckle's neon blue punches until Eternus entered the fray! However, Knuckle, in a precognitive fashion, struck first, hitting Eternus right in the sternum with a pulsing blue light!

I swear I could hear bones crack at the blow, but all Eternus did was give a devilish smile, counter-attacking right back with an all-out punch to the face! With his senses befuddled, Fury took the opportunity to capture Knuckle in a full nelson as Eternus kept the strikes going until his knuckles bled.

Cheekbone, groin, eye, and neck every strike didn't get wasted as the soon tenderized Knuckle laid unconscious. After that, all it took was for Port to finish the job by batting away at Quill so hard that his teeth clattered onto the floor. As quickly as they had arrived, the action suddenly came to a grinding halt; the girls decided to breathe heavily amongst the sounds of partying.

Eternus, however, despite his injuries, kept walking towards me like a zombie movie, blood dripping from his mouth followed by weary steps. And as I stood in awe of the man who saved my worthless life, I couldn't help but say.

"Tha-"

Before I could even get the words out, though, Eternus gave a punch to my dome so hard that my quill didn't hurt quite as bad. The words he said next were kind of hard to follow from there.

"You pull a stunt like that again, and I promise you that what I just did to that prep school punk-looking ass will look like mercy. And you better thank Frag for the rest of your decrepit life because if he didn't interrupt my beauty sleep with all the calls and texts, we might not have been here in time. After all, you pushed rule six today dickhead," Eternus said in quiet anger.

Amid his rant, though, I couldn't but smile a little bit because Rule#6 was indeed the biggest difference between then and now. Mainly because Rule#6 was the promise he told me long ago, and he made good on his bid to bring all of us to the finish line.

After a painful pullout (for once) and a quick wrapping of gauze, both Eternus and Frag carried me up. I struggled to thank Frag for the save, but he gave me a look that spoke for him.

"No problem, now get some rest."

This means all I needed to do was just sit back and ride the wave home. Except before we could get out of the alley, the sounds of partying and glamour quickly turned to screaming and running on par with a stampede.

Before we could even understand what was going on, the red lights of Scarlett grew brighter to the point of it being almost blinding, which helped to conceal a man who had red lightning coursing through his body.

And before we could even make sense of it all or counterattack, the red lighting grew so bright that it turned everything to black, with my last conscious thought being this.

"Looks like we did bite the dust."