Who's The Hostage Here?

Martin didn't immediately say a word even after Grant had finished mocking him. Instead, he just stood there in stunned silence for a moment before he managed to collect himself.

Before Martin could make another move however, Grant turned around to face his aggressor head-on before grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off the ground.

The moment the rest of the guards saw Martin lifted off the ground, they aimed their rifles towards Grant in preparation to attack. However, Martin, while struggling to speak or even breathe, quickly waved them off, "Don't shoot.. over here.. *cough cough* you fucking idiots! Shoot.. the.. other guy!"

Hesitating while looking back and forth between Grant holding up Martin and Ethan standing still in the midst of the encirclement the guards ultimately aimed their weapons at Ethan instead and prepared to fire.

"Don't shoot! Can't we use dialogue to find a solution to this problem?"

Ethan clearly reluctant to engage his fellow humans, tried everything he could think of to avoid having to fight the guards. The guards however, clearly not having the same moral standards as Ethan, began firing at him without hesitation.

Grant, watching everything unfold with Martin held up off the ground, just silently observed Ethan's actions to see what he would ultimately choose to do.

Even before they had reached the camp, Grant had tried to prepare Ethan but until the moment came, it was impossible to know how he would react.

After a few tense moments of bullets raining down on him, Ethan finally made a move. He quickly dove towards the closest guard and, instead of using his God's Love, used his fists to punch the man into unconsciousness.

With bullets ricocheing constantly off the armor, he made his way to the next guard and quickly beat him down as well.

Over the next minute, Ethan dove from guard to guard and quickly disabled them. After the final guard hit the ground, Ethan gathered up the firearms scattered around and smashed them underfoot.

Grant could see an intense anger beneath Ethan's usual calm façade. Whether that stemmed from his inability to do what needed to be done or the fact that other people had just attacked him relentlessly with bullets that would have killed him if he weren't wearing Grant's armor, only time would tell.

"You good Ethan? Any injuries?"

"I'm fine. I need a moment to collect myself.

Plus, you should probably loosen your grip on that old man if you are planning on interrogating him. He's running the gambit on different shades of blue, purple, and white."

Grant turned to look at Martin who, as Ethan mentioned, was struggling mightily just to stay alive and conscious.

Grant quickly released his grip before taking a step back, "My bad my bad. I got distracted watching Ethan fight. I almost lost a valuable source of information there."

Martin just laid on the ground coughing, grasping for air, and holding onto his own throat while glaring daggers towards Grant. In his entire life, he had never been treated so barbarously and he was absolutely furious.

As angry as he was though, Martin could tell already that he was absolutely no match for the man standing in front of him.

After experiencing Grant's strength firsthand and seeing how his dagger from Random Roll's didn't even puncture his skin, he needed no more evidence to know that he would have to be smart about his next moves to make it out of the situation alive. He needed to buy time until Zach and Andrew showed up if they wanted to take down these two intruders.

Grant, seeing the look that Martin was giving him, put on his cordial smile and spoke once again, "What are you glaring at old man? You should be happy, even though you guys tried to ambush us and then subsequently failed miserably, you and all of your men are still alive! What more could you ask for?"

Martin tried his best to force his rising anger as deep down into the pit of his stomach as he could so as to not lose his temper, as he normally would in these situations.

"Why are you two in our camp? And why have you already killed some of our men? I've never seen you here before, and I know pretty well everyone with any semblance of strength that lives in this camp. We should have nothing that you two would want?"

"Tsk tsk, that's where you are wrong! You have an abundance of what we want! Do you know what that is old man?"

"My name is Martin you uncouth young man, not old man. And the only thing we have in abundance is weapons and ammo considering we have raided every supply store in a 10 mile radius."

"You know, earlier you said, 'my men', and you are clearly the leader of this little ragtag group of wannabe strong men, but you're kind of a dumbass aren't you?

How can you not realize the most valuable resource that a camp this size has to offer? This is what happens when weak men gain power... they're so concerned about holding onto that power that they can't see the true value of certain things..."

Being mocked so brazenly by Grant, Martin couldn't hold his anger down anymore and immediately started an outpouring of insults and curse words.

"If you don't kill me right now you fucking halfwit dumbass piece of shit, I will make sure that I hunt down every person that you have ever had any contact with and I will cut them limb from limb and flesh from bone! How fucking dare you speak to me that way!!

When Andrew gets here, your life will end! I will make sure of that!"

No matter how much Martin tried to abuse Grant verbally, he never took a single step in any direction since fear of Grant's strength had kept him rooted on the spot. After a few minutes of a constant stream of insults, the old man finally ran out of breathe and had to bend over to take in air to keep himself from collapsing.

"Jeez old man, you got quite the tongue in that mouth of yours. You really shouldn't get so worked up you know... stress and anger can cause heart attacks in people your age..."

Martin snapped back to his standing position after the new round of mockery.

"Fuck you kid, you are the most infuriating human being I have ever met in my entire fucking life!"

"See there you go again... is anger the only language you speak? If that's the case, let me try and speak your language for a second so that maybe you will understand."

The moment the last word left his mouth, Grant exploded outward with all the power and anger that he could muster. He forced himself to think about everything that he had experienced so far in his life, even before The Path's emergence, that made him angry.

A heavy pressure descended on the area as Grant took only one step towards Martin. That one single step was all it took for the pressure to become unbearable for Martin who immediately collapsed down to one knee.

Grant lowered himself down so that his mouth was right next to Martin's ear, "People was the answer to my question, you geriatric fuck. People are the key resource, and people are what will keep this world from being overrun. You little pricks sitting in your tall tower cannot even begin to comprehend the things that I already know about this new world.

You will die and you will die knowing that you do not deserve to live in the new world I will create, using the resource that you have discarded as worthless.

Now, I will give you two options, you can either die here and now, or you can work for me until I have taken over this camp and it's resources."

Martin, terrorized by the pressure Grant was still exuding, could not even manage to move his lips, let alone form a complete sentence to answer the question posed to him.

Following the sound of a smack however, the pressure quickly disappeared, "Ah sorry about that, I got a little too absorbed in that little show there. I almost took the choice away from you old man!"

Grant laughed jovially at his own mistake.

Martin was absolutely terrified at how quickly the young man in front of him swapped between different emotions and, seemingly, personalities.

Martin had always knew he was crazy to a certain degree, but it appeared that the young man was ten fold worse than he was.

All Martin could think about was, "Who was the hostage here in the beginning? It was always me..."

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A/N: I want to apologize for my missing of updates and not fulfilling my promises guys! Things have been absolutely crazy at work!

I want to pose a question to you folks though, I will be writing at least 5 chapters today, would you like me to post all 5 today and run the risk of maybe missing one or two days later this week due to work? Or would you like me to post 2 and start saving up a bank so that just in case I am unavailable to update, there is at least something to post?