Chapter 73: All Names should be Respected

"You look like you've been through hell." Rick pointed out my sorry and exhausted state.

           "Trust me, you haven't seen hell yet." I snorted at him. I could hear his voice but it was barely audible when it entered my damaged ear. I healed it fast by using mana manipulation, but the injury still sustained, looks like it still couldn't fully heal without using a potion.

              Rick must've seen me winced as I talked. He came up to me and made a deep cut on his finger and the blood quickly flowed out. "Drink it." he demanded. I looked at him half questioningly and thought for a moment that he’d hit his head. "I said I'm a sorcerer, not a vampire." I mumbled with annoyance.

            "Never crossed my mind, just hurry and suck it up, you'll understand."

             The doubt on my face hadn't gone away as I locked my eyes at the bloody finger he waved at me. The notion of sucking on his thumb was already revolting. "Damn it." I hissed and did as he told me. The taste of copper dyed my taste buds and I had to set aside my discomfort. Then the strange thing that happened was that my body began to feel warm and energized, the same feeling you had when you drink ginger ale excluding the bad aftertaste. The ringing in my ears, that had been going on for awhile stopped and the dizziness also left me. I blinked a few times before I retracted myself, I felt something different with my body, and after close inspection all my bruises were gone.

             "Okay you lost me, what kind of ability was that?"

             I looked at the wound on his finger that began to close by itself, "Regenerative Ability, it's not public knowledge but our blood can actually heal people." he explained. He mentioned something about 'public knowledge' which was peculiar but before I could ask, he had questioned me first. "So, care to tell me why you brought this guy?" Rick pointed out the young boy laying unconscious next to me.

We both then stared at the black haired boy, he had a light brown skin, and on his uniform, there was a blue sword pin on his collar, showing he was a 5th grader. His features were a small round nose, thick eyebrows, and a mole just behind his ear.

            How do I know the last detail? It's because he's part of Class S. His name is Stanley Hummington, and his ability is producing a range of sound waves. Yup, you guessed it, he's the little twerp that did a number on me.

              "Because we should figure out why they acted that way."

             "Did it ever cross your mind what would happen if he wakes up?"

            I turned my head toward the scene behind him, there it was,  5 men wearing camouflaged clothes or at least that's what Rick had told me, seeing as they were buried to the ground up to their necks. I swear when I got here, the first thought that came to my mind was that he had decapitated their heads and placed them by the greenhouse, using them as decorations like creepy gnomes. "I think it'll be fine as long as they stayed buried."

            "Don't looked so relax yet there's still the chance they aren't the only ones who could make mind controlled fre-" Rick began to cut off when he felt the uncomfortably long stare I was giving. Rick began to fidget, asking if he had something on his face with his usual but unintentional glare.

             "No...I was just thinking, this isn't your first experience in this type of situation, right? I should have known, since you didn't look different when you-" forced people to kill each other, is what I had in mind but there's no way I could say it. It had been on the back of my mind but only now did it dawn on me, Rick was more than he was letting on. I also knew I had hit a soft spot, seeing him look away and his hand scratching his right arm, a basic reaction when you're hiding something.

            "Can we talk about that later, right now isn't the time..." Rick trailed off.

             This time, it was me who mustered a glare, "then promise you'll tell me."

              "Claudia..." and that is when Rick made the most unfair face he could possibly make. He pouted.

               Seriously! You'd never imagine a strong guy like Rick would easily show any signs of weakness, and there at that moment, he had the saddest look I had ever seen in this life. Plus with his face still young and boyish, it tripled his cuteness (which I never thought was possible, I mean he could look cute), making my heart vulnerable. No one warned me about this, that look is tugging my feels!

               No Claudia, don't lose! We're in the same boat and once this is over, like hell I’ll let him jump off and swim away before I get some answers. I crept close to him until our faces were inches apart, I gave him a stern face and emphasized every syllable I let out, with my pinky dangling between us, "PRO-MISE-ME!" Rick went back to his usual expression and turned his eyes away, he bit his lip, before he could let out a frustrated ‘okay’. I kept my eyes locked on him while occasionally eyeing my cold and lonely pinky finger. Rick rolled his eyes but reluctantly gave his pinky with a clicking tongue and we locked fingers for a while. "Good" I sighed. I felt a little bad seeing he didn't want to talk about it that much, but I got the feeling that I'll find out sooner or later.

             And sometimes...there are things better known sooner, than before it is too late.

            Rick coughed for my complete attention, "Back to our topic, how are we going to know what controls them?"

             I then cocked my head with my eyes closed, I bit my lip and I was thinking hard. What was this out of place feeling and odd I’ve been having. "That got me thinking, why are they doing this?"

              "I don't know, they're terrorists, they do whatever they want for the sake of their psycho reasoning."

             "No...what I meant is what good does it make creating a riot with only a few children? Why can't they just use all the students they had on hand or better yet use it on someone with a stronger ability? I mean no matter how strong a kid can be, they're just kids."

            Rick eyes sharpened, thinking through my words, "Either the device they have, only works on certain ages or we have something that differentiates us from others." I nodded at him, accepting his reasoning. When both of us were lost in our own train of thoughts, we were late to notice that one of the men had awoken and forced his way out of the ground, he must have had crazy muscles to do that. My eyes widened when he was already one step away from us, "Rick look out!" I cried.

            The man held out his arm and faced his palm toward us, a dim light shone at the back of his black gloved hand and he then laughed like a maniac, as if he had accomplish something, "Aahahahaaha, now obey my orders you little son of a bi--" before he could say any more, Rick had ran at him with crazy speed and kicked the guy in the groin. The man face froze in his maniacal laugh, small tears began to form in one his eyes and slowly, he fell to his knees with lost strength. "Why....," he mumbled softly, "why didn't it work....damn it!" Rick came up behind him and held the man’s left arm in position, he took off his black glove and saw a peculiar green ring. Rick yanked it off as well, while the poor man was still holding his 'son', he tried to protest. Rick touched his shoulder, using whatever abilities he had, and again the man was buried up to his neck.

             "Well, good news is we can't seem to be controlled like the rest of them." I wistfully said.

             "Which adds the question; what make us different..." Rick paused for a bit and continued, "Actually since I know you're not an esper, the effect might not be to the extent to you, though that is still just a possibility, but what makes me different?"

            "Uggh, so many questions damn it!" I growled. "Can't things be easier and just go to the part where we kick all their asses!?" I burst out with my fist raised.

            "Can you fight an army of mind controlled zombie espers then?" I paused for a bit with my arms still outstretched to the sky. I let myself fall to my knees then the rest of the body followed with my face flat on the ground and I made the loudest groan I could muster. "Don't feel so down Claudia, at least we got one lead." I looked up at him curiously on what he meant then his eyes turned toward the man still whimpering because of his buried 'son'.

#

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha.....hahaha" after giving him some time to suck up from his pain, the two of us began to start our interrogation.  He began to laugh loudly, as if we had made the funniest joke of a lifetime but then he ended the laugh dryly. He was a dark tanned man with a thin hair growing out of his after shaved head, he had a really big shiny forehead so that I might have been able to see my reflection on it, he had up-turned nose and his eye brows were thin and they were barely visible, he also had a light beard and moustache around his light brown lips.  "You think...you kids...honestly believe I would talk to you.....it's been a long time since I had a laugh. I'll tell you this though, you'll never get a word from me."

               "We'll see if you'll talk or not, we do have 4 other candidates in line." I said with a light smile. "Now, how about you tell us your name so that we at least know what to call you."

                The man expression changed, he became silent and he remained glaring at us with his dead pan eyes. He might have wanted to look intimidating but it's not really scary with your head sticking out of the ground. "All right then, we'll just call you Dick then, Dick is a good name right? A perfect name for you, right, Dick?" The man kept his poker face on in silence, on the other hand I saw Rick beside me, on his face a smile crept up.

               "Guess you won't make this easy, huh Dick?" Rick pointed out.

               "You did kick Dick, so I guess he is in a bad mood."

                "Hey, don't blame me, Dick practically wanted to be kicked after that stunt of his."

                "But shouldn't it be off limits? Poor Dick might not be able to have a child in the future."

                 "He'll be fine, look how tough Dick is."

                "SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH ALREADY!" Dick burst out with a loud voice. We didn't flinch but we did get to hear his all-out voice. "You think you'll get away with this? Once I get my hands on you, I'll sew your mouths shut, break your little fingers slowly and have you plead for mercy!"

              "Wow, Dick is really angry, what happen to 'not saying a word'?" I mockingly said.

               "Don't call me by that stupid name you overgrown brat!"

               I gasp with an exaggerated expression, my hand was over my mouth and I had my eyes widen. "Now you're being disrespectful to the name, apologize to all Dicks in the world!"

               "All right joke's over." I looked at Rick who said so and my cheeks began to puff. He turned to look at me as well and with a smirk he asked, "Do you want to to do the honor?"

            

              "Nah, I'll let you handle this."

               Rick nodded, he turned his eyes on Dick and with a soft touch to his forehead, I could see that Rick is using one of his abilities. "Tell me how you control them?" he asked to test the skill. Dick started to open his mouth, he instantly looked surprised and shut it, but he began to struggle against whether he had to talk or not. Finally he resigned and spoke in a forced manner. "The...the ring...it allows us to access your brain and communicate with it, our words are like suggestions but with the conciousness block, they can't consider the suggestion and will immediately process the suggestion into action...is what the Boss told us."

              "You said the ring is only capable of giving suggestion, how do you block their conciousness?"

              "There is a separate device for that, we rig....few of the rings so.... only a few are capable of blocking their brains."

            Rick rested his chin on his hand, he pondered his words and tried to make sense of it. "You said you rig some of the ring, does that mean there is a main device that solely works on blocking?"

            "......yes"

             We both looked at each other and with that one look we knew we were thinking the same thing. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

               "Find the Boss, steal the device, and save the school?”

                Rick smiled at my answer then he turned towards Dick to question for more details. Once he was done, he got up and massaged his neck. "Are you done brat?" Dick hissed.

              Rick kept massaging his neck, ignoring him. Once he was done, he made a hard and quick kick at his head, knocking Dick out. It looked awfully painful, so I winced involuntarily at the sudden brutal attack, I think he might get a concussion. 

             "Yes we are. Now, stay down."