New Year, New... Crisis ?? [2]

It is a pin drop silence for around two minutes. The first move is made by Albert who is about to chase Charlotte.

"Don't!!" Both Lily and Sara forbid him, while Bruno and I in synchronous halt his movement.

Sara glances at Lily that makes Lily sighs.

"Let me calm her down," she says while struggling to wear the prosthetic leg. Once the leg is wore on, she winced to bear the pain caused by the leg's artificial neural is binding themselves with hers.

After the leg is fully-connected, Lily stands up and climbs up the stairs to chase Charlotte.

My attention is totally goes to Lily when suddenly Albert flips out and breaks away from our halt. I only manages to push Bruno away to avoid Albert's dagger-sharp hand slash that approaches Bruno's neck before I dodge myself away from Albert's fist.

"Aaarrgh!!"

A loud roar is coming out of Albert's mouth while he punches his fists all over the place, making the wall starts to crumble.

"Take him out of here !" Sara orders with a deep frown.

I enfold Albert from behind, forcing his hands to grab his own upper arms and lock them there.

"Bruno !"

Bruno also enfolds me from behind before teleports both Albert and I to the forest. Right when we arrive in the forest, Albert once again is able to break away from my enfolding with a loud roar.

"Ugh!" I groan when I am crashed to the ground, chest first. I get up as fast as I can and pull Bruno's unconscious body away from the mad Albert.

I lean Bruno against a tree and pats his cheeks to wake him up.

"Are you okay, man ?" I ask Bruno once he starts groaning and wincing his eyes. Bruno coughs while nodding.

"Yeah..." He says, still coughing. "Where is he ?" He then asks.

I wander my sight. A few hundreds feet from me, I see Albert is venting his emotion toward the innocent trees near him. A lot of animals, big and small, are running all over the place.

"Watch out!" I say while covering Buno with my body when a group of elephants are running pass us by in panic.

"How long do you think he would calm down ?" I ask Bruno after few minutes observing Albert that is still hitting the trees. He has managed to knock down trees few dozens feet from him.

"Thirty minutes max," Bruno murmurs. "But I'm afraid the forest doesn't have enough trees to serve him that long."

"Well... and the security apparently doesn't need that much time to notice this chaos," I say when I heard the sound of helicopter's propellers from a far.

"What are you saying ?"

I don't answer Bruno. Instead, with a heavy exhale I stand up and approach Albert that is still brutally torturing trees near him. I grab a quite big tree cut and throw it right onto his head. Albert roars in between shock and pain.He then turns his head, full of anger, toward me.

"You !!"

As I predicted, he runs toward me. I also run toward him, making sure he is not too close so our fight won't hurt Bruno.

Albert throws his knife-sharp slash onto me. I easily dodge it and fly over him. But he then catch me on the air. He grips my waist tightly, swirls me around, before throws me away.

Instead of slammed away into where I was thrown, I control my reaction movement and fly back right behind him. Albert hasn't known that I am now able to control reaction movement of my own after I reach sixth level of Spirit strength.

Before he realize my movement, I ram him from behind until he falls on the ground. I then sit on his back and lock his hands before pocking my finger onto area in between his jaw and neck.

"AAAARRGJ!!!" Albert roars in anger. But that is the only thing he can do now. The wind blows hard upon our heads in synchron with a loud sound of helicopter's propellers.

"Bruno, take us out of here!!"

Bruno runs toward us. Couple of seconds later he hugs both of us before once again transports us out off the forest to...

THUD!

"Ugh!!" Both Bruno and I moan in pain when our bodies hit a rock-hard floor. Well, it is literally a rock ground, based on what I "see" with my hand. I can't see a thing since it is a pitch dark space.

"AAARRRGH!!!"

"Where are we ?!"I ask Bruno.

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRGGH!!!!"

"Just shut up, Alby ! or I will make you to !" I order and threaten Albert at once before turn my head back to Bruno.

"My hiding place," Bruno says in short.

"Which is where ?" I ask further.

"Let's just say, they won't find us here," Bruno says, not exactly answering my question.

"Why is it so dark here ?" This time it is Albert who is asking. Well, more like grumbling to be honest.

"Darkness calms me," Bruno answers with a shrug.

"Freak !!" Albert scolds.

"Said a man who just destroyed half of a forest just because in a fight with his girlfriend," Bruno replies him with mockery.

"YOU!! I will kill you when..."

"Cut it off you two..."I say to stop the bicker. Both Albert and Bruno just snort but don't say another word. I seat Albert on the ground, make him leaning on the rock wall before I my self sit on the rock I just had fallen on.

"It's freezing in here," Albert grumbles again.

"It's good to calm you down," I reply him unchantantly.

"I don't know you have a hiding place," I say to Bruno. "I mean, you are the calmest between three of us."

Bruno shrugs. "Well, I haven't visited here for a long time." He then chuckles before continues his words, "I used to visit here at night, when you and Lily made love."

In the dark, I stare at him. "I'm sorry, man," I murmur.

"That's okay. I have her now, right ? It's all good," Bruno says in genuine.

"Yeah... I'm glad it's a happy ending for both of you. I told her long time ago that she is better with you than with me."

"It is better for her with somebody else rather than me," Out of the blue Albert joining the conversation, but bringing another topic.

"You mean Charlotte ?" Bruno confirms.

"Yeah..." Albert replies with a vivid bitterness in his voice.

"Is that why you haven't asked her to marry ?"

"Yeah.." Again, Albert murmurs.

"But why ? You both love each other very much," Bruno utters his confusion.

"A marriage can not be built only with love," I answer him, representing Albert. I'm starting to understand Albert's mind.

"What are you saying ?"

"Look at her, Bruno! Look at her family! She is a blue blood from the Center continent. She spent her childhood living in a castle! A real damn castle with with a real damn butler and real damn maids!! Her parents don't need to be head of a chapter to be called Lord and My Lady. While I...."

Albert doesn't need to continue his explanation. Both Bruno and I already knew his background. Albert, though the only white man in the team, had the roughest life. His father left him even before he was born. His mother worked as a prostitute before she died causing by O.D. when Albert was only four. He was then living on the street alone. Soon enough, Albert learnt that the only way to survive is to kill others. At the age of eight years old, he was finally being picked up by a capo as a son. The capo taught him a lot of things, including how to pack and deal drugs, but also muang thai. When he was eleven, the capo was caught by the police and being charged by dead sentence. Thus, the pre-teen Albert once again was living on a street, being freelance drug dealer and betting his body for street fight matches. The organization noticed him after he won the street fight in his district for maybe hunfreds of time and became legend.

"But... it is not necessary that her parents would reject you," Bruno tries to lift Albert's hope. "I mean... as far as they know, you are her teammate at work. I'm sure organization will help by making you a good background sto..."

"I'm barren, okay!!" Albert's shout cuts Bruno's words. While Bruno and I are stunned for the umpteenth time, Albert tries hard to hide his sob.

"I can't give them descendants. While she is their only child,"Albert says in meek.

"Does she know this ?" I carefully ask him.

"No. I just knew it my self," Albert answers me. "Knowing that you proposed Lily, she finally asked me about it, too. At first... at first, I thought, hey... her parents would still accept me. I mean... they abandoned her when she was a child, thus they might feel guilty about it and would not enforce their dissatisfaction about my background. So, I secretly went to premarital checked up. Then... I found out," albert then explains further.

In the dark, Bruno and I exchange glance.

"Well...," Bruno says after more than five minutes in silence. "I think... you need to tell her... about everything you said to us."

"I don't wanna lose her..."

"I know... but this is about you two. Both of you must decide what would hapen... together," Bruno gives advice. "It is not necessary that you would break up. And... even if you would break up, she knows that is not because you are cheating on her, but because you love her that much."

I remain silence the whole time. I can not give any advise that I can not walk through it my self.

Silence is hangin around us for more than half an hour after. None of us utter a single word, busy with our own head. A short beeping sound is breaking it.

"It's King. She wants us to go back to North Wing tower," Bruno tells us after reading the message he had on his phone.