V1-022

I think my consciousness faded further because, after that, I didn't hear or maybe couldn't understand any other words said, and I only felt my body moving, followed by the sounds of an automated door closing.

Soon I was placed on a soft surface, and I could feel someone else's presence in the room.

"Dean, you picked a hell of a time to pass out. Now wake up before I have to get rough with you, which we both know won't be gentle," the voice which had caused me warmth at first became slightly sinister, and this level of emotion was familiar to me, even with my mind in a hazy state.

"Two seconds, then I will use force, so you better open those eyes," however, instead of waiting, he didn't even count.

Suddenly I felt a rough hand grasp my chest, followed by an intense stinging and burning sensation.

Feeling this sensation, the synapses in my brain fired on all cylinders, and my eyes snapped open before I practically jumped out of my skin and bolted upright.

"WHAT THE HELL! DID YOU JUST ELECTROCUTE ME? DON'T YOU KNOW I ALMOST DIED! HAVE SOME TACT!" I yelled, swinging a fist at the person closest to me, but it was futile because, with minimal effort, the person speaking caught my hand and smirked at me cockily.

"It's been a while, Big Brother. Is this how you greet your beloved little brother after not seeing him for an entire year?" Although he had physically changed a lot, the person holding my balled-up fist was Renton.

His dirty blond hair had grown almost shoulder length, and I noticed he was sporting a new scar across his collarbone and several new, smaller ones all over his arms.

But that wasn't the most significant change he had undergone; scanning him top to bottom, I saw he had packed on quite a bit of muscle tone in a year, but the Viking-style dirty blond beard adorning his chin threw me off at first, and made me double-take, to ensure it was actually him, and not some new, Viking companion.

Heaving a sigh and dismissing the changes since I was happy to see him, I shook my head and spoke calmly.

"You know, last I checked, your ass was supposed to be dropping bodies outside this base, not standing guard over the helpless me. Renton, what the hell are you doing in here?" I said while sliding back on the medical bed I had been dropped onto and leaning against the wall closest to me.

Understanding the condition I had been in a short time ago, it didn't take long to realize he had carried me to one of the three medical wards on base, so I looked around the room to take in my surroundings.

Quickly, I noticed three empty beds on my side of the room, and three on the other, with the fourth one taken up by the unconscious but stable Kris.

"That's how you treat your long-lost poor little brother? I see how much you missed me." He said, faking a tear, causing me to punch him in the arm and put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's good to see you, Ren." And just like that, the Ragnarok Brothers, who had caused destruction and devastation multiple times wherever they went, were again united for the first time in over a Year. But now wasn't the time for catching up.

"So, how bad is it this time?" Bringing up the little incident which landed me in the medical ward in the first place, I asked without breaking eye contact with Renton.

"Well, you did a hell of a number on Balto, jamming one of Kris's jagged knives into his chest…really, of all the weapons, you chose the hardest to fix the damage caused." Rolling his eyes, Renton patted his chest in the exact location I had stabbed Balto before continuing to fill me in.

"They don't know if he will live; you did a number on his heart and one of his lungs; it all depends on whether or not Jimbo wakes up. I'm surprised both aren't already dead, to be honest; you aren't going soft now, are you?" Raising his right eyebrow, Renton tossed me a smirk, making me scoff loudly before pushing off the bed and wobbly getting to my feet.

"She'll be fine; also, the consensus at the moment is that Balto shot you with a bolt of lightning which caused Kris to attack and stab him; however, no one is sure what happened to Jimmy." Renton filled me in by catching my arm and dragging me back onto the bed.

"The running theory is he was caught up in the attack, and due to a shockwave or something, he took severe blunt force trauma to the back of the head."

"But I already know the whole story; I have a telekinetic factor right now and scanned your brain while you were out cold. Gotta say I'm almost proud of you for that reaction time," breaking into a broad smile, he laughed.

"They also think Kris is a healer, and I didn't do anything to dissuade them from this theory. It's too suspicious how quickly your "injury" clearly caused by Balto healed, so they blamed her, which also explains why she is in bad shape." As Renton spoke, he couldn't hide the subtle body language filled with concern, causing me to chuckle.

"Let me guess, they want me dead now and are saying we started the fight," I spat with a smirk before propping my hands behind my head and leaning back against the wall.

Although I wanted to jump up and check on Kris, Renton refused to let that happen, so I yielded.

"Let's just say if we didn't have hundreds of men outside, we'd probably be dead already. You mortally wounded both their leaders; what the hell did you think would happen, Dean." He was completely calm, but it was the kind of calm that Renton could only do right before he went into combat.

I had seen him do it hundreds of times over the years, and upon seeing him doing it now, I stopped playing around and got serious.

The only way to describe it would be to say he's 100 percent focused and concentrating on planning three steps ahead of his opponent, which for someone like him, who was better at beating people up than using his mind, was pretty surprising.

Funny enough, I, too, had a similar focus and chalked it up to how our father raised us.

I've only gone inside his head once with the telepathy factor, it's not a fun place to be, but he has an intense sense of focus that only the two of us can use.

We block out all emotions and look at the situation in front of us rationally; the word we had for it was Hyperfocus, and with our bodies and minds getting stronger with each rank up or evolution, it had grown to be a precious technique.

Understanding how bad things must be if he used his Hyperfocus," I knew that we were in for a storm the second I stabbed that blade into Balto.

"So what's our next play, Sub-Commander Fairaday?" I asked, dropping my hands from behind my head and crossing them over my chest.

Wearing an expressionless mask, my brother stared at me in silence, completely zoned out and in strategy mode, until finally, after a few long minutes, he spoke up.

"The way I see it, we only have two plausible courses of action which meet our goals, Plan A, which involves us overthrowing Balto and Jimmy, then brute-forcing our way until we take over this entire base and the faction's members." He said confidently, but before he could express his next idea, I interrupted and finished his thought since I had reached the same conclusion.

"Or Plan B, waiting for them to regain consciousness and seeing if we can't continue negotiations."

We both sat in silence, running simulations of the two plans in our heads to see which would give us the best outcome and came to the same conclusion. While Plan A sounded fun, Plan B was the more realistic of the two.

Unfortunately, before we could continue discussing a potential Plan C or D, our deliberation was interrupted by several knocks at the door.

"Enter," Renton stated forcefully, followed by the sound of the medical ward door sliding open, revealing the ghostly pale face of Nile.

However, when he saw Renton, his aghast and worried expression changed into awe and respect as his back straightened, and he entered the room.

"Sub-Commander, you're here. I didn't realize you had removed yourself from the battlefield to join us," Nile said without a quiver before saluting my brother and me.

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