Chapter 15: Who Is Damian?

"...What the hell do you think you're doing?" Damian snarled as he saw Emily's body dangling off the ground.

His anger was overwhelming, too overwhelming. It almost felt like there was liquid fire flowing through his veins.

In a blink of an eye, Damian gave the man a quick yet hard kick to the side of the stranger's knee, causing it to twist it in an unusual way.

Crack.

The man hung his head down momentarily, unable to comprehend what just happened. Slowly, he gazed further down to see his one of his legs being bent in the wrong way.

That was when the pain settled in.

He cried in pain as he fell forward, dropping Emily.

Damian walked towards him and shot a intimidating glare, before kicking him in the jaw, "Oh, for the love of god just shut up."

The man passed out instantly after that final blow. Unconcerned, Damian went on to stomped his foot into the side of his victim's face. Increasing the pressure by seconds, he growled, "Did you know... In order to crush someone's skull, you need to apply a force of 2,300 newtons. Huh, I wonder if could muster up that amount of force? ...Should we give it try?"

Suddenly, the other man, who was holding Hailey back, let go of her and launched himself to Damian.

He noticed the man immediately. Instinctively, he gave him a punch with the back of his fist straight to his face, bring him in the same state as the man under his foot.

"...Now, where was I?" Damian spoke chillingly as he stared down at the unconscious man below him, "Oh yeah, revenge."

He was definitely not himself.

Emily found herself staring at the ceiling when all these things were happening. She could hear Damian's voice, but she could not find the strength to push herself up. Hailey rushed over to her and started panicking, "Emily, hey, you okay? Please don't scare me! Can you hear me?!"

It took a few seconds for Emily to process her words, but once she understood, she nodded.

Hailey helped Emily up and that was when she saw Damian.

The three men were on the ground, the two of them had passed out and the other one was still conscious, but in pain. On the whole, it clearly showed that Damian was the clear victor. However, that seemed to be not enough for him. It looked as if he wanted the three of them dead. His eyes shown no sign of mercy, he just wanted their blood to spill.

That unnerving aura surrounded him alone gave her goosebumps.

Once she got herself together, she mustered up the courage to call out for him.

"Damian! Stop it, that's enough. Let's go."

Damian looked at her for a good few seconds, with a part of him refusing to let those three men go.

However, he did.

Once he walked away from them, the one and only conscious man grabbed his two other buddies and limped out of the building.

Damian walked to the to girls with his head hung lowly. Without any warning whatsoever, he lifted Emily up gently and carried her into his arms. "H-Hey, Damian, there's no need for this. I'm fine, let me down."

Everyone around had their eyes fixated on them, which made Emily felt extremely embarrassed.

"Damian, please put me down." Emily pleaded with her reddened cheeks, "Come o--"

"Shut up." He silenced her.

"Okay, then." She mumbled quietly, she did not want to protest against him anymore, especially since he seemed to be angry. "Is he mad at me? What the heck did I do...?"

Hailey would usually stand up for Emily, but even she could tell that it was unnecessary for this situation.

Silently,the three made their way back to their tables where everyone else were.

"What happened?!" Mary yelled discreetly as she checked on Emily, who was in Damian's arms. She looked at Damian for an answer, but he said nothing.

"Erm... Can you put me down now?" Emily asked in the sweetest voice. He looked at her for a moment before doing as she told.

Mary noticed Emily's badly bruise arm and questioned her about it.

"Um, there was a little clash here and there..." She explained vaguely, "It's nothing much though."

Mary stared at her suspiciously with a raised eyebrow, "Err... What do you mea--"

"Nothing much? You could have die!" Damian blurted out suddenly, "Why do you always do things without thinking about the consequences? And what? Do you think that it's all better if you got hurt instead of others?"

Emily was shocked when she heard that from him. She wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

Seizing this opportunity, he continued, "That's just plain stupid for you to do that!"

Once he was done leashing out, he finally noticed how loud he had gotten. Clearing his throat abruptly, he immediately composed himself, "...Don't do that again."

Without hesitation, he turned and left.

Emily wanted to call out for him, but Patricia stopped her, "Leave him be, he just need some air. He'll be back soon, trust me. Now, tell me what really happened."

Hailey explained what had happened to everyone as Mary sat Emily down.

Mary pulled some kind of ointment and bandage. Emily looked down at her swollen and disgusting arm as her friend poured the ointment on her wound. Her arm was already throbbing in pain, but the pain increased sharply once Mary applied pressure to it.

Emily flinched upon Mary's contact with her arm.

"Sorry Emily. Just bear with it for a little while." Mary apologised as she felt guilty touching her wounded arm, because it felt as if she was at the wrong too, for causing pain to the princess.

Just as Hailey finished telling them what had happened, Yukiko folded her arms and said, "Huh. So, you're the one who caused this? If only you hadn't make a comment of your own, she would probably be unharmed."

Hanging her head in guilt, she remained silent. Yukiko was not wrong, if she had her mouth shut, her best friend would not be injured.

Emily noted her reaction and attempted to cheer her up, "...I mean, I did it solely on my own will. So, Hailey should not be blame. Besides, I can get my daily dose of exercise from this, you know?"

"Sorry." Hailey blurted out as she looked directly at her best friend, "I'm really sorry, Emily. Everything I did could have caused you harm."

Emily was not used to her best friend acting this way, she is always bubbly and stuff. However, now, she was really REALLY serious. "Hailey, it's fine. No worries, wounds will heal. Also, I'll just take this as an experience and it's something off my lifetime to-do list, which is to mess with thugs." She comforted with a smirk.

Hailey's gaze relaxed as she let out a small smile, "You're silly, you know that. But... Thanks. Well, do you want me to do something to make things up."

"Not really. But, I'll love some fries."

Hailey laughed as she rolled her eyes, "Yep, you're DEFINITELY silly."

"I can't help it, can I?"

*****

[Earth, Creepy alley - Night]

Damian had just walked out from the room and up the stairs. He opened the metal door and got outside, "What's wrong with me? Yelling at Emily all of the sudden."

He was frustrated as himself. Why? He did not know why, he was just mad.

He went to a nearby wall and threw a punch straight to the concreted wall, leaving a distinct dent of the poor wall. He took a deep breath and withdrew his hand. This was when he finally noticed a presence behind him.

"...Aren't you being too close to them?" A voice spoke from behind.

"Erik." Damian called as he whipped his head around to see a familiar looking man.

The guy in the black cloak shot him a intimidating look, "Are you getting ideas to betray us?"

"N--" Just before he could answer, Erik gave him a kick to his chest. It launched him to the wall behind, knocking the wind out of him, "Is this karma? I'm sorry, mister-concrete-wall-that-I-just-hit-out-of-anger."

Erik disappeared for a moment, before reappearing in front of Damian in the next second, leaving a trail of black vapour behind him, "Don't lie to me. I can see it from your eyes, they have softened since the last time I've met you..."

"Trust me, I'm not going to betray you guys."

"...Trust you? What a joke." He scoffed as he pushed his forearm into his neck, "I'm not here to be friends with you. Once we get the princess, we will part our way."

"Get the princess?" Damian repeated as those only were the three words caught his ears, "What? Aren't we going to do that in a week's time? As of now, shouldn't we track her moves and find a way a get rid of her members?"

"The boss suddenly wants her as soon as possible." Erik explained as he released his grip, "Bring her to somewhere quiet tomorrow, at nine in the morning, I'll come and find you through the tracking device on her. Afterwards, we'll just get her back to our main hideout."

"Since you're close to her, she probably will trust you and not suspect a thing."

The words, 'will trust you', just echoed continuously in her mind, "...Is it alright for me to betray her trust?"

Erik noticed Damian's hesitance and questioned, "What's wrong? You're not going to do it?"

There was a moment of silence, before Damian answered, "No. I-I'll do it..."

"Good." Erik said before disappearing, "Make sure you don't let Phantom down, otherwise... I'll kill you myself."

"Got it." Damian replied.

"...God, I hate myself." He criticised himself silently.

Suddenly, he heard the footsteps of a group of people running towards him, "There he is!"

That group of people had different types of weapons with them. Just then, he spotted the three familiar men, "Oh, those people from just now."

"How dare you do something to one of us?!" One man yelled from the bunch.

"We'll won't let you go!" The other shouted as he raised a metal bat up in the air.

"Ah, cool. I needed to release my anger. Don't blame me for being harsh." Damian breathed out as he got into his stance.

Their fate was already sealed before they made any movement.

After all, whatever they were going against was not a human.