Chapter 47: Return to JinJunyë!

April 27th, 2020. Early morning. "Good side leg form, Hen." Derek complimented his younger brother as he was in the midst of his final side raise for the last leg as his warm up exercise. "I've been training for ages, Old man Wiley refuses to let me skip a day of keeping up with his routine but I haven't been given a true test just yet, big bro. Down for something of a friendly spar?" Henry admitted and asked after he was finished. "Alright, Junior. Only afte a single promise to me. You refuse to make it friendly, if we're going to do this, I want to see how well you've been learning. Show me the reason why if I was your enemy, I'd fear your fire, I want to see just how hard you've been training." Derek answered after staring at him and asserted. "Heh. You made my day by making that a rule, I was never going to hold back on you." Henry admitted while he then began to initiate his muay Thai stance as his face turned blank. "The art of eight limbs?" Derek asked his younger brother as he eased himself into a taekwondo stance. Henry swung his roundhouse on the offensive first. "Overwhelming your enemy through pure aggression only works if it's against one that's completely untrained." Derek warned Henry, eventually after dodging a series of his third brother's powerful jabs and teeps, Derek had him on the ground with a swift sweep. Henry slammed his fist on the ground out of frustration and feeling his stupidity. "What are you guys doing down here?" Nick asked as he poked his head out then his body on their finished basement's stairs. "We were just staying in shape, we're on our way up to play that game with you, Nicky." Derek assured their youngest brother with his usual slight smile. "I'm going to go start it up!" Nick responded with a slight stutter but seeing his brothers began to form a beaming smile on him as he ran swiftly back up. "Gramps really got him his own console, he forced us to constantly read and keep up on our health. Heh." Said Henry with a quiet tone as he eventually picked himself off the floor from his rest. "To be fair, he's that young but is already very considerate of his own health and hygiene. He limits himself on his game time. Simply, Nick is, as Gramps realizes this too, is just far more mature than us, ahead of us with keeping up with himself. A matter of difference, not favoritism." Derek assured his younger brother as he walked over to check his phone. "That could be it?" Henry replied with an uncertain tone, Derek felt like he was questioning if their Grandparents had a favorite or not. Henry left upstairs but Derek decided to check his phone and realized that he had missed multiple messages since last night. He stared at the steps that would lead him upstairs and to his brothers that he made promises with earlier in the week before looking down with an expression of sadness. "Let me know of this urgent problem now, I don't get to spend a ton of bonding time with them." Derek replied to the messenger's text. Derek stared at his phone, anticipating for ten seconds as the notification that the text was currently getting returned appeared. "Culprits behind the tragedy of the Presence murders."

"JinJunye, is the exact opposite of Chaelb, leaving my small town of mystery and crime for this populated and booming city, huh. Adapting to it is one of my tougher challenges but after Seju-Si and coming from that place stronger, I'm hopeful and slightly confident that I can handle my time here. A gigantic and populated city that according to my Grandfather and the Purlieus records is filled with the worst and most vile criminals and dishonoring police alike committing almost every kind of atrocity and terrible deed in the book, and the world can make quite a few books larger than even the bible of horrendous deeds mankind can act on, all of which was happening here before and tragically now, but in between there was one man, who criminals, villains and even some of our own good guys came to fear that creeped into evil's dens and balanced things out a bit more for the city to reach the pinnacle of of its success and earn what it became known for as he demolished the criminal underworld so well, it was the only rival to the reputation of the three cities in Europe. The A.I.S and other name brand organizations around the world wanted this man brought in to see him in the flesh. Jacob Wiley's legendary run according to endless stories by my Grandparents were mostly unknown to the public, they only received a glimpse of his actual feats, eventually the unremitting and unrelenting cult we've been at war with since who knows how long have put him out of business by the time of his twin's births and he settled down as surprising as it was for the very, very few who knew him personally, then he mysteriously vanished the same as he came except this time— with his wife and one of his children, out of the blue with no trace or warning, and the city slowly began to devolve and forget about him in his absence, all that he achieved became myth as the city is reverting according to the media and such to the chaos before. Very, but surely and slowly they began to erase him. Could it have been the cult's work? Now, I'm here to remind them that he's not completely gone just yet, that before he left, he planted a seed, now that seed is a sequoia who's only growing larger every second he's thinking about the people." After his long travel from his adopted small conspiracy-filled town, Derek finally returned to his birth home, the city called JinJunye, the home he's excited to catch up on. First thing Derek did was ask his taxi driver when he made it to the city, if there were any good hotels he could sleep at nearby, the taxi driver thought of a few before deciding one.

The next thing he did was check into the hotel he was dropped off at, and went directly up to his room, and rested. Derek while laying down on his bed, pulled out his phone and thought to himself. He scoffed then mocked his grandfather's harsh words he said to him before he left. "You're not your father, you're not ready to face off against the enenra's town..." He mocked, angered by his words. He pulled up a news app on his phone, he hasn't been on the web or his phone for a while, actually, he barely ever used his phone since he lost in Chealb's high crime rate section, he remained busy. Scrolling through the different news articles from around the world, he sees one titled: "Perplexing french dictator hiring backassward people to be bio-weapons for his army!" With a picture of the dictator who was hiring on it, Derek told him the guy wasn't bad. "Trust me, brother, I'm well read about him and everyone on the team." Settembre replied to his friend over the phone as Derek laid down on his hotel bed. "It's not naive to believe that this article is a hoax, is it?!" Derek yelled unintentionally out loud, which brought hard knocking to his door. He opened the door expecting a guy larger than he was waiting outside, but the knocker was a purple haired woman who stood at only five foot five, five inches shorter than him.

"Pretty boy, can you shut the hell up in here, I'm in the middle of doing something." She told him with a genuine tone. "… You think I'm pretty?" Derek replied. She looked at him in silence for a moment before she replied. "Okay, so then..." and left without any further words after he wouldn't turn his eyes away in return for her refusing to do the same.

Derek had shut his door and turned around to think. "Setty, I hate to say it but this town is gonna be pretty fun for guys like us. Gosh, I hate saying that." Derek informed his friend before he hung up the call and tucked his communication device in his pocket. When he least expected it, a few minutes later, some more loud banging on his door happened, he went to answer it but this time, it was the girl, her friends and a few of their guns in his face in his company. "We didn't catch names earlier but I noticed that fancy suitcase of yours, What's in it, huh?" The girl from before asked as she held her gun at his chest. Derek quickly raised his hands up and pretended to be terrified like a civilian, an ordinary joe.

The other two girls rushed into the room and got to point-blank range as they held up guns that should be on the police force to Derek's head, while one of them frisked him, he still held his hands up. "Should that be a place to check for a weapon, lady?" Derek asked sternly, this wasn't nearly the first time a gun had been held to his head but it was the first time something like that happened to him. The woman scoffed, "You must be an unfortunate tourist here." The woman replied as she laughed, Derek could see she wasn't joking by the look on her face, despite her laughter.

As they ran through his belongings, which he didn't have much of, he tried to think of a plan to get out of this situation without giving them any hint as to who he is, or who's about to come. "So, are you new around here or something?" The girl from before asked him, "Nope, just coming back after making myself known in a different city, wanted to see how drastically it changed since I've been gone for ages?" Derek replied to the thief.

"I suggest leaving after we take your cash and that fancy case of yours and maybe staying out of this crappy city forever.." Another girl responded. "Yeah, if you weren't expecting this to happen then you must've been gone waaay too long." The third girl commented. Derek nodded his head once and agreed, "Yeah, a pretty long time but I think I finally got a grasp of how this city works, Y'know?" Derek asked rhetorically. The girl only made a noise in reply.

"How are the cops in this city though actually?" Derek asked, curious about the city a bit more. "They're SHITTY fat fucks who are just paid thugs with badges that can legally kill you, one could walk by right now, but as long as I slip him some good cash or a job, I can just go rob another poor bloke after blasting your skinny brains out." One of the girls furiously told him and gave an example.

"We got what we came for, we got some cash and the case, let's go ladies!" The original girl informed her friends, they all then ran out as quickly as they could. Derek sat where he was with saddened downcasted eyes from the information he was just told. The girls were walking in the lobby of the hotel, it was pretty much at night.

"Yeeesss ladies, we made off with 100 dollars from this dude and this fancy high tech looking case that'll probably sell for a lot more, sure as hell, none of us can open it!" Said the original girl excitedly. The girls all started dancing like it was a win for them while they kept walking quickly. Walking by themselves, a couple of men were walking nearby, they got in close from behind and knocked down the girls, took their guns, then robbed them for their money and their belongings, all while a man at the front desk watched and did nothing to help the girls.

While the girls were still on the floor, at gun point from the other 3 men, one of them said something. "You pretty older women look like you just got a score, so, how about being our scores tonight?" The bald one said, his friend yelled out "Yeaah" before chuckling with excitement.

"Yeah, I'm gonna need my business case back, uhm, because it's going to cost me some money and loads of apologizing to replace it. I don't have either one of those!" Everyone heard from out of nowhere. Everybody turned to the voice and saw a man standing confidently and smallily grinning, it was Derek, excited because he realized he gets to keep the promise he made many, many years ago.

"Okay, get the hell out of here you scrawny moron, we're in the middle of our own business here!" Said one of the toughs next to the bald one who was talking before, without saying another word, Derek dashed towards the toughs, anticipating where the toughs were going to shoot while trying to make it look like pure godly luck no shots actually hit him. When he made it near them, they ceased fire and started cowering, when he made it to them, since they're all close to each other and off balance, while being shocked by this guy's guts, he was able to grab the one on the end and launch him at the others knocking them down but not knocking them out.

The one he launched sideways truly felt the pain, but because of the freakish strength he felt, he got up as fast as he could and took off, the leader ran and so did his followers. "Thieves and muggers are so common in the world. Especially ones who likely never shot a gun off before, ones who just use them to intimidate others." Derek described and noted about them in his head as he watched the fools run off scared, "Something tells me I'll have to deal with way too many of those kinds here." Derek assumed.

He immediately went to grab his case off the floor, then went to grab his money but, instead of pocketing it, he gave the money to one of the girls. All the girls on the floor were terrified, with only one mustering up the courage to speak and asked "What's your name, I'm Barbara!" She stated her name with a nervous and struck with awe tone. "Nice meeting you barbara, but see ya." Derek replied while walking away with his devotion to his promise revivified after it was lethally injured, he said nothing in return and continued back up to his room.