บท 38: Chapter 37: He Is Back

...Her body was glowing.

A layer of greenish light coated her entire body, as she exerted out overwhelming energy. Even though it was her first time attempting to heal, she already got the hang of it. Her warm and gentle energy grazed against his wounds, treating them.

However, Beck knew that this was not entirely a good thing.

"This is bad... She will attract their attention."

He reached out both his arms to grab her shoulders even though, his torso protested. "Emily. It's okay, I'm fine. You can dismiss your energy now."

However, she was way too focused and his words just could not reach her. He then decided to give her shoulders a little shake.

This time, she reacted.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, confused. A sense of relief went through him, knowing that she could finally hear him.

However, it was too early to be relieved.

"Emily, get rid of your energy, before anyone notice."

She nodded and tried to get rid of it by visualising herself returning to normal. This was her first time doing it, so she had no idea if she had done it correctly or not.

She just tried anyway, hoping that it will go away.

Unfortunately, it did not work, her body was still coated by a layer greenish light.

At this moment, she started to panic, "Beck, I don't know how to do it."

"Oh yeah, she's still new. What was I thinking? Of course she wouldn't know to get rid of this amount energy. It will be bad if I try this... But it looks like I have no choice."

He shut his eyes for a moment and recited mentally what he had learnt in the past, "...A collision between the energies of two elements can stop the flow of both energy."

He then opened his eyes and stared down at the chains on his wrists, "I know these restrict the flow of energy, but if I exert a large amount of it, some might slip through. I can do that, but will there be a consequence?"

He shook those thoughts away and shifted to his hands. "There's no point think of it right now, I need to stop her."

He mustered up as much energy as he can. He grabbed Emily's hands and launched his energy to her. Her body was thrusted to the side, as if an invisible force had just pushed her.

Beck groaned as a sudden wave of electrical shock went through body, stunning every inch of him. The initial shock made him felt like every single muscle in his body was about to tear apart. Fortunately, afterwards, the pain slowly subsided while the numbness settled in. "...So, that's the consequence..."

Emily opened her clamped eyes and carefully pushed herself up. Still sitting on the ground, she realised a similar tangling sensation swept all over her body, especially at her arms. At the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Beck who was on the ground, not moving. Anxious, she crawled hurriedly towards him, "Beck! Are you okay?"

His whole body felt numb and that he could not move a single muscle, the only thing he could do was to look at her. His vision blurred for a second and he felt like he was at the verge of passing out, but he did not. Honestly, he was surprised that he didn't. At situations like this, he was thankful to have the fire demon sealed in him, otherwise his body would have broke long ago.

However, it does not change the fact that he could still feel pain.

Emily's stomach tightened as she felt increasingly worried for Beck, who did not and could not say anything. She called out to him once more, hoping for a response, "Hey, Beck! Can you hear me?"

Her voice sounded more desperate than she expected.

The numbness started to wear off a little and Beck could finally moved some part of his body. "...Sorry. I couldn't move my mouth just now. Apparently, these chains will shock and stun you, if you exert a certain amount of energy." He forced out, as he fought against his paralysis. He attempted to pushed himself up, but was too feeble to do so. He ended up crashing back down onto the cold concrete floor.

Emily then helped him up, and laid him against a wall. He leaned back weakly, before turning his head to the right to look at her, "...Are you okay yourself? I hope you didn't not fall too hard."

Her chest tightened itself in an instant when she heard those words. It did pain her to see him caring for her when he was in that state. Feeling a surge of overwhelming emotions, she bit the inside of the cheek, before blurting out, "...Can you stop?"

He felt perplexed when she said that.

Suddenly, Emily just...

Cracked.

"Stop acting this way! I'm the one that made you like this! So, stop caring for me. I can't stand seeing you like this. Stop pretending to be fine when you aren't."

She will just feel even more guilt, whenever he cared for her more than himself, despite the fact that it was her who caused him trouble in the first place.

"It's just so frustrating to see you caring for me, even though I was the troublesome one who brought upon all this to you!" She took a deep breath to steadied herself, but her gaze was still fixated to the ground.

"...Please, just stop."

Her voice quivered when she said those words quietly. Her vision blurred as huge droplets of tears began to form at the bottom of her eyelids. She bit her lip angrily, trying to keep her tears at bay, "Beck do not need to deal with this, he went through enough."

There was a awkward silence between them that lasted for a solid minute. Emily managed to hold back her tears, and calm herself a little. Realising what the HECK she just said, she abruptly cleared her throat to disrupt the uncomfortable silence. "Sorry, I'm just tir--"

Unexpectedly, Beck swiftly formed a circle with his bounded arms and hooped Emily in them, so that he pulled her in for a hug, "...Sorry. I really didn't know you felt that way."

She felt shocked at first, but in the next second, her body melted into his as she bursted into tears in his arms. At that point in time, she really wondered if she could ever stop crying. She wanted to stop, but she could not.

On the other hand, Beck did not bother to stop her. The only thing he did was to allow his thumb to stroke a small potion her back comfortingly, as she sobbed uncontrollably--

"What a touching scene." A voice echoed throughout the room, following by a round of applause. Beck released Emily and went on guard, he looked around and spotted one of the walls had split open into two, just like a door, to reveal a dark and eerie hallway of some sort. Sound of footsteps were heard as it came closer and closer to them.

Finally, a figure emerged from the darkness. It was...

Jason.

Beck stood in front of Emily, even though every inch of his body was screaming in pain. He knew that she would definitely not like that, but he could not help it, it was his duty.

Jason walked towards the two calmly, as the wall was returning back to its original form, creating a rumbling noise. "Do you two need some more time? I can spare some time, maybe five minutes?"

Beck shot a glare at him, telling him to cut the bullshit.

"Alright, I guess you don't need that." He shrugged with a smile, "Well, I'll cut to the chase. Your friends are here now, in this building, so we to speed things up. First, I'll need to get the fire demon back."

In an instant, he closed the distance between them, "So, if you don't mind..." He rolled back his sleeves and reached out for Beck's chest, "...This is going to hurt a little, but bear with me."

Beck grabbed his arm, stopping him from doing what he was about to do.

Jason smirked when he was stopped, "I know you're going to protest. So, I came prepared." He snapped his fingers and the wall behind Beck split open and and wooden board was pushed out automatically. Two sets of shackles appeared out of the blue and they were attached onto the board.

The chains that bounded Beck's wrists disappeared with Jason's second snap. Jason then swiftly gave Beck a kick on the chest, he was so quick that Beck could not react. His body was launched backwards, towards the board behind him. Once his body hit the plank, the shackles automatically locked his arms and legs in place.

He struggled to get away but he could not. Jason looked at him and warned, "You should stop struggling, it's useless. Now, where was I?"

Jason reached for Beck's chest once more and he placed one of his hands on it. After a few seconds, his hand suddenly submerged into his body, as if chest was just a pool of liquid.

Beck flinched when he did that, but in the next second, his face was contorted in pain. Emily did not know what Jason doing, but seems like he was finding something in Beck's body. Beck could not stand the pain, he yelled, in attempt to relieve some pain, but that did not help.

Emily's heart stopped beating for a while when she heard something like that from Beck. She mustered up her courage and exclaimed, "Stop that!"

She ran towards him and tried to pulled his hand out of Beck.

Jason looked at her from the corner of his eyes, "You should stop. Now that it already happened, it was be bad if I stop now, you know?"

She immediately let go and backed away when she heard that. "Dammit! What should I do...?"

Another yell came out from Beck, startling Emily.

She had a feeling that he was going to die if she not going to do anything as soon as possible.

"...What do you want? I'll do anything... Just stop hurting him, please." She pleaded, even though she was afraid of the response she might receive.

Jason thought about it for a while and suggested, "How about joining us permanently to go against Fiore and your allies? You can't go back if you do that, but I'll release him right now if you agree."

"Joining them? Doesn't that mean that I'll need to go against my parents? Yukiko? Beck? And the others? Can I even do that...?"

"Oh yes, if I undo the demon's seal... He'll die." Jason added on, "So, make your decision quick... Princess." His words did not do anything but to send chills down her spine, "Should I? He had done so much for me, I can't let him die..."

"Emily... Don't." Beck forced out through his gritted teeth.

She looked up to meet his eyes, which was so full of resolve.

She felt even more guilt seeing him like this. She shook her head and curved her lips to form a sad smile, "Beck, I... I can't let you die."

She then shifted her gaze to Jason and spat out, "...Fine, I'll j--"

"Emily, what do think you're doing?! Are you crazy?!" A familiar voice boomed throughout the room. The wall, that was supposed to be the entrance to the room, was sliced into large chunks of concrete blocks in a blink of an eye.

A familiar figure with white hair appeared and she had anger written all over her face.

"Yukiko..."