บท 56: Middle Finger

"Thank you for helping us out" the US president gave a slight bow before he sat down at the chair opposite of Leo.

Currently, Leo and the president are talking in the oval office and they are around them are their own guards looking warily at each group. Alex and David are standing just over a meter away behind him and behind the president are the upper echelons of their group along with seven soldiers holding old rifles and surprisingly the arrogant general earlier is in attendance, who is greedily looking at the Zijiang m99 at Alex's hands.

"How about we talk about business Mr. President?" Leo smiled as picked up the cup of coffee from the table and looked at the president.

*****

Outside the Oval Office.

Austin and Caleb is standing side by side as their eyes wandered around, looking at the busy people, running around, fixing the damages caused by the earlier combat.

"This people are so pitiful" Austin muttered, looking at the ragged looks of the civilians here.

"Oh? It seems you like to help them?" Caleb said looking at him with interest.

"Don't look at me like that, not like I could even help them" Austin chuckled when he noticed the he was giving him, like Caleb was waiting for him to do something stupid.

While Austin and Caleb is having a conversation, a soldier around mid forties with a mustache and a beard is staring at Austin with squinting eyes while muttering "Is that Austin?"

Because of wanting to confirm it if it's really the person he's thinking of, he walked over and said "Austin?"

Austin looked back and when he saw the person calling out to him, he was shocked for a bit before smiling widely and said with a laugh "Sir! You're still alive and kicking!"

"It's really is you brat!" the man said as he clasped Austin's shoulders and then noticed the M4 carbine on his hand with surprised before his expression returned to normal immediately.

Austin noticed but just smiled to himself as he already realized that his group are the only people holding modern firearms while his former american brothers are only equipped with 'relics'.

"This is really a surprise! Where have you been all this time?"

"The boss saved me and my family and I've been following him till now"

"Your boss~?"

"Yeah, he's the man inside talking to the president"

"What? The guy who killed Ol' Biggie and was wearing some kind of a futuristic armor?"

"Care to introduce him to me?" Caleb suddenly butted in their conversation.

"Oh! Right! This is Major Armstrong, my former commanding officer and this is Caleb, a former british knight and now, currently one of the commanding officer in the group" Austin introduced both of them to each other.

"You were knight before?" Major Armstrong asked as he looked at Caleb, full of interest of why a former knight is following someone, not of the royal family.

"Yes, until the boss save from my death" Caleb just smiled and didn't give too much information.

Major Armstrong just nodded and then looked at Austin before he whispered beside his ear and said "Can we talk alone?"

Austin glanced at Caleb, who gave him a slight nod and then replied "Sure"

Austin and Major Armstrong went to the side and started to discuss something.

Caleb gave a look at their direction and muttered "Old fool" before he ignored and started vigilantly looking around with a hand at the katana strapped at his waist and a HK416 on his back. The katana on him is what Zabu forged for him before their departure to the US.

"Can you tell me anything about the Armor he was using before and why are you guys able to use modern firearms?" Armstrong said to Austin in a low voice.

"I really can't tell you anything about boss because I even don't where it came from and about us being able to us modern firearms? Well, you will probably know about it later" Austin just gave a simple answer as he really didn't anything regarding about it.

"Come on, stop messing with me" Armstrong said smiling but he said it with a commanding tone in his voice.

Austin just smiled and didn't really care about it. After all, he is now far stronger and he knows to himself that he can even defeat an entire squad of special forces.

"Even if I know something, I still won't tell you" Austin chuckled as he looked at him eye to eye.

"You bastard, I can ignore about you going rogue and abandoning your post but withholding crucial information is unacceptable, I can get you court martialed for treason" Armstrong said with anger and threatened him.

Hearing him yapping about getting court martialed made him laughed and he snorted "I would have been afraid if America was still before all this but now, I don't even care anymore because the moment that I left this country, I'm no longer a US citizen but a citizen of the Earth Federation"

"US now only exist in name, you can't even call this place a sovereign state anymore with only a few hundred meters of land under it" Austin was laughing as he left the angry old man behind and went back to Caleb.

"Traitorous Bastard, I'll kill you one day"

"Not before I kill you first by then old man" the moment he said those words, he heard Austin's laughing voice.

He was first surprised that he was still able to hear him when he was already a few meters away from him but then snorted and went to his own men with a belly full of anger.

"It seems what you two were discussing earlier didn't end with a good ending" Caleb said to Austin just as he came over.

"Yeah, he was being an arrogant old man thinking that he's still my superior"

Caleb just laughed about it before the two of them went back to what their doing earlier, a lookout.

Inside the Oval Office.

"Can you tell me anything about your Armor? Did you make it on your own?" the president looked at Leo and asked him, full of curiosity.

Leo just smiled and shook his head, feeling he's not obligated to tell them anything.

"Hey! Didn't you hear what the president said!? He's asking you about where you got the Armor!" an arrogant voice sounded just after he shook his head.

The president and his men flinched when they heard that voice while Alex and David look coldly at the person who yelled.

Leo just smiled at the young guy, probably around early thirties and gave him the middle finger.

The young general's face turned red like a tomato from being disrespected and yelled at him with rage, "Die, you asshole!" as he pulled out a handgun from his waist and pointed it at Leo with a mocking and disdainful look.

Leo just casually looked at him like an idiot. Seeing that he was still being looked down on, he truly snapped and was about to pull the trigger but….

Bang~!

The president and his executives where shocked by Leo's gesture that they didn't react on time to stop the young general and was only able to when they heard the gunshot.

"Stop~!"

"Hold it~!"

Their shouts were already too late as the deed was already done but at that moment they didn't see the worse thing that they were expecting, Leo was still there, sitting leisurely intact just smiling at them but they noticed that one of the men behind him already pulled a handgun and pointing it behind them while a white smoke coming out from it and the president heard a "thud" sound behind him and he finally realized what happened which made him sigh with pity.

It all happened in five seconds, the president didn't even see how Alex pulled the gun from his waist and thinking about it made him feel scared.

Click~ Clack~ Check~

The sound of guns being pulled out sounded as a hostile atmosphere spread throughout the room.

Leo was just sitting there with calm look on his face while drinking some coffee but inside him, he was actually screaming 'Oh hell naw~ What the hell just happened and why am I talking like I'm from the hood~!?'.

"No! Calvin!" a man in a suit finally recovered from his stupor and started yelling as he ran towards the corpse with a hole in the middle of his forehead.

The young general died wide eyed with a face full of shock, he probably didn't even know how he died.

Suddenly, the door blasted open as armed soldiers suddenly came in and surrounded the room while at the same time, the two windows behind Leo shattered as two shadows leapt inside and stood behind him with guns ready as they looked at the soldiers around them with nervous and along with excitement on their faces.

"Mr. President, what happened!? Are you okay!?" an old general slowly came beside the president with a looked full of concern and asked him even though he already figured out what happened when he saw the corpse of Calvin, he looked at the corpse with disdain instead of pity and anger.

"I'm fi-" the president was about to answer when a sudden angry yell interrupted him.

"What are you men waiting for!? Kill him!" the man crying beside the corpse started yelling at the soldiers inside hysterically while pointing at Leo.

The soldiers didn't do anything and just looked at the president for orders.

"Shut up! Men, take the Chief of Staff away! He's gone insane" the president immediately berated him out of anger, afraid that the situation would turn far more worse and of course, using the excuse of killing one of his men would have been enough to kill Leo and his group but when he looked at their calm demeanor like what's happening around them is nothing but air made him truly scared especially remembering what happened earlier.

"Mr. President! No! You need to kill him! He killed my nephew! My only family left!" he started yelling hysterically while being dragged by two burly soldiers of out the room.

'This idiotic bastard! After this, I'll make sure he would stripped off his ranks!' the president cursed in his mind, looking at his second in command that had gone bonkers.

Seeing that he was being ignored, he turned to Leo and started cursing him with a face full of rage and hatred "You killed my nephew! One day, you will die under my hands! Just wait for it!" before he was dragged out of the room.

"Men, stand down and get back to your previous positions and clean up that 'body'!" the president commanded as his soldiers saluted at him and some of them carried the dead body from the ground and exited the room but not before looking at Leo and his group with curiosity but mostly hostility. Leo also ordered Caleb and Austin to go wait outside.

The president heave a sigh of relief and looked bitterly at the woman, his secretary of the state shaking in fear but the rest was just standing there like nothing happened especially the old generals in attendance.

"I'm so sorry about that"

"I should be the one apologizing instead as one of my men killed one of yours. You know, he's just trained to kill anyone that threatens my life so I can't really stop him in time when he starts killing"

'Bastard!' the president cursed inside as he clearly realized the underlying meaning behind his words that even the old generals had a changed in their expressions when they heard Leo but didn't say anything in the end, fearing that they would start killing each other.

The president gave a deep sigh and looked intently at Leo "Now that the annoyance is out of the way, why don't we continue back to business?"

"Sure! I was just waiting for you to say that!"