Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 221: The Void

Chapter 221: The Void

"Cuddles?" asked Si Dong as he watched our backs. "Any updates?"

We were walking down an old, paved road, the cracks and potholes so big it was hard to walk properly. It had probably been like this long before the zombies came, but now it was that much worse.

"Darkness," I grunted, not knowing what else to say. When I tried to see what was in front of us using my power, all I saw was darkness. Nothing else.

"Maybe because it’s because you are wearing sunglasses," suggested Fang Ting Guang, looking up at the sky to emphasize his point. The sun, while out, was covered in clouds, but that only made me more confident that we were walking into something we didn’t want to.

"My sun—" My words were quickly cut off when we heard shouting in front of us.

Instead of rushing to save the Princess Teams, our four teams stopped.

Betrayed Intent, the team on the outermost circle, kneeled down, their guns up and ready. The team behind them, Vengeance, stood between the kneeing men, their guns up and at the ready. Rising Phoenix and Oath of the Honest stood still; their weapons pointed down so they would avoid accidentally shooting the other two teams.

All in all, there were more than forty men between me and what was coming, but I knew that wasn’t enough.

"Put your guns away," I called out, the command in my voice ringing.

"What the fuck?!?" demanded Zhong Yong Zheng as he briefly looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t see me from where he was kneeling, but I could feel the heat of his gaze.

"The guns aren’t going to make a difference in the way you are thinking. Put them away," I explained quickly, just as gunfire sounded in front of us.

Trying to tell military men not to use their guns in a gunfight was like telling someone not to breathe when they were underwater.

Shortly after the gunfire started, it quickly ended. And yet, there hadn’t been any screams or voices heard.

"Do as she says," snapped Chang Guo Zi as the space user in his team took away everyone’s guns. The sound of protests echoed loudly around us. Loud enough to disguise the approaching footsteps.

"Well, well, a space user. How useful," chuckled one of the newcomers, causing everyone to shut their mouths and turn their attention away from Chang Guo Zi and toward the new threat. "Now, just to figure out who it is."

"We could use more supplies," agreed another man, standing beside the first. I could barely make them out from between Chang Bo Jing and Bai Long Qiang, but one of their voices sounded... familiar?

"Kill the space user, and you get everything inside of them. Like the best type of pinata," agreed the first.

I knew that voice... but from where?

"Bring them with the others," chuckled the first man. "We can at least eat well tonight."

----

"Are we going to make it out of this?" asked Chang Guo Zi, his voice low as he refused to look at me. However, I felt his question down to my bones.

I opened my mouth to answer but was cut off by the second man. "Of course, you aren’t going to make it out of this place. Don’t you know where you are?"

It sounded like a rhetorical question, so none of us bothered to answer.

"Ah, and people call us evil. The White Tigers don’t even tell their teams where the territory starts and ends," he continued as if carrying on a conversation with his friend.

I guess one of the men in front must have had a reaction because the second man started to chuckle. "That’s right. Welcome to the Black Mountain Syndicate. I mean, the place isn’t as nice as what we had before, but we call it home."

Once again, silence descended on our group as everyone processed his words.

We continued to walk forward, but I couldn’t see anything other than the backs of my men. My skin was still tingling, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. I didn’t know what that meant. If it was a good sign that we would be getting out of this situation alive, or if it just meant that whatever I was being warned about had already happened.

"Over a hundred men," came the sound of a third man from somewhere in front of us. "Is this an invasion? Are the White Tigers trying to take over our territory? You know, if you had just stayed on the highway, this wouldn’t have happened. That road in neutral territory."

There was the sound of laughter coming from all around us, and I realized very quickly that we were completely surrounded.

"We’ll make sure to keep that in mind for next time," assured Zhong Yong Zheng, stepping forward.

"What makes you think that you are going to get a second chance? We have you surrounded, outmanned, and outgunned. Or are you thinking that maybe your powers are going to help?" The third man sounded so confident in his assessment that it started to worry me.

The general consensus in City A was that those with power were untouchable. Like with anything else, there were levels... fire users garnered a lot more respect than earth users, but everyone could be deadly when needed.

So why was he so confident?

"Ah, you look confused. Here, how about this? Use your power. Try to kill me." There was a note of challenge and censure to the third man’s voice that I wanted to tell Zhong Yong Zheng not to do it.

However, Rip, standing beside me, placed a hand on my shoulder and shook his head.

"What the fuck?!?" yelled Zhong Yong Zheng after a moment. "What is happening?!?"

"Meet Huang Xiao Wen," laughed the third man. "We call him the Void. Want to guess why?"

"What did he do?!?" continued Zhong Yong Zheng, panic starting to enter his voice.

"He is a void," explained the third man like that was all he needed to say.

"He negates power," I whispered, but the guys around me could hear what I had said and stiffened as a result.

That man, Huang Xiao Wen, basically neutered every one of us.

Just how powerful was the Black Mountain Syndicate, and why did no one know about it?