The sounds of the clouds rumbling and water droplets hitting against something plastic continued to ring in the iris' ears while she was still half asleep. Her stomach was growling as she hadn't eaten anything in two days and her head was giving her the worst headache of her life.
Slowly her eyes started to flicker open and shut as she slowly woke up. Her eyes opened to a scene she wasn't expecting at all. She was laying right next to her best friend, Erin. She looked a bit past her to see the two injured boys they had rescued also resting against the same tree.
Iris slowly looked around and could observe that it had started to rain. Raindrops were falling at a slow rate at the moment but the clouds continued to rumble which indicated that this was just the beginning.
Iris could also notice the stream right in front of her. At first, she started having flashbacks to when she had stopped by a stream with Erin to rest, and then all of a sudden some fish beast had started to attack them.
The flashbacks were introducing fear in Iris' heart as her heart rate started to increase. However, before she could lose control over herself and give in to fear, her eyes landed on Mako who was sitting by a fire with his back turned toward her.
The sight of Mako being there calmed her heart down a bit as this was the same person who claimed to have survived an advanced-tier beast encounter. If Iris had to choose anyone she knew or came across to whom she would entrust her protection, it would be this person in front of her.
Iris didn't want to startle Mako so she quietly and gently got up from her resting position and slowly started to approach Mako. She hadn't even made it halfway toward him when Mako voiced out without even turning around.
"You're finally awake," Mako said as he continued to do something around the fire that Iris couldn't see from her point of view.
She was taken aback by Mako acknowledging her presence without even turning around, nevertheless, she quickly recovered from the small shock and quickly approached him.
As she got closer to the campsite, she realized that Mako had caught some fish and was currently cooking them over the fire. She took a seat on a small boulder opposite Mako and watched him as he turned the fish to make sure it was cooking evenly.
There was a brief moment of awkward silence as both of them sat by the campfire without saying a word to each other. For Iris, it was because she was still a bit intimidated by him and couldn't find the courage to speak up. In her mind, she was thinking that Mako expects her to begin the conversation and she was going over several thousand possibilities in her about how to begin, and yet couldn't decide on one.
For Mako, the reason was a lot more cringeworthy. Mako still was quite shy about talking to girls as he had only had one genuine encounter with a girl so far and that was when Jacob's daughter, Kiesha hugged him for saving her life. He still didn't know how to approach girls and start a conversation with them and he was also going over the different possibilities in his head about how to begin ever since he noticed her waking up.
In the end, it was Iris who broke the ice as she quickly blurted out a "Thank you". Mako was honestly relieved that Iris had initiated the conversation and replied with a "You're Welcome".
Before the conversation could go any further, Iris's stomach also introduced itself to Mako and it was not showing gratitude of any kind at the moment. The growling stomach made Mako chuckle a bit and seeing him Iris also eased up a bit and held her stomach with embarrassment.
"Don't worry, I am very hungry too. The fish will be done cooking in a couple of minutes. We can eat the first batch while they are still sleeping. I will cook some for them too once they wake up." Mako said as he flipped the fish once again.
Iris nodded with gratitude once again as she could wait to devour the delicious-looking fish in front of her. Hunger aside, Iris picked up the conversation once again by first, asking for Mako's name.
"My name is Mako Grey, and you are..." Mako said as he introduced himself and then asked for Iris' introduction as well while acting like he didn't already know everything about her.
Iris introduced herself as well and the conversation between the two kicked off with them discussing a couple of topics while the fish continued to cook.
Mako brought up the question regarding what their abilities were. He already knew the answer to this too but he still kept the persona that he didn't have any info about her at all. She told him that she had a Healing ability and the Water ability. Mako tried to act surprised as the Healing ability wasn't a popular ability to have.
In actuality, Mako was indeed surprised when he first opened her profile while using Analyze on her. It wasn't that the healing ability was rare, the healing ability was as common as the five elemental abilities; however, they didn't provide any use to a person who could only hold one ability so only people with medical background tend to have this ability.
Iris also asked about Mako's ability to which he replied that he had a Level 4 fire and a Level 3 Lightning ability. From what officer Eric had said, the energy manipulation ability was quite rare and he might become a target if he told everyone about his rare ability which was why Mako didn't mention the energy ability at all.
The fish had finished cooking at this point and Mako quickly served Iris a whole Rainbow Trout on a clean palm leaf. They quickly dug into the steamy hot fish while continuing their conversation.
Iris and Mako also introduced their friends to one another. Mako told her about Bill and Leon and what their abilities were. Mako also lied about Bill and Leon's abilities as he skipped Bill's Sand ability and Leon's hardening ability to look like there wasn't a big power gap between them. Eventually, Iris asked Mako about what had happened to them before they had arrived in the cave.
Mako paused for a second to think of a believable story to tell her because he couldn't share the exact events of what had happened in that cave. Mako's pause carried the wrong message to Iris as she believed that maybe she had touched a sour topic; however before she could apologize and carry on, Mako started to narrate a slightly altered version of the events that took place in the cave.
Iris listened with great interest while taking bites out of her cooked fish as Mako narrated the story. He completely skipped the part where he and Leon had a duel which led to the Beetle King finding them and directly started from the part when the Terra Beetle King had attacked them.
While Mako and Iris were talking by themselves around the campfire, Leon continued to turn his head from left to right while he was still sleeping. Sweat rolled down his forehead as he continued to experience a really bad dream.
************
"DAD!!!"
The sound of a young boy resounded from within the crashed car as he watched his father get stabbed in the back with a blade by one of the assailants.
Paul staggered a bit while he tried to bear the pain and assess the situation. He quickly realized that he couldn't summon any aura from his body. He looked around to see that all the assailants had huge smiles on their faces as they already knew what was happening to Paul's body.
Paul had been completely depowered she could summon any of his abilities and that included his Telekinesis ability which was protecting the car. Paul had a look of horror as he heard the screams of a woman and a child from behind him.
He turned around to see that his wife and son had now become hostages with two men holding a knife against their throats as they slowly approached Paul.
Paul had become powerless to fight back and he could only watch as they dragged his wife and son closer to him. He tried to move and buy time so that the effects of whatever they had attacked him with would wear off but he was quickly reminded how strong ability users were against a regular human.
With only a couple of light kicks, Paul was on the ground bleeding from several locations and unable to move, all the while the sounds of his wife and son's crying and screaming continued to ring in his ears.
One of the assailants grabbed Paul by the back of the neck and held him up so that he would be facing Elina and Leon.
The two thugs that were holding them hostage brought the blade closer to their throats while the one holding paul by the neck started to speak.
"You should have listened to the boss when you had the chance, now either you transfer everything you own over to Venom, or else the blood of your wife and son will be on your hands!" The man said.
