197 The Henchmen

"What the hell is that?" Allen could only ask himself in fear and horror as the cloaked man try to escape the Serrata.

The creature, who previously looked just like a human, now had a grotesque appearance. It grew twice in size and walked in all fours, its face disappearing and replaced with a large mouth with two pairs of eyes and a pointed ear.

"Help!" the cloaked man yelled. "Help me, please."

"We don't exactly want to intervene with the creature as it enjoys its meal," Allen snorted. "You brought it here, you take care of it."

"But I was just ordered to do it," the man tried to reason. At this point, his body was heavily injured, his arm was almost severed from the rest of his body as he tried to block the Serrata from attacking him. 

"So, you want a negotiation now?" Kyle scoffed. "You almost killed us, especially them."

"There's an object that would disable this forcefield around us," Kyle said. "Bernard, Sebastian, and Remy are right outside. They already finished your allies. We can't help you because that Serrata is way too far from our league."

The man was silent for a couple of seconds. He was still trying to defend himself from the Serrata but their size difference and their sheet power difference was too much, that it was obvious where this would lead.

"I'm not telling you to do it," Kyle said. "I'm merely giving you a choice to do it."

Without another hesitation, the man threw a pebble towards Allen. "Break this. It will break the forcefield. Help me and I'll tell you everything, including the man who told us to attack you."

"Tell us now," Allen said. "Collateral."

"Lewis Nixon!" the man yelled, making both Allen and Kyle's eyes widen in shock. "He ordered the attack on the Celestums. He wanted all of you dead because it's what the upper leaders want."

Allen slammed the pebble on the ground and crushed it with his iron sole. The pebble shattered, creating a sound of breaking glass that was mimicked by the space around them.

"The forcefield is breaking," Kyle said, just in time for the forcefield to shatter into a thousand pieces. The outside world was shown, which includes Bernard and Remy who didn't hesitate to kill the Serrata.

"What the," Bernard paused. "Who is this?"

"An attacker," Allen replied. "He assaulted us earlier, but we managed to make the Serrata attack him instead."

Sebastian walked towards them. He was about to heal the man when Bernard stopped him.

"Wait," Bernard said. "Who are you working for?"

"I already told them," the man replied. "Lewis Nixon ordered us to–"

In point blank range, a bullet was fired straight to the man's head. Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, the man's body burned to the ground, leaving nothing in sight.

"What the hell…" Bernard trailed off, not believing what he just witnessed. "They're everywhere?"

A rain of bullets was fired not long after. Bernard managed to create a shield around them, protecting themselves from the chaos outside.

"Whoever is attacking us must have some guts," Bernard sighed. "They're really going all out."

"Roger Huntsman?" Remy asked, to which Bernard and Sebastian nodded. "He has henchmen too. How awesome."

"Is Lewis Nixon also his henchmen?" Kyle asked with a worried expression.

As Allen watched his old friend ask about their former leader, he could feel somewhat of what Kyle was feeling. Lewis, even when the man was a complete *sshole most of the time, was still part of their lives.

The man helped them in times of their crisis and he didn't lack his duties in terms of his leadership. He was a good leader to them. It was just the moment that Alice died that everything went downhill.

"We will investigate about this," Sebastian said. "But I know that Lewis had some sort of connection with Lin. They had an agreement before. We don't know the contents of the agreement, but we know that Lin provided them Codes."

"It was us," Kyle said. "Lin said that she would help us defeat the Fire Dragon to save our friends in exchange for Lewis's service. He agreed, but after that I don't know what happened after."

"Let's talk about this later," Sebastian said. He placed his hand on the ground and felt it. "There are seven people that are firing at us. I feel them. There. There. There… and there."

Bang!

Gary smiled after shooting one of the attackers. He fired another bullet, then another until he had taken down half of them. He was also protected by another bubble that Sebastian created. 

"That man is something," Bernard grinned. "He can shoot even fast moving objects and people. His skills needed to be harnessed better."

"He needs more training, that's for sure," Remy commented. "But he can rival Pixx."

"Pixx?" Allen asked. "How come I never heard of him?"

"He goes by Lay now," Sebastian said. "One of Jack's henchmen. He was, and still the best sniper rifle uset among all Hunters. But Gary is almost at his level that I don't know how long his title will last."

"Lay was called Pixx before?" Alle asked. "Why did he change his name?"

"Pixx, Draco, Seven, Arnold," Bernard mentioned. "They all have different names before they became Jack's henchmen. Every single one of them excelled in their fields, but decided to stop."

"They said they want to have a more peaceful lives," Remy sighed. "Verta Carta seem to have given them the lives they wanted, so we just let them."

Allen knew that Jack's men were good, but how Sebastian and the Bearers speak highly of them, made him suspect something. There was something that wasn't right, especially in the Second Coming of the Fire Dragon.

"At the Second Coming of the Fire Dragon," Allen spoke. "They didn't show their true powers, did they?"

"No," Sebastian answered honestly. "Jack wanted to see how strong you are so he held his men back."

"So, I'm not that strong after all?" Allen asked.

"No," Sebastian answered again. "At that time, you were not. That was why we provided you the power to grow. And now, you can deal with stronger opponents. You just have to believe in yourself."

Allen clenched his fist, nodding in understanding. "Alright. I know what I have to do now."