Chapter 7: Grief

Van started crying out loud as Debra's breath stopped and she goes completely still.

Dark clouds formed in the sky, thunder started roaring from distance. A few moments later, a raindrop touched Debra's cheeks, flowing down the side of her smiling face.

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After the funeral happened, the three were sitting in the park across from where the funeral happened.

Teal’s metallic arm was covered in the sleeve of his shirt and his metallic leg was covered by his pant.

"She sure was loved by many of her students." Ryu spoke looking at the number of people that were present.

Ryu Tate, friend of Teal and Van. Although he wasn't as close as Van and Teal were with each other, he did grow up together with them and went to the same school. He was energetic and a bit protective of things around him.

"She was a kind soul everyone admired." Teal spoke in a low voice.

Van gloomy after the whole incident "Why are you guys not angry..." grits his teeth "she was like that because someone did it to her... you guys are awfully calm about it..." The calm and composed Van looked agitated for the first time. His eyes filled with rage and desperation.

Teal looked at Van, his expression not what he usually has on his face.

“Hey Van.” Ryu turned towards Van, looking down where he was sitting “I know you are angry, but did you even hear what her last words were? You are supposed to be the smart one here.”

Van’s expression shifted to that of a realization. He bit his lip in despair “I know…” sighs and looks at Ryu “You are right… I should have taken that to account. I am sorry… her death was too much for me…”

“We know how it feels.” Teal spoke at last “I wanted to skin alive the bastard who did that. But the words she said that taking revenge just continues the cycle of revenge. The person that put me and Principal Shades through this, he may have someone dear to him. If we take revenge on him the other person may hunt us down and someone dear to us may do the same, continuing the cycle of revenge. It sure is like a parasite that changes host when it is done with a person.”

“Hey. They put me through the same too. Ryu spoke after few moments, hearing Teal’s justification.

“What do you mean? You look perfectly fine.” Van looked at Ryu confused.

“Yeah. I am completely fine because I have this.” He showed his shield.

“He was talking about their actual limbs that are replaced by those metallic limbs.” Van replied to the dumb shield answer Ryu gave.

“I have the same too, look.” Ryu takes the gloves off his right hand, not the arm but just below the wrist was metallic.

“See? Oh! And I have this too.” Ryu lifts his pant up of the right side, revealing his feet which were metallic below his ankle bone.

Teal and Van were totally surprised. Their eyes wide with shock that Ryu also had his limbs replaced and how casually he revealed it.

“What?” Van asked Ryu, his voice almost airy when asking the question.

Teal smacked Ryu’s head with his right arm playfully.

“That’s why you were able to move like that, jumping and hitting that shield so hard. Where did you even get that kind of shield, who even makes stuff like that? Now where is that shield let me look, it was too cool in your hands.” Teal asked while looking for the shield.

“Hehe, it’s cool right? I don’t know who made that, it just pops out.”

“Pops out?” Teal asked, now even more excited about it.

"Yeah, like this." Ryu demostrated, showing a tiny silver grain popping out of his palm. The tiny silver grain transformed to the shield in as instant, hovering in the air for a second and clinging to his arm the next second.

"Wow! So cool!" Teal was practically jumping from excitement while Ryu looked proud of himself.

Van was excited seeing the demonstration but didn't show it. He was analyzing the way his hand was working.

"It's a good mechanism. The shield itself is thin but the material is strong so the force doesn't destroy the shield. The shield is compressed to a small grain of silver for portability. This sure shows the guy who built has a brain that matches no one else in this planet."

"Ugh... This guy is so smart he just says everything by a single look." Ryu groaned at how smart Van actually sounded.

"We have discovered that I am not the only one who was experimented on. We got Ryu and Principal Shades. Although there is one thing that bugs me. Miss Shades... She was saying my children the whole time. I thought she was referrring to her kids but she isn't married, which I discovered today. Another thing is... she looked like she was getting a headache which felt like when I had discovered this arm." Teal looked at Ryu and looked at Van as he explained.

"Yeah... she screamed after that so loud it felt like a sharp ring." Van gave his side of analysis.

"I discovered something else. The shockwavve she was releasing, it was soundwave she released focusing on a single point, using her metallic limbs with a hard vibration." Teal added to his statement.

"Headache?" Ryu also joined the conversation "I had one too right before I discovered that my hand and leg were metallic."

"So that sums it up. The initial signs of the person having these metallic body parts maybe headache. But the bigger question is why a headache." Van gave his own conclusion and a question. Why is the headache the cause? Are there more people?