Chapter 408: Let’s Just Be Friends!
John knew the Headmaster must be watching through the surveillance network, or else the old man would have shown up a long time ago. He knew the formidable names of the academy were monitoring this broadcast as well.
He almost wanted to thank Mark for setting such a grand stage. Mark had intended to expose John’s secrets, but instead, he had provided the golden staircase for John to rise to fame and power with effortless ease.
"I want the Formal Team selection process to lie entirely within the RBM Club’s hands," John announced. "From this day forward, we pick the team. We decide who is fit to compete for this academy and who is not."
"This can’t be... We already won our place... The previous trials were final... Agh!"
Galbert summoned the last of his strength to shout a protest, but his voice was weak and trembling. It was cut short by a fierce, sudden kick from John’s heavy boot.
Galbert let out a strangled moan of pain as John stepped onto him, pinning the former official team leader to the dirt with one leg planted firmly over his back. It was the ultimate sign of humiliation, the golden boy of the seventh year used as a footstool.
"Do you think someone currently residing beneath my boot has the privilege of offering an opinion?" John didn’t spare Galbert a second glance. He turned his eyes toward the distant crowd of hundreds of students.
"If anyone here disagrees with my words, you are free to step forward and challenge me to a duel. Right now. Whoever wins can take this right back from my club. Until then, I demand the right to pick the Formal Team."
Nikolas looked at John, stunned by the sheer audacity of the move. "You want your Backup Team to replace the Formal one?" he asked, trying to clarify the unheard-of demand.
John shook his head, an evil smile touching his lips. "No. My Backup Team will compete in the backup slot as planned," he paused, letting the silence hang heavy before adding, "However, the right to select the Formal Team members will lie in the hands of my club. Which means..."
"Which means our club members will be the ones forming the Formal Team," Ricky finished, finally catching the scope of John’s ambition. He stepped up to stand by John’s side, while the rest of the club members stood behind them. Even Elena and Luke were slightly shocked by the hunger in John’s move.
If John managed to secure this privilege, it would be a total takeover. Every ambitious student in the academy would be desperate to join the RBM Club just for a chance at the competition. The glory, the sponsorships, and the historical records of the academy would all be funnelled through their names.
In truth, John didn’t care about the petty glory of a student competition. But he had learned a bitter, valuable lesson from Mark’s recent schemes. Being outstanding and overpowered wasn’t enough to secure a peaceful life.
He could tell Mark had the means to infiltrate the academy and toy with the students, even teachers. So just being strong wasn’t enough. He needed to shell himself and his friends with way more layers of social acceptance and support.
He needed to fortify his presence. He needed to make himself so vital that no one, teacher or student, would ever dare to target him or his friends again.
By seizing control of the Formal Team selecting rights, he was seizing the very heart of the academy’s pride. And it was all thanks to Mark’s challenge.
Nikolas could only sigh inwardly as he looked at the wreckage of the battle. He had grasped John’s intentions from the start, but he had hoped his most astounding student might aim for something bigger, perhaps secure the Formal Team spot for himself. But John wasn’t interested in a spot; he wanted something far bigger.
John didn’t care about the headache of actually managing the Formal Team; he simply wanted the power to dictate who stood on that stage. His indifference to the administrative alluring privilege left Nikolas with nothing else to do but slowly nod, sighing as he realised he would have to leave this tricky matter for the Headmaster and the Board of Deans to decide.
"Aside from that," Nikolas said, moving his eyes around the scarred students near and far, "the results are indisputable. The RBM Club has won this club war. Ricky has officially claimed the opposing club’s base, and as of this moment, all of the Black Ares Club’s belongings, assets, and privileges have been moved to the RBM Club. Congratulations!"
"It’s like congratulating yourself, hehehe!" Luke was in an exceptionally good mood. He turned to his friends and raised a clenched fist high into the air, his voice booming with triumph. "It’s an RBM Club victory! The masks are taking over the academy!"
His shout was welcomed with boisterous laughter and jokes from the few club members, a stark contrast to the heavy silence of the hundreds of students watching from the sidelines. As for the members of the now-disbanded Black Ares Club, they could only lie in the dirt and swallow the bitter humiliation of a miserable, total defeat.
The main question ringing through Galbert’s throbbing head was how on earth Mond, a man he had stagmated for years, had managed to grow to such a terrifying extent. But instead of retreating to contemplate their mistakes or accept their loss, the top leaders of the disbanded club eventually slunk away to a private meeting.
There, fueled by spite, they gathered in Galbert’s room. In the shadows of that room, they met with another one of Mark’s cyborgs. In the dark, they agreed on a new, grand scheme, a contingency that had been delayed only by the unexpected development of Cissel’s status.
As the losers spiralled deeper into a toxic well of hatred and enmity toward John and his friends, the victors were gathered inside their new club base. The facility was now ablaze with light, the silent atmosphere replaced by a vibrant energy.
The centre of the base had been cleared and transformed into a dancing ground, complete with a side bar handled by an expert, Ricky.
John stood off to the side, leaning against a seat. He watched his old and new friends celebrate the victory; the base was the heart of the academy tonight, a beacon of noise and neon in the dark. Cissel stood by his side, having finally woken up and joined the festivities.
Yet for these two, despite the music and the cheers, the world seemed to dim and close in. It felt as if they were standing in a vacuum where no sound or light could reach them. It was all thanks to the words Cissel had dropped over John’s head the moment she had regained consciousness and pulled him aside.
"Let’s just be friends."
She said the words softly, but they hit John with the force of a lightning strike. They were the universal words that signalled the end of a romantic knot, the ultimate barrier placed between two people who had once shared everything.
John was taken aback, staring at her for a long time, his mind racing but finding no words to say. He had just fought through a literal hell to save her, multiple times. He had defied teachers, destroyed a rival club, and faced off against Mark just to keep her safe. And yet, to her, she was living in a world still filled with a lingering darkness.
Even though John had cured her of the black fog contamination, the psychological damage was deep. Through the lens of the trauma Mark had inflicted, she couldn’t see John in the same light she had before.
To her distorted perception, he was the one who had tried to backstab and kill her in the basement. He was the one who had betrayed her trust and love, the same agonising fate she had experienced with Ricky in her last regression.
Even if she had a mountain of conflicting emotions in her chest, she decided to say nothing about them. John had shifted from being the most trusted person in her life, the person she would have died for, to being a stranger she could no longer lean on.
"Let’s keep our relationship professional from now on," she said, waiting to see his reaction.
Seeing the look on his face, the look of someone who had just lost the most important thing in his world, made her heart quaver for a fleeting moment. The old Cissel wanted to reach out, to take it back, to cry in his arms. But the scarred, suspicious Cissel didn’t retreat.
"We shall keep our focus on the task at hand," she continued, her voice hardening. "Save humanity, and defeat our enemies. That is why we are here."
"..."
John remained silent. He was someone who had lived through the past and seen things that no one else did, and yet he was a novice in the face of this. He had never had a girl before; he had never experienced the pain of a sudden breakup.
Seeing her cut all intimate ties while simultaneously asking him to keep working with her for the greater good was a paradox he couldn’t fathom. He felt as if the entire world had grown darker than the black fog ever was, as if all the colour and warmth had been drained out of his life.
What he couldn’t understand the most was how she could jump to such a cold decision the moment she opened her eyes. He kept his silence for a long time, scanning her body again and again with his Frame Recognition, desperately hoping to find a trace of the black fog that would explain this. But there was nothing, there was no infection, there was no corruption.
She looked perfectly normal. And that added a layer of profound puzzlement to his grief. Before he could find the words to extricate himself from his shock, she simply turned and walked away, disappearing into the celebrating friends as if the two were total strangers.
’Mark... you son of a bitch...’ John clenched both fists so hard his knuckles turned white, his body trembling with an immense, bottomless rage. ’This went too far. This isn’t just a clash of interest or a competition between man and machine anymore... This is a blood feud between the two of us!’
If John had viewed his enmity with Mark as a conflict of goals between two different races, he saw it differently now. The enmity was personal; it was blood-deep.
John would no longer be satisfied with simply foiling Mark’s plans or defending his friends. He was done playing the role of the counter-attacker. He was going to start taking the initiative. He would hunt Mark everywhere and anywhere he could reach.
He would bring disasters to Mark just as the rogue program had brought chaos to his heart. It was no longer a war for survival; it was a war of total eradication.