Chapter 16 - Who was at fault?

Previously:

Having gathered up all the courage that hadn't ran away yet, I spoke into the phone.

"Hello...?"

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POV: Nerovsky

I heard an exhale of air before all hell broke loose.

"Nerovsky Poston... do you care to explain why there IS A VIDEO of you on the internet of you FIGHTING BEATRICE CHASE IN THE MEGCORP RECEPTION FLOOR?!"

I winced and put the phone away from my ear and slowly put it back. "Um... uh... in my defence, I never actually fought her there. I just avoided her attacks."

He shrilled the next few lines. "There? THERE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE? DOES THAT MEAN YOU FOUGHT HER ELSE WHERE? ARE YOU A FUCKING DUNCE? DIN JÄVLA DUMMA TIK. DU ÄR JÄVLA DEMENT! (oh fuck he's speaking Swedish. He's personally sending me to hell) NERO DID YOU FUCKING USE YOUR POWER? WHAT WAS THE POINT HID-

"AIDEN. I HAVE COMPANY WITH ME WHO CAN VERY MUCH HEAR YOU RIGHT NOW! I also didn't intentionally start it. She did! There should videos showing that."

"Nero I can bet on MY LIFE that YOU FUCKING GOT TICKED OFF BY WHAT SHE SAID AND LET HER GET A RISE OUT OF YOU! THIS NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS, DIN JÄVEL!"

Ok now I snapped. "AIDEN I HAD THE SHITTIEST DAY BEFORE SHE EVEN ENTERED THE FUCKING PREMISE. SO I WASN'T THINKING AS IT IS. AND THEN SHE HAD TO GO BOTHER EVERYONE AROUND HER, INCLUDING ME. ESPECIALLY ME. AND THEN THIS BITCH HAD THE AUDACITY TO GO THREATEN ME. AIDEN, SHE THREATENED TO DESTROY MY FRIENDS. MEANING MY ONLY FRIEND. MEANING YOU. OF COURSE I FUCKING SNAPPED. WHAT ELSE WAS I MEANT TO DO?"

"... Nero... I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF ASSHOLE! DON'T LOOK DOWN ON ME! I'VE GOT AN ODDITY TOO AND A COOL ONE TOO. I CAN BEAT YO ASS THREE TIMES OVER"

"WHAT?! BULLSHIT YOU CAN EVER BEAT ME! YOU'VE NEVER EVEN WON AGAINST ME TILL THIS DAY! ALSO, HOW WAS THAT LOOKING DOWN-"

"SHUT UP OR I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR VOICEBOX OUT!"

"OK!" (scary)

I hear Aiden sigh again in absolute resignation. "Why didn't you call me man?"

"uh I was kind of busy trying to tame a sociopath?"

"do people know about...?"

"No. I dealt with it pretty well."

"are you injured?"

"No mum."

I could of heard the intense glare. "Ok so you have witnesses which is basically the company and the entire internet. Which means Leonardo Covell knows."

"uh. Yeah. They're actually here with me. You know. The other company I mentioned earlier..."

"They?"

"oh right. His asshole friend is here as well." Although... boss sir is also low-key an asshole. I'm just a major simp for him. I look over to Erwin to see him give me cold eyes and Leo give me a more appreciative one.

"Right well they're currently irrelevant... for now. More importantly, did you kill her?"

"I used a technique for killing but no, she's very much alive. Didn't really have much of an option." That struck major red flags in both CEOS and both exchange looks of unease. Yep. Definitely sound dodgy.

"And the body is still there I presume?"

"She's not dead you know..." I still look over towards the fainted pile of human and see her breathing is existent and there is some colour to her face. "Although... maybe I should've sent her to the doctors." Leonardo looks at me with major concern in his eyes and he is back to an angry frown. I quickly mouth 'she's fine. I meant for caution's sake.' He continues squinting his eyes at me though.

"Well I can't help you with that shit now can I because SOMEONE brought in witnesses."

"Again, not my fault-"

"I. don't. care. I can't even cover up your tracks or deal with the Chase or help you out in anyway. I'm going to trust you and say your Oddity hasn't actually been exposed so congrats for that at least. All our hard work didn't go to shit for now. However, you may need to deal with the government for using your power since the company probably needs to report it. Still have no clue how you hid it..."

"το μίσος στο σκοτάδι, καταναλώνεις το μυαλό σου"

"... wait that sounds familiar. Isn't that the mind fucking one?"

"yep."

"... YOU USED THAT ON HER? ARE YOU FUCKING MENTAL? SHE WAS A SMALL FRY! YOU WERE TRYING TO KILL HER!"

"DON'T SCREAM IN MY EAR OUT OF NOWHERE! I had no other option!"

"How the fuck are you still breathing let alone holding a conversation?"

"My theory is adrenaline. Although, I feel the adrenaline reaching minimal levels."

"dumhuvud. Do you need me to pick you up?"

"Nah. I think I'm good for another half an hour or so. Oh right. Can you remove all the videos from the internet at least? I want it to be gone from everywhere, including phones but that's probably impossible." I see the two best friends in front of me look at each other in bemusement and then back to me in curiosity. Well now I look even dodgier than before.

"haaahhhh. The shit I do for you. I can remove it everywhere for you. The phones who took the videos are most likely employees with company phones. So I'll just hack in and find out everyone who has present there and then do my IT hibijibi to remove it wirelessly. That's gonna take long though so I'll deal with the internet videos first before the phones. All the videos, including the phones, should be gone in two days if I do it full time or four days if I do it part time. The online videos should be gone by the time you wake up tomorrow though."

I gave a huge sigh of relief and smiled. "Thank you Aiden. You will always be my number one and I'm sorry for what happened today. It wasn't intentional." Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum looked even more interested in what is being said on the other side and look prepared to just snatch the phone and put it on speaker.

"Yeah I know. I was more bothered that you got revved up at something you usually can ignore. It lowers the credibility of our second job's high scoring performance. I was also pissed initially because I thought you went against someone without consulting me first. Thinking back on it though, I should've realised you're not THAT much of an idiot."

I rolled my eyes even though he couldn't see it. "Yeah. Thanks for the faith. Look we can talk in more detail about this tomorrow. I'm gonna go home now 'kay? I'm practically the living dead right now. I also have to deal with two more people before that."

"Bahahaha serves you right to suffer with them as a closing act. But yeah. Get home safe. If you don't message me in half an hour saying your home, I'm going to assume you're dead and then get a new best friend."

"Tch. Bye asshole. Love you too."

"Be careful Nero."

With that being said, Aiden ended the call and I exhaled a shit ton of air. I felt my tense shoulders relaxed and my head got rid of the nagging worry from Aiden's reaction. Now it would be a perfect ending if I could just go home but I still have these two gentlemen to deal with.

I put my attention on them and boy oh boy, their eyes danced with new heightened interest, so interested that it looked like that they were looking at an animal who's dancing inside a cage of a zoo. The look really suits Leo though. It makes his golden eyes shine a bit more. God I could get lost in those eyes and never complain about ever being found again. Erwin just looks creepy. Ok no he looks fine but he's an asshole so creepy.

I blatantly cleared my throat as a wordless signal to stop staring at me or else it was gonna start being alarming real soon. It kind of worked as I seemingly broke the weird trance they were in but they were still staring. I give a subtle eye-roll before I started the (hopefully short) conversation.

"Well. With all that being said, I'm going to take this as my cue to leave now. I'm pretty sure I'm in a worse state than her over there." I pointed over my shoulders, towards Beatrice's slump body behind me without turning around.

Leonardo shoved his hands in his suit trousers' pocket and rebutted back in an indicative tone. "Nero...(why does my name sound so hot in a British accent? Maybe it's the beautiful voice. God I really AM a Simp for this fucker.) you do realise that the number of questions doubled, all of them unanswered."

I began backing towards the back fence and answered back tiredly, "and answering I will do. All tomorrow I promise. I just cannot bother right now and if you kept me here, you will be accountable for my death. Oh wait another favour and an important one so I'd appreciate if you consider it. Could you possibly not report the usage of my power yet? At least until we have our meeting?" When I began backing away, Leonardo clearly becomes more alert, – shoulders tensing, eyebrows furrowing – almost prepared for something to happen, whereas Erwin just gazed at me with mild peculiarity, not moving at all. I don't wait for an answer for the latter question (I'll just find out tomorrow whether he did or not. I just want to go home.) and proceeded adding on, "Oh right boss sir. Where is my satchel and blazer?"

Leo's eyebrows twitched in plain annoyance. He grinded out, "Don't call me that." Then continued on normally. "Your satchel has been picked up by the receptionist after your departure and put behind the front desk as well as your suit jacket."

I flashed back a wide but very exhausted smile. "Ok great. I'll pick it up tomorrow when I come for the meeting. Please send me the time by the way and if it's not a hassle, make it later in the day. I'm sure you're busy in the morning as it is right?"

Leonardo gave a slow, confused nod. "You can just pick up your things now. You're going to be passing by it as you lea- what on earth are you doing?" Leonardo's eyes were once again widened at the sight of me perching on top of the centre pole (yeah I jumped up mid conversation). Whoops. I confused him all over again. On a more positive note though... I'm feeling more like Spiderman as the days go by. It feels great. Maybe I'll do movie marathon some time to really study him.

His reaction caused a small chuckle to bubble up from my throat which could not be held back. "Sir, I will be taking the other exit. So no. I will not be passing the front desk."

Leonardo finally got the idea where said exit is and breathed out, "Oh you don't seriously mean..."

"Yep. Bye." With one last smile, I jumped back and off the premise, once again freefallen backwards. Brings back memories. How nostalgic. Except this time, I decided to land on the concrete. I pray there is no one there and I hope I do not land on someone, inevitably killing them. I turned around so I faced the ground, left the last scene seen backwards was two heads popping out from the roof. I can enjoy the plummeting for about 2 seconds before I realised I approached the concrete real soon. I channelled all the dark magic to my feet as fast as humanly possible and waited for impact. My feet touched the concrete with great force exerted against it as I crouched, however, the darkness enveloping my legs did their job and cushioned the impact. Hence why my leg was not broken. Just very fucking sore.

I went back into a standing position and dusted myself off. I set about looking around, when I saw there is indeed people but not a lot. However, all of them were staring at me with plain shock stuck to their face. Like fair enough. Someone just dropped 200 metres from the sky and is standing fine. I deserve that.

I gave a small shrug to myself, got out my AirPods, put them in my ears, chose my depressing playlist and began walking towards the direction of my house and ignored all the lingering stares.

Wait... I left Beatrice up there...

Eh. Not my problem...

Maybe I should just work at the post office.