A tearful meeting between parents and children. Jason had been struck a few times by his wailing mother but he didn’t budge. Although both of his parents defended their son yet that didn’t make the suspicion of their son to go away.

 

Jason took the time of explaining things mentioning that the feds made a big mistake, he even had a military officer to vouched for him who came along. Thus conclude, the wavering problematic hearts of his parents.

 

They just couldn’t help being worried about their son and from the look of it, even their only daughter was involved in whatever shit that Jason got into.

 

After a little bit of refreshing themselves up, both Jason and Esther came downstairs as their ride had arrived. Both mother and father stood up as they walked over their two children.

 

“Jason, why is there a military humvee outside of our house?” asked the father.

 

“Son, what do get yourself into? And why did you drag Esther into this? She has a bright future with her studies, she shouldn’t…” the mother fell short of her words, as tears kept on dropping those wrinkly face of hers.

 

Jason hugged his mother and glanced at his sister. A nod was enough as Esther joined in with the hug.

 

“I can’t tell you yet mom, but I’m working with the military about a project, they need my expertise on this,” said Jason.

 

Then someone knocked on their door. The father went on to open the door, and a soldier saluted.

 

“We are ready to depart sir,” said the soldier.

 

The father glanced at Jason. He couldn’t believe that his son was working with the military. He never knew his son could do such a thing considering his first intention was to strike rich in Wallstreet.

 

“Mom, Dad, I need to go,” said Jason. His mother wouldn’t let him go gripping him tight over his arms. But Jason was too strong as he slipped through his mother’s fingers.

 

“Mom, we’ll be back by tomorrow,” said Esther.

 

“Esther? You’re going along? You’re a woman, it’s too dangerous for you,” said the mother as in her mind the military was always synonymous with violence and danger.

 

“Son, don’t do this to your sister. She can get hurt being out there,” said the father worried about his precious daughter.

 

“Mom, dad, you don’t have to worry. I can protect myself,” said Esther flashing a smile trying not to break to tears over their parents’ concern.

 

Jason tapped his father’s shoulder.

 

“Take care of mom, dad and don’t worry, I’ll take care of Esther,” said Jason.

 

He glanced at Esther.

 

“Let’s go,” he said.

 

“No! You can’t leave Esther!” said mother while blocking the door. She didn’t what was going on but her motherly instinct was telling her that it was dangerous.

 

Esther glanced at Jason not knowing how to react to this current situation. Even Jason didn’t know how to do this, considering they were dealing with their parents. He looked away as if telling Esther it was all on her.

 

Esther glared at the back of Jason who was leaving her to dealt with this situation. The soldier escorted Jason into the humvee. Jason sat while waiting for his sister. Watching from afar, from the look of it Esther was having a hard time convincing both of their parents.

 

Fifteen minutes passed and Esther was running towards the humvee. It seemed the situation didn’t turn to her favor. With her speed, she was fast enough to reach the humvee door before their parents could do a thing.

 

The door shut once more as Esther shouted.

 

“Drive!”

 

The humvee rolled out into the street as the atmosphere within the vehicle was rather grim. Jason was looking through the window, ignoring the glare from his sister. He knew he was on the wrong side of things but it was better to just ignore it. Time would make things right.

 

After picking up Hakeem from his apartment building, at least the air inside the humvee turned a bit brighter.

 

“Why y’all with the long faces?” his opening greeting fit the man himself. He glanced at the siblings as he could read between these two. He shook his head and went inside.

 

He started rambling around trying to eased himself before tonight. Jason didn’t give much of a response while Esther kept glaring at Hakeem. In the end, he only talked with the soldier that sat with them.

 

After a while, they reached a military compound. They were escorted into the building as they then entered a briefing room. The moment these three entered, all eyes were on them.

 

Jason looked around and noticed the numbers of people inside reached about three hundred of them. The man standing at the front was the Major of this division.

 

The three of them sat in the last row. The moment they sat, a person stood up. The person walked over towards the trio and the major who noticed this called out to him.

 

“Berserker! Stand down, this is an order!” said the Major.

 

Yet the man turned to deaf to his superior’s order. No one dared to stop him since all of them knew he was the strongest Awakened in the special ops unit.

 

The moment the Berserker reached an arms-length to Jason, he attacked. A fist went flying straight to the new guest of the military. Everyone in the briefing room was shocked seeing the drastic turn of event. They thought blood was going to be spill yet what happened next made them even more shocked.

 

Jason caught the fist as Frank the Berserker was trembling to try to push his fist forward. But he couldn’t. Gritting his teeth, he threw another punch at Jason as backing down was never in his dictionary.

 

Jason dodged the incoming punch flawlessly as he countered with a punch of his own. He struck the Berserker right at the pit of his stomach. The resulting force was enough to broke Berserker’s energy guard, then a second punch came striking at the same spot. This time, the Berserker felt the pain. Berserker knelt down on the floor as he withstood the pain. He glared at Jason as his anger was reaching his boiling point, he was about to activate his skill but then a sole of a shoe came stamping down over his face, fainting him out in an instant.

 

Jason didn’t stomp at him only once but a few times as he vented out some pile-up stress. The Berserker’s face turned bloody as hell, even though it looks bad but at least Jason pulled most of his strength a bit. If he let loose all of his strength, it wouldn’t be weird to see a head snapping out from the neck.

 

The confrontation ended in a matter of a few seconds. The soldiers knew it would turn bloody but didn’t think the one bloody was the Berserker himself. Right now in their eyes, this Asian man was the strongest of them all. He exuded dominance even without trying it.

 

Ellen who witnessed everything trembled from top to bottom. While Scott was already shaking his legs vigorously. He just glad he didn’t rat out on the trio especially Jason since he still believed he was cursed by that devilish man.

 

Jason sat back down on his seat ignoring the fainted man on the floor right next to him. No one dared checked up on the Berserker as they were afraid Jason would assault them suddenly.

 

“Go check on Berserker,” said the Major. Some still hesitated but after the Major pointed to a few people, they stood up reluctantly and went on to checked the Berserker’s vitals.

 

“Is he alive?” asked the Major.

 

“His pulse is still beating sir,” said the soldier.

 

“Then what are you waiting for? Go take him to the infirmary,” said the Major.

 

The Major glanced at Jason and seeing the man himself slouching on the chair with his hand inside his pockets, the Major felt the need to discipline these civilians. But after seeing what he could do, he sealed his lips. From what he was informed, those three were just working with them in tandem and not under any of his commands. Although he didn’t like being assisted by more of these Awakened but considering the situation he had to. Even the CO of the CFNIS gave a guarantee about the upcoming mission, he was told with those three leading the mission, claiming back their lands won’t be a problem.

 

“Listen up…” the Major briefed about their mission. To kill as many UC as they could in Thunder Bay City. From their drone observation along with the usage of Ellen’s Scan, they managed to found a city that consisted of low-level UC. A perfect place to begin their soldier's training. They would drop from the air and rendezvous at Welcome Island before traveling by boat to Thunder Bay city.

 

“That is all. I wish you all the best of luck,” the Major gave a salute as the rest of the soldiers stood up in unison and gave a salute.

 

The trio still sat at the back seat as they were just spectators.

 

“Dude, am I hearing this right? Did he say we’re going to jump from a plane?” Hakeem asked.

 

“Yes, why?” said Jason.

 

“Dude, I’ve never try skydiving before,” said Hakeem.

 

“Neither am I,” said Jason in response.

 

“Wait, how can you be so calm about this? We’re going to jump out from a plane at a ridiculous height, that’s crazy man,” said Hakeem.

 

“Relax, someone’s probably going to jump along with you. Just trust these guys, they know what they’re doing,” said Jason.

 

“But…” as Hakeem wanted to retort a soldier butted in.

 

“It’s been a while,” said a soldier.

 

Jason and Hakeem glanced at the soldier standing there with a smile. Hakeem didn’t hide his smile as he was already standing up and greeted the soldier.

 

“Yo man, you’re still alive,” said Hakeem as he was already hugging the soldier.

 

“Thanks to you guys,” said the soldier. The soldier glanced at Jason who was still sitting in his chair.

 

“Strong as always,” said the soldier as he reached out his hand to Jason for a handshake.

 

“You’re doing good, Sgt.Ryan?” Jason said as he remembered the soldier's name. Why shouldn’t he? Since this soldier did save his life from being extinguished.

 

“You remember my name,” said Ryan.

 

“Of course, you’re the who saved me,” said Jason.

 

“Wait, what?” Hakeem and Esther spoke in unison. The thought of someone else saving Jason didn’t make sense to them.

 

“In my eyes, you’re the one who saved me. Besides, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have been promoted to a Captain,” said Ryan.

 

“I see, so you’re joining in with us?” asked Jason.

 

“I’ll be leading a squad of my own, but I don’t know about the arrangement for you guys,” said Ryan.

 

“I see,” said Jason. He glanced at Hakeem and lightly nudged at him.

 

“What?” Hakeem asked.

 

“You’ll be going with Ryan’s squad,” said Jason out of the blues.

 

Both Hakeem and Ryan were surprised. Since Jason wasn’t under their military order, he could whatever the hell he wanted and thus he had freedom of assigning his members to his liking.

 

Jason glanced at Ryan.

 

“You don’t need to worry about him. Just make sure Hakeem land on the ground with all his body parts still intact. Besides, he’s level sixteen and I think he’s enough to protect you guys,” said Jason.

 

Ryan who heard the level sixteen had his jaw dropped. He stared at the sight of this tall black man who was still worried about skydiving.

 

For some reason, Ryan felt the success of this mission was within his hand. He stared at Hakeem and grabbed him by both of his shoulders.

 

“Don’t worry my friend, I’ll jump with you.”