New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

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He grabbed the gangster’s wrist as the man tried grabbing Violette’s arm, and they immediately devolved into a scuffle. The butler turned his head to watch, his grin still wide.

Alex took this moment to act. Since the butler wasn’t looking at him, he rapidly struck the hand with the gun to his side, moving his body forward to get out of the gun’s line of fire.

The man was not expecting this, and he pulled the trigger instinctively. The muffled gunshot still attracted the attention of the nearby people, and they rapidly saw the firearm as Alexander tried to disarm the butler.

The nearby civilians rapidly started panicking, screaming and running away, as the four men were fighting to overpower their opponents. Alex was having a better outcome than the old man, since his opponent wasn’t as muscular.

But the situation went from bad to worse.

In a moment of inattention, the gangster stumbled into Violette, pushing her into the pond. Although the water wasn’t deep, it was still deeper than Violette’s height.

Violette’s inability to swim rapidly kicked in as she struggled to keep her head over the water. She screamed for help, making her situation worse, as mouthfuls of water slid down her throat.

In a matter of seconds, she was already sinking.

Alexander couldn’t let go of the butler, or he would get shot, and the old man was having trouble containing the goon. As for the passersby, most had already fled the scene.

“Someone help the girl! She can’t swim! Please! Someone help!”

Alexander cried out for help, but no one was listening. He watched as the bubbles on the surface were rapidly thinning.

Flashes of him on the phone, inside his parents’ house, hearing the doctor’s voice announcing to him he had lost his loved ones, passed inside his mind.

He turned his head back to the butler, but something was different. His eyes were shining slightly, and his hair was changing colour from auburn to white.

Claws grew out of his hand, and his strength suddenly grew tenfold. Alex looked into the butler’s eyes, as the man before him started shaking in horror.

“What are you?!”

Those were the last words he would ever utter, as Alexander ripped his throat out with his clawed hand. Alex left the man gurgling in his blood, dashing toward the goon and the old man.

He spun-kicked the goon in the side, hitting his ribs with a clear snap sound. The whole man’s body flew a few feet away, as he gasped for air, his lungs on one side punctured by his broken ribs.

Alexander lost no more time, jumping the last few feet separating him from the water, and swimming down.

The pond was about ten feet deep, and on its bed lay Violette. No more bubbles were escaping from her mouth, and her face was serene.

In two kicks of his feet, Alex was already at the bottom of the pond, picking up the girl’s body. He spun his body downward, setting his feet on the muddy pond bed.

When he kicked off the ground, his body soared rapidly to the surface, breaching it quicker than a dolphin’s jump, landing back on the grassy surface of the pond side.

He delicately put Violette on the ground as the old man looked at him with wide eyes. But the old-timer rapidly snapped out of his daze, noticing the girl was unmoving.

“Step aside,” he said, leaning down next to Violette.

Alex obeyed, quickly understanding his intentions. The man quickly started performing CPR on the girl, trying to bring her back from the brink of death.

Alex had another thought in mind, snapping his head to where he had kicked the goon. The man was trying to crawl away, and Alex could still hear his rugged breathing from afar.

He dashed forward to the hulking man dragging himself across the ground. The speed at which he moved could be considered inhuman, as he reached the man in a second.

He stepped onto the big man’s back, pinning him to the ground. Burt flailed around in pain, trying to turn and defend himself.

Alex granted his wish, flipping the man on his back. But it wasn’t to give him a fighting chance.

When the gangster realized who was standing over him, and how he looked different, he tried pulling out something from his jacket.

Alexander moved faster than him, punching hard at the man’s arm, hearing a loud crack, as Burt howled in pain.

Alex was currently in a frenzy, and his eyes saw red. He noticed a spot of blood on the man’s shirt where he had kicked him, and a weird protrusion poking at the shirt.

A manic grin formed on his lips as he tore the shirt open, exposing a broken rib poking out of the man’s torso. Alexander jammed his hand inside the man’s chest, sliding next to the rib.

Burt screamed in pain and horror, punching Alex in the face with his other hand, but it felt like hitting a brick wall. Alex kept looking into his eyes as he slowly reached the man’s heart with his hand.

As he grasped the heart with his clawed hand, he could feel the increasingly fast heartbeat.

“Who do you work for?”

“I’m not telling—AARRGGHH!!!!”

When the man started responding negatively, Alex gave his heart a little squeeze.

“I will not ask again.”

“They’ll kill m—AARRGGHH!!”

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you!”

“Stop! I work for the Bianchi Family! Killing the handler and I will put you in big trou—*cough*”

As soon as Alex got his answer, he crushed the man’s heart, planting his claws into it like it was just a mushy steak. The man coughed up blood as his eyes started losing their lustre.

Pulling his hand out of the cavity, blood dripped off of it. Alex then started feeling dizzy.

He heard from behind him, “She’s breathing! She’ll be ok!”

But before he could even be happy about it, his eyes closed, and he fainted.