Chapter 52: Have Mercy.

Its voice was full of pride as it said, "Since I caused the fight, it means we have me to thank for learning such a valuable lesson. I’m so good."

Alexander scoffed, but said nothing. Instead, he reached the first floor and scanned the room, looking for Jessy.

He saw Jessy crying in the corner. She was holding her hand, which was now red from scalding.

There was also a group of girls surrounding her. They laughed at her while everyone else in the room either ignored it or laughed along.

There were five of them, and all of them were taller than her, so if he hadn’t been lucky with the angle he looked at them, he wouldn’t have seen the puny Jessy pushed against the wall.

His face remained calm as he walked over to them. By now, the Drones had noticed him and gone silent. The room fell into a strange hush, alerting the groups of girls to the abnormality.

They looked around, trying to find the reason for the silence, when they saw him walking towards them. They saw a giant reddish man with four eyes and naked jaws approaching them intently.

It didn’t matter that what they were doing was questionable. As long as an Apostle was approaching them like that, the outcome was unlikely to be good for them.

But since they were doing something inappropriate, they had even more reason to fear for their lives. Before he said anything or reached them, they fell to their knees begging for mercy.

The five of them knelt down and said, "Please, have mercy, sir. We are very sorry."

They didn’t make excuses, and they didn’t wait for him to accuse them of a crime. They skipped all that, saving him effort, and went straight to admitting their mistakes and asking for forgiveness.

Jessy also knelt and joined in asking for mercy. Her words came out as a blur, though. Because of all of the crying, he could hardly hear what she was saying.

"I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Please don’t replace me," she said through tears.

When Alexander reached them, he stopped to compose himself. He exhaled and inhaled deeply for a few moments, mostly because his anger was bleeding into his hunger, and the two were fueling each other.

He felt that if he didn’t calm down, he would bite someone’s head off. In fact, he was sure he could get away with unhinging his jaw and swallowing someone’s head.

This matter riled him up deeply because he didn’t like bullies. He didn’t like being bullied, and he didn’t enjoy seeing someone being bullied, especially if the person looked like a fragile, orphaned rabbit.

After he felt good enough to talk, he said, "I scared her this morning. I scared her and she didn’t cry."

"But here we are. In less than 30 minutes, you’ve done something I failed to do. How commendable!"

His voice was frosty as he said, "Tell me. Do you think you’re better than me?"

The girls had already been scared stiff and could only shake their heads.

"Come now. Don’t be shy," he said, grinning, sharp teeth, with a lot more canines than normal.

"Don’t be humble either. If you think you’re better than me at scaring little girls, just say so."

"What’s the worst that could happen? At most, I would feel that my honor was threatened and challenge you to a fight to the death."

"But that’s nothing to worry about. After all, you are all champion fighters," he said, waving his hand in dismissal.

But no matter how he encouraged them, no one owned up to their superior talents for bullying. One of them actually fainted.

She fell sideways, exposing her neck to his gaze. His eyes immediately settled on her bare neck.

He stared at her prone and defenseless figure for a while. The look in his eyes frightened another one, who took off running and ran into a wall.

She didn’t seem to see the wall. She ran into it and bounced off of it like a faulty ball. Then she fell backward onto the ground.

The girl’s head hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Then blood leaked from the back of her head.

Alexander saw the blood and licked his lips. Then he said to the remaining three, two of whom had peed themselves and one who was close to fainting, "You’ve been warned."

He turned to Jessy and said, "Let’s go."

Without waiting for her response, he turned around and marched away. Behind him, Jessy rushed to stand up on her tiny legs.

In her hurry, she had to use her hands to support herself. Pain pierced through her head as her scalded hand pressed against the floor. But she gritted her teeth through the pain and struggled to stand.

After she got back to her feet, she took a moment to wipe her face. Then she took off after him.

She had to run to catch up to him because he seemed in a hurry and took long strides. When she finally reached him, she struggled to find words to say.

Eventually, she said, "Thank you, sir, for giving me another chance."

"Hmmm," he replied, no longer bothering with her.

They didn’t talk anymore than that. Alexander didn’t ask what happened, and she didn’t know if she should explain herself.

The silence continued like that until he found Tessa. He found her at the jail, plying her trade of being an initiator to a bunch of innocent Squires.

The Squires had lined up in front of the jail. There were 56 of them, and they lined up in front of Tessa. Tessa was flanked by two Small Bosses who looked like her younger brother and sister.

A shelf of glass jars sat off to the side. The shelves held jars with small red worms swimming in yellow liquid.

Under Tessa’s stern gaze, the Squires went up to the shelf one by one and picked a jar. They unscrewed the jar, grabbed the worm, opened their mouth, and dropped it in.