Chapter 104: The Brother
Nicholas felt the warmth of her hand as it wrapped around his. He paused for a moment and was about to remove her hand, but before he could, she suddenly threw herself onto him.
He could feel the warmth of her body against his, her hot breath brushing against his neck as she rested her head on his shoulder.
"Uh" Nicholas tried to pull back, but she pulled him closer into the hug.
"Cisco, please don’t leave me again" Selena said her eyes drowsy as she looked at him.
"You know... it’s been pretty tough ever since you died. I really wanted to kill myself and just give up on life. How could you leave me all alone?" She said as her eyes slowly opened.
Her eyes sparkled with tears as she spoke. "I begged you... I told you not to go," Selena said, her voice cracking.
She could remember quite vividly how everything had happened that day.
"You brought down my hand and told me you could handle it" Selena said with a slight hiccup, "I I don’t know where I got that confidence from. Maybe it’s cause you always find a way to convince me. But I made a big mistake, I left you to go fight Dr. Bane alone" She said with a pained laugh.
I can remember everything, the way Dr. Bane held your head between the palms of his hands. The way you struggled with great effort.
And I watched as you struggled in vain. Your head being crushed between his palms like it was nothing.
I could remember the way you screamed, as your skull got compressed. The way your eyes started to bulge from their sockets... your blood splattering on the ground"
"I shouted, I wanted to help, but sir eric didn’t let me..."
Nicholas stood there. He didn’t know what to say.
He could feel her body quivering as she described the scene, and the warm tears falling down her eyes as she kept talking. For some reason, he didn’t have the guts to pull away from her embrace.
"I hated myself for a long time, and I wanted to just kill myself... But Eric didn’t let me either. That man baby stuck to me like a pest" Selena said letting out a weak laugh.
"He’s annoying, but he always has his eyes out for everyone and would do anything to make sure we’re all doing well in the association. I guess that’s another reason everyone allows themselves to be free around him asides his clowny behaviour" She sniffled as she continued.
"It took me two years to move on, why did you pretend you died? You were tired of little Selena back then?" she asked, her hug tightening.
"I know I always said I hated you, but that’s not a reason to go die on me" Selena said between hiccups, as tears streamed uncontrollably down her face.
Nicholas could feel the tears dropping on his thick leather coat before rolling down.
"You know, I met someone who always reminds me of you. He is really annoying just like you or maybe more stubborn too..."
"But he’s smart... really smart. He runs off on his own too, and I get pretty scared, cause it reminds me of you and I don’t want him to die" she took a long pause.
"Everything he does reminds me of you... and guess what? He actually ended up with the ridiculous hero name you’d told me you wanted to use. Everyone calls him Phantom, it sounds so silly."
Nicholas’ eyes lit up, slightly surprised, ’So she was talking about me?’
"You know, I think I like him, but he’s such a brat and I don’t want what happened to repeat itself. I’m scared, big brother please don’t leave me again..." Selena’s voice croaked.
"We’re going to win this year’s convention, just like you’ve always wanted. I will make sure of it. Please Cisco, don’t leave me..." Her words slowly faded away, and the room fell silent once more.
Her grip finally loosened, and she simply rested against his shoulder.
"So you sleep while standing and call me silly?" Nicholas let out a chuckle, amused by her recklessness.
He stood there for a moment, her words echoing through his mind before he finally pulled her off from himself and placed her on top the bed before covering her up with the sheets.
Nicholas walked back to the door, took a pause and stared at her as she slept soundly, her breathing slow and calm as opposed to her previous frantic breaths.
Without another pause he left the room and went into the elevator and went to his own room.
****
The morning came in a flash, and the automated alarm in the arena sang in annoying robotic voice in the room.
(❁´◡`❁) Wake up, it’s morning! Stretch your body and let loose to start a refreshing new day!
"Urrgh" Selena struggled on the bed groggily the sheets coming off her body.
It felt like her head could fall off at any moment.
However, she looked to have come back to her senses, as she opened her eyes staring up at the ceiling of her room.
’It was a dream...’ she thought, remembering the dream she had yesterday, ’I really miss that brat. Maybe someday, we’ll meet again Cis’ she thought, a smile slowly spreading across her face.
’Wait, I was with the others yesterday... How did I get here?!’ as she looked down at herself.
She still had her clothes on from the other day and she looked completely fine.
’Did I get drunk?’ her face flushed with embarrassment as the thought crossed her mind.
She sighed exasperated, ’How could a sweet wine like that throw me off? I should work on my alcohol tolerance’
’I just hope I didn’t say anything stupid... Julie is definitely paying for this’ Selena thought slightly annoyed.
She got up from her bed and quickly went into the shower, washing away everything left from the previous day.
’We should be having the pool hangout today, so I should call the others and ask if they’re coming along?’
---
In his room, he was already wide awake, already on his four hundredth rep.
’The more my stats increase the more insignificant physical workout is to my overall strength. At this point I might just give up on this daily routine’ It was a habit that stuck to him from his previous life.
But with his rapid increase in strength, working out felt effortless.
He was certain that he’d never reached this height even if he started from birth to work out as a kid in his previous life.
And if he somehow managed to, the frightening thing was the fact that he still had charm points that he could use to increase his strength.
Now looking at his stats, he couldn’t help but question his humanity.
{Strength: 170}
{Agility: 130}
{Stamina: 33}
{CP: 2355}
’I haven’t increased my stamina since Denvi town incident?’ Nicholas thought, stunned to see the stamina stats.
He didn’t waste any time as he poured in some of his charm points into it to balance the stats, after his previous experience, he didn’t want to find himself in such a situation.
{Stamina: 233}
And then looking at the number of charm points he had left.
{CP: 2155}
Nicholas couldn’t help but be amazed by the increment in his charm points. From the Denvi Town incident to Ronald’s death and then to his honorary award.
His charm points kept increasing pulling ridiculous numbers as his fans grew worldwide.
At this point, he was basically earning charm points while doing nothing.
’... As noisy as she can be, she is actually very useful. Maybe I should treat her sometime’ Nicholas thought feeling satisfied with the charm points he had.
He was tempted to throw it all into his stats, but thanks to the Denvi town incident he also had a range of abilities he could copy from.
And using them required the charm points.
’While I can use Void to my advantage I do enjoy using the abilities sometimes and also....’
{Void Cooldown Reset: 1000 CP}
Ever since his void skill had been updated, the charm points required to use the skill had also increased with it.
And with void as his most useful skill and probably the most expensive to use at the moment, he couldn’t throw all his charm points into his stats... Although if he ever saw the need to, he definitely wouldn’t back out from doing so.
’I should go through the abilities and pick the ones I’ll be using’ Nicholas thought as he pulled up the list of abilities he had gotten.
{Copy Slots: 3/5}
.✦ ݁˖ Available Abilities .✦ ݁˖
{Instant Burn: Pyron}
{Superspeed: Bolt}
{Solar Beam: Stelar witch}
....
He had a long list of abilities, as a lot of heroes seemed to have gained interest in him after all his feats.
The top abilities he’d obtained were all from the heroes he’d come across at the Denvi Town incident, the other abilities were mostly from heroes who only aspired to be like him or looked up to him one way or the other and most of their abilities weren’t particularly useful.
{Slipper Boomerang: SlipMan}
{Trouble Sensor: Jackpot}
But sadly, he only had a few limited slots to fill up and he couldn’t afford picking things like that.
’And I can’t find Dr. Cho’s abilities here...’ Nicholas sighed, he had been looking forward to finding the ability. It would’ve definitely been worth it, but there was another skill aside that, that really piqued his interest.
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