I felt for a pulse on the both of them and checked for breathing. They were still alive! I sighed with relief. My whole body felt sore but it was time to have a chat with these guys. Plus Red and Blue should probably go to a hospital. I rounded everyone I could find up, leaned them against a wall that was still standing, and woke them up with smelling salts I grabbed from them earlier.

They violently woke up to the horrible smell of the salts, still groggy. They couldn't move though because I had tied their arms with whatever I could find; cables, chains, and some rope.

"You're finally awake. Just wanted to say that your crystal warriors are out and you should take 'em to a hospital soon. Don't come after me anymore."

Their leader gave a sigh of relief. "Oh man, you can be reasoned with, thank goodness."

"What do you mean?"

"We thought you were one of those guys who would run off and not hear us out" he said as struggled a bit with his bounds behind him. Suddenly, he showed his hands holding a knife. I kicked it out of his hand, then prepared to fight again. "Woah woah, just wanted to show you something."

I pointed the pistol I took from them at him. "Keep your hands in the air, just tell me where it is, I'll grab it. Can't risk you guys pulling another trick."

He kept his hands in the air. "That's fair. Grab the paper under my vest."

I leaned forward, gun locked on target, as I yanked out the piece of paper. I unfolded it to see, to my horror, a picture of my brother. It was taken from within the cell he was staying in. I looked at him again. "Blackmail?"

"Yup. We've switched his cell mate with one of our guys. He dies if you keep running. If that doesn't work, then we'll go after your sister, then your parents, any more family members, your friends, heck, throw in some random people. So if you don't want that, lower your weapon."

I glared at him, gun pointed at his head. My finger was never on the trigger. I lowered the weapon then tossed it aside.

"Smart choice" he said as he stood up then untied and cut free his team mates.

"You guys gotta at least give me something in exchange for going with you" I said. There's gotta be a way to salvage this.

He sheathed his knife back in his sleeve and asked "depends on what you're asking for. What do you want?"

"Get my brother out of prison at least. If you can get a guy in prison in the same cell as him then this shouldn't be much to you people."

He paused, thinking over what I'd said, then shrugged his shoulders. "Fine, shouldn't be a problem."

"Remove his criminal record."

"Sure, why not. We can get that done soon."

"Wow, really?"

"Yeah, we have a lot of sway in things. Keep in mind though, we can still get him if you try anything."

Perfect. "You guys have a deal" I said as I extended out my hand. He shook it then cuffed me.

"You're not gonna read me my rights?" I asked.

"You're not under arrest. As of this moment you're dead to the outside world" said the leader. "Brook, Gavin; call in the medics to check out Raj and Dave. Gerrick, take him to the truck". He pushed me over to Gerrick who grabbed my arm and pulled me to  the back of a big, unmarked black van.

"How'd you guys find me in the first place?" I asked Gerrick as we walked.

"The second you found the shop. We  had an undercover food truck out in front monitoring the place. Eddy never let's us in so we had to just watch from the outside. We were gonna follow you home but you bought pasta from us. The container had a tracking chip in it so we knew where you lived. Facial recognition got all of your history and connections. We let you wander around to see what the object you got was capable of."

"Since the beginning…You guys were the ones who were covering up what happened in Emerald Fields!"

"Yup, had to cut the news, remove articles, delete videos, and wipe the memories of so many people because of that. We have the zombie kid at one of our sites now studying how you brought him back from the dead. Wiped the memory of everyone in his house."

"Even the mom?"

"Of course. We can remove memories, but sometimes the feelings linger. Seems like she feels like she lost him again somehow."

"Damn" I looked down as we continued to the truck. We stopped behind it to talk some more.

"The guy you saved in the alley, the thugs who were after him - wiped their memories too. Replaced it with a good Samaritan talking them down. It took us awhile to find those guys though, you disappeared after wrecking our food truck."

"And then you tracked me all the way here?"

He chuckled. "Hahaha, we didn't come here for you. It was for the curse that Cornelius was facing. We heard reports about it before so decided to see if it was something anomalous. We even had some guys on the inside. Turns out it was just some guy in a suit. You appeared out of nowhere so we had to get you before you disappeared again. Even if you didn't stay for that showdown, we would've still captured you before you left the island."

Gerrick opened the door as others started approaching. I noticed snipers from the roofs on the buildings surrounding the factory came down too. "What happened to Cornelius?"

"We don't know. Last we saw, Marcus got off the island with him." He pushed  me inside then said "Welcome to the circus"  with a grin before shutting the door behind me.

I sat down on a bench, breaking off the cuffs. My damaged hand stung, probably shouldn't've done that. I rubbed my wrist as I started feeling the effects of adrenaline start to ware off. "Well, you gonna stay silent and invisible forever?" I asked aloud.

Beside me, slowly, Xiz started to appear. "Hey man."

"Were you with me the whole time?"

"Yeah, you set me free. Had to make sure you got out of this mess."

I paused before saying "Thanks man."

"It's no problem" he replied awkwardly, scratching his neck.

I sighed before continuing. "Sorry about the hospital, I didn't mean what I said."

"No worries, I said some horrible things too."

I leaned against the wall. "How you feeling now? What're you gonna do now?"

"I'm happy to finally be free man. I'm gonna travel, haven't seen the world in centuries. I wonder if my folks are still on Earth."

"Yeah, I would've done something like that if I could."

"How you feeling? What're you gonna do now?"

"I'm good. Finally got what I wanted. My bro is free and now I won't have to worry about money problems anymore. Now I gotta burn down a whole secret organization from the inside to get 'em off my back."

"That's very ambitious."

"Yeah, yeah, you bet..."

We paused for a bit, looking around van.

"Sooo... Turning the ground into quicksand?" I asked Xiz

"Yup, good way to slow him down."

"Shadow tentacles? Pretty edgy."

"I thought they were cool, I sent him to New Mexico."

"Teleporting a guy to a random farm?"

"I forgot where the farm is, I think somewhere in Europe."

"I can't believe you even scared someone with a chicken. Where'd you send him?"

Xiz stared at me for a moment, quizzically. "A chicken?"

"Yeah, why, you don't remember?"

He raised an eyebrow. "No, I didn't do anything involving chickens. I'm gonna make a note of that, that's hilarious."

"What the heck happened to that guy then? What else was in there?" I thought aloud.

Xiz shrugged his shoulders. We paused for a bit before I mustered up the courage to make a request.

"Could I ask for a favor?"

"Of course."

"Could you just check in on my bro sometimes, make sure they kept their end of the deal?"

"Sure."

"And could you give this to Berny? Get him to send 5 million to my family." I passed the crypto key over.

"That's less than a quarter of your money" he said as he took the key.

"I'm gonna use it when I get out."

"Fine, fine, whatever you say." Xiz snapped his fingers and made the monkey paw appear. It was still limp from when I released Xiz. He started bending each finger inwards while saying the wish he granted. "Water for Emerald Fields, bringing back Eli, helping that guy in the alley, making Cornelius immortal, freeing me, and..."

"Don't you do it" I said as he grabbed the last remaining finger.

With an evil grin, he curled it inwards. "Counting this as your last wish."

"No no no, don't you dare Xiz. It's not funny!"

"Hahaha" he chuckled as he slowly faded away.

"Damnit Xiz" I grumbled as the truck came to life. It lurched forward, taking me to wherever I was gonna stay for who knows how long. Might as well get comfortable.