Violet Detours (BOOK 2) : Badly, Madly, Deeply

VENOM

Gusion gasped a lungful of air as soon as he came out of the water's surface, his black face shield connected to his full-body armor immediately contracting in his convenience as if it could read his own mind.

He crawled into the shore, the other four people behind him doing the same as they filled the air with their loud gasps of air.

He coughed out the water that got into his lungs, making his nose hurt and his head ache that he collapsed on his back against the sandy wet soil.

The blue sky was so clear up ahead, and he tried to remember the last time he saw it.

He had been in a parallel dimension for the last few months that he almost forgot how fresh air felt like and how the soft blue of the sky looked.

"Ugh!" Harley, Lesley's little brother who saved him from drowning a few months ago, exasperated as he threw a stone towards the water.

Gusion turned his head to his direction.

The same black rubber-like creature that formed his body armor was around Harley's small form, his signature magician's hat was turned into an octopus with its eight legs draping around the boy's head.

"Defeated! Again!" He exclaimed, a frown on his forehead.

Harley had been the strategist of their group, and though Gusion could not deny how great his plans were, the S.A.B.E.R. Squad whom they consider as rivals always managed to weasle their way out of it.

"Do not frustrate yourselves." Gusion advised as he sat up and looked around the team he'd formed for the last few months.

Angela, a living mechanical doll that was a product of a science experiment, was sitting a few feet away with her head hung low.

She was gentle and sweet, but the rubber-like creatures who had taken over their bodies which they had agreed to call Venom, turned Angela into this swift, certain silent killer of their squad.

Her thin wings were soaked and the bee's stinger of her own armor was half dipped in the water she was in.

"Well, we're still alive." He said, turning his eyes to Grock, an evolved lizard bigger than Gusion himself. "We could only say we're defeated if one of us gets taken out."

"All of us were  almost taken out, Gusion." Hanabi stated firmly.

She was this girl Gusion found weeping for her younger brother's death caused by the S.A.B.E.R. Squad. Seeing the genuine pain in her eyes that time and how her eyes sparked with anger with the mention of the certain squad made him recruit her instantly.

And Gusion hadn't regretted that decision so far. Hanabi had been the spearhead of their team, the one whom people should really look out for.

"Almost and not basically means the same, Hanabi." He insisted.

"Do you really still intend us to fight?!" She exclaimed angrily. "Grock had just lost his tail, Gusion! Angela's broken. Badly. If it wasn't for the armor, she would've been dead! Even Harley—!"

"I could see all of this, Hanabi!"

"Then how stubborn are you to accept that you have no match for that group?!"

Gusion was taken aback that he stared at her for a long moment, disappointed and upset.

It was the first time he was hearing her so straightforward and angry, and her words stung a little stronger with all the frustration gathered inside him from retreating.

"If you got no faith in this squad, then you could just leave!" Gusion exclaimed and got to his feet.

"Gusion!" Angela called as he walked away, not sparing a glance behind him.