The explosion went off and shook the whole building.
Joao teared up just a bit and was already feeling embarrassed because he thought he was going to wake up on the floor. But, to his surprise, as his eyes opened he saw Monke's face just above his. That is when he noticed that he had an arm around him.
'Did he catch me?'
Monke looked down and yanked Joao away from him, "you stare too much." And he started to walk back.
After watching Monke disappear into the distance Joao looked back at the elevator. He pried the doors open and looked inside, 'we just killed 11 people.' Joao's face burned up and he started to feel his clothes on him.
He watched the pitch black inside and got the urge to puke, he fell to knees and the tears set themselves free. "How am I any different from them now?" A family portrait appeared in his head as he asked himself this question. All of the faces seemed to look down on this one boy.
Just the thought of them finding out about this made Joao want to jump over. He placed his hands on the edge and said to himself, "why am I so much like them. I just killed 11 people in one go. Most of them were kids and they… they…" He closed his eyes and…
"JOAO! YOU HAVE A PHONE CALL!" He heard Po's voice coming down from the hallway.
Joao swallowed a huge gulp of saliva and dried his eyes. His legs made a w on the ground as he looked down the hallway to see if Po had walked in yet. He continuously tried to regulate his breathing by counting his breaths.
"JO! JOAO!" Po called.
Joao sighed and stood up to make his way down to Po. On his way there he remembered that he had his own phone on him. And no one would dare call those two monsters out there to ask for him.
"WHO IS CALLING?" He screamed for Po.
"I DON'T KNOW, IT'S A PRIVATE NUMBER!"
"THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT IT'S FOR ME?"
"Because you're the one who asked me to get this phone for you." Po stopped screaming because he saw Joao make his way into his area.
Once they were almost close to each other, Po threw the phone at him and Joao immediately picked up.
"Angles delivery service, how may we help you?" His voice was hurried and so low pitched even Monke giggled in the distance.
Joao blocked the phone speaker and aggressively shushed them, he brought it back to his ear and only listened. The person on the other side was just breathing on to the speaker, his breaths were fast and faded in and out of hearing range.
The more he paid attention the more movement he picked up, there were sounds of tables crashing and people shouting.
"GET THAT SON OF A B***CH!"
"GET THAT TRAITOR!"
After the last statement Joao immediately screamed on the phone, "who are you and where are you?"
Upon hearing Joao's voice the person on the other side cursed and they threw their phone away. Moments before it completely disconnected he heard a gunshot.
Monke and Po had already heard the screaming and gunshots at the end, afterall Joao did have it on speaker. Once the phone was disconnected Joao raised his head to face the others.
"Who was that?" Po said as he frowned, lowering his head and facing the captives by the wall.
"If we knew we would've told you, fucking idiot." Monke said.
Po raised his head to shake it in disappointment at him and then shifted it Joao who looked the other way.
"I promise you we don't know anything about it." Said the guy in the middle as he shifted his body to the front and got on his knees.
Po sighed and began to walk in Monke's direction. "Why isn't the student council here? They should be the ones who did the fighting and the interrogations, not us and especially not him." Po said as he gave Joao a glance.
"Call them, my phone is dead. Literally."
"You've been saying you were going to replace it for at least 5 days now. Why are you so lazy?" Po asked as he took out his own phone to make the call. He unlocked it and opened the contacts and looked for the vice president. He dialed and it rang for what felt like a minute.
[The number you have dialed is not available.]
"That's weird, I called him because he was always obsessing over that thing." Instead of trying the same person again, Po looked for the Treasurer and called him instead. It also rang for a minute if not more before the automated message started playing.
[The number you have dialed is not available.]
Po lowered the phone and smiled in disbelief as he shook his head. He looked at Monke and Monke shrugged his shoulders.
"Try somebody who is still in school." Joao suggested.
"At least you're good for something." Po ran through the list one more time until landing on the perfect person to get information from, the school secretary.
On top of a couch eating a big bag of chips, blowing heavy metal into his ear through huge earphones, and finally reading a comic book. The school secretary, Mothusi was enjoying life and oblivious of the coming storm. That is, until his song suddenly shifted to a normal preinstalled phone ringtone.
He furiously took off his headphones and hurled them down, "who dares disturbs this great venerable's spare time?" He looked at the person on the opposite chair to him who was tending to their wounds. "Was it you? Because if it was I'll kill you." The guy on the opposite end shook his head and lowered it.
"Filthy peasant," said the secretary as he took back his headphones and answered the call. "Hello this is…"
"Finally you pick up. If you were a second late the vultures of the walls would've had the boniest snack of the century later." Po said.
The secretary immediately covered the microphone and launched himself off of the chair and stood straight up. 'Okay just breathe, breathe and talk to him calmly. Po is a nice guy and he won't hurt me.He won't hurt me, will he?' The secretary squinted his eyes and squealed a bit before freeing the mike.
"Yes, how may this one be of assistance?"
"You can start by talking like a functioning member of society."
He cleared his throat.
"Is there anything more?"
"Where is the vice president?"
"He left about half an hour ago, something about the Merry Block being in trouble. On his way out he took a few councilors and three ministers with him."
"Sounds like a formidable force. So where are they?"
"I don't know." The secretary said this one a bit slowly with a little confusion in his voice.
"Mothusi," Po said firmly. "That was nowhere near the answer I was looking for. Where is the student council?"
"Ah… Uh… Um." The secretary choked on his own words and the phone on his fingers fumbled almost falling off.
"Find them boy, we don't have all day."
"Yes… Yes sir." He screamed as he rushed over to a desk in the corner of the room where a few personal computers and desktops. 'My name is AI dragon, AI dragon. Aren't we supposed to be using those kinds of names? Get it right next time you order me around.' He whimpered and dragged himself to his seat and opened up a pc to start mashing the keyboard.
At the same time, Po's phone reported another incoming call, he put the keyboard boy on hold and answered the anonymous number. "Yeah," he said.
"We've been trying to get a hold of the Monkey King but his phone won't come through but right now we're in big trouble." A quick and distressed voice poured out from the other side of the phone.
"Whoa, whoa there slow your horses I can't hear a single thing."
The person on the phone agreed and started taking huge breaths at a time, his voice faded into the distance and a much deeper and corser voice answered. "I called for my men a few minutes ago and still haven't heard anything from them. I must assume that you have them tied up in front of you or killed. So which is it?"
"Are you hearing this?"
Joao and Monke shook their heads, but the person he was really asking smashed a button on his keyboard to confirm.
"Who are you and do you know who you are messing with?"
"Hm, is that how you kids talk to your seniors these days? Well, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you promise to hand my boys over to me in one piece or you'll find yours in the grinder."