Chapter 787: Benjamin"s Command
Benjamin jumped out of the capsule, right in time to hear a knock on the front door from the distance. Without hesitation, he ran through the room and pushed the door open. With a loud creak, one of the hinges bent, coming close to jumping out of the doorframe.
The old man looked through the hallway and at its end could see Tony approach the front door to see who it was. But Benjamin quickly yelled out to him, "No, stop!"
Confused, Tony turned around, "What are you-"
Before he was able to finish the sentence, the door was knocked down, pus.h.i.+ng Tony over and interrupting his sentence. The door had been reinforced heavily, so the fact that it was able to be knocked open that easily was just ridiculous. Immediately, a team of heavily armed individuals ran into the building, immediately pointing their guns at Benjamin.
"Down on the ground!" they started to yell out repeatedly, and Benjamin did as he was told. In the other world, maybe he would be able to go against them... but here, he wasn"t a match for guns just yet.
The moment that he laid down, Benjamin had a man jump onto his back, trying to handcuff his hands together. For obvious reasons, that didn"t quite work out. After fidgeting around for a moment, the other cuff was simply placed onto his pants.
Quickly, the old man was pulled up, or at least, there was an attempt to do so. That single man wasn"t able to do much, and he had to get two other people to help him out until they finally got him onto his feet.
The other members of the swat team rushed through the building, trying to clear all the rooms. They were pulling open all the shelves and cupboards, breaking things as they did. They broke open doors and forced his family out into the open with guns placed at their heads.
Tony had already been injured when they kicked open the door. He could see Tony"s face twisting in pain as he was handcuffed as well. His grandchildren, his friends. Their faces filled with fear and confusion. And soon, they reached the door at the end of the hall. He could see the door being kicked open, and in there were Andrew and Haruo, both of which were affected the most by changes to their apperance. Andrew"s horns and tusks had both grown quite a bit, and his skin had taken on a darker, just so slightly green-tinted hue, while Haruo was covered more and more in hair, and his tail was coming in quite well too.
The moment that the swat member looked at them, he was confused at what he was seeing. It made sense, of course. Usually, you would a.s.sume these things to be a costume, but whether it was because they were all actually starting to be filled with magic, or because there was something integral different when it was the real deal, but the uncanny feeling that their appearance bestowed on others when they saw them for the first time was something that was able to overwrite anything, especially in such an intense situation. h.e.l.l, police officers weren"t particularly known for being calm in the first place, and seeing things that one immediately recognized as "not human" would clearly trigger them.
Benjamin stared at the back of the police officer as he prepared to pull the trigger of his gun, when the old man simply snapped.
"STOP IT!" he yelled out, his voice echoing through the house. Without exception, every single police officer stopped moving, but everyone else was somehow unaffected. Andrew quickly reacted and pulled Haruo away from the path of the officer"s gun, as that stunning effect didn"t last for particularly long. The sound of gunshots filled the air soon after.
Luckily, that policeman didn"t worry about Andrew and Haruo anymore, and simply looked at Benjamin. Like everyone else in the building was. They all rushed toward him, pointing their guns at the old man. They knew that something was wrong right now; they could tell that they weren"t looking at just a crippled old man. Something was different about him, whether it was the look in his eyes or the overpowering energy he gave off. Whichever it was, it scared them, as if they were staring into the barrel of a loaded cannon.
Meanwhile, Benjamin ground his teeth. He could feel the roots of his teeth being pushed into his flesh, blood seeping out as they were starting to reach their limits.
The lights in the house started to flicker, while Benjamin started being able to feel a large amount of mana surging in all the capsules in the house.
"I suggest you stop pointing those at me," Benjamin told them, glaring deep into the eye of the man at the top of the chain of command.
It didn"t take long for him to break, "Step... step down, everyone..." he told them, and while a couple did as they were told, most still kept up their guns, because they were scared of what would happen if they didn"t, "I told you to step down!" the commanding officer yelled out, a clear sense of urgency in his voice that managed to reach the rest of them.
Slowly, Benjamin"s fingers reached for the chain of the handcuffs, and he managed to snap them in half with ease. He looked at the cuff still attached to his wrist, tightly digging into his flesh, and brought it to his mouth. The old man bit through the metal, and a moment after the rest of the cuff fell to the ground, he spit out a chunk of nickel-plated steel.
"Why were you called here?" Benjamin asked in a clear tone, his sight still not moving away from the commanding officer"s eyes, as he slowly replied, "We... we received a call that there were armed and dangerous individuals in this building, so-"
"He told me this was supposed to be nothing but a warning, so... after roughing us up a bit, waving those guns at our faces... you were supposed to leave us alone without anything else, right?" the old man asked, and some nervous flinching in the people around him clearly showed that he was right.
Benjamin started to laugh. It seemed insane considering the situation he was in, but he just couldn"t help himself. This situation was simply ridiculous, after all. But then, he stopped again, reaching out for the corner of the wall near him. He buried his fingers in the solid rock as if it were loose sand, cracks traveling across the wall away from his hand.
"I don"t care how much money Samuel gave you. I swear by the name of whatever G.o.ds you believe in that you will regret ever thinking you could get away with this."
The commanding officer flinched and took a step back as he saw Benjamin"s face. The smell of smoke filled the old man"s nose, as he could feel his body heating up. He knew what was happening, but it was too late to stop it at this point.
His hair and beard, and his arms and legs, had started to turn into molten rock and golden crystals. Cracks formed around his blackened eyes, as Benjamin spoke a sentence with true royal influence for the first time in this world, "I command you, to leave this place and never come back if you cherish the lives your parents gave you. You will go and tell them that nothing happened. That each and every one of you feels so much regret over scaring innocent people for no reason, that you will resign and leave this town forever."
Without a moment"s hesitation, every single person part of this swat team ran out of the building, as if they were compelled by an invisible force to follow the tiniest of Benjamin"s words. It made sense; they didn"t have an ounce of magic to give them any sort of resistance against royal influence. They might have even killed each other, or themselves, if Benjamin had told them to.
Before long, the room was only filled with the terrified members of Benjamin"s family. Luckily, the swat team hadn"t made it to the places where everyone else was hidden; these were just the people that knew of what was going on, even if not necessarily everything.
The stunning silence was broken by a bucket of water being poured onto Benjamin by Andrew, "You calm?"
As the water that hit him evaporated and turned into steam, the old man slowly shook his head, "I"m even more furious than you could even imagine."
"It was Samuel?" Haruo asked, and Benjamin nodded, "Yeah. That little coward is being driven into a wall, and realized that he has to do something."