THE REN UPGRADE: MONSTERS WITHIN

12: Aura Of The Guardian Ninja

HUFF. HUFF. 

Colin Reeves panted heavily. He was handicapped. His plans had crashed even before they could properly take flight. 

He looked up at Ren Carter like a servant did its master. “Please…let me go. Your hands…”

Ren snatched his fingers away like they were hot coals. Colin collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. Red, angry welts wrapped around his neck. A tiny trail of smoke billowed in the space between them.

“Speak,” Ren spat, his jaw twitching. 

After a few moments, Colin was able to catch his breath. “I…I could not just sit back and watch you take the position I've prepared for, a-all these years.”

He was the often neglected and overlooked son of Dominic Reeves. A medical intern who always failed to impress his high-standard father. 

So when the nobody intern came from nowhere and claimed his birthright, he decided to pull the first stop he could find. Sending contract killers after Ren. 

But as it turned out, those contract killers had failed. Now he had to face the wrath of an unrecognizable Ren. 

“So, you thought you could take me out?” Ren demanded, half his face curved in an amused grin. 

Colin stared blankly, shaking his head. “What happened to you, man? You used to be… you…”

Ren leaned forward and pushed his ear close. “What? Weak? Pathetic?”

Colin blinked hard. Shy. Reserved. A mysterious intern who barely spoke to anyone. Those were the words he would have used to describe his fellow intern, Ren. But it turned out the dude had some other ideas. 

Looking at him now, Ren appeared far above all those things. Instead of a shy, reserved, weak, pathetic intern…he was an intimidating force whose aura bled through his fiery eyes. 

Colin wondered what could have triggered such a transformation in Ren. 

After another moment of awkward silence, Ren heaved a deep sigh and paced restlessly. “Listen, do you know what you did?”

“W-What?” 

“I don't mind it if you come after me. I can do with a little fun.” Ren spread his palms in agitation. “But you disrespected me by opening fire with my damsel around!”

Colin blinked and swallowed hard. “I-I’m sorry!” He suddenly pulled himself to his knees, rubbing his palms together desperately. “I never knew she was there!” 

“And that's supposed to be an— OH! SHIT!” Ren slapped a hand against his forehead. “Hana.” He had completely forgotten about her in his quest to grab those shooters. 

And she had been hit! 

Damn it!

He turned on his heels and started to jog towards the entrance. Another thought struck him, and he stopped at the doors.  

He turned. “Where’s my sister's corpse?”

Colin swallowed hard and shook his head slowly. Dread licked up his spine. “I-I don't know. I swear.”

Ren stared at him for a long moment. Then, without another word, he turned and bolted out the door. 

There would be another day of reckoning. Right now, he had to get to his damsel. The one who was yet to accept his proposal. 

She must not get hurt.

*****

She was not at the restaurant when he returned. 

Startled staff reported that the ambulance had arrived and whisked her away. The van read OakHills general hospital. 

Ren bolted again and arrived at the hospital in less than twenty minutes. As he powered through the lobby and towards the emergency unit, whispers echoed around him. People stared.

“Who is this man, really?” 

“How can a thug like him be a hospital director?”

“Have you seen the video? See the way he handled those men who shot at him?”

“Some say he's been deranged ever since he got out of the penitentiary!”

At the emergency unit, nurses prepared to take Hana Blackthorn into surgery. The bullet in her shoulder was lodged in a critical spot. She already lost a lot of blood. The wound was at risk of infection, and the tissues around the area could be damaged. 

The surgery might be a difficult one. Things could easily go wrong. 

Ren quickly digested the information as it was being transmitted. Then, something snapped in him. 

ARRGHH! A cry of agony ripped from his gut as he grabbed his skull and doubled over. It felt like something else was taking over in his body. Something that did not burn as hot as fire. It was cold and tumultuous, like the storm. 

People stared and whispered. The nurses were alarmed. They tried to not drown in their fear while they struggled to save emergency patients who were still redeemable.

Meanwhile, Ren was completely aloof to his environment. In his mind's eyes, pages began to flip. Fast like lightning. He caught highlights of medical jargon. Strokes of ancient cursives. Words that appeared strange and yet…made some kind of sense of thing. They pulled at a thread deep in his heart. Something ancient and unknown..

After a series of grunts and maniacal displays, he grew deathly still. 

The murmurs in the emergency stopped, as if in sync with him.

A few moments ticked by, then, he slowly lifted himself to his full height. 

He appeared calm. His eyes were their usual hazel color, but this time….they were dotted with tiny flecks of sky blue dust. 

He was surrounded by a different aura as he straightened and clasped his arms behind his back. He stood tall and dignified, like a man who knew he was in command and owned it with expert confidence. 

When he spoke, his voice carried through the unit with quiet, stable strength. “I'll perform the surgery for Hana Blackthorn.” He looked over at the horrified nurses. “Prepare for surgery.”

Without another word, he turned on his heels and walked out. He went straight to Dominic Reeves' office and changed into a pair of surgical scrubs he found in the man's closet. 

When he arrived at the surgery room, the surgery was already in session. 

And he was stopped from getting in. 

“Step out of my way,” he said in a cold, menacing tone. He was not the reckless and loud Ren. This personality was colder, more clinical. 

The five security guards circled him, drilling hard glares into his face. “The head of the surgery department has instructed us to keep you out until the surgery is done.”

Ren looked from one face to the other, quietly calculating, jaw twitching. “Where is Chris Han right now?” 

In the next second, Ren was bouncing to the executive conference room where an emergency heads of departments meeting was being held. 

When he burst through the doors, a collective gasp rang through the space. They did not expect to see him. No one invited him to the party. 

“Chris Han," he started without preamble, "you have to let me into that surgery room. Hana Blackthorn is going to die if some novice attempts to—”

“And who do you think you are?” Chris Han spat, rising to his feet. “Some expert?” He laughed. “Look at that. The pathetic intern suddenly thinks he's some kind of medical expert simply because the Reeves idiot decided to hand over his position!” 

Harsh laughter rang across the space. It was loud and mocking…but that was not what prickled Ren's skin. It was not what made him tap his foot against the floor impatiently. It was the fact that Hana could be bleeding out on that surgery table if a vessel was nipped. And that would happen.

A moment after the laughter died down, he cleared his throat. “Are you done?”

The smile on Chris’s face instantly gave way to a frown. His lips twisted into an ugly snarl. “What?!”

Heaving a deep sigh, Ren began to fold his sleeves up his arms. It was not a rushed move, per se. But it wasn't exactly slow either.

Chris simmered down as he stared in anticipation, alongside other department heads. 

In a split second, Ren moved like a gust of wind. WHOOOSH!

One second he was standing just at the doors. In the next, he was in Chris Han’s face, his fingers wrapped around the poor man's shirtfront. 

GRAB!

A collective gasp of horror rang across the hall. 

Chris Han choked hard as the air was being squeezed out of him. His arms flailed, but they were a useless effort. 

Ren leaned in close and dropped a whisper in the man's face. “Lead the way to the surgery room, old fart.”