A man who looked to be about 30 walked up to Alexander Grey. Behind him were two burly looking men. They were all wearing sunglasses and black clothes. Alex warily watched the approach. They were the cliché bad-guy type. The first one, who was obviously the leader, stopped ten feet before the 15 year old who had just been working out in a dirty cement compound.
"Alexander Grey?" He asked in a flat, dry voice. There was no emotion in the voice, nor was there any displayed on the man's snappish features. Alex gulped. What did they want?
"Yes?" The two goons shifted behind the leader. The leader spoke, stepping forward with a purposeful stride.
"Your father wants to talk to you. We need you to come with us." The face suddenly twisted into a cruel snarl, betraying true emotions. "Hurry along, boy!" Alex backed up, glaring at them in shock, but he soon recovered himself.
"My father is dead. I'm not going anywhere." He stopped abruptly as he backed into a chain-link fence. The leader grinned maliciously. He kept coming forward.
"Really? We have need of your services, mister Grey." The two musclemen stepped forward around their leader and stepped briskly after the youth. "And you will accommodate us willingly-" Alex suddenly sprang forward and snapped his palm into the cheekbone of the hitman on the left. The martial-arts student followed up with a punch to the solar plexus and then stepped to the side of the hitman, who was still falling to the ground, screaming.
Number two. Drawing gun. Leader four steps away. Alex thought in a split second of consideration. He then kicked the first hitman - now gasping and moaning on the ground-in the gut as he dove for number two. He had to get the gun! It cleared the holster just as Alex got a hand on his assailant's wrist. With a twist, Alex broke the wrist and yanked the man down towards his position on the ground. He pulled his knee up and drove it into the face of the off-balance number two. He fell, nose broken and bleeding. Alex sprang to his feet, favoring his knee. He had messed it up when he struck number two.
Huh. Both of the hitmen had odd tattoos on the back of their necks. It seemed to be a dot inside of two circles with a few short lines sticking out the top and lower half of the biggest outside circle. Alex memorized it, but then remembered something.
What happened to number three?
His question was answered as a voice rasped behind him.
"Very good." With that Alex jolted and tripped to the ground. He convulsed as he fell on the ground hard, energy splayed across his body. He twisted weakly over on his back. Standing above him with power cackling angrily was the leader. But he was much more terrifying now.
The leaders eyes pulsed and bled red electricity and his teeth had grown razor-sharp. His skin seemed to be made of dull chrome and had no wrinkles. His appearance seemed to glitch in and out of reality, however, and the symbol he had seen on the two men speared in red.
The monster lifted his hand again and burned his symbol into Alex's mind with a searing pain. A thousand voices echoed through his conscious like rumbling thunder, screaming into his soul. Some bled of pain and hate, some cold reason, and others of computer-like calculation.
"I AM XANA." They howled. "YOU ARE MY PAWN. REMEMBER THIS."