Summary: An unholy alliance with Evil. A life spent in pursuit of Darkness. Witness the evolution of one man from birth to the day his obsession with International Rescue began. Witness the life of the Hood.

Author's Note: Written about six years ago (I think) - has been archived at the Tracy Island Chronicles.

TUJUH ALASAN
(SEVEN CAUSES)

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion and desire.
~~Aristotle

KEMUNGKINAN
(Chance)

It was, one might say, pure chance that the boy was born to those particular souls he would call Father and Mother. He had an older brother, but the eldest was not seed of the same loins as he. For his mother had betrothed twice. This child, this babe with glittering dark eyes, came from the second union.

His father was born Mongolian, near Dariganga on the eastern border. This lineage gave the child a mystical ancient Chinese look hearkening back to his mighty ancestor Genghis Khan. His mother had been born in a small village near Keluang in the southern portion of the Malay Peninsula. She was of a lineage wherein the females were known as Itu Siapa Sembuh – Those Who Heal.

The baby, doted on by his mother, was feared by his half-brother. For Meor Seong was wise, an ancient soul born into a child's life. His eyes could see beyond the confines of flesh, and it was with those eyes that he saw the dark seed within his newborn sibling, a seed he knew must live, but which he also knew would cause great pain and suffering to many. He kept the family name of his deceased father Kyrano, which caused his mother great sorrow and his stepfather great anger.

Radzi Belah ignored his brother as he aged. His father taught him the ways of physical prowess while his mother taught him the magick of the ancient ones. Meor and Belah would be under her tutelage for hours, but where Meor's motives were pure and good, even as a small boy, Belah's talents and urges leaned toward learning ways in which he could use magick not to help others, but to his own advantage. As a small boy he would torture animals and sometimes even his brother. He would use his powers to steal small things from other children, or to push a schoolyard enemy into the mud.

His mother prayed for his soul even as his father beat him for shedding a tear or trying to defend his beloved mother from drunken attacks both physical and verbal. Meor escaped the senior Gaat's wrath because he was not his son, but Radzi was not to have his luck. He grew hard not only of body, but also of heart. He would not listen to his mother's pleas for his soul, nor to his half-brother's attempts to pull him away from the dark path he had chosen so early in life.

As a young man in his teens, Radzi found himself at the mercy of his mother's increasingly common weeping and his father's increasingly bloodthirsty fists. Meor had abandoned his village to other pursuits, and, truth be told, to get as far away from his younger half-brother as he could. This left Radzi alone to develop powers of the mind and tools of the practitioners. It left him alone to nurse the hatred that grew in his heart like the blackest of cancers.

It left him alone to watch their mother die.

Like Radzi, his father grew more and more displeased with the deterioration of the woman he had taken as wife, the mother of his child. She despaired at what she perceived to be the loss of her youngest son's soul and mourned him as though he were dead. One night as Radzi summoned a demon of the first order, he heard the background sounds which had become all-too-familiar: his mother's tears and his father's shouts.

Usually he would hear her voice rise against his father's. Usually he would hear his father yell even louder. Usually he would hear the harsh sting of flesh hitting flesh as his father would effectively end the rage for that night. Usually...but not this time.

This time, his mother was silenced. For the first and last time in his life, Radzi Belah's heart knew unadulterated fear. His demon by his side, the fifteen-year old made his way into his mother's chamber. His father stood over her, hands wrapped around her throat. He was shaking her. Her lips were blue; her eyes, lifeless.

She would move no more.

For all his wickedness growing up, Radzi Belah Gaat had loved one person with fierce and utter devotion, and that had been his mother, Nuraisyah. Hatred glowing in his eyes, he looked down at his father, for already he was four inches taller than the older man. His father rose to full height, glaring at his son as if daring him to utter one word.

But Radzi did not need words. With but one telepathic thought, the waiting demon entered his body. His father shrieked in fear as the teen grew taller, his arms and legs larger and stronger, his hands thicker. Radzi's body shook, mouth opening as a guttural roar echoed within the room. His father watched as thick, dark hair fell in tufts to the stone floor until his son's head was bare and smooth, as though it had always been that way.

"You...are...evil!" his father exclaimed, trying to run for the door.

In a flash Radzi's broad shoulders were blocking the exit. His eyes shone, almost giving off a light of their own. His face bore the hatred of one who has suffered too greatly at the hands of another, of one who has lost his last tether to humanity. Of one who has nothing left to lose. He reached one hand out, grasping the top of his father's shirt in his fist, lifting him off the floor as the older man shook with fright.

Radzi threw him across the room with no more effort than if he had been tossing an unwanted doll aside. His father slammed into the wall with a grunt, falling onto the bed atop the wife he had killed. As he struggled to his feet, his son charged at him like an angry bull, howling with fury. His hands wrapped around his father's neck, and the older man sank to his knees. He tried to beg forgiveness. He tried to beg for his life. He tried to beg his son to loosen his grip.

But Radzi Belah had lost himself to the demon within. He knew only rage and vengeance. As darkness slithered over his soul like a moving pool of blackest sludge, he felt true power for the first time in his life. He held a life in his hands. He held his fate in his hands. He held the future in his hands. The decision he made now would pave the way to his destiny, irrevocably changing his course forever.

Mouth curved into a grimacing smile, Radzi squeezed his powerful hands together. He heard the sickening crunch of his father's windpipe being crushed beneath his fingers. He heard the strangled sounds of a human body desperately seeking oxygen. He felt his father's hands claw at his bare arms and torso. And then he felt the body go limp.

The demon, satisfied that its work was complete for the moment, pushed itself up and out through the top of Radzi's now-bald head. It shrieked once with glee before shooting out of the room like a streak of black smoke. The young man, who now looked like an older, fully grown adult, shuddered as it left him, sweat pouring down his skin. It was only then that he realized what had happened. His father had murdered his mother. And he...he had killed his own father.

Silently, his face devoid of all emotion, he stepped over the man's body. It was of no consequence to him now. His father would never hurt him again. No one would ever hurt him again. He made his way to his mother's bed. Her torso and head lay still across it, her legs bent at the knees and hanging down over the edge. He sat down next to her and gathered her in his arms. He knew he should cry, but his tears had dried forever. Radzi Belah would never weep again.

He rocked her silently, smoothing her long, black hair. She had been a woman of great beauty in life. Death served, in his eyes, to make her even more so. Pulling her face to his, he leaned in and placed his mouth against her cold, blue lips ever so softly. Then he lifted her into his arms. Pulling the covers back with one hand, he laid her body gently on the bed, resting her head on a pillow. He arranged her body and robes just so, ending it by covering the lifeless shell with her favorite sheets and blankets. His fingertips reached out and closed eyelids over eyes that would never look upon him again.

She had introduced him to this world of hers, this world of magick. She had taught him how to use the ability he was born with. But now she would teach him no more. She was gone, and he knew she had gone to the place of Light...a place he would now never be able to touch. She was indeed dead to him.

By chance had this boy of mystical power been born to a man with a cold heart and a kind, loving woman of magick. By chance had he been conceived with the seed of Evil. By chance had he summoned his first order demon at the exact moment his father chose to kill his mother. By chance did that demon enter his body and give of its power, enabling him to become one who could avenge his mother's death. Chance had turned Radzi Belah Gaat into the man the world would someday know as the Hood.

But...is there really any such thing...as chance?