Well…it was overwhelmingly asked for…and so I shall deliver.

Welcome to the next chapter in Leon's life! Godhood just isn't what it's hyped to be…

Chapter 1: Cleaning up the town.

The boy and his mother walked out of the store into the low moonlighted night. The boy was no older than five or so, and his mother looked like she was mid-to-late twenties. She held a bag of groceries in her hand and held the hand of her child as they carefully made their way across the street, checking for traffic. The boy felt his stomach grumbling as he and his mother trotted down the sidewalk, heading back for their car parked a few blocks away.

The streets were deserted, nobody within sight. The woman hurriedly shepherded her boy down the block, checking for anybody following them or anyone hiding in the shadows. The town had had a record number of killings and such, as it seemed to have imported a large number of psycho-paths for some reason. There had been several murders within the past few days and if it was not for the desperate need for food in the fridge, she would have waited for broad daylight to do the shopping. And her husband was at work, and she could not leave a five-year old alone at home. And so here she was, trying like hell to get to her car with her little boy, before anything unpleasant might happen.

But according to laws of physics, if something bad can happen, then it will happen. And it will happen at the worst possible moment. And it chose to reveal itself right when the mother decided to take a shortcut through the alleyway to the next block.

The mother noticed that they could shave time off their trip if they cut through the alley. Normally, going down a dark alley at night would cause most people pause, but she was desperate to get her hungry child home, and so she carefully took him by his hand down the alley, looking warily into the shadows that covered it almost completely.

The boy was walking along next to his mother, not sharing her fears, as his childish mind would not understand them. TO him, mommy was simply trying to get them home in time for dinner to be made before their father came home. And so he happily skipped along next to his mother, not a care in the world. But that soon changed when their was a sudden rustling behind them and before he could turn to look, he was roughly shoved pout of his mother's grasp, hitting the sidewalk on his side and he felt hurt.

Tears forming in his eyes from the unfamiliar feeling of pain, he turned to see his mother being held behind the neck by a large man in black leather clothing. He had wild eyes and the smile of a predator on his face. He looked at the boy and the boy felt a cold fear race through him at the sight. Then he felt a hand roughly grab him from behind and hoist him up, until he was face to face with yet another gangster.

The one holding hi mother slowly slipped his tongue out and lapped along his mother's neck, as if to taste her fear. He mother cried and begged them not to hurt her boy, but the man holding him brought his hand roughly across his back, giving him a sharp slap on the small of it. The he cried out and the man holding him howled with laughter at his pain.

"Can't take a little love tap on the behind can he!" He laughed. Then he turned to his companion, now holding his mother, who was hysterically trying to get out of his grasp, but to no avail.

"Hey Bob, what ya' gonna do with that one?" he asked

The man named Bob looked down at his mother, who was crying and trying to scream. But he had his hand roughly on her mouth, and any sound she made was muffled to a great effect. He looked down and examined his mother's backside, his eyes resting on her hindquarters a little longer than the rest. Then he looked back at his companion, a wilder grin spreading across his face.

"Think I'm gonna introduce her to a friend of mine…down there," he indicated his groin. His mother howled against his hand and desperately clawed at him, but Bob held her fast, and began to drag her to the side of the alley. He tore at her clothing, managing to rip apart her shirt. He was just about to take off his pants when the mother managed to free her mouth from his other hand. And she was quick to bite it while his other was occupied with his zipper.

Bob howled with pain and twirled the boy's mother around, then giving a vicious back-handed blow to the face. His mother's nose broke and blood flowed from it. The boy cried out and reached toward his mother. But the man holding him up only laughed at his efforts, and placed his hands upon the boy's throat. He did not squeeze completely, but the boy's air intake was severally hampered by the pressure.

"Don't worry sonny. Your mommy is going to be taken good care of," He gently hissed into the boy's ear. The boy choked with the pressure and his mother redoubled her efforts at the sight of her choking son. She rallied against the man behind her, who had slmost managed to unzip his pants and give him a back-kick to the groin. This seemed to sap the will out of him as he briefly let go. His mother began to rush over to him, screaming for help, but the cry was curt short by the man behind her, who quickly recovered and held her mouth shut. Then he reached behind himself to bring out a large knife.

"You know something? It's just not worth this much trouble. So say bye-bye to your little urchin there…" He taunted.

His mother screamed against his mouth…

And the man drew his blade across her throat. His mother slowly began to go limp in his arms as her blood flowed down her sliced throat. Her eyes went back into her head and she slowly went completely limp in the man's arms. He smirked and dropped her like a log, not caring for the fact that the boy was now gazing into his dead mother's eyes, and the hideous wound in her throat.

The man holding him seemed to want some extra fun, and so let the boy go. The boy would not have understood the need to run away, so he ran to his mother's now dead body, a pool of blood forming underneath her head. The boy cried and gently nudged his mother's head with his hands, not understanding what he had just seen. The men behind him laughed and one approached him, Bob the killer.

He held his knife in front of him, slowly walking toward the boy, crying next to his mother. He laughed at the boy's pain, at the sight of his mother's blood on his little hands as he nudged her, trying to get her to "wake up". He slowly couched behind the boy and grabbed his head, spinning him around to look into those young, terror filled eyes.

"Now it's your turn little chap…"

The man raised his knife…

And then something strange happened. He jerked upright as if something had shocked him with a jolt of electricity. But it wasn't anything like that, as the boy saw what seemed to be some kind of projectile, which was an arrow, sticking out of his chest. The sharp point had gone straight through his back and impaled him. The man had time to look around and notice through his blurring vision three teenagers, armed with what seemed to be bow's and arrows. And then he fell dead.

The other man saw them as well, and in his probably slightly drunken state, had fear rip through him at the very sight of them. The three turned to look at him, and he saw things in their eyes that burned right through his soul. He yelped in fear and then took off at a dead run past the boy and his dead mother. He slipped and stumbled in the mother's blood, but managed to stay up and keep running. He did not get far though.

Two of the strangers ran after him with blinding speed. They quickly grasped both his arms, pulling them behind his back. The man did not notice this until he was forced to stop running when his arms were jerked back, and a loud cry uttered from his lips at the feeling of his shoulder's spraining. The two boys looked at him with absolutely no mercy for him, and they held him tightly, looking at the other figure, who was a girl about sixteen or seventeen. She looked into his eyes as she slowly approached, and was able to see the fiery ruthlessness in them. She looked down at the boy, crying in fear and cradling his mother, and then looked back at him.

"Erin, Jeremy, you know what to do," she said.

The two boys, Erin and Jeremy, began to drag the man away. He struggled and threshed against them, but they seemed to have strength beyond that of any normal teen. They quickly withdrew from the little boy's sight, the man's scream echoing through the distance. Then the girl turned to glare at the boy. But what the little boy thought was going to be a glare was actually a look of intense pity.

The little girl got down to her knees next to him and gently pried the boy's tiny fingers off of his mother's face. The boy thrashed slightly at the movement, but quickly broke down emotionally, all of what he had just seen coming back to him, even if he was too young to understand. He wrapped his arms tightly around the girl's neck, and she held his small body, racked with sobs of fear and sadness, without the slightest complaint. In fact, this girl, who had seemed so ruthless in the way she looked at the human monster that her companions dragged away, was gently humming to him and holding him tight, not once recoiling from the way the boy was holding her.

She gently raised her head from the little boy's shoulder and looked into his eyes. She was an extremely pretty beautiful girl. Her brunette hair was silky smooth and reached down to the top edge of her breasts. Her eyes were as blue as the sky, and she clearly could have been a teenage supermodel. But the boy was not looking at this in specific details, just replaying the murder of his mother over and over. The boy then buried his face in her chest, a fresh wave of crying coming over him. The girl did not protest, only allowed him to vent his feelings and had one hand reached around his waist, with the other gently stroking down the back of his head in slow, almost motherly strokes.

When his cried quieted to a gentle whimpering, she looked back into his face, a reassuring smile on her face. She placed her hand on his cheek and wiped one of his tears away.

"What's your name?" She asked

The boy was too scared to answer.

"You don't need to be afraid of us, that I promise."

"Ma…Ma…Mark…"

"Do you know where your house is?" She asked.

Mark nodded his knowing to her.

"Alright, I am going to take you there. Come on."

The girl picked him up with surprising strength. Mark curled up in her arms and closed his eyes tightly, willing away the monsters he had seen away…

-Leon-

Leon sat in his room at the motel, going over the latest reports with Jaydeen, his lieutenant. Jaydeen had been with him since he first recruited him a little over a year ago, the very first Guardian. And so he naturally became the Guardian's lieutenant. He was African-American, about sixteen when he was recruited, and had shown remarkable ingenuity when it came to tough calls.

One of the things that being a god struck Leon first was that it was not exactly as hyped as he thought it was. When he formed his new group, it was a living hell to get anything done relating to their main mission, which was to fight and defend the weak and helpless, in whatever town came to their attention. This one in particular had had a surge in violent crimes, especially murder. And so it had become their next town to "clean-up"

Jaydeen pointed out a spot in the local park where a rape was in progress when two Guardians intervened. They managed to save the woman and kill the rapists, stringing his body up where the cops could easily find it. Leon was simply waiting for the report of the other group that was out tonight, three of his other fourteen Guardians. This one was out patrolling for any possible murders that would be occurring off the main radar, and then do what they could to stop it. Bethany, a daughter of Aphrodite was in charge. Bethany had been the third one selected after Jaydeen, Leon finding her alone next to the corpses of her killed parents. She was seventeen, ironically the same age of the God Leonike, or Leon to his friends.

Right now she was out with Erin and Jeremy, two newer, though still experienced Guardians. Leon knew that those three could handle themselves in they caem across anything. He signed and laid down, Jaydeen giving him a smirk of amusement.

"Ya' tired already Leon?" He asked. Leon had asked them to use his normal name, instead of Leonike, except when in a formal situation. He just did not like being so "godly" with them all the time. Many of them were the same age physically that he was now, and he had only been a god for almost two years. He had allowed himself to age slightly to a sixteen year old, but decided to cut it off right there. He knew that his mother usually assumed the twelve year old guise with her huntresses and he decided to take a leaf from her book.

"You know Jaydeen, even gods can get tired too, unfortunately," Leon replied. That was something that initially bummed out Leon to his new godliness, but he decide it did add some normality to the whole deal.

Jaydeen just grinned and shook his head. Several other Guardians were in the large hotel room, watching re-runs of Xena: Warrior Princess that was showing. Several of his "wilder" boy Guardians made cat-calls as Xena and Gabrielle came on screen and the two girls among them rolled their eyes in annoyance. But boys will be boys…

It was at this instant that Bethany arrived with her two companions, the two boys walking to the bathroom to wash their hands of the blood upon them. Bethany had little specks of blood on her face and neck but there was not indication of battle upon her. She walked right up to Leon, who immediately straightened into an upright sitting position when she approached.

"What happened?" He asked.

Bethany looked grim.

"We came across a murder. We heard the creams of a woman but we were too late to save her. But we managed t save her child from the two men that were about to kill him."

Leon nodded.

"Where's the boy?" He asked.

Bethany smiled at the recent memory.

"He's at his home, waiting for his father to come home. I put him to sleep on the couch."

Leon smiled. Bethany always had a thing with the little ones they sometimes came across when finding the parents of them murdered. She was a truly caring soul…kind of like his mother was, or his adoptive mother. Leon smiled at the memory of his human mother, reminding himself to stop in sometime. He had not seen her for a while.

He dismissed Bethany to get a shower, but not before asking what became of the two murderers.

Bethany turned and gave him a cold look, but not directed at him.

"They were taken care of…"

That was all he needed to know…

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of the sequel! I will have more up as soon as I can, as I will be gone for about a week for a vacation….Until then, happy hunting!