Disclaimer: I don't own Grand Chase or its characters. They belong to KOG' Studios. The locations I took from the game also belong to KOG'.

Chapter One ==Adoption

ONE

Malcolm Orphanage, 1989.

"What are you doing, Lass?" asked the man.

Lass, the boy asked about his current activity, didn't answer, but merely closed the book he was reading, so that the orphanage's caretaker could see the title. He was stunned. The book was called "The Radiation Concept.

"You know, Lass, this isn't a book for children…"

"What do you know?" answered the boy called Lass. The cold look in his eyes was frightening. "If you had done this when you were young, maybe you would have successfully followed whatever career you wanted before you ended up here…"

What the hell? That was the first time he was getting those words from a child.

"What if I say I like what I do? Because I do. I love it."

"No, you don't. Working on an orphanage is never a child's dream. I know it, you know it, and you just deny it to yourself so that you don't have to face the fact that you are a failure."

The man's face became white. And then fully red.

"You take that back, Lass, right now!" he yelled. "This is not a nice thing to say!"

The boy merely laughed. A sarcastic, cold laugh that made the man's heart skip a beat.

"What is so wrong about saying out loud what everyone thinks? Now, I tell you, you are a failure of a man, a stupid orphanage keeper and if you still had your parents, they would be either crying in shame or laughing at your stupidity and meaninglessness." that same cold laughs again. This time, louder.

After that event, the boy named Lass spent his next three weeks doing everyone's chores. In his mind, he regretted nothing. He only told that failure the truth. What is so wrong about saying out loud what everyone thinks?

TWO

"So, little girl, didn't you owe me some money?"

"Eh… did I?" the girl seemed confused. And scared. Definitely scared. Lass, on the other hand, wasn't scared. He was just watching.

"Yeah, you did. Don't you remember?" McCulley, eleven years old and overweight, surrounded by the usual gang of five boys almost the same size as himself, pressured the girl called Johanna, smaller than him, like his usual victims. "I'm hungry now, so I want it back. You're not gonna say you don't have it, will you?"

"But, Patrick, if I pay you, I won't have the bus money. How am I supposed to go home?" she asked, uncomfortable.

"And how am I supposed to keep up with my daily activities hungry? C'mon, where is my money?"

Reluctantly, Johanna took out a little bag and tried to open it. McCulley, though, took the bag out of her hands, with a rough move.

"I'll keep this, ya? Consider it as an additional for being late." he laughed along with his gang, and Lass thought it was like pigs grunting. Until that moment, Lass was leaning against a column. No longer. Now he was standing in McCulley's way, looking up at him.

"You're that mute kid, Stronghold, right? What the fuck do you want?" asked McCulley.

"It's not like he could answer, he's mute!" said one of the boys surrounding McCulley, getting a laugh out of the others. Lass didn't care. His business was with McCulley.

"You just stole that girl Johanna, right? She owed you nothing." Lass' voice always sounded low, because of the lack of use, but it was clear enough so that McCulley could hear.

"So what if I did? What do you have to do with it?" he answered, roughly.

"You are a useless bastard, but stealing is too low, even for you." McCulley's face became fully red. "Give it back."

"Are you mad, you little monkey? I could just break your little bones and use them as toothpicks for that, you moron. Take that back and apologize and I may not send you to the hospital."

Lass didn't care for that too. McCulley's threats sounded empty at his ears.

"Just give it back, McCulley. I don't have the slightest intention of wasting my time fighting you." he said, motionless as always. At this point, there was a growing crowd around the two of them. The crowd laughed and started cheering McCulley up.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" they screamed.

"What you're gonna do now, Stronghold? I'm gonna kill you!"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

As soon as he said that, McCulley raised his immense hand, but, before he could even close it, Lass' fist hit his large belly with an unbelievable strength, expelling all of the air in McCulley's lungs. Almost simultaneously, Lass' other hand hit his face with the same indescribable strength. What the… There was no time to conclude the thought. Lass grabbed the front of McCulley's shirt, so that he wouldn't fall, and started punching him mercilessly, fast and relentless, about seven times, before he released the shirt. McCulley went straight to the ground, stunned. Now the crowd was screaming and cheering like people watching a soccer match. Someone screamed "Out of the way!" somewhere in the back, but was probably ignored. Lass was now on top of McCulley. The larger boy tried to raise his hand and hit Lass, but he simply grabbed the guy's hand and fully twisted it two times. There was a large cracking sound, followed by McCulley's scream of pain and pure terror. I'm fighting the Devil's son!

"Stop that, Stronghold!" yelled a voice in Lass' back. He left the screaming McCulley on the floor, holding something. Ignoring the inspector he looked at the object in his right hand.

"Hey, miss." he said, looking at Johanna. "I think this is yours." He throwed her coin bag in her hands.

"Someone, take McCulley to the hospital. You, Stronghold, come with me." Lass didn't say nothing. Only allowed himself to be taken. He was not nervous at all. Throughout the whole fight, his face didn't change a single time, even though his right hand was bleeding because of the punches. He didn't feel the pain, as usual. For Lass Stronghold, there was never any pain.

THREE

"We've got some really good kids here. You've come to the right place!" said the director of Malcolm Orphanage, like a man presenting his goods to the costumers. The goods were the orphans. The costumers were John and Sarah Kennedy, a new-wed couple who wanted a son/daughter without having to go through pregnancy.

"This is Lia, a very intelligent girl, if you want to know." he said, pointing at a blonde girl. "That is Gregory; he's the oldest around here."

"No, no." said the good-looking woman, called Sarah. "Not so old, someone a little younger."

She looked around.

"Just don't pick a too young kid." said the man, John. "Remember why we are here? No baby?"

"Yeah, that was your idea, now stop bothering me. That" she said, pointing at a silver-haired boy in the corner of the library section. "Seems like the perfect age we are searching. How old is he?"

"Oh, that one… Well, that boy is nine years old." The director of the orphanage looked rather uncomfortable.

"See?" said Sarah. "That's perfect! Exactly what we came here for. Who is he? He's been here for how long?"

"That is Lass. He's been here since he was about one year and a half, or so we believe. Was brought here by this weird guy, said he found the kid somewhere in the outskirts, almost dead. I've made some research on his last name, Stronghold, and found out him, or his parents, are from Finland. Can you believe it? Finland!"

"Okay, he's from Finland, but he's obviously not in Finland anymore, right? He's here, and he's an orphan, so we can go and talk to him."

"I would not recommend that kid to anyone." said the director, darkly. "Really odd boy, that one. Got involved in a fight at school about two weeks ago. Broke both nose and wrist of a guy almost thrice his weight. Got suspended for that for five days. He also doesn't like to talk very much. The last time we heard his voice was about three days ago. Has been quiet since then. He's really, really smart, though. And that's not all of it. Some years ago, he was diagnosed with a neural disease. I don't remember the name, but it's got something to do with the fact that he doesn't feel pain. You can cut him, burn him, break him, he doesn't feel a thing, and heal incredibly fast. Can you believe it?"

"Can we talk to him?" asked Sarah, impatiently.

"You can do as you please; I'm just warning you that you may be making a bad choice."

"Whatever; call him, will you?"

The director sighed, and then yelled.

"Hey, Lass! Come over here, boy!"

The boy looked at the director for a moment, looking slightly curious, and then got up and walked to them, stopping right in front of John. He looked up at the man's face, with the same expression, simultaneously curious and uninterested.

"These are John and Sarah Kennedy" said the director. "They want to talk to you."

Lass looked at him for a moment, but soon his shining blue eyes were back at the couple. He spoke, and John was unsettled by his voice. It was too deep for a nine-year old boy, and also too motionless. Like the voice of someone who saw everything and nothing caught his interest.

"You are not the first." he said. "There were three other who called out to me."

"You are Lass Stronghold?" asked Sarah. The boy nodded. "Well…"

Lass could already see the conversation script. First, they were going to ask him questions. Then, they were going to see his files with the director. Finally, they would go away empty-handed or pick someone else.

That was the first real surprise of his life, when the woman called Sarah Kennedy called out for the director, saying that she would like to adopt Lass.

FOUR

Roses Garden Graveyard, 1998.

I'm not gonna cry. No matter what, I won't cry! Lass was so sure back then. Now there he was, crying. That time, though, he thought he could forgive himself. That woman became his mother. It was only natural for him to be in pain. So this is pain. Standing next to John, he gazed down at the closed coffin. Closed, yes, because the funeral was a good-bye. And people cannot say good-bye when they are busy thinking what in the world happened to a person who lost his/her face and got a ball of rotten meat as replacement.

Sarah Kennedy was out shopping in the supermarket Wal-Mart in the city of Seagull Bay, in March, 7th 1998. An assault began and the police was called. When the officers arrived at the place, a shootout happened. One of the policemen (May God make the little bastard freeze in an acid lake) shot his .45 Peacemaker without looking straight, and the shot went straight into the face of the third woman in the line of Cash number 4. A woman called Sarah Marina Kennedy. Wife to John Derek Kennedy and mother to Lass Anubys Stronghold (whose name wasn't Kennedy, by his own choice) and to Arme Sarah Kennedy, respectively 13 and 12 years old.

That was the story of how Lass ended up dressed in black, in a graveyard, looking at a closed coffin. A coffin that contained his deceased stepmother. Standing next to a purple-haired girl, also wearing black. Stepsister. The very word sounded weird. Weird like the bond that bided them together two years earlier. The bond that was now lying inside a closed coffin, unrecognizable. Sarah is dead. The world seemed to have lost some of its enchantment. He knew that, if he was the same Lass of four years ago, only another orphan who happened to have a rare disease, he would not cry, since his emotions were imprisoned within his shell of indifference. Sarah (and John, in a smaller scale) changed that. Though, the opening of his heart was one of the things he knew he would never regret.

Lass would see a line in a movie many years after that ceremony, a line that he recognized as the one line that turned his feelings, in that exact moment, into letters.

The world is still the same. There's just less in it.

FIVE

Gerd Street, 64. 2007

"I can't believe you talked me into this!" yelled Arme, obviously mad at him. "That place is a total mess! How am I supposed to live there?"

"Calm down, okay? There's no use yelling at me now that the contract is signed."

"Calm down? Unlike you, I care about the sanitary condition of the places I intend to live in! And that goddamn shack doesn't even have a sanitary condition at all!"

Lass heard the girl's nervous breakout, trying to focus on his own bags. That wasn't the first (and it probably wouldn't be the last) time Arme showed him her anger in the form of words, normally in a higher volume than her standard voice. Normal occurrence, no need to care about it.

Even though he didn't care, he had to admit that his little sister was half right. They were moving to a really unpleasant place. The worst mistake I was stupid enough to make in my seventeen years of life. He had no choice but to deal with it. The contract was already signed.

Arme was moving because of High School. Same as himself. But that would be the girl's first year in High. Not to him. That was the second to him, but the other one didn't count. Second-class schools do not count. But that one was the school, the best in the state, one of the best in America. Arme should be proud of being able to go into such school (and she probably was), but she could be thinking that the price was too high. That dorm really is something. So bad and so expensive. It was John's money they were wasting, at least on the next months, until they got a job. Lass didn't care at all, but Arme's mind would not let her do it for too long: she liked John a lot, unlike him. He didn't hate John, but the man could be annoying. The first intention, when Lass was adopted, was for him to be the son, but with Sarah's death, Lass and John became more like two men living under the same roof then father and son. Arme was Lass' stepsister, also adopted two years after Lass, and considerate John his father, no matter what he did.

"Hey, are you guys ready?" John was downstairs, waiting for them to finish packing up so that they could go. Like I want to go there. It's a piece of junk! It was his idea to move in there, but only for the price. It was expensive, but the other places, not as broken as that dorm he was heading, were even more expensive. Capitalism is killing this world.

"I am, but Lass is taking longer than anything!" Arme said. "Maybe he doesn't want to go, after all."

"Nice try, little sis. I was just looking for something. Now that I've found it, hit the road."

Sighing, Arme left the room, followed by Lass, who closed the door behind himself. Downstairs, John was waiting, leaning against his Golf car, year 1999.

"Finally, my two daughters are ready!" said John, looking impatient.

"Now let's drive, mom, if you don't want me to do that." Lass answered, sarcastically, and received a blazing look from Arme for that.

"You, driving my car? Go buy yourself one, if you want to drive. Besides, you have no license. Now get in."

He got in, followed by Arme, who was still mourning about how unlucky she was. Lass considered himself very lucky, on the other hand. Not only could he get into a worldwide famous school, he was able to get a place to stay inside the school grounds, which were in a big city, tourist magnet, nice weather, long and crowded beaches and everything a High School student could wish for. The only problem was the place to stay itself. A big and old two-floors building with six rooms. The place was technically owned by the school, since it was inside the grounds, but the system in the place was different, so one of the contributors was the actual owner: an old man with a special taste for money, who put the place on to rent saying ENOUGH ROOM FOR TWELVE PEOPLE. He's only going to get me and Arme for this sorry excuse for a room. Wrong. There were a total of twelve tenants in the place. When he heard the news, Lass got thunderstruck. What's wrong with these people? Didn't they visit the damn place? There are SIX ROOMS, for god's sake! No use worrying after the contract was signed, though. Deal with it. He knew he had no choice.

Now he was leaving with Arme to such place, wondering what the hell was going to happen in that place. The only good thing about it was that two of his best friends were renting the room too. Lire and Ronan. The two of them were in the same school as him and Arme. They knew each other since Middle School, and Ronan was like a brother to Lass.

Heading to another state, he thought. To a whole new place, in a whole new city, to a whole new life. Maybe he was being just a little too theatrical.

Wrong, of course. He knew he was wrong. This is just the beginning. My life starts here.