An:

A special thanks to my friend who rewrote and betad this story

There was an eerie silence in the room. The curtains had been left open and the moon cast shadows that swept through the room, and stretched across the floor, and reached out almost as if to touch the bed. In the bed lay a young man in Batman boxers, he was lean and fit, his muscles pressed against his tank top. He had a mass of dirty blonde hair, which was ruffled and spread across his pillow. His deep blue eyes shot open woke up with a start and got out of bed to stand a massive six foot three. He turned and grabbed an olive green Massif combat shirt that was pretty worn out and slipped it on. He quickly grabbed some cargo pants put them on then laced up his combat boots. He had already packed his bag and was about to head out the door, when thinking better on it he opened a drawer on his nightstand, grabbed his pair of spiked brass knuckles and put them in his pockets.

Once he was outside his room, he climbed down the stairs of the second floor of his house, at the bottom of the stairs he turned and walked out to the front porch. There waiting for him was another young man dressed identically to him, he looked almost exactly like him too, save for the fact that he was about two inches shorter and had a much more muscular build than he did. He walked towards the man; they nodded to each other and started to leave, when he stopped to turn around and stare at his house. The stockier man noticed and spoke in soft but firm voice "Lucas, bro come on." Lucas didn't respond, so tried a little louder "Lucas!"

"Hmm?" he responded.

"Come on bro they'll be better without us." Lucas snapped out of trance and responded to his brother, "Yeah you're right, let's go, Maxis." Maxis nodded and they ran off.

…

Lucas didn't really know what had happened; they'd made it about ten blocks from their house without any incident. He had hoped that their luck would have held out, but if his life was of any reference, he should have known that they'd been much too lucky already. So he wasn't too surprised when as they were walking into Harlem they ran into three dudes dressed identical Greek armor, complete with swords and shields. Now, as they were running from them, the guys screaming at them to "come back" and "stop running", and Lucas' favorite one "we're not going to hurt you," he thought that things just couldn't get worse, of course he was wrong.

Lucas thought that running through the streets of Harlem was complicated enough in daytime, but it was even worse at night.

He was following Maxis, zigzagging in and out if streets hoping to throw the three guys of their trail, but after a few minutes he had the feeling that Maxis was just as lost as he was. Five minutes later they found themselves at a dead end street. A fence that was about eight feet tall, and ran the perimeter of the street blocked their exit from the next block ahead. Lucas and his brother reluctantly turned to face their pursuers. All three of them were breathing heavily, one of them, the tallest one, spoke first, panting heavily "Holy Hades you guys put up one hell of a run!"

"Damn it, you guys have some heavy resistance," spoke the one to Lucas' far left; Lucas noticed that he was much shorter than his friends, and judging from his voice, he must have been younger too. He took a deep breath and continued, "We've been chasing you for ten minutes, and you guys don't even look tired!"

"Look," the tall one spoke again with a deep voice, Lucas decided that he must be the leader, "We really don't want to hurt you. We just want to take you to our boss, ask you a few questions. No wait that sounds bad, look guys we know that you're not normal." Lucas didn't like the way he said not normal,'but he decided to reply "How can you say we're not normal, you guys are the ones wearing thousand year old armor."

The guy in the middle sneered from under his helm and turned to Lucas, "Shut up and just come with us, will ya? We truly don't want to hurt you! He turned to the tall guy and continued "John tell them that we swear on the Styx!" John, so that was the tall guy's name thought Lucas. John turned to Lucas and said "I know that this doesn't mean anything to you but, "I swear on the river Styx that neither me nor my companions will hurt you." In the distance Lucas heard a clash of thunder. Lucas wasn't exactly reassured by that.

He reached into his pockets and grabbed onto his brass knuckles, he turned to Maxis, and saw him nod. "Like hell you won't hurt us," Maxis said as he took the lead and charged towards the group; Lucas slipped on his brass knuckles and followed behind him.

Maxis tackled John to the floor, so Lucas turned to the youngest one in the group, thinking to get rid of the weakest link. Which was a mistake, because what the little guy didn't make up in size or strength, he made up in speed. Before Lucas could brace himself, the little dude rushed him using his shield as a battering ram he knocked Lucas of balance, and swept him off his feet with the flat of his sword. Lucas fell to the floor with a grunt, and before he could get up the middle guy grabbed his head from behind and put him in a lock, he spoke to the little guy "Casey I got him, go help John!" Lucas saw Casey run behind him, as he struggled against the middle guy's headlock, but he only made his grip stronger. Lucas couldn't take in any air, and his vision was going black. I'm blacking out he thought, he had to react fast, he forced himself to raise his arm, he felt the guy's breath on his neck, and he balled his fist and threw a punch in that general direction. He felt that he had hit something hard, his helm he realized. He knew that if he didn't get the helm of the guy's face that his brass knuckles couldn't help him.

Bracing himself, he raised both of arms up and groped behind his neck until he felt the helm. He got a good grip on it and ripped it off his face; before the guy could react Lucas threw a punch at his face. This time he connected with his cheek bone. Lucas heard the scream a second afterwards "Oh gods my face!" the grip was loosened on his neck; Lucas took a deep breath, and shook him off his back. He got up, and spun around, he saw the guy clawing at his face in pain, Lucas assessed the damage, his brass knuckles, which were spiked, had ripped through the guy's face down to the bone, blood was pouring down his face. Lucas decided to take mercy on him, he delivered a kick to his temple and the guy crumpled onto the pavement, unconscious. Lucas turned his attention to his brother who wasn't doing so well.

Maxis had managed to take John's sword away, and was keeping him at bay with it, but Casey kept coming up from Maxis' blind spot when he focused on John and attacking him. Lucas ran to his brother's aid. Casey saw him running up to John from behind and yelled to John "John, look behind you!" John turned and saw Lucas running full speed towards him, which was the opening that Maxis needed. Using the hilt of the sword he smashed the back of John's helm, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he crumpled to the floor. Lucas kept running, past Maxis to Casey who stood wide eyed staring at his fallen leader, Lucas used his momentum and kicked the sword out of his hand, and was about to punch him, when Casey suddenly reacted and bashed Lucas in the face, again, with his shield. Lucas fell to the floor with a thud, as he got up Casey pulled out a dagger from his belt, and lunged at Lucas. Lucas sidestepped and stuck out his foot. Casey tripped and his helm flew off his head. Lucas took the opportunity and put Casey in a half Nelson. He started to scream and curse at him "Fuck you let me go! Let me go, let me go!"

"No," was Lucas' only reply. He lifted Casey off the floor, and that was when he saw exactly how young he was, Casey's face was smooth pale white and it still had some of the baby roundness, messy brown hair covered most of his face, but Lucas saw his eyes through the mess of hair. Big, watery, brown eyes full of hate stared back at him. He couldn't be more than thirteen, Lucas realized.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" Casey screamed at him in furry. Maxis walked up to Lucas, saw Casey's face and he too was taken aback by how young Casey was. Maxis walked up to Casey and pinched the side of his neck. Casey crumpled in Lucas arms, he put him down gently.

"I've never seen a kid so full of hate," Lucas said to Maxis, "I mean it was like bitter resentment and anger all contorted into one."

Let's, let's get out of here," Maxis said in a low voice. Lucas stared at Casey, and replied, "Yeah, let's go.