Okay, so hi everyone. This is my first story, hope you like it. Not much CL here, but promised for next chapters. Powerful hints here, pay attention. R&R please. Thanks for the attention.
I'd also like to thank Coldplay, for playing Viva La Vida through this whole chapter (Addicted XD) and LabyrinthDweller and Laura Gallego Garcia to help me create Kevin (I love you Reese and Kirtash!)
--
I am not a king, and people are not my subjects. However, shall they need, my sword will protect them and my fist would deliver justice.
My justice.
--
The harsh Winter wind hit my face with the strength of a whip. They were forecasting a blizzard for tomorrow. I clasped the collar of my coat closer to my neck. The fire kanji print in red on my black sweater wouldn't shield me from the cold gale.
I was on my way home, after another day of school. I was really happy. My grades were promising for the trimester and the Winter break was about to start. This was sure to get my mom happy.
That time, only God knew that wouldn't last long.
On my way, I crossed a dark alley from were I heard a noise. A quiet shriek, to be precise. Dark alley… it's always a dark alley. I quickly hid behind a dumpster, watching the scene.
A boy my age, which I recognized as being a bully from school, was doing just guess what? Bullying a little girl, about nine or ten years old. She was curled on the ground, back against the alley wall, shivering with fear, her light brown hair all messed up. Glass shards were all over her. The guy had broken a bottle in the wall, and was pointing her a pointy edge of the bottle.
"Come on, give me that money!" The girl just let out a shaky shriek. That bastard… I looked at the palm of my right hand glove. Kouketsu. Nobility. No second thoughts now.
You know those times when you want to do something but your body refuses? Or when your body acts without your vote in the matter? You start feeling weak and doubtful, wondering if you can really do it.
However, when your mind screams an unquestionable order and your body is fully willing to obey, you feel strong and confident, not thinking about the consequences of your acts.
I was like that when I ran full speed to the bully. I didn't care what would happen. This is now, the present, what shapes and forms the person you are going to be. I wasn't going to be a coward. I tackled him away from the girl with full force, knocking him down to the piled snow. I gave him a few punches, only to exhaust him, and only stopped after he was desperately sucking hair with his mouth.
I got up and walked to the girl. She still was curled around herself, both panicked and, as I soon discovered, cold. However, a moment before I talked to her, I heard a quiet footstep behind me. Turning around, I found the bully with his trusty bottle. Before I could react, he slashed my face with the remains of the ruined container. I felt blood running in my forehead, left eye and cheek. A savage punch flew directly to his nose, and he was knocked out for good.
Closing my injured eye I lowered to look the girl in the eyes. She had black, fear-filled eyes. "Hi. Where do you live?"
Her voice was as shaky as… no, shakier than jelly. "F-f-f-far f-f-from h-here…"
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Are you cold?" She nodded. I took off my cape (which people normally called long coat) and wrapped it around the girl. "You think you can tell me the way?" She nodded fearfully. I held her hand and was guided by her to her house.
Her house wasn't all that far away, but from the girl's short-statured point of view, a small distance would be far away. The normal-sized house had a small snow-covered garden surrounded by a green fence. I rang the bell and waited until a young woman, only a few years older than me, opened the door. Before even talking, she recognized the girl and ran to her, finishing with a tight hug.
Tears suddenly stung my eyes. No, I wasn't touched. Really! It was the wind!
…Okay, maybe I was a bit touched. But only a bit.
The woman looked at me with gratefulness and inquisition in her eyes. Before either of us could talk, the girl, sobbing, got the attention of the woman.
"Lily, come on, it's alright… It's you big sis, see… Tell me what happened…"
"T-there was a bad man scaring me, a-and then this nice man came to rescue me…" She was sobbing all the time and finished by quietly crying on her sister's shoulder. She gently held her sister, stood up and looked at me, her eyes filled with emotion.
"Thank you very much. May I have your name?" I shook my head. "Well then, I think this is yours…" She tried to unwrap the cape from around Lily. I put my hand on her shoulder.
"Keep it. I have more." Yes, four more to be exact. I turned to my house and silently left the scene, while both sisters entered their house.
--
I regretted it. I arrived home almost frozen solid, and immediately went next to the fireplace. Mental note: prints on shirts are just that, prints. My grandpa was in the sofa, reading a book.
"Who defeated Hannibal?" He asked, looking over his book. I rolled my eyes.
"General Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major." Every time I entered in his area of sight, he asked me something related with computer programming or the Second Punic War. Computer programming. The Second Punic War. What in the whole freaking world could connect both?
"How are you today? Had a good day at school?" Except for those random questions, I loved my grandpa. Seriously. He had been a scientist and worked on something I'm not really sure what is, because he avoids those questions. He spent all the time I could with him, both when I was a child and now, as a teenager.
"Yeah, always "learning" the same boring stuff that I already know." Yes, I am a good student! Haha, you wouldn't think that from a 14 year-old that dresses like a goth kid, would you? Because no, I'm not a goth. Dressing in black, hearing loud music and being alone most of the time doesn't make you a goth.
"Well, you have a whole month to rest from now on." A small hesitation. "Have you found her today?"
"God have mercy, I already told you I'm not a child anymore!" I said, turning around to face him. Yeah, I was a child, so this should be a long story. Wanna hear it anyway? Okay, just don't complain.
When I was 4 or 5 year old, my grandpa used to tell me those stories where the hero has, just by coincidence, your name. Well, that story was of a knight named Kevin, who had to fight four evil witches, Xandrea, Naomi, and the twins Annabella and Annabelle. After that he had to go to a white tower surrounded by red fog and save a princess with pink hair. Pink hair. Not a problem whatsoever, but what was the probability of finding a pink-haired girl?
After one of those stories, I happily said that I'd find my princess, and she would have pink hair too. From that day on, my gramps would sometimes ask if I had found a pink-haired girl. Pretty lame, huh?
…Okay, not such a long story. My ability to summarize is pretty good.
But now, instead of smiling slyly, he grabbed my arm, dragged me to the bathroom and splashed water all over my face. Before I could spit a word, he squeezed some paste from a tube and rubbed my face.
"What the heck is going on here?" He finally had let me breathe and pointed the mirror to me. After a look, I became shocked.
A deep, red cut made his way from the left of my forehead all the way down to the middle of the cheek. I closed my left eye. The slash had travelled through my eye. A scar that would mark this day forever.
"How did you…" My gramps managed to say. "No, you'll tell this to you mother too."
I was taken from the bathroom to the kitchen, where I sat down. My mother quickly served the dinner and my little adventure became the whole theme of conversation. After I told them what happened I readied to be grounded.
"You could have avoided the violence, you know? But for the rest I am very proud of you." My grandpa's words relieved my spirit. After helping with the dishes and the trash, I flew to my room. I still heard a police officer ringing the bell and talking to my mother. Rejoice, for the first time a bully went to the police for being bullied!
I turned on the radio, started a CD and fell on my bed. I just stayed there, while the first track played. After that I took my drawing book from under my bed. I opened it. On the first page were some random sketches, so I turned that page.
A wide smile greeted me on the second page. My first face drawing on that book. My mother. I drew my mother and grandfather a lot for training. Full body or only face, front or side-view, both dominated the first pages, followed by landscapes. The house, the road in front of it, an emerald sea of trees, a mountain that sliced the clouds… Those drawings were the first I drew recurring only to my imagination. When I reached half of the book, I took a deep breath.
Turning the page, I came upon a girl's face. A girl that existed only in my imagination, on my wildest dreams, on my past as a child.
A girl with pink hair.
--
I woke up at 9 A.M. next day. I proceeded my morning routine, and went downstairs, already bathed and dressed. I made my toast and tea in the kitchen, all by myself. My mother had already left for work, and Gramps should still be asleep. After that I sank on the couch and turned on the TV. My mother arrived at half past twelve and jumped to the kitchen to make lunch. Gramps was… disturbed. He had spent all morning peeking through the window, only after locking the door tightly. He even forgot to ask me his trivia question! How weird is that?
As to calm my nerves, the rest of the day went smoothly, because the blizzard never came and no one came to visit.
--
The next day had a dark omen surrounding it, like a flock of crows flying over a dead carcass. I couldn't sleep, so I was eating my breakfast at half past seven. Soon I discovered my family also felt the obscure forewarning. Gramps was even more troubled than yesterday, and Mom was a little restless herself. I had a feeling they were hiding something.
Later, at night, the discomfort I was experiencing reached its climax. Gramps was looking out of the window when he came talk to me.
"Kevin, pack a bag and prepare to leave. Now."
"But why? To where? What are you hiding from me?"
"Not now. Go on, do what I told you."
I reluctantly packed a bag. Clothes, underwear, toothbrush and paste, my notebook, a few pencils and a rubber, my two favourite CD's. I returned next to my grandfather. He pointed to something outside and we both walked there. Only a few blocks away, two bald men dressed in black and wearing sunshades walked on the sidewalk, apparently coming here. My grandfather clasped his hands on my shoulders and looked at me in the eyes. I had never seen him so serious and… scared?
"You saw those men, didn't you?" I nodded. "Run away from them. Here, take this…" He handed me a big piece of folded paper. "I've marked where you should go. Don't speak to anyone. Just run. Hide. Don't tell your name until you reached your destination. There, look for the boss and tell him you're my grandson." Before I noticed, we were next to the backyard door.
"And then…?" I sniffed. I was 14. I was a simple teen. I wouldn't make it. But I had to try. For Gramps. For Mom.
"Live. And don't come back. They'll be after you." I hugged my old man, then my mom.
"Here, take this." She put a bag with food and some money in my bag.
"Go. Don't worry about us." I closed my eyes to stop the tears and ran out of the door to leave that place. Forever.
Through the woods I ran, the full moon watching each and every one of my steps, my feet tripping on stones and roots, the snow on the pine-trees falling straight on my head. I had to leave everything.
Mom. Her sweet smile and comforting words would follow me forever, along with her image.
Gone.
Gramps. His weird trivia quizzes, his stories and fictional characters, his sly smile and our friendly verbal fights.
Gone.
Lily. The sweet little girl that had lost her hero now had nobody to protect her.
Gone.
All gone. Forever.
Why?
Because of them.
The Men in Black.
No… Not anymore. They aren't just that…
They are another thing besides that…
My sworn enemy.
--
From my counting of the days, Winter break would have ended two or three days ago. I checked the map again. The gray, nameless shapes on the paper gave me zero hints about what my destination would be. And I would have never guessed. Putting the map back on my bag, I fixed my hair. It was overgrown, so I cut it a while ago, leaving only a lock to cover the scar on my left eye.
I looked up again at the sign before entering the building.
It said "Kadic Academy".