Family (Part 2)
"You're a selfish, immature, undeserving brat," said my brother, black and white hair hanging over his hard amber eyes. "You're not my brother."
It was then that I turned away from him. I had always looked up to Kid. I'd do whatever he told me to do. But now... It's changed. Now I hate him more than anyone else I know.
So that's how I ended up alone. Alone on the streets. But that could be good, too, because that's where I met Ranellin. The most loyal weapon I've ever come across in my entire life. He introduced me to these two other kids, Terran and Tilan, and the four of us hit it off.
"Oi, Bone, help me with this, will ya?" called Ranellin from the alley. He was tottering on the top of two garbage cans stacked together so he could reach a windowsill. I grabbed the cans to stabilize them while Terran watched Ranellin's every move extremely closely. The blue-haired boy pried open the window and slipped through. He emerged about two minutes later with a carton of eggs, two packages of dried fruit, a box of crackers, and a gallon of water.
My weapon grinned at me, eyes lit up and I felt a rush of gratitude. If I were alone, I probably would have gone crawling back home by then. I was only ten, after all. But Wave, who was a year older, Stray, who was two years (since he was the oldest, Teddy and I had started to call him 'Uncle Kitty'), and even Terran, who's a little more than half a year younger, helped me realize that this was where I belonged- not at Gallow's Mansion with Kid and Dad. I might have been on the streets, homeless and running from anyone who realized we stole something from their house, like possibly clothes, and often pomegranates (Terran loves pomegranates. It was just that one day that he didn't like them... he said something about dogs, the word 'pungent', and a pink tropical fruit. But that's another story.).
"Aaron? You gonna eat or not?" asked Ranellin, nudging my shoulder with a finger. I shook my head to clear all my thoughts about my old home and gave Wave a small nod, not saying anything. I grabbed a cracker and nibbled on it gingerly while Ranellin munched on a few dried fruits and Flamey scarfed down everything in sight, including the egg carton itself. He probably would have eaten the water bottle, too, if Wave hadn't stopped him. Tilan had somehow magically disappeared at this point. Typical.
I rolled my eyes and took a gulp of water from the large bottle. I then stood and wiped off the dripping water from my mouth with my jacket sleeve. "I'm gonna go for a walk, guys. See ya later," I said, giving a wave of my hand.
"Watch out for gangsters," called Ranellin, while Terran continued to stuff himself with what food we had. I nodded and walked off.
"Hurry up, Aaron," said Kid as we walked down the dark alley towards home. "There are loads of runaways and orphans here. Not to mention the gangs."
"We'll be fine," I protested, but obeyed his command anyway. I would do anything that my brother told me.
I caught glimpses of eyes in the darkness, varying from blue to green to gray to amber. All eyes of kids, probably ranging from older then me to younger. I thought it was sad that families would abandon these kids, even if they didn't want to. I mean, if they didn't want to, they should at least do all they can to take care of each other. Maybe they could still be together. Right?
It was then that I noticed a flash of bright green go past the alley. I ran ahead of Kid to see a girl about my age walking fast with another boy who was maybe a year older.
The girl had bright green hair with a red feather, and the boy had pitch black hair. They're running towards another street that I knew to have a large park there. I suddenly noticed that two beaded bracelets were dangling from the girl's hand- one black and red, one black and white. A jolt went down my spine.
"Aaron, what did you stop for?" said Kid, nudging my shoulder. I looked up at him. "Oh... uh... nothing," I replied, and followed him down the sidewalk. I glanced over my shoulder, hoping to catch one last glimpse of those bracelets, but the girl and boy had disappeared.
"Aaron?" said Ranellin's voice as I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I whipped my head around to see Ranellin standing there with a slightly worried look on his face. Terran and Tilan were close behind him. "You okay?"
I nodded, still silent. Ranellin raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.
It was then that I realized something- Ranellin had become like my older brother to me since I had left home. We were only a year apart, unlike Kid and me, who were two years apart, but that didn't stop him from being like an older brother to me, always watching out for me and protecting me.
These guys were my family, not those assholes of my "Dad" and "brother". Terr, Til, and Ran were the ones who would look out for me anytime, not just when it suited them.
I had a new family.
And that's exactly what I wanted.
I remember that one day that Teddy really got me thinking about what a family really was. We joked around a lot that day, Ran, Terr, Til, and I. But in the end, it was just thinking for me. I could have gone to the family shrink (Also known as Wave) about it, but he was digging around for more tea. And I did not want to interrupt his sock-digging, as the rest of us called it. Ran would be furious, and he rarely got furious.
There was this one day, pretty soon after I'd joined their little group, that Wave- who was normally this calm, collected guy- went and picked a fight with this gang down the street that was constantly going around and hurting street kids like us.
Ranellin was no easy opponent, I'll give him that much. He was well muscled and extremely tough. But those guys in the gang were just as tough, and there were multiple of them.
Tilan, Teddy and I only realized that Ranellin was gone a little while into his duel. We got over to that other street as fast as we could and saw Wave cornered by three burly guys, pretty badly bruised. Tilan was ready to rush in and give those guys a good beating, but I glanced at him in a way that I think he understood that I wanted to help Ranellin myself.
I don't quite know what it was, but I had this feeling that if this was Ranellin's fight, then it was mine. It must have been because of that day we made that deal. I'm a meister, he's a weapon- we could be parters. So I felt that this fight wasn't Tilan's or Terran's- it was Ranellin's and mine. I stepped forward, tapped one of the guys on the shoulder, and when he turned around, punched him square in the nose.
It didn't do much damage, but the guy seemed pretty stunned. He let out a low growling sort of noise and prepared to fight me.
I caught Wave's eye and I think he understood what I was trying to say. He gave a small nod and I backed up a few steps and held out my hand.
Ranellin transformed into weapon form and flew straight into my hand. I could hear Teddy's noise of disbelief when he realized Ran was a weapon, and that I was a meister. And I could only imagine dear Uncle Kitty's expression (Which, unfortunately, was probably the same normal one he generally wears all the time. Stray's not easily impressed).
Somehow, Ranellin and I managed to take down those guys. There were three of them, two of us. Ran must have been able to match my wavelength perfectly, because the jagged dagger blade felt like an extension of my arm as I slashed and blocked.
Ranellin transformed back to human form and received a ruffling of his hair from Tilan. "Not a bad fight, Wavey. Didn't know you were a weapon," he told Ranellin. Teddy was just extremely entertained by this entire incident, and was bouncing all around Ranellin and asking him all sorts of questions. Between Terran's rambling and questions, my weapon managed to shoot me a weak grin. "Thanks, Bone," he said quietly.
"Hey, no problem," I grinned back. "We are family, after all."