Chapter 4! Enjoy!
Warning: Nothing really, just some dead animals...
Disclaimer in chapter 1
Enjoy! Please review...please? owo
Guardian
Chapter 4
Debts
Carlos Manoso was a warrior, it wasn't an opinion, it was a fact. He spent most of his life training to become a warrior and using his warrior skills to seek out and destroy those who put the world in danger or when clients paid him enough. His life as a warrior began at the tender age of 13. He had grown up in Newark, New Jersey, in a spot dubbed 'Little Cuba.' He had been a wild child, getting in trouble and hanging out with the wrong groups. He had, at one time, joined a the gang, he had robbed corner stores, stolen cars, broke into homes and he did so without remorse. He had money all the things he could desire and his buddies to back him up.
Or so he had thought.
One night, Carlos and his gang decided that they were going to hit up a video store, get all the money and videos they could ever need. It was supposed to be an easy robbery. The problem was the owner had a gun and the moment the group tried to hold him up, he shot at them. They had scattered like roaches and took off, with the owner following them. Carlos hadn't been the lucky one and had gotten shot in the back and was left to die, his 'buddies' abandoning him. The gunshot wound had been fatal, it should have killed him. The bullet had punctured vital organs and lodged in his heart. He survived it and at the same was given a second chance on life.
He could clearly remember lying in a puddle of stagnate water, in a back alley, his blood staining the already dirtied water a copper color. He had spent time wondering what his parents reactions would be, once they found out that their eldest son was dead, due to gang related activities. His mother would be sad and miss him but his father would be ashamed and mumble something about how Carlos fell through the cracks of his fingers and he couldn't be helped.
As Death came to wrap his arms around Carlos, he had been saved, by some shady man who lectured him just before Carlos bled out.
"You will change your ways, Ricardo Carlos Manoso," The man said, looking down at the dying boy, "Your life is suited to something better than being in gangs and stealing petty cash, swear your life to me boy, and I'll see to it that your gifts will be used in better ways."
Carlos had merely nodded his head and then here had been a bright white light and then he woke up, in his bedroom, in his bed, injury free and the man's voice in the back of his mind. Carlos had thought the night before a dream. He was given a rude awakening when he went downstairs to find his parents sitting at the dining room table, with a man sitting across from them. The moment Carlos saw the man, he knew, instantly that this was the man who saved him the night before, he knew, that last night hadn't been a nightmare, he had almost lost his life.
"You will come with me, Carlos," The man said, standing up and sweeping his arm to Carlos's parents, "You will come with me and train, you will see your family again when your debt with me has been paid."
The man hadn't let Carlos take anything with him, stating that his life would no longer revolve around useless items. The man though had let Carlos say goodbye to his parents and then led him away and into a life that would be hardened by extreme training and combat.
Carlos could consider himself a cold blooded killer. He killed without remorse, but he only killed those he had targeted, the others were allowed to live. He had killed thousands of people, diplomats, kings, businessmen anyone whom he had to kill. He preferred missions like that, when it was just him and himself.
He loved his solitude.
"Are you done watching paint dry, cause I'm fucking starving!" A voice boomed, stirring Carlos from his thoughts, "Hello, earth to Carlos….!"
Carlos let out a rush of air and turned, in his office chair to look at the intruder that had made their way into his domain, his sanctuary. Standing in front of his massive black desk was a boy, a scruffy looking boy wear a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt and a blue and red flannel shirt. The boy was tall and filled out some, with tousled blond hair and dark green eyes. He couldn't have been more than 15 or 16 with the male teenage attitude to boot.
The boy put a hand on his hip and cocked it saying, "Can you be an old fart later, like, when I'm not fucking starving?! Shit, I'm starving I'll go out and kill a squirrel, I'm that hungry."
"Thaddeus, you should have eaten during lunch," Carlos said, watching the boy, Thaddeus pace around the office, "It was a good-"
"Rabbit food!" Thaddeus, the boy, hissed, his eyes dark, "Look, Carlos, I'm in need of protein, iron and red meat, you can't deprive me of that, I'll waste away on rabbit food!"
Carlos closed his eyes and turned his office chair saying, in a low voice, "I'm a mercenary, not a baby-sitter…"
"I heard that!" Thaddeus said, kicking Carlos's desk, "And I told you, it's Diesel not Thaddeus, who in the fuck let that crazy blond woman name me?!"
Thaddeus 'Diesel' was Carlos's current mission. In his career field, he worked with some…interesting characters. Hell, he would consider himself one of those interesting characters. Diesel, however took the cake. Diesel was or had been considered a literal wild. He had been found, by some people, in the Siberian woods, in a cave he had apparently made his home at. Instead of being taken to an orphanage, he had been given to the people that Carlos was still in debt to, due to the fact that Diesel was a full blooded demon. That one had shocked Carlos, though he hadn't shown it, since he was a mercenary, after all.
Demons were thought to be extinct for several centuries, after some illness swept through the population. There were the occasional halfblooded and quarter blooded demons, but full blooded demons were unheard of. The last one that had been alive and recorded had been in the year 1545. Diesel must have survived the demonic plague and had been surviving on his own in the wilds. With there being nearly 500 years between the last known living demon, they really didn't know how to handle him, and what was even worse was that the child was as feral as a tiger. He mauled several people at the Agency, trying to escape the hospital room they placed him in. To make sure that he wouldn't escape, they kept him sedated and tied to the bed until they found a solution to his feralness.
Carlos had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, in his opinion. Diesel had escaped from his room, again, and was causing havoc in the medical ward. Carlos had just turned the corner and wound up with an armful of Diesel, who snarled and tried to maul him with his sharp incisors and claws. Carlos, who was considered the strongest in the Agency, had tackled him to the floor and pressed all his weight on the boy, his sharp chocolate brown eyes looking straight into the boy's wild green eyes. The medical staff had tried to collect the boy, but Carlos, without looking away from the boy, snapped at them to not touch them. Diesel had fought and struggle, snarling and hissing but, after a while, he grew still, and turned his head away from Carlos, a universal sign of submission and defeat. After the boy went still, Carlos had gotten up and made to leave but found that the boy acted up when Carlos wasn't close to him.
That's how Carlos got this nurse maid mission, he had won the dominance match that he had unknowingly had with Diesel. He was now Diesel's Alpha and if he left the boy now, it would make him even worse than his feral self. Well, at least the kid was smart, he picked up talking and other daily tasks with ease and his studies were going fine as well.
Carlos turned his head, hearing Diesel mumble loudly to himself. The boy had stopped pacing and was making his way to the window, opening it and jumping on the ledge. Carlos felt his eyebrow raise and then he asked, "Where are you going, Thaddeus?"
"Gonna kill a deer and eat it," Diesel said causally, crouching down to jump, "Smell ya later, Carlos, I need some raw meat!"
"Get off that ledge and come here," Carlos said, in a low voice, that had Diesel stiffening, "Now."
"Damn it…" Diesel mumbled, slinking off the window ledge and shuffling over to Carlos. The need to obey his Alpha was strong, "What?"
"You and I are going to go to the woods, where you can hunt, I can tell you need to let some steam off and eat some raw meat," Carlos said standing up, "And then, we're going to come back here, and you're going to work on some homework, I've been told to enroll you in a school so you can get some proper social interaction, but you need to know the basics before I even let you out of my sight."
Diesel perked up at the idea of spending a few hours out in the woods, but that school stuff kind of curbed his happiness, "You don't need to worry about me, old fart, I can handle myself! You're not going to stick me in a stupid city school right, I'd like one near some woods, so I can go out and hunt!"
"I don't think so," Was all Carlos said, leading Diesel out his office.
(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)
"It must suck for Diesel, Carlos man," Lester Santos said, from perch above Carlos, "I mean…living in the woods all his life and then being placed in civilization, talk about culture shock."
Carlos didn't make a sound, and instead watched Diesel chase after the unlucky animal that got caught in his path; a small chipmunk.
"Don't you have work that you should be doing, Stantos?" Carlos asked his cousin, his eyes never leaving Diesel's form, "I'm not paying you to play hooky."
"I should say the same thing to you, you own Rangeman!" Lester said, looking down from the tree he sat in, "I mean…I'm just a lowly grunt…"
Rangeman was Carlos's cover job and he made sure that it was successful. Working at the Agency was not only a life changer, it was also a very lucrative job. By the time his first year at the Agency was up, he had enough money to live several lifetimes. He took what he made and invested it in the lucrative security business, opening up a security firm called Rangeman. He had first set up shop in Miami and when that got popular, opened up several other sites. He had one in Atlanta, Boston and now he had one in Trenton, New Jersey. It was the place he was at now, and it would be the place he would watch over Diesel, until the Agency told him different. It was close to his parents, who were still in Newark. He would visit them, but he was forbidden to see them, until his debt was paid. He couldn't even make contact with them, until said debt was paid off. He would send them money and gifts, though, via Lester, to make up for the shit he gave them as a child. Sometimes, he wondered how they were fairing…
"GOTCHA!" Diesel said, grabbing the chipmunk and holding it up to his face, "You little shit, you'll make a nice appetizer before the main-YE-OUCH!"
Lester let out a boom of laughter, watching as Diesel flailed around the grassy area, with a chipmunk latched on his nose with no signs of letting go of it. Carlos crossed his arms and said, "Thaddeus, it seems you're done with hunting, are ready to go back to Rangeman?"
"No!" Diesel snapped, as the chipmunk let go of his nose, "I ain't ready to go back man, only 45 more minutes! I haven't caught my dinner!"
"He's an interesting kid," Lester said, leaning back on the tree, "I like him, I think you're too hard on the boy, training him six hours a day, six hours of school work, he's a kid, not a robot, go easier on him."
"He needs to be trained, Santos," Carlos said, his eyes following Diesel's form through the tall grass, "This is the most efficient way to train him, he has boundless energy and it's best I teach him the proper way to use it, instead of letting it explode."
"True," Lester said, jumping down from the tree, "I wonder though, how long he was out in the woods in Russia, it must have been a long time, his social skills are shit."
"Don't worry about that," Carlos said, watching Diesel trot back to them, with a deer carcass slung over his shoulder, "He'll learn with time what's right and what's wrong."
"And this right here is so wrong on so many levels," Lester said, watching Diesel toss the deer on the ground, "You're going to eat that now?"
"Hell yeah," Diesel said, settling down in the grass and, with his mouth, began to strip the deer of fur and skin, "It's best when it's freshly killed, the flesh is still warm!"
Lester paled and stuck his tongue out, watching Diesel bury his face in the animal's soft belly, "You have your hands full, Carlos my cousin."
"Don't I know it," Carlos said, side stepping so that the deer organ Diesel threw at him struck the tree, "Diesel, don't play with your food."
"Get bent," Diesel said, snapping bones in half and sucking on the marrow, his face covered in blood, "I'm eating."
"Yup, working with a lot there, cousin," Lester chuckled, walking away from the two, "I'm heading back to the SUV, see you there."
"We'll be there soon," Carlos said, turning to Diesel, "Eat faster Thaddeus, we have history to work on tonight."
"Fuck, I hate that shit," Diesel sneered, his mouth full of meat, but shrunk at the look Carlos gave him, "Okay, okay, I'll eat faster!"
"Good," Carlos said, resisting the urge to rub his brow. This was going to be his biggest mission yet.
TBC….
So we've met Carlos the Warrior and Diesel the Wild Child...see you in the next chapter!
