(A/N) Hey all, sorry about the late update, it was my dad's birthday yesterday and I didn't have the time to make the necessary edits and post this. Hopefully the new RWBY episode helped you to waste time before this came up, because I'm sure you're all on tenterhooks as to what happened to Michael. Well you'll just have to wait and see. A short enough chapter this time, but it heralds a few considerably longer ones, which will be coming up soon, as the plot is really going to take off from this point on. In other words, watch this space!
For any fans of our Grifball: Running Rampant fic, we're still looking for a few more writers and will be until the end of the month, and I think I'm going to stop announcing it because, hell, you all know about it by this stage. Also want to take this time to bump our roleplay forum, which is there for everyone to take part in, so if you're interested, head on over!
Anyways, I've delayed you all long enough. Enjoy!
Chapter Seven – Catalyst
Ryan Haywood
Written by NicKenny
"In any story, the villain is the catalyst. The hero's not a person who will bend the rules or show the cracks in his armour. He's one-dimensional intentionally, but the villain is the person who owns up to what he is and stands by it." - Marilyn Manson
Ryan yawned behind the desk of the video game retailer that he worked at, eyeing the clock in a slightly hopeful fashion, as though it would have suddenly have traversed the last hour over the course of the past ten seconds. Ray had called in sick, again, and once more Ryan was forced to cover his friend's hours, wondering yet again why he bothered.
The answer came quickly enough: Ray was his friend. And hell, Ryan didn't have too many of those, juggling time between working two jobs and raising his son, and to be honest, he was happy for the extra hours, although he would never admit that to Ray.
The R & R Connection, the two referred to themselves as, on the odd nights when Ryan got home with a few hours to kill before his next job started, his wife and son both asleep. Ryan grinned in memory, recalling all the hours the two played online, dominating various first person shooters. No one could stand before them without being annihilated, and the escapism helped Ryan get through his days.
That wasn't to say that he didn't love his family, he did. He worked hard in order to provide for them, and all of the work that he was doing was ultimately aimed at putting bread on the table, and putting his son through college, when the time came.
Ryan and Ray came from two very different worlds, but that hadn't prevented them from becoming the best of friends. Not that Ryan for a second believed that his friend's constant absences were due to a recurring sickness. He had never actually seen Ray sick, despite all the times that his friend had failed to come into work, not even with a cold. And the sheer amount of times his friend had failed to come up to work indicated that Ray must be close to death, and that was slightly offset by how healthy he looked when he did come in.
Of course, he was faking. But why? Ryan's curiosity had often been piqued by Ray's absence, but he valued his co-worker's privacy, and he had never brought it up when the two worked or were online together. It just seemed wrong, and Ryan didn't have enough friends that he could afford to piss off the few that he did have.
It might just be linked to the recent murders, after all. Ryan new that a lot of people were scared to go out at night now, after two of the city's finest heroes had been gunned down in the street. He didn't blame them. The people of Achievement City hadn't had to deal with real crime for the last couple of years, thanks to the work of the city's heroes, most notably X-Ray and Vav. But now, who knows what the future held for the city? With two of the heroes shown to bleed just like the rest of humanity, would the criminal element finally stir from whatever abyss it had dragged itself to, and could the gang wars of the past suddenly re-emerge.
Ryan had grown up in a particularly rough part of the city, and it had only been through the intervention of his father that he hadn't ended up in one of the gangs, the Endermen, most likely, as his area was a point of dispute between both the Endermen and the Creepers, two of the city's most powerful gangs at the time, only behind the Ghasts.
However, his dad had kept him too busy to get involved in a gang, getting him his first job when he was thirteen, washing dishes in a local restaurant, and Ryan had never looked back. The working instinct was locked into him now, and if he wasn't doing something productive with his time he was uneasy. The only exception was his game time with Ray, and, to be honest, was his only real hobby. Except, of course, for computers.
Ryan was something of a computer nut, getting into hacking long before it was considered cool. There were few things he didn't know about computers, and, in hindsight, he supposed that it was a smart move by his dad, keeping him out of the gangs. Sure, his life might've been a bit more interesting, but it probably would have contained a lot more time being stabbed, shot, beaten up, and, with his computer skills, probably a lot more time in jail for some serious hacking shit. Just look at those WikiLeaks guys. And what they were doing wasn't even for profit!
One day, he'd find a way to put his talents to good use, and he wouldn't have to work all the hours of every day in order to provide for his family, but instead he'd be able to set them up somewhere nice. Somewhere safe. That was all he ever wanted, nothing more, nothing less. He didn't know what he'd do without them.
He turned away from the counter, sighing, not expecting too many more customers to walk into the store, the video gaming clientele tending to drop off after nine. He searched the cupboard under the desk for the order book, about to do a quick stock check before doing the various other things involved in closing a shop: balancing the day's income, noting down his hours, making the necessary orders for all the stock that they were low on, etc.
A few minutes later, when he was checking through the stock in the back-room, clipboard in hand, the wind chimes next to the door tinkled, indicating that someone had just walked into the shop. Forcing a smile on his face, despite his tiredness, Ryan walked back out into the storefront, only to stop in his tracks as he recognised the customer in front of him, although he knew that was impossible, as that person had died years ago.
"K…Kerry?!" he stuttered, unable to believe his eyes. "Is…is that really you?"
He backed away slowly as the person in front of him suddenly snarled and then groaned, his body contorting impossibly and beginning to grow, the room filling with the sounds of fabric tearing as the man's clothes proved unable to fit his growing form. He pressed up against the wall behind him, terrified, only able to think 'No, this can't be happening!'.
Ryan slowly moved forward as the figure continued to transform, and his hand reached under the table and hit the silent alarm, terrified by the creature now standing in front of him, its eyes glowing purple and purple flames drifting out of its mouth and nostrils. For a brief moment, both he and the creature stood completely still, their eyes locked on one another, unmoving, unblinking and utterly emotionless.
Then a drop of perspiration slipped from Ryan's brow and splashed onto his nose, causing him to blink, breaking the eye contact between him and the monster. The creature snarled, the spell broken, and its eyes glowed an even fiercer purple. Ryan's throat caught, and he looked around for something to defend himself with, but nothing lay within reach. All he could think about was that, if this was his end, who would provide for his wife and son.
With a roar, purple flames billowed out of the creature's mouth, and the last thing Ryan saw before being knocked into unconsciousness was a black tail swinging his way, tearing through the shop.
