Phoenix held his girlfriend's hand firmly as they waltzed down the street of the commercial area. His spectacular suit and his luscious girlfriend's dress managed to catch several pedestrian eyes on the way to Gatewater. Phoenix had an urge to growl and approach the onlookers even if they were women completely eye-raping the beautiful spirit medium in his hand. He wanted her all to his own. He would tense up and his spikes became more of a display of intimidation with each stare that came on contact to the Master of Kurain. That was his Master! And he wanted everyone to keep their gaze away from her and if they did see her, he only tolerated a look of admiration or magnificence, not of lust.
A whistle became very apparent that made Phoenix's ear twitch.
"Oye! Mommy! You looking fine tonight!" A ghetto street perv hollered to Maya. She ignored the debasing excuse of a man and continued her walk trying to pull Phoenix from stopping. His brow began to twitch and teeth were clattering in his mouth. Another whistle broke through the ambience of the busy streets. "Aye! I'm talking to you!"
The street perv began to pace faster towards the couple. Maya walked faster and pulled onto Phoenix's hand harder. Phoenix's steps came to a halt. His head was down and his face was pale, ironically, he was brimmed with anger and jealousy. Maya was practically scraping her shoes against the pavement, tugging at her boyfriend's wrists urging him to go forward. "Nick, C'mon! Ignore him!"
Her words bounced off deaf ears. Phoenix was completely transfixed on the man's voice who was impending to greet them. Maya saw the most twisted smile form on Phoenix's face. She let go of his hands, slightly scared of the facial expression Nick was making. She never saw him make a smile like that. The toothy grin on his face was startling. She darted her view to the street perv who was about a few feet away from making contact. She frantically waved her hands in his face trying to snap Phoenix out of his weird and frozen state. His gaze was stuck on empty space and didn't blink.
The man finally made it up to the spirit medium. "Oye, mommy. Listen! You look beautiful. How about we spend this night together. Soy un caballero. (I'm a gentleman). I'll treat you good, girl!"
The man was making weak gestures with his hands, trying to coax Maya to go with him. "Uh, no, I'm spoken for..." She elbowed the tranced Phoenix trying to gain some help to break the man's conversation, "right, Nick?" He said nothing.
"You with this fool? Nah, mama. You must be kidding me! There's no way a beautiful woman like yourself could be with him." The man tried harder to get Maya to go with him willingly. Maya was slowly backing up. She pulled on Phoenix's sleeve to get his attention. "Nick!"
Phoenix still stood solid, the only change was his twisted smile. It was growing wider.
Maya was becoming aggravated. She would expect the attorney to politely ask the man to leave or at least almost approach him like the other guy who tried to catcall her several minutes back, but no. He just stood there with that stupid grin on his face lost in a dream land.
"So what you say, mama? Ready to go out with a real man?" The man kept approaching her. Her travel backwards came to a halt as she bumped onto a parked car. The slightly overweight man smelled of musk and beer from his breath. It made her gag a bit. She covered her nose and mouth trying not to release her stomach contents onto the street and prevent anymore of the putrefying smell into her poor nostrils. His shirt was sweaty and looked like it's been on him for days now. Maya tried to look back where Phoenix was and gasped at her discovery. He wasn't there anymore.
'What the f-!' Her angry thoughts were interrupted to realize that Phoenix was actually to her left, behind the man. His eyes were widened with seething rage. His pupils were the size of a pin pricks as he contorted a grimace look to the man. The man reached towards Maya's bosom. She shielded herself with her arms inward to defend herself, covered her eyes and bent down to her knees. She heard a muffled screech and glass break. A few shards fell into her hair without cutting her. She shook her head and saw the transparent glass break into small shards as they hit the ground.
She stood up, patted herself down for any remaining shards left and looked back up. She screamed and fell onto her bottom on the floor. The sight in front of her was horrific. Phoenix, or what she thought was Phoenix, was holding onto the man's throat with one hand, choking the life out of him as he pushed the man against the broken car window. His face was blue, almost purple, his tongue sticking out from the lack of air. Little stutters of what air was left in the man's lungs were trying to escape as his lungs stressed their hardest for new oxygen to come in.
Phoenix's fingers dug hard into the man's neck. A creepy and evil grin on his face. He felt the greatest satisfaction holding the helpless man in his grasps. It was euphoric and he craved more. People were watching in shock, wanting to help the poor man in the defense attorney's grip, but were scared that he would turn the tables on them. Maya couldn't take it anymore. "NICK STOP!"
His gaze turned to Maya. The sinister look turned into authentic shock as his pupils returned to normal size. He looked back at the man he was choking, any longer and he would be KO'd on the sidewalk. Phoenix flinched his hand back towards his chest and held his wrist. The man fell forward, choking hard and gasping hard for air to return to his burning lungs. Onlookers were scared, but continued their walk as soon as the endeavor ended. The man finally caught enough air and turned his view upward to see the defense attorney. The man became frantic, "Mercy! Mercy! Por favor! (Please!) Don't hurt me anymore!" The man began to crawl away, almost tripping bystanders on his way back.
Phoenix was shaking, his forehead pooled with sweat as if he just woke up from a terrible nightmare. Maya approached the startled defense attorney and tapped him on the arm. "Nick?"
The defense attorney took a while to notice and finally rotated his head at the concerned spirit medium. "M-M-Ma-ya… I...I…"
Maya looked at Nick. Her eyes were glassy. She reached in and gave Nick a hug. He looked at the trembling hand that was earlier strangling a stranger. He hesitated at first before involuntarily relaxing his other arm around her. She comforted him in her warm embrace that made Phoenix relax a bit, but he was still shaking. "It's okay, Nick… Just… don't do that again, okay? You shouldn't get that jealous to the point that you almost kill a man."
Her words were mitigating his trembling. "'Cuz then, I'll have to get either Apollo or Athena to defend you! It's not right for a boss to be defended by his own employees. It should stay the other way around!" She finally looked up and smiled at him. He finally stopped shaking, enjoying her humor even after what just happened. He finally hugged her with the other arm and wrapped them around her waist. The softness of her skin and hair finally swept away all feelings of worry from the defense attorney. He inhaled deeply to relax and exhaled.
"Uh! Nick! Lay off the winter fresh gum! You're freezing me here!"
