I know this might upset a few people, but this chapter is total background. TOTAL. This might be boring to most of you, but it's completely necessary to the story to set his background up. Sorry, but that's the way it is. I hope you enjoy it… now enjoy!
Chapter 2: Memories
~~*@*~~
A few days after the accident, Alex finally opened his eyes to his new world… and it was dark. He sat up in what was apparently a bed. He was wearing his normal clothes, a turquoise short-sleeved shirt and long blue jeans. He felt different somehow, but couldn't tell how just yet. He looked around the room, or tried to anyway, but it was far too dark to see.
"Where the heck am I?" He said softly, tired from the 3 days of sleep. He tried to think about what happened to put him into the unconscious state he was unwillingly put into.
Just then, light abruptly filled his vision, making him shut his eyes.
"Hey, so your finally awake? We thought you were dead, hahaha."
"Yeah, so did I." Alex said groggily, instinctively responding to the statement. He looked over to the door that was opened while he was thinking a moment ago. There stood a boy in a full green body suit, with an odd looking belt. He had black hair and a bowl-cut, which looked like it had too much hair gel or something in it; it reflected the light from the room well. He also had rather thick eyebrows, and large eyes.
"Well, my names Rock Lee, but you can call me whichever. How are you feeling?" He said, approaching the bed.
"Feeling? Well… ok I guess. I'm really tired, how long did I sleep? Oh, my names Alex by the way…" He replied shaking Rocks hand. He could feel the power in this kid that was obviously younger than him by a few years.
"Nice to meet you. 3 days I believe. They were glad that you made it out of that alive. They'll be even more surprised that you're alive now. I am. Eh, no offense or anything… But you do know what happened to you right?"
"… No. All I was doing was looking at the sky one night and then BAM! I get hit by this weird flaming bird thing and then I hear this voice in my head, and then I'm out like a light. That's all I know about that until I woke up here." He paused for a few seconds. "Where am I anyway?"
Rock took on a serious expression.
'Am I aloud to tell him? I doubt he could get back on his own for a while, but still…'
"Umm… hold on for a sec…" He said as he left the room.
Alex lie back in the bed he was in, sighing. He didn't know what was going on and this; Rock Lee was apparently reluctant to tell him his location, which he found very strange. If he was kidnapped, and they didn't want anyone to know their location, then why would a kid be here, and why would he be in a nice bed? He just couldn't figure it out.
The door slowly opened again as Lee came back into the room, with another person following. A taller person that looked just like Rock Lee! (Sweat drop) One of Alex's eyes twitched…
"Hey, good to see that your awake! I made a promise to my rival to bring you back safely!" (Nice guy pose, Sweat drop) He said somewhat eagerly. "My name's Maito Gai pleased to meet you." He said, also shaking his hand. "Rock tells me that you have no clue what the hecks going on. Well… I'll tell you one thing. You're going to have to get used to the life-style you're going into. I'm afraid that once that… how did Lee say you put it… weird flaming bird thing, took you as it's host, you were bound to a new life." His expression was now serious as well.
"New life? Like… what? What do you mean? What is it that hit me?" He was very confused, and all this talk, without him even knowing what was being essentially discussed, was frustrating him.
"… What I'm about to tell you may not leave this room. I will explain the rules and ranks to you later, but for the purpose of getting to the point, I'll tell you that the only ones that you can discuss this with are the Jounins of this village, as well as the Hokage. You see, you are in a village hidden from the eyes of the normal 'outside' world. No normal person knows about this, and the other hidden villages." He explained
"Only select people know about these villages, including in mass, ninja's, certain businessmen, and people already inhabiting the villages, obviously. There is a legend in the world of the shinobi, about a certain creature. A Phoenix. But this bird is different from the ones you would normally hear about. Why? Its flames can be both red and blue. No one knows why this majestic creature can do this, but it's said to have immense power. It's said to have amazing healing capabilities, as well as offensive ninpo techniques. Somehow, this incredibly powerful phoenix was injured enough to be incapable of healing itself. Myself, along with many other Jounins of this village, were on a… mission, and were tracking the person that was helping in hurting the bird. We didn't arrive in time to stop them, and even though the phoenix took out many of their forces, it was all in vain. The last we saw it, It flew out of the Fire Country, that's the country we're in now, by the way. We chased it as fast as we could, and we finally caught up with it. But it appears it had already used one of its powers to keep itself alive. It transferred its soul into you."
"Whoa… that's. That's… wow."
Maito and Lee continued explaining the situation to Alex, including everything he needed to know about the ninja's and the villages. He took it pretty well… overall. He found out that Lee lived with his teacher, as his parents were killed during a mission a few years ago. They lived in a nice spacious house, that they gladly let Alex live in (rent-free) until he got used to his new life. It took him a while to get over the initial surprised and sadness of not being able to see his family. For a while at least. When he was able to control his power and prove his loyalty sufficiently, Maito said, then he might be allowed to be escorted by a jounin to see his family. It was up to Alex whether or not he wanted to live as a ninja or not, it would be tough, as he hadn't gone to the academy all his life to study about being a good ninja. But Maito assured him, if that was his choice, to live his life as a ninja, that he would be trained very well. Alex agreed to become a ninja without much hesitation at all. And so it was.
Alex lived with Maito and Lee for the next few weeks, learning about the village, meeting the people, and learning Tai-jutsu from Gai and Lee. It was decided that he was to be trained by any jounin available at the time; honing the various skills he would need to be a powerful ninja. He learned the basics from Gai first, and then went on from there. He could always be seen training with his long black trench coat that had the sleeves ripped off, with a gray muscle shirt on underneath. His gray baggy ninja style pants went well with it (The standard issue ones most of the chuunin and jounin wear, like kakashi). He also had black ninja shoes, with the toes covered up. He wore weights just like Lee, but they were heavier. He also wore black wristbands that were actually weights, albeit lighter than the leg weights though. His black fingerless gloves were always on him when he was outside. All his clothes were black, even though his hair was brown, but he liked it that way. He became more muscular with the phoenix inside him, so it all went well.
Alex and Lee were best friends with all the time they spent training together. Alex was quickly becoming an expert in Tai-Jutsu, thanks to the recovered phoenix's powers. They helped him in every department. He could remember techniques and see things as good as anyone from the Uchiha clan with a Sharingan, thanks to the phoenix's own eye technique, and he was as good with his chakra as the best of them. The phoenix was definitely proving it's worth as the most powerful demon beast in legend. It hadn't spoken to him sense that day though, but he could somehow feel how it was doing. It had healed from his injuries after entering Alex's body, but it took about a good 2 weeks for it to recover.
The academy was graduating its current years students, and scores showed that Uchiha Sasuke was the best out of the lot. With the phoenix's strength, coupled with Alex's own now powerful self, his competition with the rookies was thinning, as he got stronger. He eventually met all of them through his training with them, as their teachers were usually training them on their time at Konoha, but Alex got great training from them. He hung out with Naruto and his team mostly, when he wasn't with Lee and Maito, that is. All they knew about him was, he was found unconscious in the woods outside Konoha, and no more explanation was given to the low-leveled ninja.
Alex, oddly enough, was not assigned to a 3-man team like the other genins. The Hokage decided it was to late in the year at the academy to enroll him, and see much purposeful improvement.
So he just trained. He was able to train just about every day with a jounin, sometimes he had to train with a chuunin, or even just himself, but he got by well.
Soon, it came time for an event in the village called the Chuunin Selection Exams. Lee said that this was a half a year competition to see who is worthy of being promoted to the chuunin status of ninja. Lee and his team had sat out last year's exams to get stronger for the next one. The Hokage though about this much, and finally decided to permit Alex to enter the exams alone. This took much though, and convincing from Maito, Lee, and Alex. He had become strong, and the phoenix's powers had given him the ability to learn much in this short time. After a person was promoted to chuunin, they didn't need a teacher for missions anyway, as they were commanders for their own teams at that level anyway. But he did agree to not lead any missions and train more, and be part of other teams first, to see and get experience. If he passed that is. But he wasn't really worried about it; all he wanted to do was train and get stronger. All the status meant anyway was that you could lead a team, and you are more likely to be stronger than a genin, but it was all just a title really. Nothing more. But he still wanted to do it. He wanted to see if his powers were really getting him somewhere. Soon, it was only a few days before the exam. He knew he was powerful, and he had learned many great moves from the jounin teachers. He was ready.
So he paid for his meal, left the Ichiraku, and went to his apartment, which he now lived in after moving out of Gai's place. He worked at a local blacksmith, that made kunai's, shuriken and other weapons a ninja needs to have at his or her side at all times. It gave him enough to pay rent, groceries, and a little to do with as he pleased.
But he was tired, so he went to the TV and flipped through it for a while. He thought about how his life had changed these past few months, but soon he got tired of flipping through the junk on TV and decided to go to bed. He unknowingly had a big day tomorrow.
~~*@*~~
Ok, I said boring right? Well, the next one is in current time, so the story will move along from there. I know I kinda powered this guy up fast and unfairly, but I want to get the power of the Phoenix across well. Don't worry about Alex being uber-powerful; he'll get his butt handed to him at least once, maybe more, lol. I'm not good with this romance thing, as I don't know what is constantly going though a girls head, but bare with me for the next chapter, k? Advice about that would help. Hehehe…
Most of the POV's will be from Alex, since I am a 17-year-old guy, and know what I think about girls (Hehehe again), so you will mostly be hearing from Alex, but you will get to see what the girl thinks as well. Anyway, the next chapter might come out soon, depends when I can get it done. I have to start back school this coming week, so there'll be less frequent updates after the next one.
Just one more thing to say, if you don't like the story, don't review. If you just have negative things to say, I don't want to hear it. Just forget you ever read this in that case. I'm not an aspiring writer with talent. I don't want to be a writer. I just had some idea's that seemed like they would do well on FF.net. Please don't blame me like that guy did for my 1st review I think it was. That's just not necessary, to put someone down like that when you could easily just press the back button and read another story. But to those who review/reviewed, thank you, it feels good to hear good reviews.
Chapter 2: Memories
~~*@*~~
A few days after the accident, Alex finally opened his eyes to his new world… and it was dark. He sat up in what was apparently a bed. He was wearing his normal clothes, a turquoise short-sleeved shirt and long blue jeans. He felt different somehow, but couldn't tell how just yet. He looked around the room, or tried to anyway, but it was far too dark to see.
"Where the heck am I?" He said softly, tired from the 3 days of sleep. He tried to think about what happened to put him into the unconscious state he was unwillingly put into.
Just then, light abruptly filled his vision, making him shut his eyes.
"Hey, so your finally awake? We thought you were dead, hahaha."
"Yeah, so did I." Alex said groggily, instinctively responding to the statement. He looked over to the door that was opened while he was thinking a moment ago. There stood a boy in a full green body suit, with an odd looking belt. He had black hair and a bowl-cut, which looked like it had too much hair gel or something in it; it reflected the light from the room well. He also had rather thick eyebrows, and large eyes.
"Well, my names Rock Lee, but you can call me whichever. How are you feeling?" He said, approaching the bed.
"Feeling? Well… ok I guess. I'm really tired, how long did I sleep? Oh, my names Alex by the way…" He replied shaking Rocks hand. He could feel the power in this kid that was obviously younger than him by a few years.
"Nice to meet you. 3 days I believe. They were glad that you made it out of that alive. They'll be even more surprised that you're alive now. I am. Eh, no offense or anything… But you do know what happened to you right?"
"… No. All I was doing was looking at the sky one night and then BAM! I get hit by this weird flaming bird thing and then I hear this voice in my head, and then I'm out like a light. That's all I know about that until I woke up here." He paused for a few seconds. "Where am I anyway?"
Rock took on a serious expression.
'Am I aloud to tell him? I doubt he could get back on his own for a while, but still…'
"Umm… hold on for a sec…" He said as he left the room.
Alex lie back in the bed he was in, sighing. He didn't know what was going on and this; Rock Lee was apparently reluctant to tell him his location, which he found very strange. If he was kidnapped, and they didn't want anyone to know their location, then why would a kid be here, and why would he be in a nice bed? He just couldn't figure it out.
The door slowly opened again as Lee came back into the room, with another person following. A taller person that looked just like Rock Lee! (Sweat drop) One of Alex's eyes twitched…
"Hey, good to see that your awake! I made a promise to my rival to bring you back safely!" (Nice guy pose, Sweat drop) He said somewhat eagerly. "My name's Maito Gai pleased to meet you." He said, also shaking his hand. "Rock tells me that you have no clue what the hecks going on. Well… I'll tell you one thing. You're going to have to get used to the life-style you're going into. I'm afraid that once that… how did Lee say you put it… weird flaming bird thing, took you as it's host, you were bound to a new life." His expression was now serious as well.
"New life? Like… what? What do you mean? What is it that hit me?" He was very confused, and all this talk, without him even knowing what was being essentially discussed, was frustrating him.
"… What I'm about to tell you may not leave this room. I will explain the rules and ranks to you later, but for the purpose of getting to the point, I'll tell you that the only ones that you can discuss this with are the Jounins of this village, as well as the Hokage. You see, you are in a village hidden from the eyes of the normal 'outside' world. No normal person knows about this, and the other hidden villages." He explained
"Only select people know about these villages, including in mass, ninja's, certain businessmen, and people already inhabiting the villages, obviously. There is a legend in the world of the shinobi, about a certain creature. A Phoenix. But this bird is different from the ones you would normally hear about. Why? Its flames can be both red and blue. No one knows why this majestic creature can do this, but it's said to have immense power. It's said to have amazing healing capabilities, as well as offensive ninpo techniques. Somehow, this incredibly powerful phoenix was injured enough to be incapable of healing itself. Myself, along with many other Jounins of this village, were on a… mission, and were tracking the person that was helping in hurting the bird. We didn't arrive in time to stop them, and even though the phoenix took out many of their forces, it was all in vain. The last we saw it, It flew out of the Fire Country, that's the country we're in now, by the way. We chased it as fast as we could, and we finally caught up with it. But it appears it had already used one of its powers to keep itself alive. It transferred its soul into you."
"Whoa… that's. That's… wow."
Maito and Lee continued explaining the situation to Alex, including everything he needed to know about the ninja's and the villages. He took it pretty well… overall. He found out that Lee lived with his teacher, as his parents were killed during a mission a few years ago. They lived in a nice spacious house, that they gladly let Alex live in (rent-free) until he got used to his new life. It took him a while to get over the initial surprised and sadness of not being able to see his family. For a while at least. When he was able to control his power and prove his loyalty sufficiently, Maito said, then he might be allowed to be escorted by a jounin to see his family. It was up to Alex whether or not he wanted to live as a ninja or not, it would be tough, as he hadn't gone to the academy all his life to study about being a good ninja. But Maito assured him, if that was his choice, to live his life as a ninja, that he would be trained very well. Alex agreed to become a ninja without much hesitation at all. And so it was.
Alex lived with Maito and Lee for the next few weeks, learning about the village, meeting the people, and learning Tai-jutsu from Gai and Lee. It was decided that he was to be trained by any jounin available at the time; honing the various skills he would need to be a powerful ninja. He learned the basics from Gai first, and then went on from there. He could always be seen training with his long black trench coat that had the sleeves ripped off, with a gray muscle shirt on underneath. His gray baggy ninja style pants went well with it (The standard issue ones most of the chuunin and jounin wear, like kakashi). He also had black ninja shoes, with the toes covered up. He wore weights just like Lee, but they were heavier. He also wore black wristbands that were actually weights, albeit lighter than the leg weights though. His black fingerless gloves were always on him when he was outside. All his clothes were black, even though his hair was brown, but he liked it that way. He became more muscular with the phoenix inside him, so it all went well.
Alex and Lee were best friends with all the time they spent training together. Alex was quickly becoming an expert in Tai-Jutsu, thanks to the recovered phoenix's powers. They helped him in every department. He could remember techniques and see things as good as anyone from the Uchiha clan with a Sharingan, thanks to the phoenix's own eye technique, and he was as good with his chakra as the best of them. The phoenix was definitely proving it's worth as the most powerful demon beast in legend. It hadn't spoken to him sense that day though, but he could somehow feel how it was doing. It had healed from his injuries after entering Alex's body, but it took about a good 2 weeks for it to recover.
The academy was graduating its current years students, and scores showed that Uchiha Sasuke was the best out of the lot. With the phoenix's strength, coupled with Alex's own now powerful self, his competition with the rookies was thinning, as he got stronger. He eventually met all of them through his training with them, as their teachers were usually training them on their time at Konoha, but Alex got great training from them. He hung out with Naruto and his team mostly, when he wasn't with Lee and Maito, that is. All they knew about him was, he was found unconscious in the woods outside Konoha, and no more explanation was given to the low-leveled ninja.
Alex, oddly enough, was not assigned to a 3-man team like the other genins. The Hokage decided it was to late in the year at the academy to enroll him, and see much purposeful improvement.
So he just trained. He was able to train just about every day with a jounin, sometimes he had to train with a chuunin, or even just himself, but he got by well.
Soon, it came time for an event in the village called the Chuunin Selection Exams. Lee said that this was a half a year competition to see who is worthy of being promoted to the chuunin status of ninja. Lee and his team had sat out last year's exams to get stronger for the next one. The Hokage though about this much, and finally decided to permit Alex to enter the exams alone. This took much though, and convincing from Maito, Lee, and Alex. He had become strong, and the phoenix's powers had given him the ability to learn much in this short time. After a person was promoted to chuunin, they didn't need a teacher for missions anyway, as they were commanders for their own teams at that level anyway. But he did agree to not lead any missions and train more, and be part of other teams first, to see and get experience. If he passed that is. But he wasn't really worried about it; all he wanted to do was train and get stronger. All the status meant anyway was that you could lead a team, and you are more likely to be stronger than a genin, but it was all just a title really. Nothing more. But he still wanted to do it. He wanted to see if his powers were really getting him somewhere. Soon, it was only a few days before the exam. He knew he was powerful, and he had learned many great moves from the jounin teachers. He was ready.
So he paid for his meal, left the Ichiraku, and went to his apartment, which he now lived in after moving out of Gai's place. He worked at a local blacksmith, that made kunai's, shuriken and other weapons a ninja needs to have at his or her side at all times. It gave him enough to pay rent, groceries, and a little to do with as he pleased.
But he was tired, so he went to the TV and flipped through it for a while. He thought about how his life had changed these past few months, but soon he got tired of flipping through the junk on TV and decided to go to bed. He unknowingly had a big day tomorrow.
~~*@*~~
Ok, I said boring right? Well, the next one is in current time, so the story will move along from there. I know I kinda powered this guy up fast and unfairly, but I want to get the power of the Phoenix across well. Don't worry about Alex being uber-powerful; he'll get his butt handed to him at least once, maybe more, lol. I'm not good with this romance thing, as I don't know what is constantly going though a girls head, but bare with me for the next chapter, k? Advice about that would help. Hehehe…
Most of the POV's will be from Alex, since I am a 17-year-old guy, and know what I think about girls (Hehehe again), so you will mostly be hearing from Alex, but you will get to see what the girl thinks as well. Anyway, the next chapter might come out soon, depends when I can get it done. I have to start back school this coming week, so there'll be less frequent updates after the next one.
Just one more thing to say, if you don't like the story, don't review. If you just have negative things to say, I don't want to hear it. Just forget you ever read this in that case. I'm not an aspiring writer with talent. I don't want to be a writer. I just had some idea's that seemed like they would do well on FF.net. Please don't blame me like that guy did for my 1st review I think it was. That's just not necessary, to put someone down like that when you could easily just press the back button and read another story. But to those who review/reviewed, thank you, it feels good to hear good reviews.