Chapter 2

A Mysterious Attacker

Four days have passed since the fight at high school. Natalie was starting to feel better and she could get up from her bed, but she had to go lie down a few hours later, whenever her head started to hurt, but it wasn't because the doctor had told her, but because she wanted to rest. Otherwise, she was perfectly fine. On his part, Dark was already healed and he had removed all the bandages. However, he had decided to make a bracelet with it and wear it as a reminder of what had happened. And the weirdest thing that had happened so far, had been Clark's sudden appearance at their home, as he had visited them the previous day to apologize to Natalie in a thousand different ways for what he had done. At the very least, he admitted his actions had been excessive and that he felt sorry for shouting all those insults at her. Dark wasn't really in the mood to forgive him, although he let the decision to his sister, who slapped his face with all her might, leaving a mark and accepting his apologies. He got a tad angry at that reaction, but he let it slide, swallowing his pride, knowing that if he blew up like he had done in high school things would only get worse. After spending a while with the siblings, he returned the way he came.

But back to the present day, Dark was lying on his bed, thinking and trying to fall asleep at the same time. The worry for his sister had prevented him from sleeping for a few days, the bags under his eyes were a proof of this. He was thankful of all those energetic drinks that had helped him get through the day without sleeping on the spot and try to do so at night, but he wanted to spend that whole day doing nothing and trying to relax and fall asleep. However, his attempts were frustrated as the bell rang. He sat up and sighed, looking at the clock on the wall, realizing that it was two in the afternoon. He calmly got up and went out to the hallway to open the main door, and there he found Reisor and Alejandra. Unlike last time, Reisor wasn't wearing a leather jacket, and instead was wearing a thinner jacket and without sleeves, showing his sunbathed skin, and he was wearing short black trousers. The shirt he was wearing and his trainers were the same, just like that red shawl that he had tied around his neck, just like the other day. Alex had changed her skirt for white trousers, was now using white trainers and her mew shirt was changed by a plain sky blue shirt, and on her head she was wearing some sort of hat that had two folds that were supposed to imitate ears. Dark could've sworn that, just as he opened the door, that he had seen something strange on her face, something he couldn't put his finger on, but immediately afterwards he discarded it, noticing the girls smile, blaming this small hallucination upon his exhaustion.

Another thing that changed, however, was that Reisor started the conversation. "Hello." He greeted. "We come to visit you guys. Can we come in?"

"Sure, welcome." Dark answered with a tired smile, walking to the side and letting his friends walk in.

"We came to see how you were doing." Alex explained, her smile remaining on her face.

"We're doing much better, thanks for asking. Do you want to see Nat?" He asked as he walked over to the kitchen, the duo following him as he opened the fridge and offered them some juice whilst he opened a can of "Power X" to help him stay awake. Sleep deprivation was extremely annoying, mainly because of how worried he was and not because he wasn't getting enough sleep.

"Thanks for the drinks." Alex thanked him as she took a sip, her smile widening as she liked the taste of the orange juice. "Yes, we'd like to see Natalie!" She said with her ever so cheerful tone of voice. Dark took a sip of his own drink before answering.

"Alright, I'll go see if she's awake…" He said, feeling a little more awake thanks to the drink and calmly walked over to his sister's room, leaving Rei and Alex alone for a brief moment.

The two kids remained there silent for a few moments, sipping on the juice their host had given them. "What do you think of Dark?" Reisor asked all of a sudden, turning to face Alex. The expression on the girl's face turned serious.

"It's definitely him." She said, turning to look at her friend. "I can feel it, there's no doubt about it."

"He's a little violent, but if I remember correctly, when that happened with that kid… It seemed as if Dark was holding back all the time until her sister got hurt." Rei pointed out, taking a sip from his juice.

"Yeah… fighting isn't well seen here, and everyone seems to want to evade them… This is nothing like back home…" She responded. They didn't say anything after that, and from the hallway they could hear Dark's and Natalie's voices. It sounded like Dark was helping his sister in keeping her balance, but they didn't seem to be heading back yet. "Mmm… Natalie…" Alex then mumbled to herself, closing her eyes and placing her right hand on her chest. Rei simply glanced at her and rose an eyebrow, but still didn't say anything.

Meanwhile, Natalie was getting up with Dark's help so she didn't lose her balance and fall or get dizzy from getting up too quickly, as she still needed a few days to be completely healed from the accident; and she was also putting on some informal clothes, a plain white shirt and pants and her small slippers. When she was ready, they both headed for the kitchen, finding Rei and Alex leaning on the table and drinking their orange juices. They looked at them and the duo greeted the girl, Dark offering his sister a glass of juice, which she gladly accepted once she sat down with them, her brother leaning on the kitchen counter and drinking what was left in his can, which was halfway empty. The three friends sitting around the table started talking about trivial stuff, and eventually the topic of their favourite type of pokemon came up. Alex and Reisor said that they couldn't decide on any, since there were so many different types of pokemon to try and compare them, but Dark and Natalie did have two pokemon they liked and they started talking about them. Dark enjoyed talking about this, and he even stopped drinking whilst he was talking, and only drank to satiate his thirst until he finished his can.

After drinking, the four of them decided to play some boardgames. One could say that the competition was fierce and everything got even fiercer when any of them got close to winning, which made playing even more fun for them. At the same time, they started making plans for a future encounter.

"Tomorrow, Sim, Ruper, Lisa, Alex and I are going out to camp out at the forest for the whole night. Would you like to come with us?" Reisor asked the siblings after he ended his turn.

"I'd like to, but it depends on whether I get better or not, so I can't promise anything…" Natalie responded with a tired smile.

"I didn't know you liked the forest, lil sis'." Dark commented as he moved his token after the dice stopped rolling. "Oops! I'm a little too close to you, Alex!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah, not a chance, buddy so come down from your cloud!" She answered, laughing a little, the other three kids giggling and chuckling as well.

"Well… lil' brother!" She answered trying to tick him off by pointing out the fact that, although she was a tad smaller than him, she was the older of the two, winning him for just one year. "I don't like it as much as you do, since you would prefer to live in a forest before living in a city, buuut I do enjoy going over there every so often in a camping trip, so yeah, of course I like it." She said as she waited for her turn to come… only to see how Alex eliminated one of her tokens from play, this being the one closest to reach home. "Oh, come on!" She exclaimed in frustration.

Alex chuckled as he moved the piece that was the furthest away from the goal. "Sorry Nat, but that's ludo for you."

The game kept going for the rest of the afternoon. They all enjoyed the game even though no one managed to get their tokens to their goals. It was stressing, but since they were talking most of the time time went by very fast. Halfway through the afternoon they stopped playing, not bothering to say if they would continue that game another day, since it hadn't been finished and no one had managed to win, but at least they had a ton of fun. It was Reisor's idea for them to stop playing and go out for a while, have a stroll around town. No one opposed to this idea, since they all felt like enjoying the fresh air outside, and Natalie would most likely benefit from the walk.

The weather outside was typical for a November afternoon, a fresh breeze blowing through the streets, although not cold enough to make them feel cold with their jackets on, and thanks to the fact that there wasn't a single cloud in the sky the sun was shining down, keeping the temperature normal, neither too cold nor too hot. Natalie wasn't having too much trouble with her headaches, since it had been two days that she had removed the wrappings around her forehead, where one could see a small and imperceptible scar where the open wound had been, which had now obviously healed and closed; albeit had anyone taken a closer look at the area, they would see it clear as day, a reminder of the events that had transpired.

The four youngsters talked calmly until they got to the town's commercial area, where one could see shops and clothing stands as far as the eye could go. Every so often the girls would stop in front of a shop to admire the articles behind the showcase glass, which could be either clothes, shoes or even magazines that called their attention. "I don't think I'll ever understand why girls like those kinds of things…" Dark thought to himself. He was happy though, because this was keeping Natalie from thinking about those horrible headaches every so often, although she raised her hand up to her forehead every so often, which kept Dark on his toes, always worried that she would just collapse any moment.

After spending a few hours walking around and buying some snacks and sweets, Dark and the others stopped to eat in a park nearby, sitting on the grass and eating their parts.

"So Alex, Rei… What brought you to our town?" Dark asked. "I've been living here all my life and I had never seen you, either on the street nor in primary school." The younger sibling said, explaining his curiosity.

"Oh… well…" Reisor begun, a nervous look on his face, then looked at the ground as if thinking about what he was about to say.

"We came from the city. We didn't like living there and our parents rented a house in this town. They can't come over, since they work in the city, but at least they can afford paying the rent for us." Alex responded calmly, smiling. "Sim and Ruper are friends of our parents that are taking care of us, and managed to find work as both the bus driver and the teacher that overlooks the bus. Remember them?" She asked, the siblings nodding.

"And who is Lisa?" Nat asked after a few moments passed. "I remember you mentioned she would come over when you went to spend the night at the forest."

"Lisa is a teacher, and she's a friend of Sim and Ruper, so they asked her to come with us. She may seem a little cold, but she isn't so bad once you spend enough time with her." Reisor was the one that responded this time.

Both brothers exchanged looks, and then turned to look at their friends.

"How about we change topics?" Alex said all of a sudden, trying to come with new conversation topics. "How about… If pokemon were real and we had the opportunity to: what pokemon would you want to be if you ever became one?" Alex asked all of a sudden, surprising the boy with the silver hairs. Dark thought about it for a while, but Natalie responded immediately.

"I would like to be an Espeon. I think it's a beautiful pokemon, and also majestic… It's strong and elegant at the same time, and of course intelligent." She said, not stopping once to talk about the many abilities a psychic pokemon had. "It's the one I like the most even though it's got lots of weaknesses."

"I see…" Alex said, moving her head up and down with a smile, then turned to face at Dark. "And what about you, Dark?"

"Well… I'm torn between two. On one hand, I love Zoroark's design and looks. Dark fur, that red mane and those sky blue eyes… I've always liked that eye color, and it's not just because it's one of mine." He said, pointing at the aforementioned eye. "On the other hand, I really like Lucario's aura abilities, like Aura Sphere or Bone Rush. It's a shame that Zoroarks can't learn those moves in-game. Ah, wait, I think I've got a drawing I did… I always carry it around." As he was saying it, he started searching around in his pockets, finding his wallet, his keys and his mobile phone, until he finally found a small piece of paper that had been folded multiple times. He unfolded it and showed the drawing to his friends, which was of a Zoroark with a silver mane, the ends of his hair the same shade of blue like the eyes, the fur on his body was also silver on his chest, and the rest of his body covered in black fur. The small sphere that held it's hair together in they style of a ponytail was also red instead of the normal blue. "This is my version of a Shadow Zoroark." Dark said proudly as he showed the picture Rei and Alex looking at it for a while before looking up at the boy as he said those last words.

"Shadow Zoroark?" Reisor asked, curious.

"Yeah. Ever since Pokemon XD came out, I like to imagine my own versions of pokemon with different colors from either normal pokemon or shiny, something "darker" so to say, and every so often I end up drawing them or making a small sketch of how I'd like them to look like if they ever existed." Dark explained calmly. "If pokemon were real and there was a way to become one, I'd like to be this Zoroark, and also be able to control Aura. Not as much as a Lucario can, but similar." He explained, smiling. This smile faded as he got a weird glance from all three of his friends. "What? I can dream, right?" He asked, laughing.

Reisor kept looking at Dark, and Alex giggled softly, closing her eyes. Natalie though only did a small and noiseless facepalm.

"You and your obsession with changing the rules, Dark…" She commented, smiling as well.

"Oi! I like to be logical! After all, nothing keeps a warrior from using a fireball." He responded. "What I want to say is this: If everyone's got the same kind of energy flowing through them, and only one species holds the knowledge to use it… It's a little… I don't know, I don't think it makes sense."

"Alright alright, I think your point of view is clear enough." She answered. "You always get so touchy when we start talking about things where it doesn't make sense for a reduced group of people to be the only ones that can do or use something."

Dark smiled. "Yeah, it's just like that game I like. You know? Maybe when you start you pick a class, but eventually it may branch out into something else, but of course, just like everyone else says…"

"It's all just a game". Both siblings said simultaneously, making it obvious that this wasn't the first time they had had this conversation.

"Well, and what about you? What kind of pokemon would you like to become?" Natalie asked.

"That's for us to know and for you to never know!" Alex said with a little malice in her voice.

"Oh what?! That's not fair, Alex!" Dark complained with a smile, since it was obvious she wasn't going to give them that information. A few more hours of talking later, the four friends got up and headed back to the Corel siblings' house.

"Hey Dark… What do you think about pokemon battles?" Reisor asked, Natalie growling in response.

"Did you REALLY have to ask that?" Natalie asked, a look that said: 'Why did you ask that?!' on her face.

"Why?" Alex asked, curious because of her reaction.

"Because I cannot comprehend why the pokemon are the ones fighting, and then the trainers are the one that get all the credit. As far as I know, the trainers can be the champions, but then you can just beat the hell outta them and they won't be able to stand on their feet after two blows. No, I think the trainer shouldn't be 'hiding behind his pokemon team', he should instead step forward and fight along his pokemon. I don't think it's fair that the trainers that stay back and give orders are considered the strong one. At least that's what I think about fights. I get that the bond between a trainer and it's pokemon must also be strong so that the pokemon listen to their trainer, but… What better way to strengthen those bonds than doing everything together? I believe that trainers should fight as well, show that they're also strong. I can understand that if pokemon really existed and that if I faced off against… a Riolu bare-handed, for example, I'd have low, if any chance at last to much on my own. Even then, this isn't reason enough to step back and hide. That's the ideal reason to step in front of the line to get stronger when facing against an obstacle." Dark responded with this small speech.

Alejandra and Reisor were flabbergasted at his words, their eyes wide open as plates as they looked at Dark.

"Yeah yeah… I know I sound like I'm crazy, and that probably there are rules and that's just how it is. But come on, rules mean nothing to the most meaningless of criminals. And I refuse to believe that one of those high ranking criminals would send their pokemon against the trainer's instead of the trainer themselves and…"

"Dark!" Natalie interrupted him all of a sudden. "Stop! I swear this conversation… No, that speech of yours would make anyone's head start pounding." She said, raising a hand up to her head.

"No kidding." Reisor said, rubbing his temples. "You must have a really strong mind if you can manage to keep your sanity with all those… confusing thoughts." He later commented.

"It isn't confusing. It's just my point of view, nothing less nothing more." The silver haired boy answered calmly.

They kept on walking, speaking about some things and trying to avoid any conversation topics whose logic could be argued by Dark. It wasn't exactly easy, but the boy knew how to restrain himself and was doing everything in his power from being too annoying, simply because he was getting used to the company of their new friends and was starting to enjoy it. When they turned a corner however, the world slowed to a crawl for Dark. At that instant he was talking with Reisor, who was slightly behind him and so he wasn't looking in front of him, and the moment he turned to face forward he saw a pale arm heading towards him. After what seemed like an eternity, the hand reached his neck and constricted him, both the boy and his attacker rolling on the ground until they stopped about five meters away from the group, who were shocked at was going on. The man was literally trying to choke Dark, making it so Dark couldn't breath properly, and attempting to stop him from breathing altogether. However, even whilst this was happening, he could see the aggressor's eyes under a pair of glasses he had on, eyes that pierced into his soul and made him shiver. But he wasn't sure if it was either that or the look of calm that he wore on his face as he choked a teenager to death, keeping him on the ground and ignoring all his attempts of freeing himself and replenishing his lungs with the precious oxygen that he was become more and more scarce in his lungs.

Not even a few moments passed before the guy was pushed off Dark as someone charged the murderous bastard with enough force. Dark took a deep and sharp breath as soon as he could, coughing briefly as air entered his body once more.

"Are you ok?!" Alex called him from his left. Dark turned to face that way and saw the worried looks on both her face and his sister's, and was about to ask where Reisor was, but was interrupted as the sounds of fighting reached his ears, turning to face the other way and getting up, seeing Reisor fighting against the man that had just tried to asphyxiate him. Needless to say, Reisor seemed to have some really good reflexes, as he could dodge or block anything the guy did, but even then he couldn't manage to land a single hit as his opponent moved sideways and dodged everything with just as much skill.

"Yeah, I'm alright." He responded as he kept his eyes on the guy. His hair was gray, and his skin was extremely pale. He had simple long sleeved red shirt and grey trousers, with white sport boots. He also had a silver colored belt adorned with some small blue accessories. Dark wanted to get a better look at the guy so he could describe him properly to the authorities, but Reisor's shouts of pain stopped him. Immediately, and without thinking about it twice he fully got up and ran against the guy, who was about to dislocate his friend's shoulder, who he had laying on his chest and with his arm bent in an uncomfortable way. Dark ran as fast as he could so as to punch the guy right in the face, the blow making the attacker step back, groaning as he freed Reisor.

Dark got into a defensive stance, seeing how Alex approached Reisor from the corner of his eye and started talking with him whilst Natalie remained still, looking at her mobile phone and at the repeater located at the side of the street, disguised as a streetlight. The girl's face showed a look of disbelief, which lead her brother to a decision. He faced away from them and let Alex take care of Reisor, and turned to face the guy that had attacked them, who had recovered from the blow and was looking at Dark with the same calm look, although there were tiny hints of surprise in his face. Dark could see his eyes now that the sunglasses flew away with the boy's blow, the irises showing a strange dull green. The youngster stood still, keeping his eyes on the guy in front of him, completely still asides from his chest which slowly raised and deflated itself in tempo with his breathing, keeping his eyes on an attacker who could have between eighteen or twenty years from just looking at him. Mere seconds later the guy was running at him again, trying to choke him once more, but the boy was ready for him this time. With a quick movement on his arm, he pushed the guy's hand out of the way, and then followed up with a punch directly to his face. Right after this, he began throwing blows at the guy, punching the guy twice in the face with each fist, then lowered himself to the ground as he did a spinning sweep on the ground, kicking the guy in one of his knees and making him fall. Dark then leaned forward, placing his hands on the ground and then quickly raised the bottom half of his body, keeping the momentum from the last move to perform a spinning-top kick, which was delivered right to his opponent's face, then pushed up with his arms and sprung back onto his feet, feeling a little dizzy both because of the spinning and the blood that had flowed down to his head whilst he had been head down.

The other guy got up shakily, the kicks had obviously left him staggered. He also had blood flowing out of the corner of his mouth and falling down from his nostrils. Dark got ready for more fighting, but to his surprise the guy got up and left, running away without saying anything. Dark let out a long sigh of relief and completely calmed himself down, turning around and approaching his friends. Reisor was back on his feet again, and seemed to have recovered from that weird angle that guy had bent his arm in.

"Everything alright?" Dark asked, worry in his voice.

"E.. beb… yeah. He… He didn't manage to twist my arm." He said, the boy looking at Dark with a face that was only missing the words 'surprised' written over his forehead.

"Dark…" Natalie begun. "Those weren't moves from our classes." She pointed out to her brother.

"Well… let's just say I learned a few things on my own." The boy admitted, shrugging.

"You really like preventing things, don't you?" Natalie asked, shrugging. "Guess all that paranoia paid out in the end…"

"You can say that again." He said after laughing for a bit. "Well, we better head home. Alex, Rei, why don't you come over and stay for the night?" The boy invited, since it was getting pretty late and the streetlights were already on, and the sun was already down after all that had happened.

"We don't want to bother you guys…" Rei begun, but Natalie stopped him by raising a hand as she walked towards Dark.

"It's not a problem. We insist." She said, not leaving them any room for declining the invitation.

"Alright! It'll be fun!" Alex exclaimed, smiling once again.

Reisor gave up and said he would spend the night over there as well, and once they were on their way, Dark pulled out his phone to call his mom, telling her a couple of friends were coming over to have dinner and sleep with them. Stranged in the inside though, since for Natalie's face before starting to fight off the attacker he could have sworn that the signal was blown off from that area since the repeater did not work for some reason.

After getting home, Dark and Natalie took a relaxing bath and enjoyed a delicious dinner over the course of which they told everything they had done that day to their parents, deliberately skipping the fight with the guy with the green eyes, mainly because they didn't want their parents to be worried. The two girls then went over to Natalie's room, whilst Dark and Reisor headed towards the brother's room, his father being being really strict and absolutely adamant about his "Boys and girls in different rooms" rule, which he basically made up because he knew they would have to share beds. Once they got there, Dark gave Reisor some pajamas, and then put on another pair. Dark left for the bathroom with a pen and his diary, and later on came back with the same things he had taken and some cards. The boys played for a while before they got tired and went to bed, but once again Dark just couldn't sleep at all. And this time he had more than enough reasons.

The main thing was that he was slightly worried about what had happened a few hours ago, as he could shake off the feeling that this man was intently going after him and trying to kill him by choking him with his own hands. He just couldn't stop thinking about it, and eventually anxiety got the best of him, he got up from bed and went over to his computer to play some games for the rest of the night, keeping an eye on Reisor to make sure he didn't wake up his friend. Whilst the game was loading, Dark picked up his diary and opened it by the page he had written just a few moments ago, where he had noted down everything that had transpired that day. He then added a footnote that said:

"PS: This makes four nights I can't sleep… And counting.

I'm getting scared I'm just going to fall asleep anytime… or worse."

So that last move during the fight, he mentioned that he got it out of Tekken. Can someone please confirm this? Thanks in advance!

Well anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Sorry if I'm taking too long to put these out, but it's much harder to translate than to write normally, so these may be uploaded a little slower when compared to my normal stuff. Sorry, once again.

See you in the next chapter!