A/N:

kd: Hey guys! Sorry again for the wait! Remember that I love you all!

Masquerade: Yeah, right!

kd: ...

Hydranoid: ...

Masquerade: ...

kd: Just kidding! I really do love you guys! =D

*Masquerade coughs*

kd: Anyways...I was, yet again, hesitant to post this chapter because, yet again, Masquerade is abused...

Masquerade: Yay me...

kd: If you cried last chapter, you'll be bailing out tears in this one...I cried while writing it O.o...

Masquerade: That's because you're kinda emo...

kd: ...Anyways, I decided to put something 'a little out there' in this story. So if you're wondering if there are any plot holes, there won't be. Because I took such a long break, I was able to think up the entire plot for this story and possible sequals.

So it's not a problem of creativity, it's just the process of getting it on paper. I also realize that the title is now misleading and that this entire story has changed from a pure-comedy Xmas story with the brawlers to a full-blown drama and tragidy that resembles that really old soap opera by grandma watches...only a whole lot more epic...

Without further ado...I present to you chapter 13!

Those were all my memories of my mother and they started piling on me as I sat in that corner in my new parents' bedroom. Why was I starting to remember all this at this time? It was because of the doctor. No one had smiled at me like that since my mom left me. He thought I was completely normal and good even after he heard my parents tell him about me not speaking. I knew my mother would have loved me whether I talked to her or not. They were both good people who knew how to smile. The quick raising of my chest from laughing at my new parents soon turned into heaves of crying. I cried out for my mother. I'm not ashamed to admit it, either since I was only four. It had already been about a year since I was adopted by the Macbeths. I was used to being alone…but I was not used to being anywhere my mother wasn't. My mother would sleep a lot because she worked a lot. And she told me not to interrupt her while she was working, sleeping, or eating, which seemed to be all the time. So a lot of the time I was left alone, but at least she was there. Now I was left alone with nothing…and no one, for multiple hours every day.

I couldn't take it anymore, I was tired of this. I hated this family…I hated them. I refused to talk to complete strangers, and that's what they were to me. Even worse, they were strangers who took me away from my mom. I cried and cried and at one point started pounding the ground with my fists in my frustration. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair at all. They lock me up in this house for hours and hours and when they come back the mother cries about my unresponsiveness and the father hits me whenever he finds something half-way through my process of taking apart and putting together again, he would also slap me for seemingly stupid things, like when I accidently spilled juice on the carpet or for upsetting my 'mother'. I hated them, from the bottom of my heart. But if I asked them to stop doing these things or started speaking, then I'd be giving in. I couldn't do that, giving in was for people with lesser will and shorter attention spans. No, I'll never speak to them. I'll give them the eternal 'silent treatment'. They can wait all they want but I'm not talking unlit I want to.

My tantrum only continued to worsen as I lost a grip on reality. My eyes widened as I heard the sound of breaking glass. I looked up from my fetal position of pity to see broken glass…everywhere. I gasped as I saw that the window in my parents' bedroom had broken into a million of sparkling pieces. I stared a bit as the renewed and unrestrained sunlight streaming into the bedroom made the small bits of glass glitter with a dastardly beauty. I was momentarily mesmerized by it as I started tilting my head side to side so that the sparkles would change. I sighed as I snapped out of it, realizing that I would be hit for this. I tiptoed around to glass to see my face in the mirror, but the mirror above the dresser had broken too, making different fragments of my face stare back at me. What had made the glass break?

I looked on the floor to see if there was a baseball that had broken the windows, it happened once on my neighbor's TV. But there were no objects that had been thrown through the windows, and I also realized that you couldn't break the mirror by throwing something through the window, it was too far from the windows and was at a completely different angel. I couldn't figure it out, but I knew I was going to get in trouble for it, anyways. I was suddenly filled with great anger, "It's…not…FAIR!" I screamed out for only myself to hear, my cries and screams would never reach another's ears.

I was alone in this new world. I kicked the lower bedpost of their bed in great frustration. "I'm not a mute! I speak fine!" I screamed out. I've always been weird, but I could always explain the reasoning behind my actions to myself, so I thought I was completely normal. It was everyone else who was weird. They try to make me like themselves because they think of their weird as normal and my normal as weird. It would only get worse as I got older. "There's…nothing…wrong with me." I mumbled in between sniff, I was starting to calm down, "Why can't they just…leave me alone?" I balled up my fists by my sides and raised my head for one final scream, "What have I done wrong?" I used one of my balled up fists to wipe away my last tears, "Someone…tell me so I can…make up for my mistake…" I felt hopeless and utterly alone.

"We can stop there for today…" Hydranoid's voice quivered.

"Are you kidding me?" Shun almost found what Hydranoid just said more unbelievable than the diary itself, "This is where it gets interesting! When else you get such a close look into someone's past, whether it's Masquerade or not." Shun tried to reason with Hydranoid.

"He's going to skin me when he comes and realizes his diary has been read!" Hydranoid was close to crying.

"If he realizes that his diary was read…" Shun smirked with a strange glint in his eyes.

"Shun…what are you going to do?" Hydranoid cautioned but with curiosity in his voice.

"Masquerade will know that we read it if he finds it here unlocked…but what if he can't find it at all? He'll just assume he misplaced it." Shun closed the diary with a shrug.

Hydranoid was still in a daze, "To think that, even at some point in his life, Master was so vulnerable…"

"It just proves that's he's human. Good thing too, I was starting to think otherwise."

Masquerade was as quiet as always, but I didn't really mind. The view from the ferris wheel was beautiful. I pointed out all the cool and pretty things and Masquerade would just nod. I continued to stare out the window, deep in thought.

Masquerade seemed so detached sometimes it was hardly human. And yet, I couldn't help but think that maybe it was a tough guy act. Masquerade wouldn't have come if he didn't want to be with me.

But another question was…why did he want to be with me? Was it because he had nothing better to do? Was it because I amused him? Or was it actually because he liked me? I really hoped it was the last one but I doubted it.

"Wait just a minute!" Hydranoid declared just as Shun was walking out the door, "Why do you get to take the diary home? I won't be able to read it!"

Shun stopped to roll his eyes, "That's the point…"

"But why?" Hydranoid whined on Shun's shoulder.

"Once you read the diary, you'll see Masquerade differently. He'll notice your behavior and know something is up." Shun reasonably explained.

"Oh, come on! I'm not that obvious." Hydranoid tried to defend himself.

"…even if I said you were the most obvious person in the world, it would still be an understatement…" Shun muttered honestly, taking the diary, and secretly Hydranoid, back home.

I then thought that a little TV could brighten up my mood. It didn't even bother me anymore that I couldn't hear the TV, sometimes I would be able to catch what they were saying, if the shot included their moving mouths, that is. Reading lips was a skill I developed quickly because of my visual memory and also because I wanted to know what they were saying on the shows. But it only worked if they used real actor and not animation or Claymation, for some reason they didn't bother making the mouth movements realistic enough to read lips. Bur sometimes, whenever the daughter watched TV, there would be subtitles. I guess, this is also where I learned to read. Who said TV was bad for your brain? The neighbor's daughter was weird. For some reason she needed to watch the TV with subtitles and she talked with her hands a lot. She must have been Italian. Naw, I'm kidding, I know she was deaf but only realized as I got older.

I ran to the window in the living room to look through the window that looked through the neighbor's window into his living room. At least this window wasn't broken, thank god. I moved a chair up to the window so I could see through. I saw the large, fat man beached on his small couch and knew he was asleep. I looked at his TV and hoped he forgot to turn it off again. Unfortunately this time his daughter had remembered to turn it off before her dad took one of his extremely long naps. "Darn it!" I said out loud, I probably would have used worse words if I knew them at that time.

I went into the kitchen to get my dad's mini tool kit. Fixing my misfit toys would cheer me up like it always did but as I walked around the house searching for broken toys…I realized I had already fixed all my toys. I sighed in frustration. My primary entertainment, fat man's TV, wasn't available, and my secondary entertainment, fixing broken toys, had run out. I already had the tool kit out, so I might as well do something with it. I was about ready to hit myself with the tool kit because I was so bored. I kept walking around the house to find something to do. After a while I admitted defeat and sat in the living room corner, making sure to brush out the cobwebs and trying to wipe the dirty floor with my bare hands before sitting down. I coughed from all the dust. Our house wasn't exactly…clean.

Without anything to do feelings of loneliness and lingering sadness settled in. "It's not fair," I couldn't help but say, "I'm not a mute…I'm not a mute…I'm not a mute." I repeated the phrase as I continued to cry. I ended up bailing my eyes out for what was probably hours. Just as I got over one issue I ended up thinking of another thing that upset me deeply at the time. Later I checked to see if the TV was on and I soon lost all my troubles as I watched the black and white car with the pretty red and blue lights race down an empty street after a big, black van that held ugly people with crooked or missing teeth, carrying sack bags over their shoulders.

After TV I looked at the dusty, hardly visible clock on the wall. Eight-thirty, my parents would be home in half an hour. I frowned when I thought of how my dad was going to react to the broken glass, he was probably going to teach me a lesson so I wouldn't do it again. I tried to thinks of ways to get out of it. I wasn't the one who did it in the first place! I couldn't think of anything good. Even if I decided to talk in front of him and explain to him it wasn't me who broke it or even beg him not to hurt me, he would still blame the broken window on me and punish me even if I begged him not to. But…I could think of a way to get back at him.

I quickly took out the tool kit and stalked toward the dinner table. Mom's and dad's chairs were both different, so dad preferred his. Meaning he always sat in it. And that also meant I could sabotage the chair without worrying about someone else sitting in it.

I quickly loosened the screws that held the legs onto the seat of the chair so that the chair stood up but would collapse the moment someone tried to sit in it. I also had other strokes of genius as vengeance on my parents. I took a chair, other than the one I just rigged, and climbed onto the countertop near the sink. I took the faucet off and removed the filter, so that water would rush out but then I also had the idea of blocking the faucet with a bunched up strip of cloth towel. This way only a few droplets of water would be able to flow until the towel gives out to the pressure and a sudden flood of water would pour out. Perfect. I rigged the bathroom facet the same way and even took a random gear from the toilet. I didn't know how toilets worked but I hoped that it would do something to piss off dad. I also realized that I would also have an advantage if I—

I heard the door unlock and I scurried to hide the tool kit under the stained, dirty couch. I ran to the middle of the rug in the living room and sat down, trying to look as innocent as I could. Both mom and dad came in but they just stood by the door entrance, as if ready to flee at any moment. I was confused by the sudden change in attitude. But my dad regained his composure into the usual glare he gave me.

"Alright, it's over. We know you can talk now." He said as if he had won at something, which he hadn't. I was about to win…big time…

My mother still looked uncertain about what to do next, "Please dearie, could you please say something?"

"Something." I said blankly.

"Great," dad said, "Either he's a complete moron who can only repeat what he hears or he just has a really bad sense of humor."

He was trying to insult me but I couldn't help but smile at how pissed he was at me.

"At least he said something!" my mother said almost excitedly.

"Yeah, problem is…he literally said…something." Father sneered in disgust.

Mother came up to me and took something bright and plastic out of her backpack. It was one of those toy vacuum cleaners that had those little balls inside the clear half-orb like a snow globe and the balls would pop around when you pushed it across the ground, I had seen one on TV. Only when my mom rolled it toward me, the balls didn't come alive and pop around like it did on the commercial. I smiled at it, another broken toy that I could fix. I saw that there was a red piece of plastic in the middle that would go up and down that would push up the tiny balls. It probably moved using the motion of the rolling wheels. How that worked, I didn't know, I guess I would have to take it apart. Already I was trying to figure out how to fix it. My father gave me a look, I could see he was weirded out by my clear happiness over a worthless, broken toy. But to me that fact that it was broken while repairable made it far more valuable to me than any other toy ever sold at a toy store.

He sighed, "I'm just going to change out of my work clothes." He walked toward his bedroom.

My flinch was unnoticed. I was mentally bracing myself.

"What the hell?" father yelped from the bedroom.

"What is it, dearest?" my mother called from the kitchen as she heated up two TV dinners in the loud microwave.

"The windows! They're shattered all over the ground!" he called in something that sounded. He stormed out of the bedroom toward me.

Here it comes…my father stopped in front of my new toy. "So you like broken stuff, huh?"

I couldn't help the sick smile that appeared on my face from making him angry.

He rose his foot above the vacuum toy, "Well, how do you like this?" he stomped down so hard that not only did the clear plastic semi-sphere break into many pieces, so did the base of it break into two.

The smile on my face immediately dropped as I watched the colorful balls fly out of the toy onto the carpet. It was a complete contrast as the bright, plastic balls laid onto the dull, faded, dirty carpet. It was beyond repair now…what a shame, too, I had just gotten it. I tried to reach toward what was left of it under my dad's foot.

He saw this and lifted his foot again…only to bring down the heel of his booted foot onto my hand.

I yelped in pain, I had not expected it so I couldn't prepare myself.

The expression of his face changed into a sick smile of his own, "If I see one more thing broken…I'm going to break you!" his heel dug in harder when he uttered that last word.

Tears sprang to my eyes from the pain, I thought I heard something crack. But if there was anything I learned from my dad it was that if you your emotions in front of your enemies, they would exploit that weakness. Yet if you didn't allow any emotion to be shown, they would eventually get bored and give up, because they fed off of people's weakness and emotions. I composed my face into one of emotionlessness and stared up at his face, my eyes challenging his authority.

His smile fell off as his face turned into one of disgust. He took his foot off of me as he was creeped out by my sudden blank face. "Weirdo…" was what he said as he walked back to his bedroom to dress out of his work clothes.

I started rubbing my now swollen hand. All I wanted to do right then was hide under my bed, which was the living room couch, and cry about my new injury. I suddenly regretted all those thing I broke. The chair, the faucets, the toilet, the lock…he would find out about all of those eventually and then…he would, I started shivering badly…break me…

I looked over into the kitchen area. My mother had already set the dinner on the table and was sitting in her chair, waiting for her husband. She looked at my with pity. She tried to stand up for me when dad got too out of hand but…she was scared of her own husband…useless woman…

My dad walked in and sat down in his chair. He was lifting up the TV dinner to better see the mushed contents, probably trying to identify what exactly it was, when…his chair started to make a creaking noise and gave out. He fell backwards as the chair flew apart and all of his food fell onto his face and shirt.

"Poor chair, it wouldn't hurt to lose a couple pounds." I called from the living room. I couldn't help the smile that lit my face again. Playing with people was much more fun than playing with broken toys. My father, yet again, came up to me. I made sure to make my face blank before he saw me. He was holding up a roll of something silver. He tore off a big piece and started pulling my hair to keep my head in place as he placed the duct tape over my mouth then slapped my face. It was hard to keep a straight face on but in the end he had been further agitated by my lack of response.

"Huh, guess you can't eat with that on your face." My father looked down at me and smirk, as if he had won. But I wasn't going to surrender, even if I was scared. Before, yesterday actually, they would starve me of my dinner if I verbally didn't ask for it. It was a way they tried to break me out of my muteness, which didn't even exist. But know he knew I could talk, it probably wasn't the smartest thing for me to do. Now I had no excuse to stay silent…even if it was one of the things that kept me safe. Now my too-smart-for-its-own-good tongue would get be beaten only worse. At least as a mute they had some sympathy for having some physiological disorder but now…now I was hurt for talking rather than not talking at all. I couldn't win…but I wasn't going to give up. If I gave up I would just get hurt worse…and now I was learning about how to secretly get an upper hand.

"And just so you don't go and break anything else…" he took the roll and started wrapping my wrists together. I winced whenever his hand brushed against my injured one. Great…what am I going to do now?

By now my mother sat down on the couch next to us, observing us. I looked over at her and saw in her eyes…admiration. What the heck? Was it because she didn't know how to stand up to dad, herself? Useless woman…and yet I secretly had gratitude for the unspoken support.

"Great, we never even have enough money to get us some real furniture and now most of it's broken?" dad shot me a very frustrated glare. "We can't even afford decent toys for the kid, he just gets that sick, goofy grin whenever he sees a broken toy…I doubt he's even smart enough to realize that he's playing with the leftovers after privileged kids were done beating it up with their filthy, snot-covered hands." He sighed then grumbled, "Retarted mute…" then he decided that he was done with picking on me and decided to move his frustrations toward his wife, facing her "It's all because of that woman—"

My mother's face turned red, "You will that refer to her as that woman!" I flinched at the sudden strength in my mother's voice. "That woman was the one who helped while I was…expecting…she's the one who gave us hope after what happened to Elisa…that woman is my closest friend!"

"Oh yeah? Well, that was just her job. She was the school consular, it was her job to hold the hand of crazed, prego teenagers and promise that everything was going to be ok! And it turns out…she was lying. Things went bad, quickly…" he made a short, almost wistful glance toward me before returning to my mother in a somber tone, "You know…the kid's right. The doctors are pretty stupid if that can't fix…one kid…"

The color drained from her face, "Robert, there was close to nothing they could do. Elisa came five months too early. No child had survived at that age anywhere else in the world."

Father all of a sudden seemed strained, he sat on the couch on the other side of the room, "We gave them everything we had, we threw away our college education. We did all this and asked them only to do one thing…save our daughter. They didn't hold to their end of the deal and now we're here living in a former crack house and having to work three jobs each just to get by. And all she did was sit there, behind her desk, and promise that everything was going to be ok. Well she was wrong!"

"No! She wasn't! She's going to help us! And it's not because it's her job to, it's because she's our friend! She's going to finish the program and everything will truly be ok! We'll share the profits with her and we'll have our hands on…the perfect child…" her voice changed at the last part, it had become far off yet powerful, like the soft rumble of a distant waterfall. I perked up at the mention of a program. Granted, I still didn't know what the word meant but I knew that it was very important…I knew it had to do with money.

My father looked up to sneer at me, "Why was the project to program the perfect child named after him? He's far from perfect. He just causes trouble. I could see why she'd try to get rid of this imp if she has the skills to program a perfect A.I. What's with her for dumping her kid on us because of a tight budget? Does she think our money problems are any less?"

I probably should've gotten angry at him for saying that my mother didn't want me but I was focusing too much on trying to analyze the conversation. Threw away college education? Share the profits? Tight budgets? Money problems? It all had to do with money! The one thing my parents were always talking about not having enough of. All these bad things happened because we didn't have a lot of money. "One day, once I'm finished with this program, we're going to be able to move into a big house together, just you and me!" My real mom never mentioned money but now I understood that's why she worked on her laptop all the time. That's why she spent almost all her time working on the perfect child. The perfect child? My face turned red and I felt a sudden flash of jealousy. My mom had spent more time working on her 'program' then she had ever with me! She was more interest in this 'perfect child' than me, her own child. I looked down at the ground in shame. But why? Wasn't I good enough? Father was right, I was far from perfect, but even imperfect things deserve attention.

Then it clicked in my mind. The perfect child was the program and the program needed to be 'completed' for money. This 'perfect child' was going to make my mom lots of money…maybe she would even move into a big house with him. Yes, it was silly for me to feel replaced by a program, but I couldn't help it, I hardly understood anything. I searched my confused head for options. Maybe there was something I could do to become more perfect. Maybe there's a way I could make mom take me back. If mom needed a perfect child to get money for her then I'll be that perfect child, not some program! But the thing that I still needed to figure out was…how do you make money?

"When we knew her in high school she was already married and trying to start a family. She had two tube pregnancies and was told that she wouldn't ever be able to have a child. She was devastated and quit her job to start the project to program the personality of the perfect child. She once told me if she could've had a child she would have named it Riven. So it's not that the project was named after him…it's more so vice-versa." She seemed to drone on and on. I had trouble paying attention and I probably didn't know what they were talking about at that time.

"Wait, you said she wasn't able to have any children naturally…how did…" My dad seemed lost for words…it was a first.

"It seems sometimes miracles happen at the most strangest of times. She found out she was pregnant two weeks after her husband died in a car crash. She had quit her job to pursue Project Riven and lived off what her husband made but she only had so much money left. The job market wasn't the same and she couldn't get her job back, it had already been four years. So her only choice was to try to finish the program and make money off of it commercially. The project that she started eight years ago…apparently programming a person is no easy feat…"

"So it's because of this stupid project that we're stuck with the monster." Dad leaned further back in his couch, "But a program isn't the same as an actual child. Does she really think it would be the same even though her 'child' was put in a computer or robot?"

Mother looked down, "I guess…people just have different ways of dealing with grief…" she looked back up at father, "You take it out on Riven, don't you?"

Father immediately sat straight up, "What?"

Mother took her eyes away from him, she started looking at anything except his face, "I still remember my mother's words, 'It happened because she wasn't the only one who was much too early. Nothing good comes out of teen pregnancies, just bad reality shows, forced marriages, and broken dreams.' I always thought that the birth of a child was well worth it, whether they lived or not, or whatever family they were born into. But apparently I was wrong. Everyone started blaming us for it, even though it wasn't even their position to blame anyone. The doctors said it would not only be unsafe for future life but also myself if I tried to have another child. You weren't going to leave me, though. You took it just as hard as I did when Elisa died…maybe even harder. And yet this 30 year old woman with two previous tube pregnancies was able to have a perfectly healthy child…even when two perfectly healthy teenagers couldn't do it. And that's why you take it out on Riven."

I was confused because it was the longest time my mother had talked for in one sitting…and my father, for once, was speechless.

"Actually…" she turned her attention to me, "We probably shouldn't be saying all this with Riven right in front of us…"

You finally notice it NOW? I couldn't help but snicker, I couldn't do much else, he had duct taped my wrists together.

"Nah, it doesn't matter. He's asleep. He wouldn't have the attention span to listen to this conversation, anyways." He waved his hand dismissively.

"You know…the kid's dangerously smart…" mother pointed out.

"He's a moron that likes to break stuff…" father mumbled.

All of a sudden my mother got this cold smile that sent shivers up my spine, "You shouldn't underestimate your enemies, it can lead to your defeat. In the future I can't see anything that'll stop him from returning your favors, he'll come after you…"

He all of a sudden became defensive, "He's not my enemy!"

Mother yawned indifferently, "You sure treat him like one."

"I have no fear, he's just a—"

"Wow, I'm tired! I'm gonna hit the hay!" Mother got up, walking to her bedroom, thus ending one of the very few times she ever starting telling dad off. I almost had a completely different impression of her after that. But it didn't last because after that she was as quiet and passive as ever…and she let dad push her around, again.

That night I didn't sleep very well. I decided to sleep beneath the couch instead of on top of it because my hand hurt when I tried to climb onto the couch and I also wanted to avoid my father's wrath in the morning (he was not a morning person…actually, he's just not a whole life person…). So not only I saw sleeping with the dust bunnies, my mouth was also taped closed and I couldn't take it off because my wrists were also taped together, which caused even more pain to throb through my broken hand. And also…I had a nightmare. Sure, nightmares are supposed to be normal and it was supposed to scare little kids. But this was far different from anything I had ever dreamt. I could hardly remember my other dreams when I woke up but for some reason this one was different. It was so clear and realistic there was no way I could forget it…even if I wanted to forget it.

In my dream my parents were eating at the dinner table, nothing unusual. I was hungry, I wanted some food, too. I looked at my dad with hopeful eyes.

"If you want food, all you need to do is ask for it." He said with a nonchalant shrug.

I tried to open my mouth but then I realized there was duct tape on it. I tried to scream through it, so they could hear me, even if it was muffled.

My dad didn't even look at me again, he just muttered, "Retarded mute…"

I could feel tears forming in my eyes. I felt so defenseless, I didn't know if there was anything I could do to get an edge, to make him stop. I felt like the whole world hated me, I felt like the whole world wanted me to be miserable.

Before I knew it, my emotions had gotten too much, they were out of control, and I heard the windows in the house break. I looked around the living room…but everything I laid my eyes on broke. The arm chairs and couch fell off their legs or supporters and their cushions blew up, white material flew around like snow. I even felt my tape break and peel off of me.

"Why you!" I heard my father's chair and heard him walk up to me.

I closed my eyes, the tears that were forming rolled down my cheeks, "I didn't do anything! I swear! I didn't even touch anything!"

"Yeah, right," father mumbled in disbelief.

"Why do you always have to be a troublesome child?" my mom sounded more hurt and sad than angry.

"But I didn't do anything!" I looked up at my father, who had now grabbed a fistful of my hair. The most strangest thing happened then, the arm that father was grabbing me with suddenly made weird cracking noises, like when he stepped on my hand, and his arm started twisting in weird angles. He screamed and fell to the floor dark, sticky, red liquid oozing out from him. My mother made a noise so I instinctively looked at her. Her screams of horror turned into screams of utter pain as her body started making snaping noises and twisted in weird ways. She, too, fell to the ground, over her husband.

I quickly looked around the room for what must have caused this but as I glanced around the kitchen, appliances starting breaking left and right. Then I realized that it was me looking at these thing was the reason it broke. A moment of panic seized me. Was it really me who broke the windows? Could I break things with my emotions and gaze alone?

I glanced at the door, it crumbled into saw dust. I gingerly stepped outside. I stared into the skylight of downtown…and sure enough buildings soon started trampling over each other and windows broke, as if there was an earthquake. A small smile spread across my face. The world probably hated me…if that was really true, that's what I'm going to do to the world. I'll break anyone who opposes me.

I looked up at the bright, afternoon sky (at that moment I knew it was a dream because the sun's position said it was the middle of the day but my parents had been eating dinner). Instantly the sun extinguished, exposing the night sky. The sky seemed to shatter, like a broken mirror. Star starting falling toward me. I was all alone and soon the stars would come and burn me up…I felt a little happy. But there was an emptiness inside of me, where my stomach should've been. The falling stars were shining bright and were coming closer and closer but before they could burn we up the emptiness from my stomach expanded and swallowed me up.

The world disappeared into emptiness, nothingness, blackness…

But then a new image started fading in.

Flames and drab smoke rose up into the sky as it devoured the lush forest. Above circled three red and yellow dragons. They were looking for prey. They were all laughing obnoxiously, as if a burning forest was humorous. All of a sudden one of them babbled to the others in a different langue…that for some reason I understood.

"Oi, guys, I found a little one. She's all huddled up in terror!" the smallest one called out as he lowered his nose to dive toward the ground. The other two followed, laughing along the way, as if it was a sick game they were used to playing.

When they landed they changed forms. Their wings grew smaller and retracted. Their scales retreated, exposing tan or light skin. Turfs of fur sprung out at the tops of their heads and their snouts smashed into their faces and became deformed. In a blink of an they had passed for extremely handsome humans, all with cherry red hair and green or amber eyes.

"Whoa! This is a white one! I heard they're uber rare!" the medium-sized one with green eyes praised the smallest one.

The largest, muscular one, with amber eyes, crossed his slightly buffed arms in moderate approval, "It was easy enough for her to be spotted among all this green. I'm just surprised you didn't mistake her as a pile of snow…"

Looking at the curled up body at first glance…it did look like a pile of snow. But if you took a closer look at it you could see that she wasn't purely white. In her long, straight, glossy white hair were strange light pink streaks, which only made her hair more beautiful and hard to stop looking at. She didn't even acknowledge the new-comers. She thought that if she ignored them, they would ignore her.

"Ay, cutie, tell us your name, would ya?" the smallest one with lengthy, toned arms yelped at her, like a rude drunk.

Even though she was still curled up in a fetal position she peered out with her bright red eyes and steadily met their eyes, "…why did you burn the forest?"

The three of them laughed and the medium one spoke up, "We wanted to see what cooked human tests like but Saber over here," he stuck his thumb up at the smallest one, "Well, he's no chef. He over-cooked them!" after the statement the medium dragonoid burst out laughing.

Saber looked as if he was blushing, "It's not my fault, my little body has a lot of flame. Anyways, we're done with the humans and their burnt down village. We're ready for some new meat. And you're a perfect candidate!" he started muttering to his friends, "I heard that they're even tastier because they're so rare! Her being so cute is just a bonus!" slowly the medium and small dragonoids started creeping closer to the white bakugan, fangs now prodding out through there evil smiles, and eyes turning blood red.

She continued to stare steadily at them. She just wanted them to go away, she didn't want to cause a scene or fight. And she didn't want them to get hurt. That's right, she was worried about their safety.

The large one all of a sudden stopped the other two by holding out his arm in front of them.

"What the hell?" the other two grumbled at him.

"Take a whiff at her, she's a dragonoid." The large one warned.

Saber, the small one, had immediately stopped and sheathed his sharp canines, his eyes returning to his natural amber. But the medium one didn't get the warning.

"So?" he angrily questioned.

"Baka!" Saber slugged the medium one on his head, "The white dragonoids are cursed! Everyone knows that! It's a curse that is passed down to their children through the blood! What if it can be passed down by the consumption of her blood?"

The medium one sheathed his fangs and his eyes turned back to green, "R-really?"

The large one sniffed the air and became rigid, "Hey guys, we should get out of here while we can—"

Suddenly a small, white, dragonoid flew in and…swallowed the large red haired man whole. He landed in front of the other two and transformed into a small boy with pure white hair, very pale skin, and cool red eyes, narrowed toward the dragonoids. "Lay a hand on my sister and you will join your friend!"

The medium one held up his hands in a defensive stance, "C-chill out, dude! We were about to leave!"

The small boy's eyes narrowed further, "I'm afraid that I have already deemed your lives worthless…"

In a blink of an eye Saber's friend was on the ground face-first, dark red liquid seeping from him.

The once pure white boy was now covered in blood, he held his arms out, obviously intending to protect his sister, "Fortunately for you, I've decided to spare you. Go and tell your friends that it's unacceptable for bakugan to eat each other! That's what the humans are for!"

The girl white bakugan threw a weird look at his back that said, 'Then why did you eat another bakugan yourself?'

After Saber transformed and flew off the small boy turned to his female counterpart, "Wyvern!" he barked out.

Wyvern stood up and regarded the pale boy with an annoyed glare, "What?"

The boy was angered by her casual reaction, as if nothing had happened, "What do you mean by 'what'? You could've gotten eaten!" he flailed his arms childishly to emphasize his point.

"But they weren't going to…they thought if they ate me they would become cursed…" Wyvern said, confused. She couldn't help but hear his voice inside her head, 'The white dragonoids are cursed! Everyone knows that!' "Brother…what did they mean by curse?"

Her brother looked troubled, Wyvern could tell he knew the answer…but wasn't going to tell her, "It's better if you don't know now." He held her hand, "Come on, Monix wanted to see us."

"Father? What is he up to?" Wyvern asked in surprise as her brother transformed half-way, so only his wings appeared.

"I don't know…but I think it has something to do with the humans." And with that they both fully transformed and flew off.

Suddenly other images of different bakugan chasing and burning and eating humans. They were all beasts, not even caring how the humans reacted to them. Women cried for their children, only to catch the attention of other hungry monsters. Lost children cried out for their parents, whether they were eaten or just separated in the chaos of the disaster. The last image I saw was a woman with a swollen belly being stampeded by a large group of people running away from a giant, black centipede…darkus centipoid.