The following Characters are owned by Ken Penders(King Gong, Dark Legion, and Lien-Da(referenced)), Ian Flynn(Relic Pika, Jacques D'coolette, Belle D'coolette(Also Tracey Yardley for the siblings), Shinobi Clan), Michael Gallagher(Barby Koala) and Frank Storm(Monkey "Ken" Khan, Lau Khan, Li Yuen). Also I think the four clans are owned by all of these people one way or another. If I'm wrong on any of them, please correct me.

Chapter 3: An abrupt and eventful morning

Ken had done his best to keep quiet on the matter from yesterday, continuing his morning as usual: wake up, talk to his parents, pack his lunch and schoolbag, and leave for the bus stop. So far nothing was out of the ordinary and that proved to be a massive relief to the chimp. After yesterday's discovery, all Ken wanted from this day forward was to continue living life as normal. 'Well, as normal as a teenage cyborg being raised by two knothole freedom fighters can at least.', Ken thought.

Unfortunately, it appeared that wouldn't be the case as the bus doors opened for him to step on board, a large chameleon he had never seen before at the drivers seat. Though Ken decided to shrug this off. 'New bus driver. No big deal about that, right'? And yet something about it felt really off. Like all of his senses were going off, warning him that he was in imminent danger if he didn't watch himself. Regardless, Ken stepped into the bus, not paying any mind to the difference in bus driver. What he saw as he stepped onto the bus however, made him want to reconsider. In every couple rows now sat another chameleon, both genders and in ages between sixteen and forty. None of the other students seemed to be paying any mind though. Aside from Relic at least who appeared to be very unsettled and mouthed for Ken to run.

Ken didn't get the chance, however, as the bus doors closed and the vehicle began its route to the next house. Ken did his best to pretend not to mind as he walked further into the bus, the hairs on the back of his neck raising as he felt the eyes of all the chameleons on him and took a seat next to the currently shaking Pika.

"Please tell me you didn't tell anyone." Ken groaned quietly.

Relic shook her head. "No. But I think you're in trouble."

Ken frowned in confusion, leaning close to her and whispering: "Why do you say that? And whats with all the chameleons giving me looks like I ran over their puppies?"

Relic gulped. "I think they're part of the Shinobi Clan."

Ken blinked slowly. "Am I supposed to know what that is?"

Relic frowned at him without any sign of amusement. "Did you even read the file I gave you?!" She whispered in irritation.

"I'm not the best at memorizing stuff like this!", Ken retorted.

Relic groaned quietly into her hands. "The Shinobi Clan works under the Bride of Constant Vigil. And she works for the current king of the Dragon Kingdom"!

"Ah, so this is bad news then?" Ken asked nervously.

"You could not be in deeper crap right now, Ken D'coolette!" Relic almost shouted.

"Hey!" Ken whispered. "I thought the goal was to keep me alive, keep it down"! Ken immediately turned to the chameleons, all staring at him as he smiled and waved nervously, an action Relic very visibly approved of as she slapped her forehead.

"We're gonna die today.", Relic groaned.

Much to the pairs relief, however, the bus managed to run all of its stops and pull up to the school, all the students unloading without any of the chameleons haltering them. Both the chimp and the pika let out a sigh of relief as they both rose quietly from their seat, eager to follow the other students out. Unfortunately this would not be the case as the chameleon in the row in front of them would stand in front of the two, blocking the way out as the last of the students left. The pika froze, fearful that her suspicions from earlier were correct while Ken relied on his parents training and did his best to remain calm as he gave them the same nervous smile from before. Admittedly not as calm as he could've managed, but he was trying.

"I'm sorry, guys. I think there's been a mistake, this is our stop."

The chameleon responded by unsheathing a curved knife, a dead gaze pointed at the boy. Relic responded immediately by seating herself again and scooting away from her friend. Nothing that Ken could at all blame her for due to her size and limited experience fighting. Far as he knew, the most she had done was wrestle one of her older brothers into a headlock and neither of them thought that was gonna help here.

"Or we could talk. Whatever's cool with you guys." Ken added hastily in an effort to defuse the situation.

That effort would prove unsuccessful, however, as the bus doors closed and the bus sped out of the school parking lot with the other chameleons getting up out of their seats and standing eerily still. From what the monkey could tell, there were eight chameleons in total, not counting the one currently driving. Each one also appeared to be armed with a dagger similar to the one held by the chameleon in front of them, though carried a different variety of weapons as well. Based on their stances and expressions, each of them were well trained, potentially proving Relics theory from early of these chameleons being Shinobi, and none would be talked out of their current goal. Whatever that was.

"Look, whatever the problem is, I'm sure we can talk this out". Ken stated, trying his best to sound calm. "But first I'd like to know... what exactly is the problem?"

"King Gong demands your blood". One of the Shinobi responded.

"Like what, do you mean a donation?" Ken asked nervously. The monkey was met with silence, the situation finally dawning on him. "Oh."

The chameleon swung his blade immediately, intent on making a quick and clean cut for the monkey to bleed out. It was at this moment that Ken could truly be thankful for his training and augmentations as he was immediately hit with a wave of adrenaline, raising his left arm to block the swing by the forearm and delivering a right palm strike carrying enough force to knock the chameleon back into several of the others. Ken and Relic's expressions both turned surprised after the fact. Despite the relief, Ken had forgotten about his own superior strength, and Relic, having never known about it prior, was simply dumbfounded. As were the other chameleons given their pause in action. A pause that became temporary as two of them climbed on top of the seats on either side, dashing across each backing to ambush his with a wakizashi each.

Relic's attention was earned immediately by their action. "Ken, look out!"

Ken immediately turned his attention to his attackers, ducking back to avoid the swing from the chameleon on his left and knock them out swiftly with a strike to their head, then grabbing the arm still holding the weapon and using it to block the wakizashi strike before forcing both weapons down and knocking her out with a spinning kick. Ken immediately spotted the other six chameleons charging, knocking the first two over with a single spinning back kick to the chest of the one at the front. To the next chameleon, wielding a bo-staff, Khan would block a swing with a fist, lightly cracking the staff, before delivering a C-punch, both knocking out the chameleon and knocking him back with enough force to distract the other three behind him a moment while he grabbed the bo-staff and spun it swiftly at the two who had begun to get back up behind him, knocking them out immediately with a swift hit to the forehead each.

As the remaining four quickened to their feet, one would charge towards the monkey with a pair of tekko-kagis, swinging rapidly and managing to get in a scratch across Ken's chest and hoodie. Ken was momentarily stunned, but didn't allow the moment to last as he ducked and struck both knees harshly with a poking movement from the staff. This earned a pained reaction, the chameleon nearly lowering to his knees and into another strike from the bo-staff, knocking him into the roof of the bus and unconscious. One of the remaining three rolled under the falling body while the other two did their best to climb over the seats towards him. Still maintaining his quick demeanor, Ken ducked back from an attempted uppercut by the chameleon in the middle before swinging his bo-staff down at his head with enough force to send him into the left seat while the left chameleon was on it, breaking it and causing him to stumble.

The right chameleon however managed to jump on and grab the young monkey, kneeing him in the face and flipping him over his shoulder towards the floor in an attempt to disable him. In mid-toss, Ken managed to grab the chameleon by the back of the neck and toss him violently towards the windshield, cracking it as he collided with it before collapsing unconscious next to the driver. Ken remembered the other chameleon behind him, turning and spotting him charging with the dagger from earlier before delivering a kick strong enough to send him flying back into the back exit, knocking it off of its hinges and both onto the road behind them. Ken blinked in surprise, having only intended to knock him out with an impact to the door.

Now with a moment to relax, the panting monkey turned back to the still seated, wide eyed and jaw-dropped pika. "Are you okay?"

"What exactly do your parents teach you back home?!" Relic remarked.

A question Ken unfortunately wouldn't be able to answer as the driver made a hard brake in an attempt to knock him out of the bus and face-first onto the road. The attempt failed, however, as Ken gripped the side of the back exit moments before he could be lost to the concrete waiting to potentially end his life outside. Ken gripped with enough force to dent the metal as the chameleon made more attempts to throw him off, swerving side to side to no avail as Ken made slow progress to slightly pull himself inside, eventually managing to get an arm in and pull himself inside. A bit too easy it seemed as the bus was now speeding ahead at a faster rate. A motion that confused Ken as the bus had already been speeding up to quite a degree and braking again had potential to knock him outside again if the chameleon wanted.

"KEN!" Relic then shouted, earning his attention as she pointed ahead.

Ken sat up and gazed outside quickly, noticing a gas station get closer and closer much to his horror. Leaving no time to allow the about to be fate to become theirs, Ken quickly grabbed Relic by the arm, earning a squeak as he held her close and jumped out of the back of the bus. Ken made sure to curl himself around his friend as he rolled harshly onto the road, a row of cars and trucks braking hard before they could hit the two. Meanwhile, the bus collided with the gas tanks up ahead, the result being a massive explosion that blew the two back slightly and shook the ground. People were quick to run away while Ken remained still and curled around his friend, wanting to be absolutely sure any potential danger was over before uncurling and risking her getting hurt.

A couple moments later, Relic tapped on Ken's chest, the monkey unwrapping himself from around the shaking pika who immediately began looking around frantically for any approaching sign of danger.

Ken made an attempt at a smile and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. Calm down."

Relic practically jumped to her feet, still shaking as she glared down at her surprised friend. "WE almost died, dude! Don't tell me to calm down!"

Ken widened his eyes and held up both hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. You're right. I'm sorry. We can take a minute."

Relic seemed to settle down after that. At least a little as she took deep breaths and allowed her shaking to subside as ambulances could be heard in the distance. As the pika spent time calming herself, she thought back to the fight, not only recalling the level of expertise at which her friend fought off the chameleons but also the amount of strength he had displayed. Considering Ken had been able to use said strength rather efficiently, a case of hysterical strength was definitely out of the question. There was something more there. There had to be. But considering there may be more chameleons out there ready to hunt at a moments notice, the pika figured it would only be best to get out of here before they had a chance to catch up.

Relic sighed and glared slightly at Khan. "Take me to my mansion. We're going to hide there, and you're explaining everything you just did back there. And I do mean everything or I'm not gonna be tutoring you for the rest of the year. Got it!?"

Though tutoring was definitely the least of the monkey's concerns at the moment, Ken understood his friend was still stressed out from the near attempt at both of their lives. Not to mention it was very likely that she had caught on to the fact that Ken was a bit out of the ordinary. He didn't exactly have much of a choice in using his strength back there, but he had made the unfortunate choice of not telling her about it. To make matters worse, there was now even less guarantee that she would keep quiet withe the combined stress and the fact that he had practically lied to her. But he sighed, deciding it'd be best to deal with this situation now rather than later before nodding.

"Yes, ma'am."

Gong watched the news report from his throne regarding the incident. A bus crash into a gas station, multiple corpses both inside and on the way with a visible altercation. As a majority of the bodies were burnt to a crisp, there wasn't too big of a chance he would get discovered. Apparently there was another body somewhere on the road, but he wouldn't fret about that too much. He could always send someone else in to dispose of the body and the doctors performing an autopsy before they could inform the king of anything. Unfortunately, for the Shinobi to have taken that route when they were simply supposed to slay the boy and return to the Dragon Kingdom, not to mention the other bodies... it meant the boy put up a fight. A particularly good one at that.

Of course there was a matter of his cyber enhancements, but that alone wouldn't have lasted long against a squad of Shinobi. The boy had had training. Extensive training. As to where from? That was an answer Gong had no way of knowing as there were surely multiple dojos all across the country. The boy could have picked up the skills to fight back anywhere. As a growl erupted from the gorillas mouth, one fact became clear to him: He was now too dangerous to leave alive. And when next he sent an attack, it would need to be one that would only guarantee death.

Ken sat nervously on a small green loveseat in a large living room, other chairs organized around it with a large opening to his lefty that led into the kitchen. A place the monkey was currently tempted to run to. Both for the ridiculously overpriced food, slightly exhausted from the fights from earlier, and he said fights counting the thankfully quiet scolding the Pika had given him all the way here... oh yeah and to avoid the pika for a little longer. Relic definitely hadn't been kidding about this place being a mansion. According to her, it had been a colonial home bought shortly after her parents married and then renovated. Which considering the size of this place seemed like an understatement. Next wonder in Ken's mind was: 'How in Dark Gaia does this pika manage not to pass out running around and fighting her brother in this place? What kind of shape was she in exactly?' Ken wanted to facepalm immediately after that. 'Did I really just think that'?

Relic, meanwhile, looked at him from a smaller chair just a couple feet in front of him, her gaze unamused and strict with her arms crossed and a leg propped up on her knee, which despite the fact that Ken had just taken out a team of ninja chameleons was somehow more terrifying.

Ken looked to the side, tapping a finger on the armrest rapidly to fill the awkward silence. "So, where should I start exactly?" Ken asked, giving a nervous smile. "This is kind of a first for me".

Relic looked up with a finger tapping her chin and a thoughtful look, a clear attempt at sarcasm. "Gee, I don't know? How about..." Her expression turned angry. "The fact that you can perform near perfect Kung Fu with the strength of Amy frickin Rose! What's that about?!"

Ken had a frown, a poor attempt at looking brave for a moment as he responded: "First off, pretty sure Knuckles is like way stronger".

Relic's face remained the same with the exception of a raised eyebrow as if to ask: 'Do I look like I care?'

Ken dropped the attempted bravery and replaced it with a more genuine frown. "As for my super strength, I know about as much as you do right now. I was dropped off at mom and dad's doorstep as an infant and they figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't an ordinary child."

Relic kept her expression but dropped the eyebrow. "Elaborate."

"Well for starters, the obvious super strength." Ken explained. "I broke through planks of wood a bit too easily so the moment they both knew I could comprehend southern and broken English, they put me through exercises to help me control my strength so that I could blend in and have a normal life if I wanted."

"And back there earlier with the Shinobi, that was you holding back?"

Ken looked to the side in thought before giving her a slight shrug. "I mean in my defense, they were trying to kill me".

Relic rolled her eyes but nodded in agreement.

"There's also this weird thing that my upper body does where flaps open in the slits of my ribcage and exhaust steam when I get flustered. Or embarrassed. Or really really ticked off."

Relic tilted her head. "Is that why you looked really bloated when there was an AFFAB(All Freedom Fighters Are Bad) rally outside the school that one day?"

"My mom is among those freedom fighters and a majority of those kids parents were criminals they put away so yeah." Ken answered. Ken blinked a moment. "Wait, you noticed that"?

Relic's expression went flat. "You looked one bad day away from Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor. Half the school noticed."

Ken scoffed and crossed his arms defensively. "Please. It wasn't that bad."

"The protestors literally called you balloon boy!"

Ken waved his hands but kept a defensive expression. "Whatever. Point is I have these augmentations and no idea where they came from. The only reason I didn't tell you is I thought you would've told everyone."

Relic blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

Yeah, she admitted she could be a real blabber mouth. About history. Sharing personal secrets definitely wasn't her thing. Something she thought the monkey would've known after agreeing to keep quiet about Ken secretly being the prince of one of the richest nations in the world. Right now she had half a mind to call him a poop slinging affe-hole.

Ken visibly tensed and scooted back into his seat a little. "To be fair you talk a lot about history." He pointed at her with a sideways glance. "Especially the uncomfortable bits."

Relic started to turn red. "About mythological figures and people who have been dead for centuries! Not best friends"!

Ken raised both hands and gazed apologetically at the gasket-blowing Pika. "Alright, you're right! I'm sorry." He looked down and rubbed his arm. "I'm sorry. I should've known better than to think that. You've been a lot better to me that our other classmates and I should've been more trusting." Ken looked back over at her with an attempt at a smile. "But to be fair, you also never asked."

Relic raised an eyebrow. "And "Hey, are you secretly a cyborg?" is a normal topic of conversation"?

Ken's expression flattened a little bit. "I'm trying to ease the conversation with a joke."

"I know. It was a stupid joke."

Ken slumped with a flat expression. "Okay, but seriously. I'm sorry. I'll trust you with stuff like this from now on".

Relic looked him over, analyzing for any sign that he might have been lying. He was maintaining eye contact and his hands remained separated. Plus his body seemed to be at ease in general so there didn't seem to be any signs of a lie. But considering he had already lied once, Relic couldn't guarantee that this was enough for her to trust him. At least not completely. Relic hopped down from her chair, slowly approaching the monkey which did seem to put him a little on edge. Relic smirked a little at this, happy to know she at least had his attention.

She stretched out her hand to him. "Promise?"

Ken's body slumped in relief, the young monkey bearing a smile as he shook her hand. "I promise."

Relic smiled, satisfied for now. "Good." Her expression turned uneasy after the handshake. "As for the ninja situation, I think the next logical step would be to call Sonic".

Ken's expression immediately became alarmed. "Wait, what?!"

Relic approached the phone as Ken got up and followed behind her. "He's the Hero of Mobius. He handles things like this all the time. Whats the big deal?"

Relic picked up the house phone, only for Ken to quickly take it away and raise it slightly above her. "The big deal is he knows mom and dad! And I still very much don't want them knowing about me being a prince!"

Relic's expression went flat as she gazed at the phone held above her, the monkey being twice her height, before gazing back at him with the same expression. "You realize that's really mean, right?"

Ken sighed. "Point is: If someone as big as Sonic gets involved, so will the other freedom fighters. Then I have to tell mom and dad I might have to leave them in two years and I'm not ready for that discussion." Ken's gaze lowered to the floor. "I'm not ready to leave them, okay?"

Relic's expression softened more as she saw Ken's sad gaze. Though their lives might literally depend on getting all the help they could afford right now, Relic would be lying if she said she didn't understand where her friend was coming from. With her parents being busy all the time, despite the fact that they made an effort to be there for her, all she wanted in life was for them to be more involved. In a literal sense anyway. She had their numbers and could always call or text for any occasion. Still, it wasn't an experience she wished on anyone else: Being separated from a family where much love was still mutual.

Finally, Relic gazed sympathetically at the monkey and nodded. "What do we do then? We definitely can't wait around for their next attack."

Ken looked over at the pika nervously. "I was thinking we find Gong. Let him know the throne is his and I want nothing to do with it. Maybe then he'll leave us alone."

"Kinda doubtful.", Relic responded. "From what I hear, peaceful solutions aren't exactly in the guys vocabulary."

"Well it's all I've got at the moment.", Ken responded. "And best case scenario, I get off with being grounded for a couple moments for disappearing. I'll tell them I took their advice about finding more friends the wrong way and got mixed up in stuff. It's not perfect, but it's the best one that works out with us both continuing life as normal."

Relic looked thoughtful for a moment before looking back up at him and nodding. "Alright. We'll leave first thing in the morning."

Ken was taken aback as he looked over at the tiny Pika. "What? No, that's out of the question."

"Sure, okay." Relic replied. She then smirked as she added: "If you're okay with me being in this big house all alone and unprotected when they inevitably look for me too."

Ken opened his mouth to argue, only to find nothing as the pika kept her smirk. Much as he hated to admit it, she was technically right. All the chameleons that had attacked before had seen her with him, and even if they had all been killed earlier, there was still risk that the camera in the bus survived. Or worse, Gong had access to the cameras in the school too. Just by association, Relic was already in a lot of danger. Putting her under anyone else's protection definitely wasn't an option either as that would also run a risk of his mom and dad finding out about all of this. Ken facepalmed, followed by a groan of defeat.

Affe means monkey in German. Just so the joke makes sense for anyone who doesn't understand German. XD Is everyone enjoying the story so far? Please let me know in the form of a review or DM for any questions you might have and may The Lord Jesus Christ bless, protect, and watch over you all with happiness, good tidings, good health, and that you would all come to know and love Him as your Lord and Savior if you haven't already. In Jesus name, amen. ^^