Chapter One
Dorian typed on his laptop quietly, his fingers flying over the keyboard fluidly. Anyone else would have shrugged at the scene, but only a handful of people would have known that something was wrong. Dorian's eyes were too blank... too lifeless. The people who knew him understood what was happening to him. It happened after every killing mission. This was how he dealt with taking n number of lives.
He had seen a lot in his past time, way too much for a kid at the age of four to see. And as he had gotten older, the things he had seen and experienced had gotten worse, right up until he had joined this organization when he was eight. He knew that some where, some kid was going through what he had been through, and didn't want that to happen. Just because he had a very... unfortunate life didn't mean that others had to have it too.
Dorian decided that once he finished the report on the mission he would go and take a walk to see if any kids had been abandoned on the streets again. If there were any unfortunate enough to be on the streets after dark then something bad would happen to them. The darkness was a concealment for the nasty things. No doubt they would try to trap anyone who would be stupid enough to fall for their petty tricks and kids fell for them pretty easily.
He knew how devastating it was to be violated without consent. You fought and fought until you legs would give out, and others would be holding onto you while one was behind you, tainting you forever. If you were lucky enough you would be killed during it and if you were unfortunate you would be left out on the streets sobbing, knowing that no one would be coming out to help you because everyone else was chicken shit to even take one step out of their homes. That was just the kind of world they lived in.
Tenamu(1) was cheerful during the day and downright scary at night. Gangs and monsters roamed the streets and only the bravest, stupidest, or dared would venture out at night when the light had gone down. Of course, the night didn't scare everyone. There were people like him who knew how to protect themselves when needed and there were some people who had protectors so they didn't have to fear anything.
He closed his laptop with a snap and got up from his chair, sliding it under the desk so it wouldn't get in the way later. He knew that when Adriel came barreling down the stairs in their safe house he would trip over the darn thing again and break it, which would result in having to use money to make up for it. Though their safe houses weren't the cleanest or nicest, they were pretty decent and Dorian didn't want to have to pay back the Mentors(2).
Dorian walked over to a big chair that held the jackets, shrugging into his denim gray hoodie. He would use this to cover his head, since white hair and blue eyes were stuff from the nightmares of monsters. He didn't want them coming in a crazy mob just because someone found out that he was a Destroyer(3). Though he was satisfied with his impressions on the vile ones, he knew that the monsters would come after them and didn't want to hurt the innocent ones that had to hunt to live.
Passing the living room, Dorian saw Kai watching TV on the couch upside down with his feet dangling in the air. He hoped that the show he was watching would keep his attention on the thing long enough to get out of the safe house. The quicker he was out on the streets the quicker he could make his rounds. For all he knew some kid was suffering right now and he couldn't do anything about it. But, if he made it out now then maybe, just maybe, he could save that life, even if he was too late for anything else.
He got out of the asylum quicker, closing the door silently before disappearing out the window from the hall.
~~
Adriel made his way down the stairs, yawning discreetly. He knew that Dorian was here somewhere. The computer? Probably. He would have to go check it out once he got once the stairs.
Fixing himself with an enthusiastic grin, he bounded down the remainder of the stairs and froze as he realized that the computer was empty. For all he knew Dorian could have gone on a mission by himself but he would've told somebody... Wouldn't he? Adriel shook off the bad feeling and looked around curiously. He heard low sounds from the living room and knew that Kai was watching that stupid show, since it was Faithday(4).
He ambled into the living room, confirming that he hadn't made a peep. After all, one power of his was shadowing, so it wasn't at all hard to hide in plain sight. He snuck up to Kai, cupped his hands close to his teammate's left ear and yelled, "KAI MAAAAAAN!" He jumped back, watching with amusement as Kai's lower body rolled over his upper half, as he was sitting upside down on the couch. Adriel laughed as he listened to Kai curse, or at least something that resembled cursing. Kai never really cursed; he thought it was crude and embarrassing.
Kai shot a glare to the laughing, twitching shadow on the floor. "Adriel," he growled menacingly. However, he couldn't keep his lips from curling upwards as he listened to the chiming laughter. Even when Adriel managed to piss you off, that outrage wouldn't last long. His merriment was almost infectious. The only person immune to it was Dorian, and Kai even caught Dorian smirking slightly when something was funny enough.
Slowly, Adriel let himself drift back into his human form, giggling so hard he was clutching his sides. His laugher subsided and he straightened slowly, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes. "Man, I so needed that. Never knew you could be that bendable," he said cheerfully.
“What’s all this noise for?” a new voice asked curiously. Cal walked in, his sharp and vivid emerald eyes taking in the scene of Kai on the ground and Adriel with humorous tears running down his face. His hair was in its usual ponytail, or something like that. The tips of his sunshine blonde hair were dusted with black, like a show of taintedness or something. Adriel pressed his lips together. He liked Cal fine, but he was such a show off and always wanted attention from Dorian. He was the only seventeen year old out of the whole eight people of the two teams.
Heh, poor SOB. Adriel would’ve felt sorry for him, but Adriel had long since decided that he didn’t like Cal. Served the bastard right.
***
Dorian walked down the streets, glaring under his hood at the monsters that were staring at him in amazement. Sick bastards were probably wondering what such a short, harmless looking person was doing out in the streets at this time of night.
He was well aware of the gang that was stalking him from the shadows and scowled. If they even dared with trying to do something to him, they were in a world full of pain.
There was a scream that came for the alleys and he ran towards its source. It was a scream he had heard one too many times. It was a scream of a frightened and hurt child, maybe even a teenager like himself. Sounds of cruel laughter sounded in his head from past memories and he once again swore to himself that he would try his best at saving others so they wouldn’t have to go through the hardships he had to go through every damn day.
Yet even as he ran, he knew he couldn’t use his full power at getting there because others were still watching and he had to have something in his advantage. As a rule for all Destroyers on his team, they were not allowed to use their power until fighting for real or they were alone with their team mates. It may not have made him feel weak to use his at the full extent, but for the others who were on his team, using up your true power was something you didn’t want to do outside of a red alert situation.
His feet skimmed the ground, and he was sure that no one, not even a monster, would hear him coming. Though he wasn’t the master at stealth like Adriel was, he came into a close second, and he knew that if he wanted to he could almost as easily disappear like Adriel could. All he had to do was use his real speed and no one would have a clue at to where he was.
“Please, no! NOOO!” The sounds of struggle were getting louder but Dorian forced himself to remain in the shadows to examine the best possible way to get the child out of the alley without making other monsters notice what was going on.
He watched as his icy rage boiled. It was a boy, probably only at the age of twelve, being held against a dirt-matted wall while the monsters held him up. One tried to bury his hand between the boy’s legs and he struck out, kicking the monster on the head hard. Dorian wanted to smirk at the sight. It was always a funny day when you witnessed a kid beating up a monster trying to rape said kid.
When all the monsters turned to watch as their supposed leader fell cursing, Dorian decided to make his move. No one saw the dark shape move from the shadows almost invincibly but they did notice when three of their members fell. Dorian dusted some imaginary dirt off of his jacket, careful to keep his hood from falling. One fatal mistake and a whole city of monsters would be after him, and he didn’t feel like picking up after himself today if that did happen.
“It’s not nice to try and rape a boy who was idiotic enough to come out here during the night time.” The words were spoken carefully. Of course, as always, he let a hint of his ever famous sensual ice to flow in with the words and watched with detached amusement as the monsters shivered with both fear and desire. Soon when he was though with them, they would desire him to kill them instead of what he had in mind for the bastards.
“H-Hey! Don’t call me stupid!” exclaimed the said boy as he glared at Dorian, eyes flashing.
“Who says you?” a very stupid looking monster asked him (ignoring the kid, I might add), probably trying to come off as teasing. Dorian would’ve shuddered if not for the fact that he had such good control of his emotions.
He slowly walked over to the boy, picking him up gently and setting him off to the side. He met surprisingly gold eyes with his blue, hoping to comfort the boy with eye contract. The boy sniffed indignantly but couldn’t help the small smile that curled on his lips.
Dorian stood back up once he knew that the boy was comfortable. After all, it would have been pointless if he had not taken care of the child first when he had come out for that sole purpose.
He smiled slightly as he stood and looked over at the monsters. Though he knew that they couldn’t see anything except his dark smile, he couldn’t help but glare at them. Monsters like them made him have to remember the past he wanted so badly to forget, but he knew that he wouldn’t have that peace until the day when all monsters, nice or not, were dead. And he knew that as long as one kid is out here suffering he would bare the pain from old memories to help the kids of the future.
“You’re all going to die.” He said silkily, making the monster shiver with both wanting and terror. One idiot stepped up to his challenge, meeting him head on with a smirk.
“Who says we are the ones to die? Maybe you’re the one whose going to be dead as soon as we finish you.”
The fake smile disappeared from Dorian’s lips, curling into a real smirk. “I’d like to see you try,” he said coldly and the temperature dropped to about forty degrees.
He could have laughed at the expressions on the monsters’ faces. They all looked at the idiot who stood in front of everyone with a look of ‘Nice going, you fucking turd. Now we’re all going to get shishkabobed’.
But now was not play time. Some of these monsters were actually probably going to be pretty hard to take down without using his powers; Dorian could just practically smell cunning coming off of at least two demons here and that wasn’t a good thing to admit.
Dorian soon decided that those same two were the leaders of the bunch of brutes that stood in his way of getting the child to safety.
But then something happened, and Dorian felt as if Mother Luck was smiling down on him for tonight, because the gang that had been stalking him interfered. And the two sides were now fighting for the “fresh meat”.
Dorian didn’t waste any time, gathering up the child and taking off using at least half of his real speed to get back to the safe house. The preteen clutched at him while he flew from roof top to roof top, and when Dorian looked down, he realized that the boy had on ragged clothes. His eyes slanted downward with a look that could have been called sad. The child was almost an exact replica of what he had been through during his childhood.
The boy had brown hair, dirty and messy from living out on the streets for some time, and striking wide gold eyes that held a childish innocence that reminded him of Adriel, though he didn’t know why.
“Dude, this is so cool!” the kid in his arms exclaimed, letting out ringing laughter that made Dorian almost smile. Soon, though, the kid got over the small excitement and looked over at Dorian. “What’s your name, Guy?”
Dorian, though he knew the kid wouldn’t be able to see him, raised an eyebrow at the nickname.
“…I’ll tell you later.” He said quietly to the kid, looking around to see if they were being followed or not. Even if his instincts told him no one was... well, you couldn’t be sure enough.
Soon he landed inside the apartment through the window he had left open. He was greeted by an angry crimson-haired youth who was impatiently tapping his foot. Adriel’s lips were tight, and he looked at Dorian through narrowed lavender eyes. But then Adriel seemed to see the boy in his arms and his expressions changed to that of shock and pleasant surprise.
“Hello!” he chirped at the kid, flashing his smile. He followed Dorian into the living room, where Dorian put the kid down on the couch. He ignored the pointed look from Kai, who was sitting on the floor with popcorn by his side.
Adriel sat next to the boy and offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Adriel. What’s your name?”
“Uhhhh…..” the boy said, staring at Adriel with a dazed expression on his face.
Meanwhile, in the other room Dorian was putting up his coat. The impulse to roll his eyes was almost unbearable; he knew the boy had to be flustered to be around Adriel, because… well, the youth was the most beautiful being on the planet.
Dorian walked to the kitchen to get hot water before walking back to the living room to hold out the steaming cup to the small child now sitting on the couch and listened to the information being given out. After all, if something that wasn't supposed to be said was told to the child, Dorian would have to step in and knock the kid out... even if he did't want to.
The child looked at him with those golden eyes and they widened even more. This made Dorian cock his head. Why was this kid looking at him like that?
“Are you the one who saved me?” the kid asked, unblinking eyes on him. Dorian raised an eyebrow before slowly nodding. He expected something to happen, but did not expect to get glomped by the look-like twelve-year-old.
“Heehee,” For some reason the kid was now giggling uncontrollably into his shirt.
“…”
“You’re pretty.” The boy stated into his shirt.
Dorian’s eyebrow twitched. Pretty?! What the hell, guys weren’t pretty! But his thoughts were interrupted when he heard a gagging sound. He looked over to see Adriel on the couch, head between his legs, and shaking harder than Dorian had ever seen his teammate shake. And Dorian could tell it was from laughter.
A vein by his left temple pounded. Grr.
=+=+=
(1) Tenamu is an alternate reality that I created, although I do admit that I could have done better ^_^;;;
(2) What he is referring to is the people who trained them. In aFlyer the top trainers are called Mentors. Which reminds me, did I ever explain aFlyer and their rival??
(3) Destroyers are the top assassin peoples for aFlyers. Team one and team two of this story are the top Destroyers, and since Dorian leads both teams, it's safe to say that he's the destructive force to recon with.
(4) There are nine days in a week in the world of Tenamu. The following list shows the correct week in order.
Ristday(1st), Cenday(2nd), Rithday(3rd), Tourday(4th), Faithday(5th), Styxday(6th), Ventsday(7th), Gitday(8th), Netnihday(9th)
Chapter Two
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