Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

The Wombat (jjfanrb and Wingshadow)

W

Wingshadow

Guest
April's body froze as she slowly turned to her left. Her fist was clearly implanted into the side of the school, the cracks from the impact spread out in a radial fashion and crept outward forming a distinct mark from where her hand pressed into the bricks. Her eyes were wide and her left leg slightly fidgeted as she struggled to collect her thoughts. It had been an automatic reaction, a combination of her own long hours of training and the instinctive desire for self-preservation in the face of danger... Yet that wasn't something that could explain how she could shatter bricks with her bare knuckles and suffer little to no adverse side effects afterward.

What would his young man do with this knowledge? Would he spread it across the campus and gather all the thugs and foul-spirited persons from the neighborhood and pit themselves against her? Would they threaten her with knives, pistols, torches and pitchforks? She did not fear that they would actually harm her, as none of those things posed much of a threat to her own existence, rather she was afraid that she would not be able to hold herself back, just as she had not been able to just a few moments ago when she pulverized the wall. They would doubtless meet a painful and sudden end at her own hands, which would make her father proud but would make her feel awful.

She blinked and pulled her hand from the side of the wall, small pieces of brick crumbling and falling from the impact point. She began to wonder what had lead up to his her undoing, and what she might have done to prevent it...

--------

(a bit earlier)

--------

Alice waved to her classmates as they parted ways after the last class for the day, her hand feeling somewhat heavy as it brushed against the air. She watched them gather in small groups and begin to chat together, deciding where to go to hang out or shop, or perhaps even see a movie over the weekend. They were not particularly unusual things for girls her age to be interested in, but they were joys that she envied. She had to hurry home every day to undergo another strenuous training exercise with her father and his underlings.

Yes, her father was a gang lord who secretly ruled this entire area with an iron fist. On the surface, however, things seemed perfectly normal as most of his influence was spent controlling the operations of rival gang lords rather than spreading his influence elsewhere. To this end, however, he was training his only daughter to take his place on the front lines and lead the charge... As soon as she finished high-school, that is. Even her father saw the value in education. It made counting and managing funds so much easier, and made your uneducated underlings respect you ever so much more.

She let out a sigh as she turned the corner of the school toward the back fence, the direction where her large and prestigious house was, but as she walked a baseball flew toward her from the sports field, flying over the fence and the hedge which concealed her from the view of the players, and went straight toward her face. Alice glanced up and to her right and grasped the ball, palming it into her right hand and trusting it toward the school wall with force. The ball spun for a few seconds, grinding into the brickwork then fell from her hand. She let out another sigh and looked around to see if anyone had seen what she had just done. To her horror there stood a young man, around her age, with an astounded look on his face. She had not seen this boy before, most likely a recent transfer student, but even so she had NO idea what she should do....

-----

So, she decided to run, heading off for the front gate as fast as her legs could carry her.
 
Troy was dumbfounded. He had never seen anyone with such strength. Such power. No. It was impossible! How could a girl almost half his size do that?

It was a little bit scary, seeing how he had just moved to this town from Miami. He quickly walked out of the gate she had just exited. He saw her get into a small Chevy cobalt and drive away.

"Wow. What a great start." He said under his breath. He needed to get home to get his homework done, or his father would be furious. So he got into his own car and sped off towards his house, still wondering what had happened.
 
"Good afternoon, Mistress Alice," the guards posted at the front gate saluted the small girl as she stepped out of the Chevy Cobalt and between the row of her underlings which lined the path leading to the house. She sighed, her face still red with embarrassment as she walked toward her father who stood proudly at the door, arms crossed in front of his wide chest.

"Good afternoon, fellows," she replied weakly, not raising her eyes to look any of them in the eyes.

"How was your day?" her father asked in a gruff yet affectionate voice.

"I got an A in my science and english exams," she held up the graded papers for her father to see, "I did fine in PE, I suppose."

"That's my girl," the large man patted his daughter on the shoulder a bit roughly before taking her inside, "Hey, one of you bums warm some dinner for us."

"Yes, Sir!" the row of underlings saluted and scrambled to begin cooking something.

----

The next day Alice didn't seem to be in any better of a mood than before as her driver dropped her off at school. She had not heard of any death threats directed at her person yet, so she knew she still had some time to enjoy a relatively normal school life... For now at least. As she looked up she saw the same boy as from the day before, walking onto the school grounds alongside herself.
 
Troy had been up all night thinking about what had happened the day before. But as Mich as he tried he couldn't think of a single logical explanation to the incidence. He had considered telling the authorities but he decided that he would sound insane. So he decided to do the one thing that seemed to him the craziest.

He was going to have a talk with her.

Walking onto the schoolgrounds he quickly found her and approached her.
"Its Alice right? Hi I'm Troy. I just moved here from Florida. "
 
"Um, good morning," Alice managed to break a slight smile, although it was clear that she was nervous, "Yes, Alice is my name... Nice to meet you, Troy."

She waved away the driver who was stepping out of the car in a fairly aggressive manner, possibly considering taking Troy down for making his master's daughter nervous. If she had not, he probably would have had to take down the full-sized man by himself in front of the entire student body. Alice sighed, her father's underlings where often too cautious for their own good when it came to normal people in normal settings.

"Do you think we could find a less... conspicuous place to talk?" Alice asked, twirling her finger in her hair as she motioned toward several students who had taken notice that Alice was actually talking with a boy which was a rare occurrence if her own father was excluded from the head count.
 
"Ya sure." He said and led her to a bench on the very edge of the front lawn. He noticed that she was rich. But this didn't seen to scare him. The guards were no biggie either. He could probibly take on five armed goons with his bare hands.

She stood there looking at him, she was studying him, he realized. He studied her for a minute as well, he saw that in her school uniform she was. kind of dashing in a way. Her green eyes were beautiful as well. She was slim, but had curves in all the right places.
"Umm. I just wanted to tell you that on not going to tell anyone about what happened yesterday.
 
"Y-you're not?" Alice blinked, turning her head to face him as her legs swung while she sat, "That's a relief... I was worried that you might, given how strange it was."

Her eyes dropped down to her lap as she sat, still nervous but not because she doubted his word. It was because he was looking at her so intently, so directly that she felt that he had something more to say.

"Um, you aren't going to blackmail me or anything, will you?" she ventured to ask.
 
"No! God no! I was kind of hoping you would explain. I mean if you want to....."
he looked at her with pleading eyes. School was about to begin so he hoped that she would not need further urging.

She looked as if she was about to say something, but he heard a yell from behind him.
"Hey! What do you think your doing?" It was a big kid in a lettermans jacket. He was followed by three other boys that almost looked like his clones.

"Huh?" Was all Troy could get out before getting socked in the face. He saw stars for a moment, but quickly gathered himself to prepare for the next blow. The next one came low targeting his gut, but Troy blocked it and smashed the nearest boy in the face with his elbow. Troy was kicked in the shin, then kneed in the gut. He fell to the found and tried his best to avoid the rain of blows.
 
"Um, well..." Alice was going to explain briefly that it was part of her family's traditional upbringing standards and leave it at that, but before she had the chance to actually say anything a group of four boys, one thug and his three cronies, started to gang up on Troy and attempt to beat him senseless.

She had seen the aftermath of gang fights before and been startled at the brutality that both sides inflicted on the other, but it was something else entirely to see someone beaten down right in front of herself. Her initial reaction was to run, as she often did, and simply forget about it... Yet, this time it was different. It was her fault (at least to her own point of view) that he had become involved in this fight so it was her responsibility to resolve it as quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible.

Alice took a deep breath and slid her left foot away from her right, widening her stance as she placed her right hand, open palmed, at her hip. She then looked toward the largest of the four, the one she believed to be the ringleader, and took a single step toward him, thrusting her right hand palm toward him as her body shifted and threw the force of her weight into the blow. It was her intention to merely knock him away from Troy and startle him enough to call off his cronies and give her an opportunity to take Troy and make a break for it, but she might have bit more force into it than she had anticipated.
 
Battered and bruised Troy slowly stood and prepared to fight all that were left. Nut none stood. He looked around to the lawn to see that almost all the kids were inside.
"Thanks." Troy said as he wiped some bood off his face with a sleeve "seems they didn't like me talking to
you "
 
"I'm so sorry about that," Alice bowed toward Troy apologetically, "That's... One of the reasons why I typically don't talk to boys around my age. It seems I have some... Unusual admirers?"

She smiled a bit awkwardly, hoping he would understand without having to explain everything to him in plainer terms.
 
"Well you can tell me more about that later. Lets get to class" troy said and made his way across the lawn. He hoped this was going to let up soon. He didn't know the rules around here as most did. His dad always told him to lay low. But he was tired of that he was tired of people deciding others places in this world.
 
"Alright," Alice sighed and rushed off toward her classroom, wondering if she was going to be late anyway but trying her best not to delay any further. Thankfully, by the time she got there the professor had not shown up yet so she was in the clear. Even so, some of her classmates began to exchange confused glances since Alice was rarely not early to class. In fact, she was more often absent from class due to illness than slipping in at the last minute. She tried not to make much of a fuss, but as many people had started taking tabs on her for whatever reason, this was not going to blow over smoothly.

Alice felt exhausted by the end of class, waving off the vibes sent toward herself throughout the entire lesson. She was normally quite studious, but given the situation she hardly took any notes. Without loitering around for her friends to interrogate her, she slipped out and wandered out into the hallway.
 
Troy was sick of learning about physics. What he had seen Alice do, proved all of it wrong. After class was over he spotted Alice standing at her locker.
"Hi Alice, I'm sick of this place. Do you wanna go for a ride and talk? "
 
"A ride?" Alice blinked, "Are you saying that you have a car?"

She had been driven by her driver everywhere she wished to go, but the prospect of being driven by one of her own classmates was something entirely different (in her own mind at least).

"W-what is there to talk about, really? I mean, I'm nothing particularly special," she smiled, but it was not very convincing since she had pulled off some moves in her life that few others in the world could possibly even consider doing, "Why don't you take your girlfriend out for a spin instead?"
 
"I don't have a girlfriend. I would like to learn about you and your, um, special ability. A
nd I want to tell you about myself a bit. Somethings not quite right here. I feel evil presences lurking."

It was a bit forward but he was curious. Something about her drew him in. It was if he
had no choice in the matter.
 
"I really don't know what you are talking about," Alice said in a slightly higher tone than before, "But I really don't mind just talking, so I suppose it would be alright. Just don't get the wrong idea, alright?"

She might have just added the last part in order to ward off anyone evesdropping on their conversation, or perhaps it was more for her own benefit, but in any case she accepted his offer and that was the most important thing at the moment.
 
They snuck out of the school, exiting through the back doors. Nobody bothered to ask them where they were going.

They climbed into his ram truck. The sound of rocket man being played on the radio greeted them. Troy was not rich, but he was well off. His father traveled alot, working for some company.

The ride was silent, except for the roar of the engine and Elton John on the radio. He realized she might trust him if he toldbherba little of his dark secrets.
"As you know, I moved here from Florida. But not for normal reasons. My dad said we had to move. Men came to our old house wile I was at school and my dad was working. They killed my mother." He pauses for a minute to fight tears. "It was then that my dad told me what he really did for a living. "
 
"He lost his mother?"

Alice blinked, unsure of how to respond. Her own mother wasn't like an ordinary woman. She was one who commanded respect from others without giving even the slightest indication of hesitance in her actions. Alice didn't know much about her, as the two never actually met in person, but from the pictures and stories that her father would tell her about and show her, she imagined she was quite an amazing woman. She personally had not taken after either of her parents, desiring to distance herself from the violence within her own family even, but it seemed to follow here wherever she went... To school or anywhere else for that matter.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Alice ventured to interrupt him, "I mean, we just sort of met yesterday and you hardly know anything about me other than my name."
 
He thought for a moment before answering. "Because I feel like I shoul. Considering the situation we both are kind of differant in a way. Your untouchable, I get that. Its just sometimes the rules need to be broken. We traced the killers to this town you know. I've been trained all my life for this moment. My father's getting older and he tells me it won't be long before I loose him too. He's assassinated hundreds in his life, so I think he knows danger . I've never heard him talk like that before. "
 
"Wait, wait, wait, slow down," Alice felt a cold chill run up and down her spine, "What killers? Assassins? Your father is a trained assassin?"

The young woman seemed to have been thrown into a panic by his statements, unsure of what angle he was approaching her at and what his ultimate goal might be. Was he trying to tell her something? Was someone sending assassins after her and he was simply trying to warn her this whole time? Alice was paranoid, to say the least.
 
I've been trying to tell you. We're not here for you. This is a personal assassination. No payment. Are there any others like you?"
 
"W-what do you mean by others like me?" Alice looked away, "Do you mean... By what I did back then? If that's what you mean, its something I can't technically tell you about directly. Its something that I only know of four people capable of performing... Those being my father, my mother, my personal trainer, and myself."

"They call it the Ivy Curse method, a training procedure which grants nearly inhuman strength and endurance without altering their physical appearance, much like an Ivy which can grow on a tree without damaging or altering it in any way. Both live with the other. By live, I mean literally," Alice continued, "It is not entirely without drawbacks, however."
 
"Why only you? Could others possibly have the same power?" He stopped for a moment when he realised this was her life and maybe he was asking too much. " I'm sorry, just get like this when I'm curious. You don't have to answer them. I just forgot to mention that my mom was murdered by one, with your ability. She was crushed! That's why I looked so surprised yesterday. " he said still looking ahead to the road.

So many questions ran through his head. Why did his father come here? Did he expect to be able to kill one? If he did his father would sorely mistaken. No, whoever had killed his mother would not go easily. His only regret was breaking assassin code by warning someone of a future assassination. What it it were her father? No, that made no sense. Why would her father travel such a long distance to find them. Troy believed someone else had a similar power and held a bit more evil inside.
 
"Its a very securely guarded family secret, so I doubt that would be the case," Alice replied softly, "I don't know why someone from my family would go out of his or her way to murder your mother, even if he is an assassin. I mean, you don't need my skill to kill someone. Its intended to be used as a defensive technique, as it can only be used in offensive situations under certain circumstances... At least, those are the verbal restrictions. There isn't anything actually preventing it from being used in such a way, but why attack someone like that when you could just shoot or stab them? It looks impressive, but when you get right down to it, its only helpful in fist fights."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom