People screamed
and ran in fear, trying to escape the invaders. The small settlement
very nearly trembled. In the distance, the cloaked figure watched
in perverted fascination, golden eyes surveyed the scene, taking everything
in, recording it in a not-too-competent mind that hated what it saw just
the same. People shouldn’t have to live in fear like this; being
scared of whether or not they’d live another week until the next Nefarian
attack.
The figure
moved suddenly, jumping down from his perch on a large rock. Though
he’d been standing in plain view, none of the invading Nefarians had noticed.
They did notice, however, when he barged straight into a small circle of
them. Inside the circle, a small boy, no older than ten or eleven,
was being pinned down by a large brutish Nefarian. There was a single
dent in his armor, but that was obviously just a lucky shot on the boy’s
part.
On one end
of the circle, being held back by another Nefarian was a girl of fourteen
or fifteen with shoulder length black hair and brilliant blue eyes.
She was crying, struggling to get away, to help the boy. Her brother,
the figure thought. He tapped on the fighting Nefarian’s shoulder.
The Nefarian stopped beating the boy’s face in and looked at the figure.
“Let him
go.”
The Nefarian
dropped the boy, who scampered over to the girl, covering his bloodied
face. He grabbed the girl’s hand and dragged her away from the Nefarian
holding her. The Nefarian made no attempt to follow them and the
first glared at the cloaked figure. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing,”
the figure replied simply. He cracked his knuckles and drew a tenth
of his dormant chi to his finger tips. It glowed cool blue for a
moment, then, turning an angry red, hurled itself into the air, forming
a giant ball. It fell, enclosing all of the Nefarians and the stranger
inside. A few seconds later, the Nefarians’ attempts to escape seemed
futile and the ball imploded. Only one figure remained standing;
the man in the cloak, which he straightened before walking over to the
boy and girl, who were crouching, shivering, behind a rock.
The boy
stood bravely in front of her, the crusted blood from his most likely broken
nose now painfully obvious in the light of the fire from the settlement.
The stranger felt no need to save the rest of it; all the other Nefarians
had made off with what little valuables there were and all the inhabitants
had either escaped safely into the forest on one side or were dead.
“Are you
going to kill us now?” the boy asked defiantly. He glared into the
place where the face of the stranger might be, hidden by the cowl of the
cloak and obscured by the dancing flames. It seemed as if he wanted
to show he wasn’t afraid of death. It was as obvious as the blood
on his face, however, that he was; absolutely terrified.
The stranger
chuckled at the question, amused. “I’m not going to kill you,” he
said. “You’re not worth it.”
The stranger’s
voice reminded to boy of a voice he had heard once before and would never
forget. He kept his mouth shut, though. “Why did you help me?”
he snapped. “I didn’t need help! Who are you?!”
The stranger
was surprised at the onslaught of questions, but he, too, was reminded
of something from the past. He looked off into the distance, mulling
this over. “I helped you,” he said finally, his eyes fixed on the
almost-full moon high in the sky. “Because you reminded me of someone.”
He looked back the boy. He was ten or eleven, short for his age,
though, with black hair in a crew cut and-
The stranger’s
golden eyes flared at the sight of them. The boy had eyes the exact
shade of his own. The boy noticed where the cloaked man’s gaze had
gone, but neither said anything.
After a
long pause, the boy decided to make it clear that the explanation was not
sufficient. “Who do I remind you of?”
The stranger
looked at the moon again, glad that it wasn’t full; he was a Saiyan, as
was the boy. He wasn’t going answer; the boy sensed this.
“Could we
at least see your face if you won’t tell us who you are?” the girl piped
up.
The boy
elbowed her. “Don’t be rude, Emi.”
“Sorry,”
Emi hissed.
The stranger
laughed a bit and lowered the hood of his cloak, revealing a man in his
late teens, early twenties at the most, who had sharp, angular, and most
of all, familiar features. His spiky black hair moved a bit in the
tiny breeze and the boy just stared in shock.
“A-anata…”
he managed to whisper.
“What’s
your Name?” Emi asked, stepping forward and placing her hand on the boy’s
shoulder. This succeeded in helping him regain his breath a bit.
“You can
call me Tales,” he replied. “And kid, I really doubt you know who
I am.” He shook his head. “Still…you look so damn like her…”
He turned. “Ja. I hope to see you two again.” With that,
he took off.
“Who?!”
the boy yelled after him. Tales smiled.
