The Hidden Evil 2

Chapter IV: The Alekhins

Blood dripped down from a young teenagers lip like a leaky faucet, he danced his red-knuckled fists in front of his face. His opponent was a man almost double his age, and a few inches taller than him. The teenager was Killroy Alekhin. He had frosty white hair and muted blue eyes, freckles dotted his face. His hair was messy since he didn't care to tame it. Killroy was an orphan from Trance City, and he never left the city. He was the youngest soldier known to the Western Pennsylvania Colony.
He was almost hit by his opponent, but with the quickness of a falcon, Killroy managed to dodge, come up behind him, and run his head into the wall. His opponent forfeited, hurrying to get out of the ring. Killroy smirked, looking over to his captain, who was nodding in satisfaction.
"Good job, Alekhin," his captain said. Killroy walked out of the ring and he cracked his knuckles as he approached his captain.
"Too easy," Killroy sneered. His captain snickered, rubbing Killroy's head.
"Do you think you're ready?"
"I've been ready," Killroy crowed.
"Very well. You get to decide what happens next," his captain told him. "Go bring justice to Trance City."

Ronnie woke up from her slumber, and she could already hear her teammates arguing downstairs. She grunted and kicked her legs out of bed. She got dressed into more formal clothes and walked out of her bedroom. Right in front of her door was Rueben leaning against the wall. He had a despicable grin on his face. She looked at him in confusion, and when she tried to walk past him he grabbed her and forced her back beside him.
"Captain's still sleeping," Rueben whispered.
"Okay?" Ronnie didn't understand what Rueben was trying to do.
"We might get our butts kicked, but we should play a trick on him," said Rueben.
"You realize that would result in our death, right?"
"We only live once, Ronnie! Let's have some fun. He'll get over it eventually," Rueben told her. Ronnie smiled and nodded, giving in. Rueben smiled in excitement that she agreed, and he jerked his head over to Karma's bedroom door.
"What're you planning on doing," asked Ronnie.
"Let's pour water on his head," chuckled Rueben. Ronnie chortled and nodded her head. Rueben dashed down the stairs and returned a short moment later with a bowl of water. Ronnie followed him as he entered Karma's bedroom. They created open the door, and silently stepped in. Rueben was careful not to spill the water, and they were both careful not to make any creaks on the wooden floors. Karma slept on his stomach, and the only thing they could see of him was his head and his arm which was sticking out of the blanket and hanging over the edge of the bed. They approached the side of his bed and gazed upon their sleeping captain. He looked very peaceful, and Ronnie did feel bad that they had to break his peace. Ronnie looked over to his end table, where his white gloves and a pair of glasses sat. She then looked back over to Karma, who started to move his arm. Rueben panicked and exchanged horrified glances with Ronnie.
"Do it, do it now," Ronnie urged quietly. Rueben promptly nodded and flipped the bowl over above Karma's head. Water poured out of the bowl, and it splashed on Karma's sleeping face. His eyes fired open, and he immediately spotted them. Ronnie and Rueben stood next to his bed, not knowing wether to laugh or not. Karma violently ripped the blanket off of himself and stood up out of bed to face them. Ronnie gasped, noticing he was only in underwear and socks. His face and hair was dripping wet, and he was shivering slightly from the cold water.
"It's just a prank, Captain," Rueben trembled. Karma grabbed Rueben's shirt collar and pulled him closer to his face.
"Never do that again, you hear," Karma growled. Rueben gulped nervously, holding onto the bowl tightly.
"Yes, sir," Rueben said automatically. Ronnie watched, wondering why Karma never attacked her or Isla when they did something against him. Karma let him go and turned back to his bed where he fixed the sheets. Rueben stood still, almost like he expected something worse from his captain. Rueben turned to leave, and Ronnie followed, but she stopped at the doorway when she heard Karma say her name. She let Rueben go, and turned back over to face her captain. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, and he had made a spot for Ronnie to sit next to him. She sat down next to her captain, and looked over to him with concern.
"What is it, Captain," she asked softly.
"Don't be telling anyone else about this, but you're my favorite soldier on my team," he told her. She looked at him, almost at loss for words.
"Why me?"
"You're the perfect mixture of serious and fun, and you're the only soldier on the team that I can actually see becoming a captain," he explained.
"What about Rueben? I think he'd be a good captain," she said.
"He's too immature. I can see you knowing right from wrong and good from bad."
"Is.. is that why you don't hit me when I do something wrong?" She didn't know if she wanted to ask that question, but it just came out.
"Naw." Karma shook his head. "I just don't like hitting girls," he said.
"Oh, well that makes sense," she said. She had questions sitting in the back of her mind that she always wanted to asked her captain, but she never got the chance to. She looked at him, and he was silently staring at the floor. She knew this was the only time she could ask them, since they rarely ever got moments like this one. "Captain," she spoke. He looked over to her, his eyes growing curious. "I have a few questions that I've been wondering for awhile now if you don't mind me asking them," she told him.
"I'll answer them the best I can," he told her in reply. She nodded, drawing the breath in. She knew that Karma was sensitive, which was part of the reason she didn't ask these questions sooner. He seemed to take offense to things that he didn't have business taking offense to, and she could see him easily taking offense to the questions she had for him. But, she couldn't turn back now. She decided to ask him the questions.
"I'm sorry, but I'm just very curious. Why do you look the way you do?" She bit her lip, feeling her stomach tighten in hopes he didn't take offense to her question. Karma closed his eyes and sighed. He stood up and walked in front of her, looking at her with his golden-yellow eyes. She looked at him in anticipation, waiting for his reply.
"What do you mean," he asked. Ronnie slightly worried that he would say that.
"I mean, why are you—" she clenched her jaw, wondering if she should give up.
"Why am I what, Ronnie," he asked firmly. She knew that if she didn't ask the question now, then he would get angry. She dug herself in a hole that she couldn't get out of until she faced her fear.
"You're.." she tried to put it in the nicest way possible. "You're littler than the other captains. The other ones are tall, but you're not so tall," she said. To her surprise, he didn't grunt and turn away. He smiled, crossing his arms.
"Tch, I had a feeling you'd ask that at some point." Karma let out a laughter that was barely audible to her. The only way she could tell he was laughing was from his chest and shoulders, which were signaling his joy. Ronnie looked at him in confusion.
"Is it something serious?" She didn't know why he was laughing, but she was glad that he wasn't angry.
"M-mm. It's nothing medical or anything, it's just how I grew up," he said. "Believe it or not, I was the tallest kid in my boarding school," he told her.
"What happened?"
"I stopped growing around eleven years old. I was the same height as I am now. My mother took me to many doctor's offices, but they all said that there was nothing out of the ordinary. But, everybody has their conditions and diseases.." he seemed to trail off when he spoke long sentences.
"Did you go through puberty?"
"Of course I did. I just shave, I don't like body hair," he told her. His smile had faded when she asked that, and she thought maybe he took offense. She decided to change the subject.
"What did you mean when you said that everyone had their conditions," she asked.
"Well, don't you have any medical conditions, diseases, or mental illnesses?"
"Not that I know of."
"I'm sure you do, it's just undetected so far."
"Why are you talking about this?"
     "I'm just telling you, not everybody is who they seem to be at first glance," he told her. Ronnie then realized he was dealing with soldiers and captains back in Shippendale Headquarters who like to judge him first by his looks and personality. She sighed, wondering what they've all said to him when she wasn't there.
"..I'm sorry that I had to ask all of those questions. I think you're a really cool person, and you're proving stereotypes wrong. We need more people like you," she told her captain.
"Stereotypes are what get me down sometimes. I know I'm not your stereotypical captain, but I'm still here, and I'm here to prove to everyone else I'm not what I look like," Karma told her.
"They don't know who you are, Captain. I know who you really are," Ronnie told him.
"And I trust you with my secrets," he said. He walked over to his briefcase and put it on the bed. Ronnie watched him open the case up and take out a pair of formal pants, a button-up shirt, and a black suit vest. He hung them over his arm and looked over to Ronnie.
"I'm gonna go take a shower. Don't be stupid," he told her before exiting the room. She smiled, heaving herself up from his bed and walking out of the room and down the stairs. She knew that her captain had doubted himself in the past, because he had told her. He told her that he was insecure of his body because the other captains looked differently from him. It was true, she thought. All of the other captains were tall, muscular, and confident. They were usually popular soldiers before their time as a captain, also. Karma was small, puny, and doubtful. He was a nobody before his time as a captain, and he had barely even left his house. Nobody knew who he was until they heard about how Captain Creed's mysterious son was becoming a captain in the weekly newspaper. When Ronnie first met him, he was cruel and cold. Now that she had spent the last nine years with him as her captain, she saw that he was sad, worn out, and he needed help that he was too afraid to ask for. Though she had not been able to call him by his real name, she thought of him as a friend. She was happy about having Karma as her captain, and she was glad that he was comfortable sharing his secrets with her.
     She walked down the stairs where everyone else was. Rueben was sitting at the table with Faux, and the others sat at the coffee table and played a card game. She strolled over to the table and sat down next to Rueben. Faux was leaning back in his chair, not making eye contact with neither Ronnie nor Rueben. He all of a sudden glanced up to Ronnie, as if she did something wrong.
     "What were you doing up there with Captain Karma," Faux asked her. She looked at him, a little disturbed that he asked that.
     "We were talking," she told him.
     "You sure? I heard they're suspecting him of being a Russian assassin," he said.
     "Faux, you know that he's an assassin! We're protecting him from them, remember?" She wasn't sure what Faux was trying to achieve.
     "Karma's dead as soon as they prove him guilty, anyway. There's nothing we can do about it," Faux shrugged.
     "That's Captain Karma to you, and he's not dying until they kill me first," Ronnie sternly said.
     "Have you ever wondered if Karma's the real bad guy? I mean, why are we protecting an illegal immigrant who has killed hundreds of people in his home country," Faux explained.
     "It's not like he still does that. He has changed, and he deserves a second chance."
     "Yeah, try telling HQ about that," Faux snorted.
     "Faux—"
     "They don't care, Ronnie. If he's proven to be a threat then they'll kill him no matter what. Shippendale can't afford someone like Karma in the city," Faux interrupted.
     "You need to shut up, Faux. He's not getting killed anytime soon, and if we all work together then we can make sure of that," Ronnie scowled.
     "You need to stop thinking team work'll solve everything! No matter how many of us protest, King Rey will make his own decisions despite what the public might think. If you want to keep hiding Karma's secrets from the public in hopes they believe you, then you can do that. But just so you know, if they ask me anything about him, I'm telling the truth," Faux told her firmly. Rueben sat silently next to Ronnie, not intervening with the fight. She looked over to Rueben, wanting help defending her case.
     "Ronnie, I know you have high hopes but it's bound to happen. They'll find out who Captain really is and they'll decide his fate," Rueben told her.
     "He can't die, though. They can't kill him, he's their best captain and he's done nothing against them since he's become a captain nine years ago," Ronnie protested. Rueben slowly shook his head.
     "They'll decide in court. The best thing we can do is be there for him and defend him the best we can," said Rueben. Ronnie sighed, looking at the table in front of her.