Inner Discord

Chapter 8

A man, dressed fully in black, expensive-looking clothes. Wearing a giant hat, one like magicians use in their shows. His eyes barely visible due to the shadow of that hat. Wandering around the streets of the city of the Anthropoi, in search of information. When a group of suspicious-looking teenagers spots him, they cannot help but think he must be some rich old man, and they stop him.

'You there, mysterious man', the first one starts talking.

'Yeah, we're talking about you, old geezer', reacts another on his companion.

'You seem to be rich, dressed in such expensive clothes, having nothing to do but wander around', a third one says with a grin.

'Next time I'd consider staying in your own neighborhood, as you can see, it's quite dangerous out here', the fourth one finishes.

Before the man had even time to answer them, the first one made appear a gun, pointed towards him with it and yelled: 'Give us all your money, clothes and the key of your car and house or die!!!!'

The man sighed. Yet another group of those stupid teens, wanting sincerely to die. He thought it would be better if they had paid attention to his looks instead of directly judging based upon his clothes and deciding to attack at first glance. He did not look like someone rich at all. The man felt like he had already killed more than enough helpless little teens the past days. He was absolutely not in the mood of bothering them. That's why he decided to say: 'Listen, I don't wanna have to hurt you guys, you seem to be too nice for that. Why don't you go home and leave me alone?'

Firstly the threatened youngsters only were surprised. But then they apparently started thinking high of themselves, feeling like they could do anything they wanted to just because they had a little gun and menaced him even further: 'Hah, you think we'd fall for that? We're not stupid, just so you know. You get three counts to give us what we asked for.'

'Then I'll have to...' 

'One'

'Listen...'

'Two'

'Shut up and listen!'

'Three!'

'Oh, don't be stu...' He could not even finish his sentence, because the guy who held the gun had already fired. The eyes of the man lighted up, and directly after it, the bullet changed its course and now headed towards the ground, in a straight line, not even bending like it should. It was, like, instantly. The guy that had fired looked super astonished. 'H... h... HOW DID YOU BEND OFF THAT BULLET IN A STRAIGHT LINE?! MOREOVER, HOW DID YOU EVEN BEND IT OFF?!' He fired another one, another, he kept firing a series of at least twenty bullets, after which he clicked a few times, realizing his gun was empty. Searching for new munition to certainly be prepared for any attack, he saw that all bullets had gone to the ground.

Now the guy fell silent. His companion whispered: 'That's impossible...'

The man decided to give them one last chance and took off his hat, and revealed his eyes and ears completely. When the youngsters saw that his ears were long and his eyes red like blood, they finally must have realized it. This man... He must be the rumored half-blood. The son of a Kratistos, hence his red eyes, and a Kallistos, hence his long ears. Said to be one of the greatest warriors in history, having defeated several really strong foes. Mentioned to be strong enough to take on all Kallistoi and Kratistoi at once, and still win easily. But everyone thought that man was just a rumor, almost impossible to ever be able to believe it is true. It is probably therefore that the third teenager apparently had not given up on it yet. 'Come on guys, he must have red contact lenses and false ears! There's no way in hell a half-blood could ever exist! Let's get that fucker, kill him and kill his whole family with him! After mocking us like that, it can't be that he deserves to live! We're four and he's alone! We can actually win this, however strong that geezer may be! Let's do this!'

Apparently encouraged by these words, or maybe out of fear, all of them relaxed and prepared to attack, being on guard more than ever. Suddenly, all youngsters dived towards that mysterious and ridiculously strong man. If you can bend the courses of bullets, what else is there to say?  Flying through the air like cats fly when they jump towards a prey, they found themselves in the same positions as the bullets had been in. They went straight to the ground. When they hit it they were completely blind, not able to see anything. And that is weird even lying on the ground, because it may have been night, but there was a full moon up. The man looked at them the same way as one would look at a pet that was too old and had to be killed. 'If you had only done what I told you to do, I wouldn't have had to kill all of you.'

Cowering in fear, the teens tried to get up and flee, but they could not move a single part of their body. They felt like every little muscle was tied down to the ground to ensure they would not get away. This got their fear even higher. If you would measure the percentage of adrenaline that their blood contained then, you would actually believe that there was only adrenaline in their veins. 

Luckily for one of them, the man seemed to have changed his mind. 'You know what? I'm gonna let live one of you. That one shall tell further my name and how I look to everyone that wants to hear it or doesn't want to hear it. I am Seb, the one that no one should not be scared of. A pleasure to meet all of you.'

As soon as Seb was done talking, the fourth one of the group experienced a force lifting him, now pressing him against the wall. As he hung there, his blindness faded, and his eyes were kept wildly open by the man and the level of adrenaline he had. On one hand relieved that he would live on, and on the other hand ready to burst out in tears any moment for his dying comrades, he was forced to watch his friends' bellies get fatter and larger, until the moment they all exploded. In a rain of blood the guy fell down, finally able to cry. Seb paid almost no attention at him. The last thing the youngster saw of him was the asymmetry in his eyes: one part lighted up yellow on some parts. The light formed a heptagram.