The Death of His Innocence

The young man we now know as The Forsaken Hybrid, one of the Next Up, and Strikes, was once a nobody. The child didn’t even know his birth name. His heritage had been lost. And even though he’s a hybrid, his timid nature, his weakness, it held him back. How could someone with the blood of both a Rai and a Cyan be so weak? He may only be seven years old, but man, he’s a bitch. In the boy’s defense though, this wasn’t how his life was supposed to be.

“Come on swing!” the white haired boy standing opposite of Ajei shouts, squaring up and awaiting the other’s response. He’s baiting the hell out of little Ajei, who looks awkward in his own stance.

“This dude bro…” Nick mumbles, he’s an older boy at eleven, and an orphan like Ajei. Nick has white low cut hair, a stocky build, and he’s about a head taller than most of the others. He’s leaning on a wall closer to the bathroom’s entrance. If a teacher came, Nick was gonna play like he was just using the bathroom before all of this started, which he was. The only reason he stayed is because he wants to see if Ajei is gonna finally stand up for himself. The older boy happened to be into boxing, and he had taught the younger how to dodge and throw a punch at least.

“Y'all scared or some.” a child bystander shouts, nearly tripping over a urinal and into another boy. If he wasn’t so busy laughing and recording, that wouldn’t have happened.

“Swing fat boy!” another bystander yells, causing the others to burst into laughter.

Ajei looks terrified, but at least he keeps his hands up. The opposing boy folds his lips before throwing a wild hook. Ajei’s ear starts to burn, and he freezes up. His opponent’s fist plows into his face, and he stumbles backward and into Nick, who shoves him back into the fight.

“Man knock him out Ajei! Stop being a bitch!” Nick commands, and so Ajei starts to throw his own punches. The first is terrible, it’s wide and wild, and it misses the other boy, who’d leaned back to avoid it before striking again. This time though , Ajei uses his other hand to block. It looked more instinctive than planned, but hey, it worked. Ajei starts swinging, and so does the other boy, the former’s jabs are slower, but they’re heavier and more accurate. And in the blink of an eye, Ajei’s opponent falls to the ground.

Ajei stands over the boy, breathing heavily and wondering if he’d won, or if he should continue the onslaught. The boys spectating are shook, and Nick’s expression twists into a proud smirk.

Then out of nowhere, a taller boy pushes forward before punching Ajei, causing him to fall. Ajei has two opponents now, brothers, and they push forward, only for Nick to stand in their way. And as if they’d been hit with some Cyan Bloodline Technique, they freeze. It's two on one, or two on two or whatever, but Nick could go four to one when it comes to second graders, probably five, and everyone here knows it. So no, of course nobody was gonna press the issue.

After that day, Nick taught Ajei everything he could. Ajei even started going to the gym to receive proper training. One of the main things he learned about was how there are two separate divisions of boxing for those with Energa and those without. The boxers with Energa must have keen control of their underlying power. It can be used, but only to a certain extent. Boxing is man to man. No lightning, ice, candy, or ghost are allowed. That aside, Ajei grew to love the sport, often hitting the punching bag as hard as he could, and eventually he’d earn his nickname, Strikes.

Three things, boxing, destroying that bag, his name. Those things were reliefs to him and he didn’t even know it yet. They gave him confidence. They helped him conquer the bullies. They allowed him to be free, to hold his head high in a town filled with low lifes, to not be chained by the thoughts of why his parents had abandoned him. They gave him identity.

✸✸✸

“Cmon Nick! Two more minutes!” Coach Dwyane encourages, pacing around Nick, who growls and grunts with every jab. The boy, fifteen now, had been punching the bag for nearly an hour. He and Strikes came straight to the gym after school. The latter watches from a bench. Strikes had finished his workout way before Nick, who has a fight coming up. A very important fight. The boy and his coach are willing to do anything to win. For the coach, that means staying overtime. Coach Dwayne had even gotten permission from the orphanage for the boys to stay out past curfew. That's how serious this is. It's only natural, Nick is a prodigy afterall. A boy with a work ethic and mindset beyond his years. He’s going pro for sure. Strikes was good too, but Nick is so good that he often fights boxers years older than him. “Cmon Nick! You got it! Thirty seconds left boy cmon!” the coach cheers, looking down at his watch, and then losing visibility.

Everything goes black, but Strikes can still hear Nick pushing on, grunting and groaning, his fist pounding against that bag and his feet shuffling for better angles. All of that in the dark, it's crazy. “Coach,” Strikes utters, voice shaky, “what going on?”

“I,” the man pauses, and it sounds like he’s starting to shuffle for something, “I’m not sure. Nick stop.” he commands.

“I got fifteen more seconds coach!”

“You're done man, I said-”

“Ten more!”

“Stop Nick!” Coach Dwayne demands, and Strikes can hear the frustration behind Nick’s final blow. If Strikes didn’t already know what Nick was doing, he’d have assumed that someone had just unleashed the meanest paper popper known to man.

“Why’d you do that coach?” Nick asks, his tone laced with dissatisfaction.

“The lights are out boy. Can’t you see?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Exactly.” the coach says, turning on his phone’s flashlight.

“Bet this is Zane’s bullshit.” Nick mumbles.

“Hey,” the coach sounds, training his light on Nick before closing in on the boy, “you think you’re tough? You’re not. You think this is a game? It's not. Zane ain’t bullshittin, and neither are we. You got that boy?”

“Yes sir.” Nick answers, shielding his eyes from the flashlight and nodding.

“It looks like the lights are out for everybody.” Strikes observes, peeking through the blinds of one of the gym’s very few small windows. The wind howls outside, carrying with it a chilling snowfall. Without any lights, the world is frightening. It's a night the likes of which Strikes had never seen. All of a sudden, Strikes hears a car horn, and so his eyes dart toward the vehicle. Two beady headlights veer left and right before plowing into the establishment across the street.

Strikes pulls away from the window, his breathing heavy. “Coach wha-”

“Watch out Strikes.” Coach Dwayne commands, brushing past the boy and parting the blinds with haste. Now, a red hue seeps through the window. The color has tainted the darkness in every which place that the moon shines, and the moon itself is as red as blood. The older man peers through the glass, forgetting to use his flashlight out of shock.

“Coach what's going on? What’s that light?” Nick asks, his tone laced with fear.

“Coach-” before the other boy can question the man, desperate screams coming from outside pierce the deafening silence.

Both boy’s recoil as Coach Dwayne pushes himself from the window. The man turns his light toward the boys. “Alright y'all we’re gonna…” his voice trails off as the night is taken by screams amongst other strange sounds. Sounds no man could ever hope to replicate.

Strikes wants to forget that night, he wants to forget the sounds, he wants to forget how Coach Dwayne locked him and Nick in a storage closet before luring something away. More than anything though, Strikes wants to forget the following morning, the sights. He wants to forget finally being freed from that closet only to enter a world far more suffocating.

Red stained the snow, red stained every building, red stained the clothing of the survivors, red stained their minds. Parts… were everywhere, whether hanging from telephone lines, or from inside their owners. Some still wail from the pain of their wounds, and loved ones cry out over their losses.

Shining Town, it's hell as is, but this, this was a different hell. The sun was so bright that day too, highlighting the brutality, taunting Strikes. The boy didn’t know what to feel, but he was so mad that if he could, he may have split the sun in two. But he couldn’t. He was useless as everyone was ripped to shreds. He’s a boxer, he’s strong, so why the hell was he so weak?

Another thing that Strikes remembers is Shining Town’s death toll in comparison to Crystalfell, a much larger city. The numbers were unacceptable, unforgivable. Pompous assholes on TV seemed to love those two words when talking about a place they knew nothing about. It's only natural though.

Crystalfell, Central Euvia, The Fae, The Candy Kingdom, those places hadn’t suffered the way Shining Town had, because the people in those places are protected by the strong. Shining Town on the other hand, is filled to the brim with low lifes and weaklings. There are bad people everywhere though, and some can’t help but be weak. It used to be that way for Strikes, so he gets it, and he doesn’t ever want to be in that position again. The Blood Moon showed him that boxing wasn’t enough, he needs to become a Monster Hunter.