Lance snorted loudly and looked the girl in the eyes, but she had already turned her head toward Ezra. "A "safe position" huh? There's no way someone like him would try to secure me any kind of position unless it was under his heel…" The girl was about to retort when Ezra raised his hand to stop her.
"No, he's right, Isla," The boy said as he stood and dusted his shirt off. "I wanted him as a pawn for when I became a commander, but it looks like he saw through my act and wants zero part in it." The girl, Isla, glanced back at Lance before turning on her heels and storming off.
The crowd gathered around the two boys was mostly made up of those who saw Lance drag the heir of the Black family and his friends around, and they were starting to wonder if Lance should even be here. He seemed to be a bit too violent when it came to Humans...
Suddenly, a loud, booming voice silenced the various murmurs in the canteen. "Silence! This is not a damned frat house! Get your food, eat, and get the hell out!" A large man with corded, bulging muscles underneath tanned skin, a clean shaven head, and piercing green eyes walked through the crowd and settled his gaze upon Lance.
With a smirk, the man nodded his head in approval and said, "This is a military camp where we trains whelps to become killers, and you, my friend, will fit in nicely here. The name's Argo Mace, but feel free to call me Argo from now on. I'll be keeping a close eye on you, so don't let me down..." Argo winked and turned before shoving his way through the undispersed crowd.
Thankfully, Ezra had disappeared along with Isla and the majority of the trainees that had gathered to watch a potential fight. Releasing a short sigh, Ezra glanced at his now-empty plate and narrowed his eyes. It seemed like Ezra had taken some of his food before leaving.
Releasing yet another sigh, Lance threw his trash away and pulled his phone out from his pocket to help him find his way to his dorm room. Though he was too occupied with his phone to notice, the trainees moved to accommodate Lance's passing; whether out of fear or respect was a question for another day, however.
Eventually, Lance reached the large, apartment complex-like building made almost entirely out of dark gray-blue Kastite. Seems like they've yet to paint it, Lance thought before he ultimately shrugged and made his way inside. The halls were devoid of people, but the faint voices coming from inside the various doors lining the walls confirmed Lance's suspicions.
There were elevators in the halls so that trainees could get to their dorm room easily, but Lance took the stairs instead. Though his room was on the fifth floor, he wanted to minimize his contact with the other trainees. By the time Lance managed to reach his room, his breathing had become erratic, yet it was strangely steady at the same time.
As Lance reached for the door, he heard multiple voices inside the room. Lance scrunched his eyebrows together as he leaned in toward the door to listen to the voices, however, the door slid open automatically once he neared.
There were two bunkbeds in the main room with three boys, one on each top bed and one on the bottom left bed, and they stopped their conversation to look over at Lance before shrugging and continuing to talk about their families and how strong they were.
Lance ignored the trio and made his way toward the laundry room and inspected every inch of the admittedly small room before thumbing over his uniform and walking back through the main room, only to ignore his roommates once again and walk into the bathroom.
It was also rather small, but it featured a sink, mirror, toilet, and a bathtub with a glass sliding-door and a shower head. It was a rather standard and somewhat outdated looking room, but at least it worked. Lance mustered up his resolve and made sure he could still produce a plausible fake smile before returning to the main room.
"Ah, its the guy who dragged Marvin Black's son around the hall like a ragdoll!"
"Yeah, he even slammed Ezra's face into a table when he tried to talk to him!"
The two boys on the top bunks laughed as they stared at the boy on the bottom left bed; his dark purple eyes shining with amusement as he rubbed his nose and said "Yes, I quite remember. No need to rub it in..."
Lance clicked his tongue as a boy with ear-length blonde hair that fell just below his brows jumped from his top bed and extended his arm as he said, "My name's Lukas Griffon." Lukas' bright green eyes scanned Lance as the latter did the same before walking past the boy and glancing at the other boy sitting on top of the other top bed before sitting on his own bed. (A/N: lotta beds.)
"His name's Arthur Allen, but we usually call him Arty since that's what his mom and girlfriend call him!" Arthur shot up from his reclined position and voiced his complaints to Lukas, but he just laughed it off and waved his hands in a placating gesture as he climbed back onto his bed.
Lukas hung his head from above as Arthur and Ezra looked toward Lance. "So, what's your name?" Lukas asked with a bit of intrigue tinging his voice. Lance looked up and said "Lance Byrd. Mother died during the Urnoir invasion, and I used to work several jobs a day to stay alive. My only purpose is to kill the Urnoir, and I genuinely have no desire to interact with anything Human."
The fact that Lance said all of this with a beaming smile on his face made all three of the boys glance at each other with concerned expressions, but it's not like they could do much anyways. Ezra was the best fighter amongst the three boys, and Lance had dealt with him quickly and efficiently. Granted, now, Ezra was caught off guard and had no reason to be on high alert, but the fact that Lance was ridiculously fast and powerful still stood.
Lukas sighed and showed a conflicted smile as he said, "I can't relate to your pain, but I can offer you an ear if you want to talk about anything." Lance snorted and pulled his phone out from his pocket, leaving the other three boys to fall silent as they did the same. Soon after, since it was already pretty late, the four boys found themselves falling into a deep sleep.
---
Fire rained down from the sky as thousands of different aliens descended from the large spaceships hovering miles above the ground. It was the Urnoir...they had found the Humans once again.
In the city of Jaco, a young boy with short aqua-blue hair and deep blue eyes was running away from a burly man while cradling a piece of bread in his dirty hands. Lance leapt over carts, tables, and even trashcans as he tried to shake the man off of his trail.
Eventually, he was able to slip away into the shadows of an alley before re-tracing his steps so that he could go home. Though life was always hard for Lance, he was able to endure it because of his mother. She was always sick and weak, but she was undoubtedly the strongest person that Lance knew. No matter how bad her condition was, she would never let it get in the way of taking care of her son.
Even when his father inevitably came home reeking of booze, his mother always managed to hide the bruises and cuts so Lance didn't have to worry. Lance was just excited to bring back a piece of bread to give to his mother in exchange for how hard she's been working...but everything changed in that instant.
The sky reddened and small black dots filled the sky as the faint outline of a spaceship loomed over the city of Jaco. Soon, loud booms echoed through the air as objects slammed into the ground, followed by screams of terror and pain filled Lance's ears.
A loud boom sounded out behind the boy, and he immediately began to run. He wanted to look back, but the bloodcurdling cries prevented him from taking his eyes off of his shabby house in the distance. Lance saw his mother stumble out of the house, and he almost yelled out in joy, but he then saw his father rush out of the door while pushing his mother to the ground.
A large humanoid alien with dark beige scales covering the entirety of its body, a vaguely reptile-like face, along with a long scaly tail and two wings curled up behind its back, stepped out of the house and raised its hand toward his prone mother.
Lance was close enough to see her sad smile as she looked over at him and held her trembling hand out, almost as if reaching to caress his face with her usual tender and loving expression, however, her form was engulfed with orange-red flames, and a sickening scream pierced Lance's ears.
He was frozen in place as he watched his mother get roasted alive by an Urnoir. His mouth was dry and his legs quivered as they threatened to give out from underneath him. Suddenly, a man darted out from the shadow of a nearby building and quickly picked Lance up before sprinting away from the scene at full-speed.
A loud scream tore through Lance's throat at that moment as he kicked and punched the man holding him over his shoulder. Tears blurred Lance's vision as his cries shook the very earth itself. Lance gripped his head as the images of his mother being burnt alive flashed through his head, filling him with even more grief than before.
Then, the image of his father fleeing after pushing his mother down planted itself right in front of Lance's eyes, filling him with such a profound anger. Lance's eyes began to lose their luster as their color transitioned from blue to a dark silver color; a fitting color to represent the raging storm in the young boy's soul.
Lance raised his hands and a length of silvery chains shot out from his palms and darted toward a seemingly random alley in between two building, however, when the chains dragged out a familiar man with an unkempt beard and greasy brown hair, Lance could only smile as two insect-like Urnoir converged on the man in an instant.
---
Though his cheeks were stained with tears, Lance could still feel the satisfaction of his first kill. He had felt so uncommonly proud of himself to have killed his father, the man who killed his mother. After quickly wiping his face with the back of his hand, Lance began to think about the mysterious man that had grabbed him from off of the road all those years ago.
He never spoke, and he always wore a hood over his head with bandages covering his hands and feet, so Lance never even knew if the man was actually a man or not; or if he was even Human for that matter. Lance shrugged his shoulders as he rolled out of bed and forgot about his previous thoughts in that short moment.
Though the images of the nightmare still flashed brightly within his mind, Lance had grown all too used to seeing the reoccurring nightmare in the recent years. Lance washed his face in the bathroom before returning to his bed to inspect his Ki.
After crossing his legs and weaving a few intricate handsigns, Lance's vision faded to black before being replaced by a vast space large ball of gold-silver Ki in front of him. Lance held his chin in his hand as he squinted his eyes and muttered, "It's only slightly larger than last time...am I doing something wrong?"
After releasing a heavy sigh and returning back to the normal world, Lance found his roommates beginning to wake.