P.S. Don't read unless you're caught up to the Regulus arc!!
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Regulus was an orphan, and just like many other orphans who couldn't survive alone in City A because of the intense cold, he decided that it would be a good idea to form a group and stay together. Regulus wasn't the strongest person for his age. At six years old he was still quite thin and pretty short, but even with all of this holding him back he was still able to use his mind to find an abandoned building where the group of ten children could stay during the intensely cold nights.
In the group, Regulus only had one close friend named Sasha. He didn't know when they became friends and he had no idea how long the two of them had been together. All he knew was that from the very beginning, she was always there. The days in their makeshift shelter were filled with long days of begging and long nights of huddling together to try and keep out the cold. The older boys would usually try their hardest to go out and ask for money regularly, people always saw them on the streets and they mostly went ignored.
City A wasn't known for its generosity. In a city as cold as this one, everyone was too busy trying to take care of themselves and their family rather than caring for some poor children. Regulus realized that the method they were using was not going to work and that was when he came up with the, not so brilliant idea, to begin pickpocketing.
At first, Regulus knew it would be very dangerous. The first time he saw anyone pick-pocketing was when he watched some older boys who lived in another shelter as they weaved through the crowds of busy workers and emerge on the other side with wallets or watches. He studied their craft. How they moved and how they were able to escape without being seen, and by the end of a month, he decided he wanted to also try it!
The first person that Regulus decided to pickpocket was an old man. He chose this person because he looked like someone who wouldn't use a credit card and also someone that couldn't outrun Regulus if the pickpocketing didn't work! Stealth was the key, and so Regulus blended into the crowd of people around him that were trying to move towards the train station. He had on a simple pair of shorts and a white shirt he just washed yesterday, people wouldn't suspect someone that looked clean that easily so nobody batted an eye at the regular boy walking through the train station.
The old man felt someone bump into him from behind and he turned around to see another man standing there. The man that bumped into the old man had an apologetic look on his face as he tried to explain that it was a small boy that bumped into him first and pushed him forward! Children these days were always in such a hurry!
The old man smiled and started to say that it was fine, and he completely missed the hand that slipped through his trousers while he was distracted. Only for him to put his hand in his trouser pocket and notice that his wallet was gone! His expression was one of complete shock and the first instinct he had was to look towards the grown man that bumped into him! Did this man steal his wallet!?
In the chaos and false accusations that followed, nobody noticed Regulus slipping out of the train station and back towards the uncompleted building he called home. Sometimes, it was good to be so small!
That night, Regulus endured the very first argument he had with Sasha since they came to this new home. Regulus was trying to explain how he got the money from the old man to some of the boys and they all looked on in awe as he explained, but Sasha wasn't having any of it! She shouted at him that stealing was wrong and they shouldn't be doing something like that! Regulus immediately got angry! He got up and shouted something at her and she took a step back in shock! Regulus didn't even remember what he said to Sasha, but he just knew that after he said it she started to tear up and ran away from him to sit on another side of the room.
He felt bad about it, but there was nothing he could do since the boys were all still eager to learn. Regulus explained his method to some of the boys and girls that were willing to learn it and after a while of perfecting their methods, they became a rampant menace in the train station!
Their main movements happened at night when people were tired and coming back from work in the cold. Unsuspecting train passengers would see a small child calling out for their mother and in the crowd that gathered the other children would go around taking wallets and collecting phones. It was so brilliant that people would never guess that the person that came up with it was only six years old!
But all of a sudden something happened! It started when the news started to tell people to be careful when moving on the train because of the pickpocketing that was happening. The children were finding out that fewer and fewer people would stop and try to help them when they started their fake crying. There was even one time when a police officer came up to the crying child instead. The boy that was crying grew scared and quickly ran away!
The children have always believed that the police were bad news. Older children who have been on the street for longer told the younger ones that the cops would send them all to a foster home and that foster parents were only looking for the money the government would give them and they would be treated worse than trash!! No one would bother trying to actually take care of them since they weren't their real children. The older children all said that they couldn't wait to grow up so they can join the underground and become someone in life! They had no idea what the underground actually did! They only knew that the people in the underground could enter any club they wanted and spend a lot of money anyhow they wanted!
Regulus didn't have such a dream. The only thing he wanted was not to starve till the next morning! But the things the older children said also made him afraid of the police and he would run whenever he sees them.
After their pickpocketing scheme started to go downhill, the children started to see a lot of cops hanging around their home. There would always be a police car patrolling the area and sometimes the cops would stop for a meal right below their building. The children were terrified and they didn't know what to do.
But no matter how well they hid, they couldn't hide forever. The person who found the children was a female cop. A rather beautiful woman that had sharp brown eyes. It was only through luck that she managed to look up and see one of the dirty children looking down at her while she ate a hamburger. Her first thought was that someone wanted to throw a child off the building! But when she saw the boy just staring at her food with big wide eyes, she realized that this was probably a homeless child.
She didn't want to go up there and scare the children, so she called someone that she believed would be able to help them.
He was an old corpse that probably had one leg in the grave already. Regulus didn't mean to, but this is the first thought that came to his mind when someone opened the door to their hideout and entered. It was an old wrinkly man wearing a black priest robe. He had his hands joined in front of him and gazed at them with kind eyes.
"My Lord. You truly look after your children. Thank you for guiding me here to them today"
The priests started to say a prayer and most of the children scooted further back while trying to hide behind Regulus. Sasha was standing right behind Regulus and she was holding his hand with her own while trying to hide her body. She didn't know who these people were and the only person here that didn't look scared was Regulus. He stood with a frown on his face as he stared down both the priest and the female cop behind him.
The policewoman tapped the priest on his shoulder and asked him if he would be able to help the children. The priest looked like he was offended that she would think anything else. Of course, he would help them! What else was he sent here to do!? These children will make for beautiful altar boys and future nuns!
The priest's eyes traveled towards Regulus and Regulus felt Sasha shiver behind him in fear. He could understand why she was scared, but he also knew that there was nothing he could do. Maybe they could outrun this old corpse, but not that woman behind him. They were just kids and it was obvious she could kick all their asses if they even move a muscle!
Then the priest went down to a knee and held his hand out to the children. There were some sweets there and Regulus almost felt his throat jump out of his mouth as saliva filled it! When last did he see sweets!? He already watched those other rich children eating them but they never had the luxury of eating sweets because it was so expensive! He could see some of the children were already moving toward the sweet sand even Sasha looked like she wanted to go forward too!
The priest smiled at them and finally spoke.
"Come, children. Praise the Lord for he has granted you to me. Praise the Lord for he has made me your salvation"
Regulus took a step forward, and that was how it all began.