"Hey Cheng, you ready?"
Cheng, aged ten years old, was ready to help the guys out. There was a spelling test on today, and several of the bigger guys forgot to study for it. Not an issue. They gave him all the cakes he could eat, making him nauseous. And when the teacher walked into the classroom, he transferred the feeling onto her.
"So, did everyone have a good break?" She asked, as pleasant as ever. As she took the papers out from her desk, her demeanour faded. She put a hand to her chest, looking to her class. She retched a little, before walking out of the room. The noise of vomit hitting the floor was soon heard, and everyone tried not to cheer. The principal peered his head in to what seemed like a bunch of behaving students.
"Well, it seems your teacher needs some time off, so I'll take over. What were you planning on doing?"
"I think it was long division." Cheng said with confidence.
"So what's with the tests on the desk?"
"That's tomorrow."
The class agreed with him, and the principal put the tests away and began writing about long division on the whiteboard.
When class ended, people cheered for the bigger boys.
"Hey, so now that I got you more time, you wanna study at my place?"
The bigger boys gave each other disinterested looks as they looked down at him.
"Yeah, we had plans to go to Zan's house, and his mom will only allow three other people. Sorry."
"Oh, it's fine. But what about the luxa you borrowed from me? My mom's gonna get mad if you don't give it back soon."
"Don't worry, I'll have it next week."
"You said that last week!"
The boys walked away, leaving Cheng dejected once again. As he walked through the streets, he heard a voice whisper.
"Such a shame."
He looked at the houses surrounding him. The street was empty, with most people around this time commuting either to or from their homes. But a figure was leaning against a wall, draped in the shadows of the setting sun.
"To see a promising young man be taken advantage off. It weakens my heart, truly."
Cheng looked around for a trusted adult. And when none were around him, he just ran back to his house.
The man's voice kept reaching out to him as he went to school that day. Everything felt so rotten to him. The boys were joking about something, he didn't know what, and he had a disturbing hunch it was to do with him. But he pushed that thought to his sides as he did his spelling test. He knew it all, naturally.
But just as he was about to hand his test in, he saw some airships from the window. It landed in front of a neighbourhood, and two people approached the school as the screaming began to ring out from the few people left in their houses. Panic began to erupt as Cheng sat, perfectly behaved as always. His teacher tried to get him out of his seat among several other attempts to control the situation, but he didn't feel the need to move. He felt he'd be safe.
Eventually, the two men burst into the classroom. The first one shot a chain forward, hitting his teacher directly in the head. She looked around the room in a trance, before grabbing a pair of scissors and throwing them at the kid next to Cheng in the neck. She tore it out, leaving the child bleeding. But the only thing that compelled Cheng to move was seeing one of the bigger boys make a run for it. How cowardly. He stepped outside. He looked on in fear. Cheng decided to bash his leg against the doorframe and transfer the pain to him, making him trip. His assistant silently left the room, the smell of chemicals radiating off him as he shot a green blast at the bully, who fell dead instantly. With nothing else to do, he got the Luxa he was owed from his pockets. He had about five times more than he needed on him. Cheng took all of it, not like he'd need it.
"Cheng, my boy. I don't think you'll need them for a while."
Cheng turned around to the voice. The one from yesterday. It belonged to a tall, thin man with light brown skin.
"Doesn't this world seem messed up to you? A world where the strong can pick on the weak, which continues until someone like me is made to speak up? But if you want it to change, you can come with me."
And he did. The housing ship was taken and flown off before the authorities could even react, until it was a speck in the distance of the other grands. The man's name was Chelic, and the other was his assistant, Marcus. He ended up in what would be the greatest thing to happen to the skies. Chelic promised to unite the people of the skies. The people who abandoned the world below to escape their punishment, and it was up to them to ensure they received it. He brought others in for what he dubbed as 'salvation' and trained them for missions. The training was rough, and he had scars to prove it, but all of it was worth it. And at the end, he would fall back and witness the sky. The first dawn on a grateful world. He practised falling back, and woke up back on the airship.
"Good nap, Cheng?" Serafina asked, nodding off herself.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Cheng nodded. "How's the girl?"
"Raining pretty bad, so we let her back in." Daciana pointed to a sleeping Cassandra, still tied up.
"Excellent!" Cheng yelled to roaring cheers afterwards. "I'll do my best to ensure everyone gets promoted afterwards!"
Back on the cluster, Xander sat at his desk, trying his best to wile away the hours. In front of him was his monitor, which had a ROM of Arctic Primates 3 on it. 2 was really good and this was basically more of the same. So why wasn't he enjoying it? Probably because the console this was meant to play on back on the main ships was the same one Marcel had, and he had a hard enough time enjoying things that didn't remind him of his successful murder. He took a second to turn off his monitor, and just watch his reflection. His eyes were crusty, his hair greasy. His severely unwashed hoodie and necktie combo didn't look like it had any appeal, and the stink lines were almost visible. He looked around his room. His bed was dirtier then it usually was, and the bowls of noodles and cereal that Priyanka would bring around while Tsuki was busy were quickly piling up. He had left them just underneath the propaganda poster he was required to have installed in his room last week. It depicted caricatures of people from the Grands holding rusted weapons against scared children, who were running into the arms of Chelic. Or a shadowy figure that was labelled Chelic. The only other text was 'let all abandoned find new life! Save others and join your local raid!'
He really hated looking at that thing.
He took a reluctant sigh and turned the monitor on again. One new message from Manuel. Tenth ranked, most important computer guy in the Cluster. And somehow, Xander was his apprentice.
'Hey, You Wanna Play 40 Feet Remain?'
'Sure, got nothing else on.'
They loaded up the game. And despite what went down, playing a game about cyborgs blazing through an underground facility while mercilessly gunning down everything in sight somehow felt more relaxing than a 3D platformer about a monkey beating up a dastardly scientist.
'You See The Fightston Updates?' Manuel asked.
'Nah I've been busy' Xander lied.
'K. Well, I Heard They Got The Red Haired Girl In Fightston'
Xander's character turned around and shot Manuel's in the head, accidentally ending a good run. The girl was here? Okay, play this cool.
'Oh her? What makes her so special?'
'IDK. Think She Specifically Can Do Something. Only Heard From Guys Doing The Mission. She'll Be Here In Like An Hour I Think'
'Damn. Well, I gotta go. TTYL'
Xander turned off his PC, grabbed his empty bowls and left for the halls. Time to see what he could learn from this lady.