Now all three lay on the ground.
Just as I expected… they couldn't hold a candle to brock.
We never talked about alcohol with Brock around.
And we had our reasons…. Brock was a raging alcoholic, of the likes I had never seen before.
Usually a sweetheart, but that topic just made him lose his mind.
I just sat there on the ground.
After Brock charged the last guy, I got shoved away and fell on my butt.
Standing up and cleaning my pants just to see Brock (now a bit more timid but still jacked up) squaring up with the only person that had just as much of a trigger topic as Brock.
Fat Matt… the biggest dude in our camp, towering a head over even the huge Brock.
There was a bit of food left on Matt's cheek, he had his nostrils flared up and if this had been one of those old cartoons there would be sounds of a train horn and steam coming out of his nose.
My first thought was to intervene but on second thought…. I had no place in this fight.
I was actually quite small and compared to those two, I was practically nonexistent.
That's when something behind me changed.
Someone was making his way through the crowd and towards….
… me?
And as soon as I focused on it, Leonas already appeared in front of me.
I knew he wasn't amused….
To other people, Leonas' emotions might be a mystery, because he never changes his facial expressions.
But now you could see that Leonas was angry just from the way he walked.
(fuck fuck fuck fuck)
"Hey, Leonas, what are you doing here?"
"Stop it, I already saw everything, don't think you are getting out of this scot free."
He said.
(Oh man, I didn't even do anything…)
*Whimper*
--- --- ---
*Dio's POV*
I was expecting a grand fight, but I was even more excited seeing how Leonas would deal with the fight.
The two giants were squaring up ready to fight and the tension was rising.
People were cheering them on.
I was following the path Leonas made by intimidating and pushing away soldiers.
When Leonas finally arrived inside the circle.
The air around him shifted.
And the first thing he did was....
calmly talk to someone next to him??
Not what I expected….
He wasn't looking at him but the chubby soldier prostrated himself in front of Leonas and cold sweat was trickling down the chubby soldier's forehead.
Leonas didn't seem to care and was completely focused on the two giants squaring off.
Once Leonas strode towards them with an air of authority, something unexpected happened.
I was looking at Leonas and didn't notice at first.
But the fat giant… he just,
…..acted strange,
I was expecting there to be some kind of reaction but I didn't think it would be this strong.
His eyes widened,
he wasn't looking at the tattooed giant anymore,
he took a step back,
and then another.
and another,
Backing off slowly like a scaredy cat not trying to alarm the predator in front of him.
You could see that even the tattooed giant was confused scrunching his eyebrows and looking at him weirdly.
But once the tattooed giant heard a voice from behind him,
he also started acting weird,
So not only was the first guy acting weird.
Now this huge giant with tattoos all over him who had knocked out 3 guys with ease, was also acting strange.
His slouched posture instantly straightened up.
He gulped down his saliva.
There was probably sweat dripping down his forehead which I couldn't see because his back was facing me.
Then he hastily performed a perfect textbook salutation.
Standing still in that position with small beads of sweat dripping down which were now visible even from the back.
It looked quite comical to see such a huge guy fear for his life.
Leonas slowly came up to him, dragging the chubby guy from with him along his collar.
There was a moment of silence.
And then Leonas said.
"DO YOU GUYS THINK THIS IS A CIRCUS GET BACK TO WORK!!"
He glared at the surrounding soldiers and as if he was some kind of magician the circle just ran away as quickly as possible.
Leaving me standing there stupefied.
The huge Giant and the chubby soldier were made to bow down…. and lectured.
After what felt like a minute of him lecturing these two soldiers
He looked at me and waved me over to them.
The two soldiers were already standing on their feet.
While the giant picked his ear, the chubby soldier looked at me with a grin on his face and eyes that practically sparkled.
— — —
Milo's POV
Leonas never hurt us or harshly punished us, but the way he looked at me sent shivers down my spine.
I am sure this was the same for even Brock who was almost always apathetic.
Now the good news was, we had a new squad mate.
Not the unstable, raging alcoholic Brock, or the eerie, unpredictable and scary captain and thankfully neither the prideful, pretentious Ronnie.
He was a blank card.
This was my chance to make a friend in our squad.
I was sick and tired of having to deal with these nutjobs.
I was just craving someone normal.
— — —
*Dio's POV*
Leonas introduced me as the new member and prompted me to do my own introduction.
So I started.
"So I–... "
"Where are you from? Do you read books? Do you have any siblings? I have siblings. Actually, I got a bunch of them. One of them is called Mala, she's really cute, the oldest gets in trouble quite a lot but that's normal at his age….. Do you have any dreams? …..No wait don't tell me let me guess….BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA... BLA BLA BLA BL–..."
But got interrupted by a barrage of questions, from the chubby soldier.
"STOP!! You are scaring him off. Let the newbie introduce himself first."
Leonas said.
"*cough* *cough* As I was trying to say,..... I am Dio."
That's how my introduction ended.
The chubby soldier's smile got interrupted by a frow for just millisecond, but was still visible to me.
Afterwards the others introduced themselves.
The chubby one was Milo and the big guy called himself Brock.
Leonas excused himself saying he was going to look for the last member of our squad.
Which left us three alone.
Milo put his hand out for a handshake.
And I would have shaken it if it had been a formal handshake,
but there was a deeper meaning to it, one I could not decipher yet.
His hand stayed in front of me.
At that moment we made eye contact and I could see a small twitch in his smile.
A small crack in his facade.
Or maybe something else, but I wasn't interested in making any friends.
I only needed power, enough power to escape.
I didn't know what to do after that.
But I would think of that once I escaped.
Milo's hand was still in front of me.
A frown was on his face.
"Hey, are you ok?"
Asked Brock, grabbing the outstretched hand.
"You didn't hit your head during that fight…. right?"
"frrrt*"
A small laugh escaped my mouth.
I tried hiding it with my hand.
But I was too late.
"So you can laugh too."
Said Milo.
"That wasn't a laugh."
I answered.
"Yeah sure, you can tell that to your mom."
Thankfully he made it easy for me to ignore him.
Time was going by slowly, Milo tried to talk to me while Brock just kept grumbling about his rum.
"How old are you?"
….
"You have a girlfriend back home? … I don't but there's this one girl Leah that's definitely into me…. she didn't write me any letters but I know it from the way she always looked at me."
" *Grumble* captain coulda at least brought me some rum or beer…..*grumble* "
I ignored Brock's grumbling and Milo's questions again and again, but Milo seemed to be quite talkative and persistent.
Also it didn't seem like Leonas would find the last member anytime soon.
My patience was running thin, the slowly ensuing silence between us made me even more sure.
I was going to go rest somewhere, my memories were still jumbled up.
I needed to make sense of them fast, or I might lose out on an opportunity to escape.
Without a word I left.
"Hey wait, what about the captain?"
Was the last thing I heard Milo shout after me.
But there was something gnawing at me since the time I had seen Brock.
A feeling, or premonition about the future, something bad was going to happen.
And I needed to prepare for it.
I just didn't know what it was yet.
Or how to prepare.
The only thing I could really remember were tidbits, small conversations.
There were these horrid sounds and disgusting smells that I could vividly imagine despite never having experienced them.
As hard as I was trying to remember, the memories were still too vague.
Looking back it might have gone differently if I had stayed with them, maybe I would have remembered.
But once I realized it… It was already too late.