The bat struck the back of Storm’s head, and he fell to the ground. Yet somehow, no other blows managed to land on him no matter how dead-on their aim was or how hard they swung. They simply couldn’t hit him. All of his assailants were of like mind – that it was some kind of Magic protecting Storm from their weapons – but none of them dared to say anything. After all, Magic doesn’t exist. Does it?
Then, without any warning, they got their answer. Storm suddenly got up and turned to face them. He showed no pain, and his eyes – it was in his eyes that they found their answer to that question they were all asking themselves. They had gone from blue with round pupils to red with long narrow pupils and looked almost lizard-like, and a red aura engulfed him. They were all too scared to move, and Storm used this to his advantage. He started by destroying the weapons they brought to use against him, and then by making them scream, one by one, while the others were either somehow invisibly restrained or too petrified to do anything but watch in horror as their comrades were viciously beaten.
Storm awakened at home, clueless as to how he got there or what happened after being hit with the bat. Mike walked into the room with a wet cloth, saw him awake, and asked him point-blank, “What the hell happened? Josh dragged you in here covered in blood. Says you tore a bunch of people who tried to attack you to shreds.”
Storm’s reply: “What are you talking about? I got hit in the back of the head and the next thing I know, here I am.”
Mike had no idea what to make of this. <How could he not remember kicking major ass like that?” he thought to himself. Little did he know that this was only the beginning of something bigger than all of them…
Brad and a couple other jocks never showed up for school the next day, and no one seemed to have any clue as to why, although Mike suspected Josh’s vague story about Storm involves Brad. The day dragged right on, and then football practice ran painfully slowly. Mike caught Josh just outside of the locker room immediately after practice.
“So, Josh, is there something you’re not telling me about what happened when you brought Storm home?”
“I don’t really even know what happened in full, but I can say this – Storm is why Brad wasn’t here. Storm… they hit him in the head with a baseball bat and kept on hitting him when he went down. I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the rest. It’s too bizarre for words, Mike…”
“Try me.”
“Storm started glowing red. His eyes looked like red lizard eyes. He made all of them scream. Somehow he kept all of them from moving until he was ready to beat them. Mike… he almost did the same to me, but then he passed out again. I thought he was gonna kill me.”
Mike stood there with his lower jaw on the floor. Josh was right – he didn’t buy a word of it.
“Storm doesn’t remember anything, you know.”
“I wish I could prove to you that he did what I said he did. Try asking him about it again. It could be the shock of the whole situation.”
“All right, Josh. I’ll ask him about it.”
After Storm got home from the dojo and had eaten, Mike went up to Storm’s room and knocked on the closed door. Storm opened it and Mike just blurted out the whole exchange with Josh.
“Come to think of it, I remember something odd from yesterday, but it’s fuzzy. This guy came around and kicked everyone’s asses. I passed out before I could talk to him. He was glowing red and his eyes looked like red lizard eyes.”
“Storm… that guy was you.”
“That… that’s impossible. There’s just no fuckin’ way that was me. I can’t do any of that stuff.”
“Storm, I’m tellin’ ya, that guy was you. But let’s drop it for now.”
It took about a week for Brad to show up at school again, and he was in two casts. Every time Storm showed up in an area, Brad ran screaming from there. Josh even shied away from him. It got Storm thinking that perhaps Mike and Josh were right, that maybe he was what they said he was.
Then along came Friday. On his way home, Brad and a bunch of other jocks, maybe 10 or 15, not all of whom were from Merlow, tried to take Storm head-on. He knocked three of them out of the fight before a bunch of them started to overwhelm him. Storm felt something break within him, but it wasn’t a bone. That’s when everyone started to back off and started to murmur about his eyes changing colour and the slight red tinge the air around all of them was taking. They were all too scared to move, and Storm started viciously attacking them. Unlike last time, where it was a bloodbath on auto-pilot, Storm was fully conscious of his new strength, even if he didn’t know how to use all of it. All of them – he didn’t bother counting – were out of the picture within 5 minutes, thanks to the combination of the karate he’d taken for all those years and the new power he discovered.
June saw the whole thing from the kitchen window and knew right away what it was and what had to be done – and what had to be done was a simple phone call to Storm’s father, Daniel Marcus, Sr. Of course, what she knew would come after would be anything but simple.
“Hello?”
“Daniel? It’s June. We have a problem.”
“Proble- Don’t tell me Daniel found out about-”
“Not exactly. He’s figured out how to unlock a bit of his power, but he doesn’t seem to know what it is. If he did, he’d have done more than just kick some ass.”
“Good. I think it’s a good idea for me to visit. Daniel needs to know what he is and how to work with it.”
“Call him Storm when you get here. He stopped going by Daniel quite some time ago.”
“All right. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Try to keep him at home until then.” *click*
Just as June hangs up the phone, Storm calmly walks through the door, eyes still blood-red. He looks over at June, knowing neither that his eyes are still red nor that she knows everything he does and then some about why they’re red.
“Storm… we have to talk. Right now.”
“About what?”
“Storm… sit down. This is sure to be quite a shock, but-”
A loud THUD in the front yard cuts her off.
“Oh, good, your father’s here.”
“Why is that bastard here?”
“Storm, just bear with me for a little while. This is very important.”
“I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Well, tough. I saw your whole fight out there, and I know exactly how you pulled it off. Your father is the only person I know who can help you control your power.”
“Wait… what power?”
Just then the door opens, and in walks Daniel Marcus, Sr., eyes exactly like Storm’s. Storm had no idea as to why his father’s eyes were the same as his, or how he could have been at all responsible for that loud crash in the yard, but he was sure as hell about to find out. They were about to begin one awkward conversation when Dade, Mike, Marcel, and Sarah walked through the front door. All of them screamed bloody murder when they saw Daniel and Storm’s red lizard-like eyes and promptly ran upstairs, where June followed them.
“Dan- I mean, Storm, I know you’re mad at me-“
“Pissed, dammit, pissed! You ran out on us, you bastard!”
Storm lunged at his father with a red fist, and he masterfully blocked it with a red palm of his own. Storm was, of course, quite shaken, not really knowing that his father knew exactly how to completely neutralize his attack. Not really knowing what else to do, he just stood there with his jaw on the floor and his red eyes wide open.
“Storm, you can’t beat me. Not now, anyway. Not when you’re so inexperienced. That’s why I’m here. You need to train as a dragon, with a dragon.”
“…Did you just say… dragon… ?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. There’s no denying it.”
“MOM!!!! GET THIS LUNATIC OUT OF HERE!!!!!”
June came down the stairs and into the living room with Dade, Mike, Marcel, and Sarah behind her, all of them wide-eyed and mouths agape.
“Storm… he’s not crazy. You really are a dragon.”
“Not you too, Mom. Will someone who isn’t totally insane please explain to me what’s going on here?!”
Marcel took on the challenge. “Storm, you know you can trust me, right? Your father, and his parents, and their parents, they were all dragons. Mike told us all about when Josh brought you in from that fight. From what he said happened, you should be in the hospital, but you’re not. And you didn’t have a scratch on you. I know a thing or two about dragons from all the reading I did in my spare time before I met all of you. They heal very quickly, so quickly that it seems as though they’re invincible. They all take human forms to blend into human society. That’s why neither of you look like lizards right now. And there’s a whole lot-”
Storm fainted before Marcel got to finish, and everyone rushed to him catch him and then to carry him upstairs and put him in his bed. Dade went back to his room and the others left while Daniel and June went downstairs and into the kitchen for some coffee.
Daniel especially felt guilty about Storm passing out in the living room. “This was too much, too quickly. I wish we could have told him a bit sooner-“
“Daniel, we both know he was too young to burden him with that. We did nothing wrong. Besides, how old were you when you found out you weren’t human?”
“Touché, June, touché. My parents only told me and started teaching me about a week after we found out about Abby.”
“Let’s see if we can talk to him in his dreams. I’ve done that a few times. Stood there and just talked to him. And he talked back, almost as if I were saying that in his dreams.”
<That sounds an awful lot like… No. Those don’t exist.> Daniel thought to himself, brushing off the idea.
“Storm? Storm?”
“Just a minute, Mom.”
Storm gets out of bed and goes downstairs and to the kitchen, where he sees his parents drinking coffee and eating some coffee cake. They motion for him to sit down and put a cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake in front of him, signalling that they were to be sitting there talking for quite a while.
“Storm, you’re a dragon. Well, half-dragon if you want to be really anal about it.”
“We never told you because you knowing would put you at grave risk. Really, I was hoping this terrible power would end with me, that none of you would ever have it.”
“It’s not evil, but some people think it is. And we’re not demons, but again, some people think we are.”
“I’m just glad I finally have a name to put to thi-“
Just then, there was yet another THUD outside the window nearest the kitchen, except this time, the source wasn’t something friendly. Storm screamed when he sees what it is, and tried to run, but it caught him and-
Storm woke up with a loud, blood-curdling scream that sent everyone in the house – which by then included Lucas – to Storm’s room. Storm’s red, lizard-like eyes were still there when they all walked in, and Lucas is the first to notice.
“Dude… your eyes… they’re…”
Stay tuned for Chapter 2!