Chapter 21. No!

“No! What happened!? How did he do that!?” Arthur shouted, the board that was once perfectly in their line of sight blocking the pathway thanks to Julie’s ability was completely shoved aside by the man without even having to touch it!

“Damn!” Shelly swore, she forgot to include something within her calculations “He’s a Telekinesis!”

“What do we do? What do we do?” Arthur was completely terrified; he didn’t expect people chasing him to have superpowers. Shelly shook her head; she didn’t have a second plan yet. Michael and Julie looked at each other with worry in their eyes.

The mountaintop was closing in as the horses carrying them began to slow down, they were becoming extremely tired. The horses finally gave out directly on top of the mountain as their pursers also arrived and began to surround the two carriages.

“Heh, heh, heh not bad little kids, your plan almost worked if it wasn’t for our leader here” One of the two with similar looking demonic mask began to speak. He had a blue mask whereas the other had a green. Their leader had a red mask.

“Now I want you guys to come on out and get on our knees, if you don’t, we’ll have to do it forcefully.” The guy continued with his threat. Michael got up from his seat and slowly headed out. His movement caught Arthur by surprise as he whispered loudly “Michael!” However, Michael only told him to stay inside as he walked out.

“Do you know who you’re messing with?” Michael attempted to intimidate. However, it didn’t work as the green masked man tilted his head and said “The Galafrays?”

“If you knew that, why’re you still following us?” Michael continued to maintain his posture. However deep inside he was completely shivering.

“Ahaha, you, dumbass! Do you know how much money an Exotic slave is worth? Especially kids!?” The blue masked man laughed at Michaels question. Everything was for money what criminal wouldn’t go for a risk that’ll net them extremely huge profit.

His words completely terrified Arthur, however Shelly only gave him a weird look as she began to contemplate.

“So! Will you call your little friends out or… will I have to drag them out?” The two masked men inched closer towards Michael and began to surround him. “Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?” The blue asked man continued to say.

“You won’t get through me!” Michael roared while his legs were completely ready to buckle.

Seeing his persistence, the two men began to crack their knuckles and inched closer. Their first punch was about to be thrown before someone within the carriage shouted “STOP”

Julie hopped out of the carriage and rushed to stand between Michael and the two men, her arms completely extended outwards shielding Michael from behind. Seeing her courageous demeanor Michael could only mutter “Julie…”.

“What’re you gonna do, little girl? You think you can protect him? Hm?” The blue masked man taunted. However, Julie did not budge as she maintained her steadfast stance in shielding Michael. He continued continued “Fine, if you want to be first then you better not regret it.”

The door to the carriage opened again as the two kids slowly climbed down from the steps. Barkie was sitting back on top of Arthur’s head while Silver was curled up in Shelly’s arm. Their attention was completely focused on the three as the two youths walked out.

“Where’s the third kid?” The blue masked man asked. He continued with a threat “Bring him out or your two adult friends are dead.”

“He’s not here, so you’re going to have to kill them.” Shelly retorted causing Michael and Julie to quiver, the strength Julie had earlier completely vanished as Michael tried to maintain a steady posture.

“Oh? You sure you don’t care about these two?” The blue masked man continued to speak as he walked over to Julie and tilted her by the chin with his finger. “You’re quite the beauty, it’d be a shame if we’d just kill you right here.” The guy teased. Julie could only maintain her glare at him.

“Hmph, you little bitch! Watch me kill your man first before I toy with you.” The blue masked man said, his arrogant threat completely made the two succumb to despair.

Barkie looked at the scene playing out and locked gazes with the monstrous horses that was behind the leader.

“Grr” Barkie growls caught the attention of the three as they turned to look at the little puppy.

“Ahaha, look at that little guy, he’s trying to act all tough.” The green masked man pointed at Barkie and began to laugh. However, the horses behind the leader showed signs of intimidation as their legs began to shiver.

“BARK!” The little puppy roared in the loudest little yelp a little puppy could make causing the two men to laugh hysterically at how adorable it was. Yet, moments later the horses behind them neighed in fear and kicked about before turning tail and ran off down the mountainside from where they came.

“You little! How dare you do that to our horses!” The blue masked man roared. However, Barkie paid him no mind as it tilted its head away and hmphed at the man.

“The third boy isn’t here, what’re you going to do now? Mr. carriage drivers.” Shelly completely unraveled the guy’s disguise.

“Ahaha, you figured it out kid.” The two men laughed as they removed their disguise. The two men removed their masked and showed their tanned face. The green masked man had green hair whereas the blue masked man had blue hair.

“W-why are you doing this to uh-us?” Arthur stuttered; he couldn’t keep calm as Shelly. Shelly only told him to exit the carriage, so he did what she had asked hoping she’ll have another plan.

“Didn’t you hear? Slavery is worth a lot of money. Other nobles would pay a fortune for Exotics like you two kids to be playmates, toys, or servants for their kids or themselves. Ahaha!” Blue laughed menacingly.

The look of horror could be seen on Michael and Julie’s face as they completely understood what the guy meant. Arthur was still a bit too young to know exactly what he meant whereas Shelly seemed indifferent to it.

“Okay, make us slaves.” Shelly replied with indifference. Her expressionless attitude irked the blue and green men, but they couldn’t actually do anything.

Their leader looked at Shelly and asked “When?”

“Since you guys chased us up the mountain.” Shelly replied.

“Gah, I thought we were doing so good, what gave it away?” The leader shook his head. Everyone in Shelly’s group looked at the conversation between the two and felt something was off.

“You guys carried weapons, but never used it. There was no killing intent coming from you guys, and with horses like those you should’ve caught up to us way before we had the chance to make it up here.” Shelly stated a matter of factually. The leader scratched his head embarrassingly before taking his mask off.

The face beneath the mask was an old tanned skin man in his late fifties to sixties with red hair and magenta eyes, a Prodigy. He had a kind face as he beamed a warm smile towards the people at the carriage.

“My name is Gran Ule, Chief of Boulderville. May I know your name?”

“Shelly.”

“Nice name, simple yet sturdy I like that.” The chief then introduced himself to the remaining dumbfounded people as they stood there and nodded their heads and shook his hands.

“These two are my sons, the skinny boy is Pebble and the big one is Cobble.” He introduced the blue and green haired people respectively.

“Hello, didn’t scare ya too much did I?” Pebble shook hands with Julie and Michael in front of him before greeting the rest. Julie was still annoyed by what he did before but there was no real harm.

“Hello! Sorry!” Cobble replied with a few short words expressing his sincere apologies, he only did this because he was asked to do it.

“This was all an act?” Arthur finally started to recover and understood what was going on.

“Yeah, the little boy asked of us to do this to test you guys. We thought it would be fun, so we agreed. Where is he anyways? Still in the carriage?” Pebble asked.

“You’re saying Boss put you guys up to this?” Arthur angrily replied.

“That’s his name? If it is the little purple haired boy and yellow eyes who was with you guys, then yes.” Pebble answered while glancing at the carriage, shouldn’t the boy walk out and explain himself?

“Where is he?”

“He went to pee!” Arthur replied, the annoyance that Boss caused him made him want to just punch the kid in his face, he’ll heal since he’s an alien, no worries.

Clip Clop Clip Clop

The sound of horses walking back up the mountaintop could be heard coming from the incline behind them. Moments later a little boy with brown hair and sunglasses sat on the back of one as it obediently carried the boy to the mountaintop. The other two horses followed behind.

“Our horses!” Pebble disappeared from his spot leaving a trail of dust behind as he reappeared before the horses glancing at the kid above it. “Who are you?”

“They call me by many names, some call me child, other calls me old man, but I am the one and only Boss!” The kid gave himself a weird entrance as he pulled off his glasses and tore off the wig. “Tada~ It was I”

Everyone from the carriage looked at Boss unamused, did he not realize how annoyed they were?

Ignoring their annoyed gazes Boss continued sitting on the enormous horse as he spoke. “So, what have you four learned?”

No one could reply instantly as they shared glances with each other. “Is it that you’re a bad bodyguard?” Arthur asked. Boss was at a lost for words “Err no” he could only reply. While what Arthur said was true, that’s not what he was looking for.

“I should have included people with powers in my plan” Shelly replied. Her answer made Boss slightly nod his head and continued “While yes, you four should have included those with powers in your plan, trapping yourself at the mountaintop with no exit is probably not the best idea.”

“What I wanted to hear though is that you guys are weak, no amount of planning or teamwork will fix that if you guys don’t get stronger.” Boss continued.

“But I haven’t even gotten my powers yet. How can I get stronger?” Arthur grumbled. Boss’ response wasn’t helpful he already knew he was weak.

“Weak people still have things they can do, since they’re weak they’ll be deemed as insignificant threat, you can just act weak and wait for an opportunity.” Boss’ response made them silent as they thought about it. He continued "For example, look at these three how were they going to bring you back as slaves? Tie you up and make you walk on a rope behind them?”

“The best they could do is surround you four and walk you to their base while keeping an eye on you, they wouldn’t harm you since you’re worth something to them. Well, that is if they were rational.”

“And then what?” Arthur asked?

“Wait until you have an opportunity and surprise attack them. Kill them if you can, they may be strong but they’re still humans with flesh and bones.” Boss glanced at Michael.

“Or you can just run away, all you have to do is be patient” Boss nodded his head and closed his eyes as the fantasize about how great his speech was.

THWACK A rock landed squarely on Boss’ forehead causing him to fall off the horse.

“Run!” Arthur shouted as he ran down the mountaintop. A sneak attack followed by running away. The little kid is already putting what he’s been told to good use.