Caleb couldn’t believe his eyes, this guy looked like he was his twin brother and although he was holding his own for the time being but it was only a matter of minutes perhaps seconds until he would be over whelmed by Buck and the rest of his goons.
“Leave him alone Buck.” Caleb said stepping from the crowd, something he normally wouldn’t have done, but seeing this kid something sparked inside of him that made him want to protect the other boy.
“Well if it isn’t little Caleb, come to get your face rearranged with your look alike?” Buck asked stepping towards him.
“I’m not going to ask you again Buck, back off or else.” He said fearlessly as the crowd’s oohing and awing edged the confrontation on.
Buck’s face showed that he was stunned to have anyone defy him before his face twisted in a sneer. “You just signed your death warrant.”
Mace and Lydia held their breath wondering what was going happen next, never before had any of them openly challenged anyone in a fight much less done it in front of everyone.
Buck strolled up to Caleb towering over him, at six feet tall he looked like a heavy set gorilla. His stomach was over grown and sticking out of his shirt making him look like a sumo at the same time it off set his gorilla features.
“Don’t make me hurt you Buck.” Caleb answered without backing down.
“Hurt me?” Buck laughed reaching out to grab onto Caleb’s shoulder.
Before his hand could reach him Caleb grabbed it twisting it backwards while at the same time kicking Buck in the stomach, the second he hunched over from the blow Caleb finished him off by kneeing him in the face knocking him out as he fell backwards.
Stunned, the rest of the bullies just stared unsure what to do about Caleb a man they had beat up on several times in the past with no issue or resistance.
“Which of you wants to be next?” Caleb said defiantly standing next to the new guy who stared quietly in silence.
“What’s going on here?” One of the teachers interrupted pushing his way to the front of the crowd. “What happened to Buck?”
“He tripped.” Mace said quickly.
“And all of you are just standing there?” The teacher said rushing to check on him.
“As you and the other teachers are well aware Mr. Chavez Buck and his friends have a habit of picking on everyone else hence the lack of aid to him now, besides when he was injured he had been pushing around this new kid.” Caleb answered.
“Is this true?” Mr. Chavez questioned to the new kid.
“Yes sir. I was just minding my own business when they came up and said I had to give them whatever money I had on me.” He answered a little bothered by the attention.
“We’ll talk more about that later then, in the meantime everyone break it up and head to class right now!” He demanded trying to revive Buck.
As the crowd broke Buck’s right hand man (a skinny guy with glasses named Donovan) passed close to Caleb and the new kid for a second whispering to them in a low tone. “You got lucky punks the next time we find you the teachers won’t be around to save your sorry butts.”
“You have that all wrong Donovan the teacher didn’t save us he saved you.” Caleb hissed back.
The look on Donovan’s face was priceless as Caleb shoved him backwards and ushered the new guy towards the inner buildings. “What’s your name?”
“Belac.” He answered.
“I’m Caleb.”
“So are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” Belac asked with a sigh.
“I’m not sure where to start, where are you from maybe we are distant relatives.” Caleb answered.
“I don’t know where I was born for sure, the reason I came here is because I have been searching and this is where my search has lead, I was moved around a lot as a kid because I’m an orphan I never knew my parents.” He answered. “Is it possible your parents gave me up for adoption?” He asked point blank.
“Not likely, my parents were always about family.” Caleb frowned at the thought.
“Maybe they know of some family that might have given me up at birth an uncle or aunt? Do you think we could ask them?” He asked hopefully.
“If they were alive I would, my mother died when I was a baby and my father passed away recently.” Caleb answered staring at the floor as the two of them walked.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He said in the customary tone.
“Death is a part of life.” Caleb shrugged. “Anyway, where is your first class?”
“Politics with Professor Dawson.” He answered upset at the subject change.
“He’s a good teacher you’ll like him.” Caleb answered. “I’ll show you where the class is.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you step in to help me back there? The way those thugs acted was like you never step up to them so why now?” Belac questioned.
“Truthfully I don’t know, maybe I was just tired of the bullies or maybe it was because you look a lot like me.” Caleb answered.
“Whatever your reasons, thanks for stepping in, I’m a descent fighter but I have no doubt they would have pounded me into the ground.”
“Anytime, if you need some friends you can hang out with me and my friends from now on it’s up to you.” Caleb said stopping in front of a door to a classroom.
“I’ll probably take you up on that.” He said shaking Caleb’s hand.
“Cool, we’ll see you for lunch then bro at the courtyard we were just in.” Caleb answered heading off back down the hallway.
Caleb walked down the hall thinking of where or who might have given up Belac when he turned a corner and ran right into Grace.
“Hey stranger I was wondering where you got off to.” She said patting his chest.
“I was helping the new guy find his first class.”
“What’s his name?” She asked as the two of them walked towards their first class.
“Belac.”
“That’s an interesting name.” She answered thinking it over.
“Yeah I suppose, I’m more interested in figuring out where he came from.” Caleb said absently.
“”I’m more interested in figuring out how and why a guy I’ve known forever suddenly not only develops a backbone but also apparently is a master fighter.” She says stopping him right outside their class to look into his eyes. “Any explanation?”
“It’s a long story for another time.” He answered.
“Meaning you are going to put off telling me anything now and then later you’ll conveniently forget to tell me anything.” She frowned opening the door and walking in without giving him a chance to defend himself from the comment.
“That’s just what I needed, one more pissed off person in my life.” Caleb muttered following her inside to the desk near hers.
“Nice of you to join us.” The teacher scolded for a moment before turning back to the board and continuing with the lesson on the history of Passion Falls.
After a dull hour filled with things that weren’t quite true from what Caleb knew he watched the clock counting the seconds until the bell rang for the next class. He looked over at Grace for a minute hoping she would talk to him again but like the rest of the class she still pretended that he wasn’t even there.
She wanted to be a jerk about him having a private life that was her business he was done trying to talk with her. The bell rang and Grace made sure that she was the first one out the door leaving him in the dust to make her point clear, she was not pleased with him.
Filing out of the classroom himself Caleb took his normal short cut through the narrow corridors between the buildings so he could get to class a few minutes early and set up everything he would need for science lab but instead of the emptiness he was used to Donovan appeared in front of him and one of the other thugs from there group a hairy guy named Justin appeared behind him.
“Time to pay the piper punk.??
? Donovan said making a fist and punching it into his hand.
“That’s a little bit of an older saying for you isn’t it?” Caleb said unimpressed.
“Not really.” He said growing fangs as his skin turned beyond white pale. “They used to always say it when I was first turned, don’t you have any sayings passed on to you from your elder’s spirit warrior?”
Caleb turned to look behind him noting that Justin had begun to transform as well changing into a rather large werewolf a strange alliance for the normal clans inside the boundaries.
“Bravo keeping your true forms hidden from my senses so long, how did you manage that?” Caleb asked.
“A gift from the new leaders of the clans.” Answered Donovan.
“You know Don you don’t look all that different this way than you did as a human.” Caleb smiled looking back at him again. “Now tell me again the leaders of the clans? You aren’t telling me that you two prize ponies are actually from the clan alliance outside of the border are you? Because that just isn’t possible none of the evil from the clans could possibly cross.”
“For now, but things are changing Caleb, soon no where will be safe for you or the others, but to answer your question we were part of two separate small clans here inside the barrier, the leaders reached out to us along with others I’m sure and offered us many things if we switched sides, both of us accepted and decimated the members of the clans here and took to the mission of recording everything you and the others have done or are doing.” Donovan answered with a fanged smile dripping a little saliva.
“Why revel yourselves now? Did you really take me beating up Buck that hard?”
“Things have changed, we have been ordered to take you in, the leaders have important plans for you.” Justin answered.
“You know what Justin, you look less hairy now then you did as a werewolf.” Caleb answered looking at him for a moment. “Come on you guys don’t really think that you will be enough to take me in yourselves do you?”
“Who said we were alone?” Justin smiled looking up to the top part where the buildings roofs met the high walls where six more creatures waited to pounce on Caleb.
There were four more werewolves and two vampires one of which was Buck himself.
“Interesting, thank you all.” Caleb smiled.
“For what?” Demanded Buck and the others dropping from the roofs.
“For saving me the trouble of hunting you down one at a time.”