1272 Garblos Avenue, Lunaris, LN XXXX
Z.G.V University 12:30 P.M
Cawner's world swam in and out of focus through the cracked lens of his glasses.
His cheek pressed against the cold tile, the copper taste of blood coating his tongue. Every breath scraped at his ribs where Donald's boots had left their mark. Around him, the lecture hall was quiet except for the steady drip of blood from his nose.
Donald's voice cut through the silence like a whip.
"What the fuck do you an you lost the drugs, Cawner?!"
Cawner flinched.
The words struck harder than the punches.
"I...I didn't."
He stamred, his voice trembling.
"I swear I left it where you told . Near the old dorm gates. It was there last night after all, I dropped it off exactly as you told to."
Donald's hand shot out, grabbing Cawner by the collar and yanking him upright.
"You think I am an idiot? You think soone just wandered up and took a packet worth ten grand?"
His breath was hot, reeking of spice and liquor.
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
Cawner choked out.
"Please, Donald, I...I swear....
A fist slamd into his stomach. His body folded, air leaving his lungs in a desperate wheeze.
Donald let him drop like trash, shaking his head.
"You really don't learn, do you? I give you one job, one, and you still manage to fuck it up. Pathetic."
Behind him, laughter bubbled up from his goons, two thick-necked idiots wearing the sa Z.G.V. University jackets for the football team, their House insignias gleaming gold on each as everyone in this school is from a wealthy family with maybe one or two exceptions.
"Maybe his brain is still lagging."
One snorted.
"Mid-Rank genes will do that to you."
"Don't waste your breath."
The other said.
"He is not even worth the tuition space."
Cawner's gaze then shifted to Margret, his Margret, standing beside Donald with her arms crossed. She looked away when he t her eyes, her lips pressed into a thin, hard line. She didn't defend him. She never did. Not anymore.
Donald threw an arm casually over her shoulders.
"You know, Maggie said you used to be her little protector back in school. Cute. Guess she outgrew her guard dog, huh?"
The goons laughed again. Cawner's stomach twisted. Margret didn't respond, just kept her eyes fixed on the floor.
Then Donald turned to the man standing a few steps behind them, he was a quiet one.
"...Sigh, the guess I will have to send Rynn to properly investigate the stolen package."
Donald ntioned him, his eyes and the half Asian young man.
He didn't say a word, nor did he even blink. Rather he just stood there, both hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed sowhere distant.
But the air around him felt heavy, dangerous would be a more suitable word here. His re presence alone made everyone instinctively want to step back.
Donald smirked, while looking at Cawner.
"You're lucky Rynn doesn't care to waste energy on worms. If he did, we would be scraping you off the walls."
Cawner said nothing. His voice had left him, along with what little pride he had left.
Donald gave him one last kick, hard enough to make him curl.
UGHAA!!
He groaned in pain holding his stomachs, as Donal lift his up by the hair, while saying.
"You've got until tonight to get back my money. Or find the the stash, either her one, or I will let him deal with you. And we wouldn't want that no do we!?"
Cawner nodded weakly, tears stinging his eyes. Donald spat beside him, then turned away.
"Let's go."
He said, slinging his arm tighter around Margret.
"I've got better things to do today."
Their laughter trailed out the door.
Then silence quickly ca.
Cawner stayed there on the floor long after they left, his breath shaky, his body trembling. Every inch of him hurt, his ribs, his jaw, his pride.
He could still hear Donald's voice echoing in his head, twisting around all the others that had co before it. Pathetic. Weak. Nothing.
Those where the normal he was used to hearing.
He wanted to disappear. No... he wanted to change.
But how do you change what you are?
He stared at his hands. Small. Trembling. Human. Not a trace of Hestahood in them. Not like Donald. Not like the others who had Awakened, their genes lighting up like stars, their bodies reshaping into sothing powerful, sothing worthy. All Welders of Gaian Energy.
If only he was one of them. If only he had been born different. Maybe then Margret wouldn't have left him for that asshole.
Maybe Donald would've feared him like he now does him. Maybe his father wouldn't look at him like a stain.
Even now Cawner mind focus on the truly strong, his thought now on the strongest Hero in all of Aeloria Crown Blood, the number one Hesta of the FAA, the untouchable Stage 5 whose power made even noble houses tremble. If he were like her, no one would dare touch him.
Or Liora, his older sister. Lieutenant of Team 13, a woman born to command. Their father's pride. The real heir of the House.
anwhile, Cawner was the bastard, born of so drunken mistake, an obligation to be dealt with.
He had been sent to Z.G.V. not to learn, not to grow, but to be traded. Married off to so other house to secure ties, like a pawn in a board ga he never got to play.
Even now he doesn't love his current fiancés.
Thinking about it, he let out a shaky laugh that cracked halfway through, the sound echoing through the empty hall.
"I am so worthless."
He whispered to himself.
"I have no spine. No power. No one... Ahhhhh...
The tiles beneath him felt cold, like the floor was swallowing him whole.
He wished it would.
He wished he could just fade away, take this weak body and dissolve into sothing, anything else. Soone stronger. Soone who didn't cry at all.
But he wasn't Crown Blood nor was he Liora. He was Cawner. The failure of House Thommhaw.
And right now, that was all he would ever be.
Alas, sothing was drawing near, sothing that would grant Cawner his greatest desire, despite the harshness of the price.
After all, fate, the invisible force that governs all living things upon Gaia, moves according to Mother Nature's grand System of predetermined destiny.
And yet, neither the world nor Cawner could know that sothing unbound by this agreed order was already on its way.
A devil.
A angel
A beast
A plague.
A monster.
A savior.
A god.
A demon.
Call it whatever you wish, but as far as the world was concerned, it was free from Gaia's Will.
An aberration made flesh.
A sickness to the planets design.
At first, Gaia was ignorant. But in ti, she would co to learn what happens when a sickness is left to bloom, when corruption is given ti to fester, and spread.
Such, however, is the mayhem one should expect from the world now, as these Fluxes bring only the selfishness of their own agenda, to the point not even the System of Destiny could make them abide, and change the hands of fate, they are after all not of the world to begin with.
And so the unknown draw near.
1:30 PM, Lunaris City, Downtown
Nier stepped out of his Rolls-Royce Phantom, the heavy door closing with a satisfying thud as the bustling streets of Downtown Lunaris swirled around him.
The air was loud with sound of fellow luxury cars, the chatter of well-dressed pedestrians, and the faint clink of champagne glasses from nearby rooftop lounges.
His red eyes tilted upward, tracing the sleek lines of the B-Tower, a colossal skyscraper of mirrored glass and and industrial steel that stabbed into the overcast sky like a blade.
Its sheer scale dwarfed everything around it, a monunt to wealth and power in the heart of the city's richest district.
"Jesus Christ, Bella lives in a place like this?"
Nier muttered under his breath, a mix of awe and amusent curling his lips.
He adjusted the crimson velvet blazer over his broad shoulders, the silver skull ring on his finger catching the light as he took in the scene.
This part of Downtown Lunaris was a world apart from the gritty streets he hand once road last night in Sector-38.
Kaly, still perched on the dashboard inside the car, invisible to the passing crowd, stretched her tiny form and smirked
"By the way Darling, after we pick up and drop off Bella can you please take sowhere."
"Sowhere!?"
Nier asked a little surprised by Kaly request.
"Yeah, this ti however by eagle."
Hearing this he just nod and decided to asked questions later.
"Sure."
"Now the question is where is she!?"
He asked, as he await her, but it seems she wasn't finishing packing or getting ready as yet.
As such he decided to wait for her.
And as he wait he began to think about her.
He didn't know much about Bella Zane beyond the fact she is rich as fuck, and also from the Zane family, alongside the fact she works for Kayland as a Fixer.
It was at that ti he personally encountered her in the old factory back in Sector-53.
But who was Bella, really? Nier's mind churned as he leaned against the Phantom, the cool chro soothing against his palm.
The curse as he knows it in terms of personality amplified what was already there, bending a girl’s core personality into sothing… extre.
If Bella was a drear, she would be a worshipful stalker, trailing him with starry-eyed devotion. If she was possessive, she would be a jealous wildfire, torching anyone who got too close.
Or, if she was the ruthless predator but fantatic type cloaked in high-society, she could be a weapon for the cult, but a volatile one. The severity of her yandere nature hinged on who she had been before his curse sank its hooks into her.
Either way as Zane Princesses, she was Destin from day one to always be a winner.
But as he think deeply, suddenly sothing cover his eyes from behind, he didn't even heard the footstep muchless felt the presence of soone approaching him.
However a soon as he heard the voice he calm down, if they had spoke up any later than they did, he would have started to strangled the person in question already.
"Guess whoooo!!?"
They asked as they giggled.
anwhile Nier still has his arms folded, as he reply saying as such.
"Bella.... Or should I call you Lady Zane instead Ms. Fixer"
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