10 - A Strange Young Girl

Staring at the strange young girl who was only moments away from stabbing herself, Jesse's body acted without a single thought from him. He immediately rushed forward with blinding speeds, and just moments before the knife would've pierced the girl's chest, he tightly grabbed the blade with his hand. His hands were strong enough that the knife wouldn't cut him. Both the young girl and Jesse wore surprised expressions on their face, panting somewhat, until the girl began to try to push him away.

"No! L-Leave me alone!"

She yelled at him, angrily. Jesse's eyebrows rose as he realized that she was surprisngly strong, at least for her age, almost breaking his grip with her pulling. To make sure she didn't, he gripped as hard as he could, shattering the knife into tiny pieces.

"What the hell are you doing!?"

Jesse yelled at her, some anger in his voice, he hated to see someone just trying to throw their lives away like this, especially someone so young. The girl angrily shook her head and yelled back.

"S-Shut up!"

She pushed him away and began crawling on the ground, searching through the grass.

"Need to find something... need to find something fast… some kind of sharp rock or something… anything…!"

She murmured to herself, in a desperate voice. As she crawled, Jesse noticed two tiny bat-like wings protruding from her back. He had also noticed two extra sharp teeth in the roof of her mouth when she yelled at him, but he had something over weighing those strange sights in his mind.

'W-What the hell?! She seems almost desperate to throw her life away, why would that b-'

His train of thought was interrupted as two men suddenly burst from out the trees. They wore an army-like uniform with large sharp pauldruns and on their heads, large hard helmets. In their hands were small red guns, which looked straight out of a sci-fi movie.

"Aha! There you are, finally!"

One of the men yelled out, staring at the young girl.

"O-Oh no!"

The young girl exclaimed, her lips and body beginning to tremble. Some tears started building up in her eyes, and Jesse had quickly realized what her situation was.

"Wait, y-you there, you seem strong... p-please kill me… Right now!!! Please kill me right now!!!"

Jesse sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He ignored her words and stepped in front of the young girl, blocking the two men's path to her. On his face was a deathly serious expression, more so than he usually wore.

"Hey you there! Hand over the girl and we'll let you live. Don't, and we'll just blow your brains out and take her anyway. Hehehe..."

Jesse completely ignored the men and stared back at the young girl.

"How about I get rid of these two for you instead?"

A small, friendly and reassuring smile sparked on his face when he said this, mixed in with his serious demeanor, it made him seem strong and dependable. There was no way he was gonna let whoever the hell these guys were hurt a young girl like this, if she felt like killing herself was a better option than getting captured, well then whatever they wanted from her had to be despicable.

"C-Can you really…?"

Some semblance of hope appeared on her face before quickly disappearing, continuing.

"No… their weapons are too strong! Just please kill me! Or at least run away and save yourself while you can!"

Instead of responding, Jesse simply faced the other direction, and struck a fighting pose. He death-stared the two men as he tightened his muscles, ready to fight.

"I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you want with this girl, but I'm not gonna let you lay a finger on her."

His entire demeanor scared the two men slightly, and they responded angrily, some fear mixed into their voices.

"Y-Yeah! Ya' don't know who we are, s-so why dontcha just go on off and not get involved in things you know nothing 'bout kid!"

"Keep low to the ground."

Jesse ordered the young girl, and she complied.

As Jesse simply continued to death-stare the two men in his fighting pose, they both swallowed their saliva, then one yelled out in frustration.

"Fine, whatever, ice this little shit Dande!"

"Sure thing Lion!"

Lion immediately cocked his pistol, firing a laser beam straight at Jesse's face. Jesse widened his eyes angrily and swiftly ducked under the zooming blast. He immediately kicked down on the ground and rushed forward, using both his fists to punch the men in the stomach, he was pulling his punches somewhat. As they were incapacitated from the attack, he used the opportunity to reach out both his hands and crush their weapons.

Jesse hadn't just been staring at them and waiting like that just to scare them, he was waiting for them to fire. He was pretty sure he could easily withstand the bullets of regular guns. But laser guns were totally different, he wasn't sure he could take a hit from one so he had to be careful. If he had just rushed in it would've been much harder to avoid the blast as well.

Besides that, the men holding the weapons were weak, about as strong as the average person, so he'd already won once he destroyed their guns. Grasping their stomachs, the two men were shaking in fear on the ground as they stared at Jesse.

"T-This kids a monster…"

"Now get outta here before I kill you both! Go tell whoever you work for to eat shit, this kids under my protection!"

"Eeee!"

Both of the men yelled fearfully like a pig, immediately running away as fast their legs could take them. They had no way to fight for themselves anymore after all, and after seeing him crush their guns with his bare hands, there was no way they were gonna try to fight him.

Jesse sighed, and sat on the ground as Dande and Lion faded from sight into the trees.

When the adrenaline finally faded from his body, he realized what he'd done. He'd gone and been a hero, and now he had to babysit this little girl and protect her from some kind of organization that wanted her for some unknown reason. He was pretty sure it wasn't the red ribbon army, their uniforms looked totally different. Thinking about it, he felt they kind of looked like the soldiers in the move Space Balls, at least helmet-wise.

'If they have access to laser guns, or anything even better… this could be not so great for me…'

But he wouldn't have done anything else, even if he'd thought of that before, there was no way he was gonna just leave a little kid to die. This wasn't just some anime world to him after all, at this point, he'd fully internalized just how real it all was, and there was no way he'd just turn a blind eye to something like that right in front of him.

'Regardless though, this is gonna be trouble…'

Unbeknownst to Jesse however, he was already changing the fate of this world, and altering the flow of events when he stopped that girl from stabbing herself. The consequences of his actions could be severe if he was to make the wrong move from here on out.