Ceremonious Meeting

For three days Arthur chewed his dirt encrusted nails from their shadow, drawing lengths down to near butts. The man scurried back and forth the wind battered hovel, continuously drawn to the dial of his telephone. Once before the device, Arthur, spun to match the number written in elusive cursive. Then, with every subsequent call never reaching Kage's ear his worry grew. 

That night there had not been a single peep from the boy. Arthur stood up days later, not a tale of slumber to soothe the fear manifesting in the marrow to his bones. His mind knew the boy lived in part on his resourcefulness as well as holding faith that he wasn't captured by the thugs. His sources conveyed that the poverty-stricken streets stood amidst a search spanning from slum shacks to that of sewer pipes. Yet, a deeply unnerving regret bore focus in Arthur. Never had he been so direct with aiding another and their deeds. His quiet life may well be over as he now tossed himself into the thick of it for no reason he could surmise. 

Always the cautious one he had been. 

Even Madame Entoise slitted her gaze when taking those people off his hands. It was the right choice letting her handle things. Arthur knew no one else who could protect such a number of people. Afterall, the basement was already full. 

The doctor directed his focus to the doll in his hands. The feeble thing so easily shatterable clung to its perfect form for so long. Arthur caressed the doll in a manner akin to that of a newborn son rising to his glory in the surgeon's light. Before the subtle curvature and light speckling to the cherry red cheeks on the china girl, Arthur felt taken by the vast ocean in the doll's eyes. So expansive they were that the very essence of corruption would never reach their depths. It saw the totality of nature embracing it without respite. 

"That boy. His eyes are so dark." Arthur initially thought that Kage was a violence seeking fiend. A boy too young to realize his mortality thus risking others for a selfish section of joy. 

Perhaps that was the truth. Arthur could never fault someone if so.

But, in the weeks prior, there was an extra element to the boy. Not on a single occasion had there been a wail in the night or gasping tremors shaking the thin walls crumbling a dusting of paint off them. In that terror still stood the boy day after day no complaints nor crying following such events. It was simply how he had lived only now another was subjected to remembering the past. 

In truth, Arthur sought Heroism at one point. A brief beginning to a brief ending lasting no longer than a year for development. Being a monstrosity couldn't amount to much in the workforce, especially one as ugly as him. Maybe in the start when Heroes were desperately needed, if even as shields, Arthur may have acquired a thin string of chance. Alas, in an age where the Villains sat at round tables dealing cards amongst the Heroes. A man from poverty was not needed. 

Subject to disappointment, why move on from a doctor with not a cred to display dignity? Bring one and bring 'em dead or gutted but just make sure to pay by the end. 

Decades passed without a conjuring of thought to deflect the circumstance. Then the first boy was met and ended, him and his mother. Now a second. Each wishing for the same after another. 

"Help someone? Be a hero? Stop wha'ever baddens the shit world?" 

To not be forgotten. 

Arthur laid the doll back onto its shelf. The only object of the bunch of knickknacks which was cleansed of muck leaving a circular outline of its bottom on the metal grate. 

'Guess no one wants to be forgotten.'

A pounding alerted the man to his front door. Tilting his head to the side, Arthur made to peer out the window catching a glimpse of whomever had come. His eyes met together studying a single teenager dressed in an expensive pair of slacks as well as an overcoat skinned from a fine leopard. The boy's shoes were exquisitely polished so their exuberant brown tan could gleam on this overcast day. 

"The fuck?" Arthur silently opened a grandfather clock lazily tilted against an adjacent wall but lying parallel to the entrance way. From the darkness within, a twelve-gauge shotgun accompanied by the click clack of rolling shells presented itself to the man. Loading the weapon with the stealth of a rampaging bear, Arthur found his way to the door placing the end of the meteoric barrel to its surface. If fired the boy on the other side would have his groin exploded, then his innards showcased in succession. 

No richies ever came into the neighborhood. Their presence brought nothing good with an end of nothing but misery, perhaps some treachery to add into the mix of things. 

He pulled the door open with a single hand, leaving the other placing the barrel against the door, finger firmly on the trigger. However, the door did not snap all the way open, instead caught by the metal chain linking it into a crack of space which allowed for the bug man to eye the unexpected visitor. 

This visitor was a young 'un of the rich. Some seed from the expensive platinum balls of the one with wealth not one of self-made wealth. Then again, when was the last time these men of riches became self-made? Yet, the boy's bleached hair and slender stature provoked a confused scrunch on Arthur's face. It all wound his heart into a familiar core. 

'Didn't Kage describe one of his friends the same way?'

Gan of course was more perturbed by the man hiding in the shadows of his hovel. This entire trip was disturbing to say the least. He vaguely remembered the sights and sounds Kage and him encountered when they made their rendezvous in the pitch of night to the underworld. Even then, the blackness covered the horrid graffiti, the lepers unwell with fuming pus, then the long shadows threatening to rip flesh from the bone. The place stunk in a similar stench to that of an apple's rotten core. The similar scent that took him when he stood above that Villain's corpse. 

This was a place Kage had frequently visited all to be near that child. Gan scowled at the mere idea of their bond. 

Now, after eyeing the decrepit nature of the sickened gutter, he concluded it was a place of the 'normal people'. A belief he held for all of a minute before discovering the face of the man to accompany many sets of eyes. Never in his wildest of dreams had Gan expected for someone of evolved nature to live in this wasteland. 

The media always showed them at their best among the elite so how was it possible for a fully grown Evolved to sink so low? Children were a byproduct of circumstance whereas this must have been a choice. 

"What ya want?" Arthur's tone was gruff with a hint of venom underlying the question. A tone that startled Gan. It was a world of firsts this day, unpleasant ones at that. "Ya walkin' to here with yur pretty clothes, eyein' to get yurself shot, retard?" 

Gan glanced at his clothes, lightly picking at one breast pocket of his ironed dress shirt. "They're just clothes." He answered with a pronounced grimace.

"Ya really too retarded to understand, huh?" 

'I just had to have this luck. A seed spawn of a richie not knowing he was rich. Fuck me.' 

While Arthur contemplated blasting the kid then tossing his body into the dumpster, Gan took a shot over his shoulder making contact with the three pairs of eyes that hesitantly watched his conversation. Jacob, Isaiah as well as Claire accompanied him but on his request were simply on lookout duty in case something was to happen. This meeting had taken a wrong turn somewhere leading to Gan believing an escape plan should have at least been discussed beforehand. 

His nerves were spiking considerably especially with the singular grip the man had on the door. If how Kage described him was to be correct, then Arthur was a paranoid man working with some of the worst people as well as covering their misdeeds. Therefore, it would not be misleading to conclude his other hand was equipped with a firearm prepared to end Gan's life at a moment's notice. Carefulness grouped together with patience retained as a lacking quality in the boy, one he wished he had practiced because he so desperately wanted to force himself into Arthur's home at that moment. If only to steal the arm gripped upon something fierce beyond the wooden barrier. He couldn't handle this stress as he simply thought it would be easier to end the man then continue his search for Kage. 

Finally, Gan answered Arthur's originally posed question, "I'm here looking for a friend." 

All six of Arthur's eyes widened momentarily before scrunching once more. "Yur Gan? Or that other? Some biblical shit that." 

"Uh, yes. I'm Gan." 

"Figures." His second hand placed the shotgun against the wall away from the twitchy finger but not out of reach. "Told me yur the loyal type. Practically brothers." 

There was a perk in attention to the boy followed by a mutter beneath his breath meant for him alone to be heard, "He said… brothers?"