Inglourious Basterds
This chapter took me a long time because I was undecided about what I put the protagonist through, I only warn that there will be child violence.
I also want to say that in this chapter he was supposed to meet Gloria, but it was already getting too long.
Comment what you think of the chapter, I will do everything possible so that in the next one he already meets his mother.
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It had been 3 years since the formation of the group of 5. In the end they were all picked up at the same time including Veronica. It seems as if everyone agreed, it was strange. Even stranger was the fact that all the upper-class people left the hotel no more than 3 hours later. As they were leaving Andrew remembers seeing ambulances entering the building.
In any case, that was not the most important thing about the end of the trip, Gatsby had associated with his father, as a commitment to the alliance, ties had to be strengthened, Andrew did not know what the parties involved were committing to, the only thing he What she knew was that Jay Gatsby was now her godfather, something that would be strange if it weren't for the fact that Jason and Cheryl's parents were now Jackie's godparents, the 2 brothers already had godparents before the trip, but now it seemed that it didn't matter .
In the course of those years several things happened, one of the most complex was the role that Jack began to expect his son to develop, beginning to put more pressure on him; he took him on hunting trips, made him practice various instruments and even sports, this pressure transformed inside the boy into various things, some quite disturbing, but the most notorious was: hunger due to anxiety.
Andrew gained weight, this as expected generated a series of criticisms within the home all referring to his appearance and how his image was a disappointment since it reflected badly on the family, all this omitting the fact that Jack was fat. The boy began to stop feeling his emotions and bury everything under junk food, but that was not enough, he got to the point of having a tic in his eyebrow every time his father began to scold him about his role as Bukhart.
Rosa was his only consolation since even Jackie who, although not with the intention of hurting him, began to express the same criticisms as his parents. Andrew felt this pressure especially during periods where Rosa would take a day off to visit her family. A triggering event took place when she took a week off due to her mother being ill.
Jack was fed up with his son's softness, so he took him hunting and forced him to shoot, he didn't hit anything, thus increasing the tension of the situation.
The father had brought a hunting dog, it was one that the children had known for as long as they could remember, Jack had it from when he used to hunt on a recurring basis. Andrew used to play with that dog along with Rosa, when she wasn't around the animal was his only company.
Then it all went downhill when Jack mistakenly shot the dog, it was even worse when he took that opportunity to take the soft thing off his son, he said he shot him because of him; it was his obligation to put the dying animal out of misery, he pressured him to choose between the revolver and a stone, he did not have the strength to pull the trigger, something strange because he has always been strong, so Jack put the stone in his hand . He was never the same after that.
Rosa noticed, but no matter how much she asked, she never found out what happened to the child she was caring for, nor did she find out what happened to the missing dog named Balto, a name that both children gave him since Jack had never named him.
Andrew began to dream about the dog, tormenting him while he slept, sometimes he seemed to see it in the corners of his vision, he reached a point where he hardly slept, where before he responded to the taunts and aggression of other children with sarcasm, mockery and indifference, He started using punches. Everything that he was good at before began to be complicated for him, the only occasions where he could see himself as he was before was with Gatsby when he took him with him to teach him about business, how to deal with sharks, how to be charming and how to talk to girls or girls in the child's case.
With her friends from the club of 5 she also felt very comfortable, her favorites were Cheryl and Jason, Jackie was more attached to Veronica, maybe because they were both daddy's girls with picky personalities, oh the rest of the group had that type too of personality, they were all rich children after all, the difference was that the black-haired girls hid that characteristic under apparent sympathy and sweetness.
It was a rare occasion where the whole group was together, the times it happened it was due to situations like the first time; millionaire meetings. They did not count the other opportunities where they all met if they were just business conversations between their parents since they barely interacted, it seems as if the adults used them as shields, when they were in sight they projected an image of a stable home, a way of not showing weakness, even between families that considered themselves friends. The only one who didn't care to give that image was Gatsby, a proud single man.
And although he really enjoyed the rare opportunities where they got along with his friends, little by little that stopped working, it no longer left him so relaxed, the visions of that small, brown dog with a black back began to become more frequent, he even tried to hide things that would remind her of her pet, didn't work.
It wasn't until one day during one of the family gatherings that he overheard the conversations between Jack and the elderly Noah.
- You keep behaving like an incompetent effeminate Jack- I hear the voice of old Noah, but unlike the previous times, this time the voice didn't convey affection, but rather disdain and annoyance- Oh, does that bother you, Jack? I thought your testicles had grown, but no, you're still the same Jacqueline, I swear if you cry, I'll hit you with the fireplace poker.
Andrew who, although he no longer had the same love for him that he had for his father 1 year ago, still felt bad, for Jack he was always an immovable and imposing figure, capable of doing whatever he wanted because he had money and as always, they had expressed it: "Whoever has more money has more parts of the world can handle"
His father was cowering in his seat, grandfather was pacing the room, looking like a lion about to attack- I've told you many times boy, you don't shake hands with a rival expecting a partnership like a fagot, you do them believe that there is an agreement and then you take advantage of it- The old man put his hands to his temples and only touched that part with his index fingers- Think Jacqueline, think- He took the drink that he had left on his large desk- You screwed it up with Gatsby, you were supposed to take advantage of that poor slob who was lucky enough to get his wealth, not hold hands and be friends.
- But the benefits I get...
- THEY ARE NOTHING! Nothing compared to what that nouveau riche pocketed. You think you're making a profit, you're just as stupid as your mother Jacqueline, when you have to take advantage of something you don't give it a chance to grow, you take what it owns and you keep it, if you can't keep its wealth then you burn it and burn the unhappy man bastard with his money.
- We have benefited a lot, the Blossoms, together with the Lodges, support us when we inflate shares, they support us the same when we devalue them and acquire the competition.
-Are you still talking? Who told you that you could do that? Don't talk, don't think, I think you execute I ORDER YOU OBEY!
Through the slight opening in the door Andrew could still see Jack trembling, he got a quality feeling seeing him as vulnerable as he made him get.
-Remember Jacqueline, if there are still ashes left from a problem, then you haven't used enough fire, remember to burn everything, repeat.
- Burn it all.
- BURN IT ALL!
And burning was what the boy did, he burned everything that reminded him of the dog and he felt freed, lighter, almost as if he were another person. This event triggered another problem, Andrew started burning small things whenever he felt pressured, or when he just didn't feel anything for long periods of time, he just had to burn something and he felt calm.
The whole thing got out of control when Jack surprised him once, he began to ask him for an explanation of why he did mentally ill things, Andrew, who could no longer be intimidated by someone he lost respect for, responded;
- It's none of your business Jacqueline - Everything passed like a blur, Jack began to hit him with his fists, the boy responded the same, although it doesn't match the strength of an adult if he left bruises along the man's torso.
- Of all the children I had to choose the most problematic- Jack said before hitting the child in the mouth- You fucking brat, I took you out of a place of filth and you pay me with disobedience- Andrew fell unconscious shortly after hearing that, when he woke up, he was in bed and rose was taking care of him. They had called a private doctor, since it couldn't be one who knew the family, they had to search outside of Kenosha, so the doctor had taken many hours to arrive.
The child was kept in bed for 3 days, despite the fact that the doctor had estimated that he should be on bed rest for a week. The first thing he did was burn the 1967 Chevy Impala that his father loved so much, without a doubt that was one of the best things he burned. Jack responded by hitting him with the belt, seeing that the boy did not respond to the punishment he kept trying until he left his body marked.
After this event, the balance within the home changed, Andrew no longer obeyed his father at all, he began to refer to him by name, not even depriving him of food or his toys could make the child obey him, the straw that overflowed the glass was when he burned again the Chevy that Jack had a hard time restoring.
In the end Andrew was sent to a boarding school as far away as possible, he went to near the town of Riverdale, the place was called; "Anubis House". He did not expect to find the redheaded twins there, apparently his parents had left the country and did not want to take them with them.
The boarding school was a strange place, they continued with the same student program as most schools, however, they spent much more time learning things in the "Prep" class, they focused a lot on the physical aspect, to get to it you had to go even further down the basement, they were always searched before entering and before leaving.
Sometimes they showed the most vulnerable parts of the body, at other times they were shown survival techniques, and what was very strange was that during the rest days after the fighting lessons they were allowed to play video games, although they all involved weapons. Andrew noticed that the people at Anubis House favored you if you played and performed well on the Hitman games, by coincidence they were Cheryl's favorite and he, Jason preferred the simple shooting ones.
On rest days, the whole class was sometimes taken to the computer lab.
They were divided into groups of 3 and formed a kind of shooting game tournament, the members of the club of 5 at the beginning were not part of the same team, it was not until the 3rd time that the tournaments were held that the teachers noticed that they were the ones more of their crews lasted, so it wasn't long before the friends teamed up on a recurring basis.
In combat classes Andrew was among the best, although his progressively losing fat made that difficult. Next to him in the first places was Cheryl, she favored evasion during combat, in contrast Andy opted for a more direct approach, relying on brute force, Jason like his sister was fast and slippery, but he lacked the mentality She thought a lot about her twin when she thought she could seriously hurt another child, nor did she have the tactical thinking that the Bloosom girl seemed to have.
At Anubis House, children began to be exposed to systematic desensitization to both weapons and hurting others. Although indiscipline was not tolerated, the teachers did nothing in cases of bullying. When a whiny boy blew up in the middle of class one day due to being abused by a skinny boy and a fat boy, the teacher simply told him to be quiet and sit down, "Mr. Frederick, if you can't get up the courage to solve your problems don't expect others to do it for you", That's what the teacher had said, apparently the boarding school had a kind of philosophy of; Survival of the fittest, or that conclusion Cheryl came to and then shared with her brother and friend of hers.
The replicas of the weapons used were very realistic, not only in appearance, but also in weight and recoil capacity, this detail was discovered by Jason's sister when she wanted to use a pump-action shotgun; she had a red, swollen nose like a tomato for a week.
At the end of the first semester, the boarding school held a kind of Olympics whose final event was a kind of; "Capture the flag", only using the replica weapons along with imitation bladed weapons. During the main events no member of the friend trio managed to win first place, as the competition included the older kids as well, although they did manage to get the attention of the teachers.
During the final event the maximum number of students in the boarding school was divided into 2 groups, they divided them according to the last 2 numbers of the student IDs; Andrew had the number 3223, Cheryl the 4664 while Jason was the 6446, the figures that he gave to his friends and he caught the attention of the Bukhart boy, he did not miss that the number of his friends were the same only that in a different order, made him think about the way they assigned numbers, he saw the name tags of others, he did not find other students with a number as uniform as the one they got.
Frederic had the 9076, this particularly caught his attention. It was the number that Jason's twin had, the brother was 9070, finally, his was 9109, they had these numbers for the first 2 months that Andrew was in Anubis House, for some reason one day the teacher simply he asked a group of children to give them their boring gray nametags, to give them new ones, he gave no explanation, the new ones only differed from the old ones because of their colors and new numbers.
Cheryl's and Andrew's were light red, with a white box where their data was captured, just below the photograph, Jason's was yellow, few were the ones who got them in red, a little less rare were the yellow ones, the common ones were the green ones. Within the group of children whose student ID was changed that day, just under half kept the gray color, they only gave them a smaller number than the one they had.
That day there were 3 reds, 5 yellows, 7 greens, 17 who kept the gray. A total of 32 students, so to speak, rose within the school hierarchy, the yellows were not looking for a fight with the reds, greens moved away from yellows, no one messed with blacks and grays, they were the carpet with which others cleaned themselves, oh that's what the friends observed in the behavior of the oldest students.
Andrew managed to understand the numerical barriers between the colors, red was within the entire numerical range of 3000 and 4000, that is to say; 4999 would still be red, 5000-6999 were yellow, 7000-8999 were green, those in the 9000 range were all grey, Andy noticed that those of this color were the ones with the most consecutive numbers.
The few blacks that were there ranged from 0701 downwards, while the blues were confined to 0702 to 2999, or at least Andrew came to that conclusion, the selection parameters of those numbers were not entirely clear to him.
Returning to the final game, the friends were on the same team, the leaders were the blacks, Andrew could say that there were no more than 10 of them in the entire boarding school, all of them were older students, among them they distributed the ranks of captain general and lieutenant general, the blue ones were only generals, the red ones were captains and lieutenants, the yellow non-commissioned officers and sergeants, the green ones were only corporals, all the gray ones were soldiers, half of the entire student body was gray, that was corroborated during the games, no it was so obvious unless you paid attention to the name tags.
It was a kind of war game Cheryl loved being able to boss her brother around, not so much being bossed around by the arrogant golds, there were tense moments when the older students who were green didn't want to follow the orders of the younger ones, nothing that a few firing squads with paintballs won't fix it, Jason enjoyed doing it.
The battle broke out at midnight, when the German side, which was where both the twins and Andrew were and who wore red vests, surrounded the Allied side who wore blue vests, a squad of 20 grays fell on them while the greens looked around, they believed that they had managed to dominate that outpost, until they were shot in the back. The numbers the Germans managed to eliminate were very few compared to their losses, and so it went on all night, posts being taken from the other side only to be retaken later.
The number of soldiers soon thinned out, as those who died had to stay where they were killed unless they were pushed out of the way by another player or their bodies were "burned" by being spray painted orange. The gray students became less and less common and the green ones had to take their place, 3 hours before dawn the reds were left as the lowest echelon of the armies, Jason was the only surviving yellow and it was because he was under the direct command and protection of his friends, this was the first case of military nepotism in human history.
Very soon the blues began to be erratic, they wanted to continue with the kamikaze strategy of attacking at the slightest suspicion of mobility from the Allies, the blacks who fell short of that order decided to punish the blues who had made them lose so many troops, so they they were demoted to corporals and used as a decoy, they took the arm bands that indicated the rank of the gray "dead" and put them on those who were former generals, a gang of reds followed them 20 meters from behind.
The reds were 5 plus Jason, suddenly one of the corporals took something out of his vest, it was a blue flare, he lit it and threw it into the air, very soon the group of red Germans began to be surrounded from the front, not even Cheryl nor did Andrew hesitate to make the other 3 reds fall and run off dragging the girl's brother, they covered their way throwing both the red flares they had.
- The sons of bitches betrayed us! - An agitated Cheryl had said.
- I know, I expected that from you two! -His brother replied.
- You're lucky we've been saving your skinny ass so far, don't push your luck!- Andrew yelled as he ran past them.
- At least I'm not a chubby version of Harry Potter! – Jason pointed out the white scar that Andrew has always had on his forehead, but it was only very noticeable when he ran and his face turned red – It looks like a butt! Harry butt- er!
- Very good Eugene, it only took you 3 years of knowing me to think about that! – Said Andrew sarcastically- You should tell your friend with the misshapen head and also his friend with the Q-tip head! Just be careful not to fall!
- It's the weakest insult you've ever said to him! – It seems that at this point the friends had forgotten that they were being followed and fell into one of their childish routines - And Jason, Harry has green eyes and wears glasses, don't insult him by comparing him to Andy who has yellow eyes! – Maybe Cheryl had a little crush on that character.
- They are green, they only look yellow in low light! – It was another way of saying that his eyes were only green when he was only strong.
- I keep saying it's a disease! – Jason said that he was still running with his friends.
- More like deformity! You would have been accused of being a witch in the Middle Ages! – Continued the mockery of her twin, the redheaded girl.
- Maybe their parents are cousins! Run faster chubby! – Jason said that he was the fastest of the trio.
- Screw Hansel and Gretel! -Andrew yelled as he ran harder so as not to be left behind- If the parents of someone here are cousins, they are theirs! It's not normal for everyone to be redheaded! freaks!
- Cheryl! – Her brother complained- Quickly thinks of an ingenious answer!
The female twin thought about it for a few seconds, by the time the trio was able to hide under a ledge of earth, she gave her answer; - Your mother!
The group looked around and saw no sign of the enemy, they breathed for a while before hearing the hammering of guns and seeing a posse of the Allies aiming at them from above.
They made them kneel down in the middle of a clearing, the traitors were also with them on the ground, one of the blue army had dipped a foam bat in blue paint, they started with one of the double camps, they didn't even ask him any questions, he was removed from the game for complaining about being betrayed, he said they shouldn't do it because they had allied themselves.
-Wait! We help them! I'm a friend of Nathan! The leader of the Allies! – I cry the double agent.
-The captain general said without exception- I shout and lower the bat on the traitor's head.
- Now the brats, I thought that there were no gray shits left - Commented the one with the bat.
- They're not, look at their rank bands, they wouldn't give so much authority to some simpletons – One of his companions pointed out.
-THEY ARE RED! THOSE LITTLE SHITS WERE INSUBORDINATE! - Confessed one of the traitors -I'LL TELL YOU MORE, JUST LET ME GO BACK TO THE GAME!
The friends didn't understand why the older students took the game so seriously, but their enthusiasm was contagious and the 3 of them were competitive.
- Jason! Now! – Her sister whispered promptly.
Given the order, the boy took out about 4 flares that he had tied to the back of his shirt collar, since they had their hands behind their necks it was easy to grab them, their kneeling figures were very quickly hidden in the blue smoke, barely The Allied army noticed the smoke and were preparing to execute them, but they had to hide due to the paint grenades that the other 2 had thrown; one in front and one behind them.
As the enemies sought cover, the trio released more flares as they ran. Some soldiers of the allied army were hit by the detonation of orange paint and had to pretend to be dead, the red smoke made it difficult for the survivors to find the trio of Germans, but they made the mistake of assuming that they were fleeing, the reality is that the boys split up and began hunting them while they recovered.
They had been hunted down and slaughtered with the red markers, only the soldier with the bat remained, and Cheryl finished him off with her own weapon. The Germans looted the Allied corpses, took their weapons and blue vests, to later settle in enemy territory, there they silently began to kill the leaders, it was easy because most of the Allied force was deployed throughout the territory.
They arrived at the central enemy camp, here they had to move more carefully, the reality is that they were very lucky that their side was losing, there were fewer forces concentrated in the central base, the blue army felt confident. They entered the tent where the black leaders were gathering and celebrating.
- Just like in real life, the Germans will lose- said one of the pale-skinned, hook-nosed blacks.
- Don't remind me, it was very funny when Aaron had to be practically Hitler leading the Germans - The other black soldier laughed loudly before adding - I think the director likes black humor, putting a Jew in charge of the German army – At that comment all the blacks and a few blues who were present laughed.
The jovial atmosphere stopped when they heard how one of the paint turrets that was outside turned on, suddenly the lining of the store was thrown away, leaving only the skeleton of it and they could see that behind the turret was a little red-haired girl.
-What's new old man? – Cheryl asked imitating one of her favorite characters.
- It was supposed to be Hail Hydra! Andrew yelled.
-Keep the change you filthy animal! – Jason complained.
- You can still say it- his sister replied before seeing that one of the black generals tried to raise his weapon -Stay! – The red-haired girl yelled at him before shooting him with the turret - Any other brave? Say it, Jason!
-Keep the change you filthy animal! Jason yelled.
Cheryl fired mercilessly even after they were down, she kept shooting, then they went to where the blue flag was and ripped it off while Jason pressed the button at the foot of the flagpole, said button served as a signal for the teachers to press indicated that said team had lost.
The German army that had been reduced and lost hope of victory, felt as if a miracle had happened, especially the leader who was entrenched about to kill himself with his weapon. All the students left the forest and returned to the back door of the boarding school, there they all saw how the black generals, despite having already lost, were forcibly led by 3 armed children, the girl being the one who used the flag of the allied army as a Scarf.
The 3 children were praised by their entire side, as a reward the winning side should not do cleaning work the following semester, they could also access the computer room outside of class hours and one other benefit, such as being able to go to the nearby town called Riverdale to walk or buy things.