Trails Of Justice

CHAPTER 9

Fre wakes up to find himself on Flay who is flying through the sky “what happened?” Fre asks holding his head, Lily taps him on the head to make him notice that his sleeping on her lap then says “you passed out at the bar when Tombstone arrived; you’ve been knocked out for a few hours now”. Fre gets up and stretches his arms as he says “I thought I saw Vesen and Cyber, those guys are seriously scary” Lily and Dex exchange a look and Dex explains “you did see Vesen and Cyber”. Fre’s face turns pale and he starts scratching himself nervously as he asks in a shaky voice “so, why was Vesen and Cyber in the bar?” Dex sighs and says “it seems that Tombstone also recruited those two to help him attack Nova, you know who Cyber is right?”. Fre tries to calm himself as he says “yea I know Cyber is number 5 of the TOP 10, but did Tombstone explain why he needed his help”.

“Tombstone said his just being cautious” Dex explains, Lily adds “honestly I think the guy is a bit paranoid, I mean with me, Dex, Vesen, Cyber, End, and him that makes six TOP 10 members, that’s kind of overkill”. ”it is a bit of overkill, but where are we going?” Fre asks looking around, Dex explains “after hearing Tombstone’s plan Cyber wanted to take us somewhere, that’s where were heading”. “Why are we just going where this Cyber guy wants us to go anyways?” Lily asks.

Dex says “Tombstone wanted to go and since his the one in charge of this whole thing we have to go where he goes, plus Cyber isn’t just some guy he is the guy who created the BLANKGRIDS in the first place”. Lily asks “did he do that all by himself?” Fre answers for Dex and explains “Cyber is the second smartest guy alive at the moment; his ability allows him to interact with machines, so it was pretty easy for him to make BLANKGRIDS by himself”.

Lily clearly impressed by what she heard says “I guess there’s a big difference between the first and second half of the TOP 10” Dex nods in agreement and adds “yea basically from number 5 down are the world wide criminals, I mean the rest of us have crimes in other countries but most of our actions are here in Kairon”. This is when Lily gets curious and asks “what did you do anyways Dex?” before Dex could answer Lily goes on to say “I mean I know your some kind of terrorist but there’s a lot of terrorist around”. Lily’s statement clearly annoys Dex but he is able to answer her and say “first of all am not a terrorist am-” Lily interrupts and asks “then how did you get on the TOP 10?” Dex gets a little angrier and just yells “how about you shut up and let me speak before you ask questions that I was just about to answer”. Lily grows quiet and Dex takes a deep breath to relax then says “like I was saying am not a terrorist, like End I’ve been in the TOP 10 since I was very young, my life wasn’t that complicated or hard I was just a normal kid with real anger issues”.

Sixteen years ago an adolescent Dex dressed in the same attire he will wear years later with the exception of his unlaced brown combat boots and lack of his signature bandana is sitting in a police station in front of the average mean looking police officer. “This is the third time this week that I caught you skipping school, so what do you think I should do with you?” Dex laughs and says “you can’t do anything to me, am sure you remember what happened the last time you tried to put me in jail”. The officer scowls at Dex and asks “you plan to beat up the other inmates again?” Dex shakes his head disappointedly as he chuckles and says “inmates? Are you serious? This isn’t a prison so you don’t call them inmates, come on, don’t make me the ten year old correct you the thirty-something year old”. This statement gets the officer so mad that he picks Dex up by his shirt and raises his fist to punch him; Dex starts laughing again as he points at the police station security camera and says “if you want to hit me it would probably be a good idea for you not to do it in front of the camera”.

The officer drops Dex and says “just go home you punk” Dex smirks and salutes to mockingly say “will do officer” Dex leaves the police station laughing while he thinks to himself “sometimes I amaze myself, I mean I skipped school and got away with it, that idiot wont contact my parents because his scared of me and the school doesn’t even want me there so they won’t do anything either”. Dex continues to laugh as he walks on the side walk of the small quiet town; he keeps walking until he arrives in front of a small elementary school.

Dex waits outside the school until the bell rings and a blond haired girl with freckles about his age comes out of the building wearing a white Sunday dress, red dress shoes, and a black backpack. The girl runs up to Dex and hugs him, instantly Dex pulls out two rubber bands from his pocket and puts the girl’s medium length hair into two symmetrical puffs “you look way better like this Nana” Dex says laughing. The girl blushes a little, then frowns to say “my name isn’t Nana you jerk, its Nanell” Dex bows his head a bit and says “sorry sorry, I like Nana better than Nanell but if you agree to skip school with me sometime I might change my mind”. Nanell thinks for a second and says “I would have accepted your offer if you didn’t have such a bad idea for a date, if you had been here today you would know that there is going to be a dance tomorrow and maybe we could have gone together”.

Nanell starts walking away and Dex gets in front of her and says “wait, are you saying you want to go to a dance with me?” Nanell sighs and says “I was saying I would have gone with you if you were here today, but you weren’t”. Nanell tries to keep walking but Dex stops her to ask “then who are you going with?” Nanell doesn’t say anything and just looks at a boy behind Dex. When Dex notices the boy he gets angry and goes to drag the boy by his shirt and brings him up to Nanell “is this the runt you’re going with?” Dex asks holding the boy up to Nanell’s face. “Put him down Dex!” Nanell says in a demanding voice “first answer my question, is this the runt you’re going with?!” Dex asks in an equally demanding voice, Nanell's eyes start glowing blue as she says in an even more demanding voice “put him down!” the air around Nanell gets thick and the gravel beneath her feet start cracking and rising up into the air.

Dex starts laughing as he asks “are you really going to use your telekinesis on me?” Nanell simply nods before squinting at Dex making a rain of blue light fall only on him “drop him Dex” Nanell says as she starts levitating. Dex shakes his head and says “I won’t be doing that Nana just like you won’t be hurting me, we both know you’re a goody two shoes so just calm down and we can make with a kiss or something”. Nanell shakes her head disappointedly and says “this is your problem Dex, your so stubborn” she then claps her hands together and the rain of light bundles together turning into bright blue beam that consumes only Dex and sends him flying into the sky and out of sight. With Dex gone Nanell sends the boy Dex had home and then waits for Dex to drop down from the sky which takes a couple of hours.

To make sure Dex isn’t hurt Nanell wraps his body with a blue light stopping him only inches before he hits the ground “so, is it too late to say sorry?” Dex asks with his body still hovering above the ground. Nanell eyes stop glowing blue and Dex’s body drops to the floor “you can be a real idiot sometimes” Nanell says patting his head “what do you mean?” Dex asks not raising his head; Nanell laughs in a very Dex like manner and says “you know that guy you were bullying wasn’t who I was going with” “he wasn’t?!” Dex asks with his head still on the ground.

Nanell smiles and says “nope he wasn’t, you just jumped to conclusions and overreacted” Dex raises his head and says “you are some piece of work Nana” Nanell’s smile goes away and she says “my name is Nanell and if you want to go to the dance with me then that’s what you’re going to call me”. The next day during the evening Dex is running dressed formally from head to toe with a black suit, white tie, and black dress shoes “I going to be late” Dex thinks dashing through the sidewalk. Dex keeps running and when he hits the corner leading to the school he runs into the boy he had mistaken for Nanell's date with two older guys. “Hey get out of the way, am running late here” Dex says running in place not realizing who his talking to, “this is the guy” the boy says to the older guys.

Dex tries to run around the group but one of the older guys grabs the collar of his clothes, instantly Dex punches the guy grabbing him in the leg then punches him in the face when bends down to hold his injured leg. “I don’t know who you guys are, but if you want to mess with then you chose the wrong day” Dex says as he takes a kick boxing stance. “What do you mean you don’t know who I am?” the boy asks Dex who stares blankly at him and asks “am I supposed to know you?” the boy gets angry and tells the other two with him “hold him down I want to beat him myself”. The two hold Dex down and the boy gets set to punch but is stopped when Dex starts laughing and says “you guys better run because I am seriously pissed off”.

Before the older guys could react to what Dex said they are blown away by an explosion, when the boy sees this he tries to run away but can’t do to the explosions that stop him no matter what direction he runs. “Stop it already” the boy says in a frightened tone as he tries to get past the explosions “it’s too late to stop it” Dex says walking up to the boy. Dex grabs the boys shoulder and says “I can’t really control my ability, so you better start praying runt” an explosion consumes the boy and Dex starts running towards the school. When Dex arrives at the school the dance had already started and Nanell is waiting for him outside in a pretty white dress “what took you so long?” Nanell asks, Dex says “I was just a little distracted” then proceeds to escort Nanell inside the school.

As Dex reaches for the door to enter the school police cars pull up and surround the school as an officer on a loud speaker says “Dexter Lawhood, you are under arrest for the violent use of your ability”. “Dex, what’s going on?” Nanell asks confused, Dex laughs a little and says “nothing’s going on just going inside and I’ll be with you soon” Nanell nods quietly and enters the school. Dex turns to the police and yells “hey! I know you want to take me in but I got a date with my beautiful friend, so can you hold off on this for a while”. The officers are stunned silent by Dex’s strange demand but one of them is able to use the loud speaker and say “Dexter Lawhood raise your hands above your head and walk slowly towards us”.

Dex starts laughing and gets angry at the same as he says “you guys are pissing me off!” explosions start going off randomly in the air, the officers all start running as their cars are blown up. Dex continues laughing and says “now you’ve done it, I can’t control my ability when I get angry” explosion keep going off until the officers are able to jump Dex and knock him out. Back to the present Dex finishes explaining “and that’s basically it” Fre and Lily exchange a look of confusion and Fre says “you didn’t explain anything” Dex shrugs his shoulders and Lily asks “how did that explain how you got on the TOP 10?” Dex shrugs his shoulders again and says “I thought it was self-explanatory, I had anger issues and when I get angry I lose control of my explosions”. Fre and Lily sigh heavily and Lily asks “then what happened after you got knocked out?” Dex rubs his head and says “I told you it’s not that complicated but if you really want to know everything then here it goes”.

Dex takes a deep breath then explains “after the police officers tackled me down I was taken to juvenile detention there I met this really annoying kid that got me so mad I blew up the entire detention hall. After that they tried to put me in a real prison but I blew that up too, by then only like two months had past so I decided to go back to my home town but the police didn’t really like that and chased me the whole way. While being chased by the police over the months I accidently blew up a few buildings here and there, some of those buildings might have been important so before I knew it I was a dangerous criminal”.

Dex stops talking to show that his done telling his story, things stay quiet for a while then Fre says “guess your story really wasn’t that complicated but I thought you would at least explain what happened to your eye”. Dex raises an eyebrow and asks “my eye?” Fre points at Dex bandana and says “yea your left eye is-” Fre stops and remembers back to when he first met Dex in the desert and his right eye was covered by his bandana. Fre starts thinking and notices that ever since they met Dex had been switching between covering his left eye and his right eye with his bandana, Fre gets really confused and asks “hey Dex can you take off your bandana for a second?” “Sure” Dex says as he removes his bandana to reveal two perfectly healthy brown eyes. “Why did you want me to take my bandana off?” Dex asks, Fre just sits still confused and Lily asks “what’s the point of wearing your bandana the way you do if there’s nothing wrong with your eye?”

Dex puts his bandana back on, slants it to cover his right eye then says “I wear my bandana the way I like it” Dex then looks at Lily and says “I don’t talk about the way you dress”. Lily examines herself and asks “what’s wrong with the way I dress?” Dex chuckles and says “nothing, your clothes are perfectly fine for a hooker” “hooker?!” Lily yells, she then turns to Fre to ask “do I look like a hooker?” Fre makes sure not to look directly at Lily and hesitantly says “no, you look…you look…normal”. Knowing Fre was not being completely honest Lily grows quiet and just stares blankly into space “by the way, where is Tombstone and the others?” Fre ask trying to change the subject.

Dex points down and says “there right below us” on the ground Cyber and Vesen are riding on mechanical horses made of scrap metal, Tombstone is running right behind dragging his casket like always, and End is flying right next to Tombstone only a few feet above the ground. “We’re almost there” Cyber says pointing ahead at a metallic structure in the middle of the desert, the closer they get to the structure the more it appears as a medieval castle. When they get in front of the castle Cyber signals Fre and the others to land then explains “this is a little project I’ve been working on for a while, I call the G.C.C.C version 2”. When Flay lands with Fre, Dex, Lily Tombstone asks “what dose G.C.C.C stand for?” Cyber flaunts an arrogant smile and explains “G.C.C.C stands Grand Conquest Cyber Castle; it’s my second model so I added the version 2 to the end”.

“Grand Conquest…What exactly was this thing made for?” Dex asks inspecting the castle with his eyes, Cyber walks up to the castle doors and says “am glad you asked, after I made a few BLANKGRIDS I started to feel as if it wasn’t enough to keep me safe so I decided to make this castle for defensive reasons”. Cyber touches the door and small sparks start flying as the door opens “come on in” Cyber says leading the others inside the castle. As cyber walks small sparks fly and lights attached to the gold walls turn on revealing an expensively lavished hall with crystal chandeliers, fine carpets, and pearl pillars stretching from the floor to the high ceiling. Cyber turns to the others and bows his head formally to say “welcome to my humble fortress”.