Judgement Day (I)

"45… 46… 47…" panted James, his breathing steady as crisp punch after punch landed in the air, each stopping in nearly the same spot. Having worked up a slight sweat, he felt satisfied. A lot of the pent up energy and frustration he was feeling dissipated into the air, and fueling the fire. Not breaking his stance, James looked back to the days of the past, when he was 13 in the mortal world, and used to practice like this daily.

James used to practice martial arts seriously, ever since he was a kid, and he was pretty good too. He used to be. Around the time he was 14, both of his parents disappeared without a single trace; there was no note left behind, no evidence of a crime, their cars were still present - hell, even the cooking was still going at the time, the hobs still caramelising the onions in the pan as if nothing had changed.

James envied those onions. It sounds strange, but in his eyes at the time, James saw something completely unaffected by that world-shaking event; of course, it wasn't all that "world-shaking" in most people's eyes - his family finally held a funeral for his parents after a month long investigation into their disappearance dredged up precisely 0 leads. And that was the end of it.

Of course, it never really ended for James, he was taken in by his mother's side of the family as sort of a "communal child" with no parental figures to speak of, hopping around various relatives' houses staying at each for 3 months at a time; a fair approach in their eyes, but to James it was hell. No parents meant nobody to back you up, and over the years he was bullied to the ends of the earth by his cousins. Of course then, the family didn't speak on "fairness" or "equity", but ignored it, allowing their various sons and daughters to bully James incessantly.

Having moved away for university James was over it, only returning back for summer - and even then choosing to stay at various friends' places, couch-surfing away most of the summer break - and that was it. It might have been his family, but ever since his parents had gone missing, he'd never truly had a home. Not in his eyes at least.

Naturally, money spent on continuing James' various martial arts classes was money being "unfairly" spent on James, and his family would only allow it if "the others chose to go as well". Naturally, none of his cousins did make that choice, and so his martial arts training ended there.

Instead, James found a new hobby - one that didn't just require no money, but instead made cash: engineering. Freelance software development, building custom toys for rich kids, even building large tree houses over summers, James did it all for the right price.

His family being what they were initially demanded that he "share" with his "caring cousins" - essentially extorting his hard-earned money - and to that James shut them up with a single response: "only if they choose to work too, it's only fair".

Reminiscing over these sore memories, throwing endless punches and kicks into the wind as if he were releasing years of pent up spite onto the world itself, minutes turned into hours, as time flew by James without him noticing at all.

'It wasn't all bad I guess' he reminded himself, remembering his father's side of the family, and how badly he wanted to stay with them. Compared to his mother's side of the family, his father's side was comparatively much smaller and poorer, but the love and affection they gave him was genuine. Sadly they were too poor to support him, barely getting by themselves ignoring the extra mouth to feed and clothe. They'd only immigrated to the country only a few decades earlier, and even from a young age James understood that this was a large part of the reason that his mother's side of the family disdained him so much: simple, clear-cut racism.

Before James could continue on this journey to the past, the door to the room his cage was located in burst open. The sounds of warriors marching in broke his trance-like state as the 9 warriors, their commander, and the old man he'd spoken to earlier entered. The old man stood in front, the commander of the band of troops following him hesitantly, clearly intimidated by the old man.

This didn't escape James' eyes, noticing that the old man clearly had much greater status in the tribe than he'd given him credit for. James' guess was quickly verified by the servile tone the commander gave as he held out a hand, signalling the troops to quickly line up, and marching to the middle of their formation, leading them to salute in unison, "We salute Elder Moon!"

Elder Moon smiled slightly, facing the formation of troops and waving his hand nonchalantly and responding, "No need for the formalities Commander Oak". Clearly not catching the memo, Commander Oak responded by bowing his head forwards and responding "As you wish Elder", lining back up into formation.

Elder Moon simply shook his head and turned to face James. "Someone's been working diligently, such a pity…" said Elder Moon, noticing the small beads of sweat rolling down the other party's torso. "Nice to see you again sir" said James politely, a slight smile on his face as his words were genuine - his impression of the old man before him was very good.

"Are you not afraid?" asked Elder Moon, a hint of curiosity flashing in his aged eyes, "This is your judgement day after all". Responding with a smile, James stretched his hands out in front of him, ready for them to be chained, and simply said "No, why would I be?".