The Orphan

Leonidas was shocked beyond reason. Magic, sorcery and energy manipulation was a zero sum game. This meant that the size of the influence on reality that energy manipulation had was dependent on how much energy was spent in the first place.

Setting an anchor to 150 years in the past may not sound like a big deal to most people. But Leonidas understood that in a 150 years, almost an infinite number of events have happened in between. The energy it would take to change an instance in the past would be enormous. Leonidas came to the realization that Gaia must have sacrificed her own existence to accomplish that. So even if he came back 150 years, Gaia would not exist at all.

'No... No No No No No...' , Leonidas' hopes of reviving Gaia were dashed. He had an unsightly expression on his face and he couldn't help but feel guilty and weak. Tears trickled down his face and onto his journal lying on the table.

He remembered the first time he heard her voice. He was on his death bed. He was 108 years old at that time, 5 years before the invasion. A beautiful pure and serene voice that could have only belonged to an angel. He was given higher knowledge about the universe and he had no idea if he was going crazy or not. But he couldn't help but trust in the voice and believe in it.

So he started practicing. Cultivating. After a few months he had regained some vitality and managed to walk out of the hospital with a renewed sense of curiousity and zest for life. That was something Gaia gave him. And he'll forever be grateful for it.

'Who cares. I'll do whatever it takes. If I can't revive her as the spirit of the earth, then I'll build her the most perfect body and revive her like that.', Leonidas resolutely thought to himself.

"Pffft... The orphan is going crazy"

"He probably had a dream about his family kekeke"

"Hey guys don't you know he' s cursed... If you keep making jokes you'll get affected hahaha"

He had not noticed but in the past few minutes his facial expressions had been changing from excitement to sadness to determination. The people around him would never let go of this chance to ridicule him. Leonidas noticed this and remembered where he was.

'Aaah... I'm back in this shitty place', Leonidas mused as he looked around. He was inside a classroom. There were desks and chairs set in an orderly fashion all around him facing the front. At the front was a badly maintained chalkboard. Pieces of chalk could be seen lying around on the floor. Even though it was the morning and the place was supposed to be clean, the school he was attending was badly funded and rife with corruption. Of course the quality of teaching was even worse. This was "Learn Secondary School" located in Pimville, Soweto.

Leonidas was born to a low income family who lived in Pimville, a small town in Soweto located in South Africa. As a child he excelled in school which made his family proud but made him the scorn of every other jealous student and annoyed teacher. This made bullying a daily occurrence even as he was 13 years old. He was used to this.

While the students were making fun of Leonidas, as they usually would whenever they were bored, Leonidas looked to his right and saw a quiet girl who was reading a book.

"Hey, Lebo, could you tell me what the date and time is?", Leonidas asked patiently.

The girl was startled, this was one of the few times he had initiated a conversation with her. "Umm.. It's March 18 2012 and the time is 07:43... The teacher should be coming soon."

"Thanks", Leonidas said while smiling. Then he continued to try and remember the situation at this time.

This was around the time when his family had gotten murdered. His mother was a hard working cleaner at a restaurant while his father worked for a construction company. They made just enough to support their three children with Leonidas being the oldest. Leonidas' drive in school was based on his family's situation. He needed to graduate, get a job and support his younger siblings so that they could go to university and better the lives of their parents in future. This was what he was planning as a 13 year old which is a testament to His mental maturity.

But disaster struck. His father had been a believer in luck and had always set aside some money to play the national lottery every week. And one day he won. The biggest Jackpot in history: R120 million (10 million dollars). He was so happy he went drinking with his brother, Leonidas' uncle, and told him all about how this money would change everything. And it did.

Little did his father know, his uncle had ties to an underground gang which did violent crimes. His uncle, whose name was Sanele, went to the gang and offered them 10 million in exchange for taking the lives of 5 people: Leonidas and his family. Sanele was a spineless, vindictive, passion less dissapointment of a person. He always relied on Leonidas' father whenever he would take up debts or had no place to stay. Taken over by greed, he didn't even think about all the times Leonidas' father had saved him and thought that since he would be the last living relative, then he would inherit everything. The gang agreed thinking that they could just threaten Sanele's life in the future and extort more and more money. So the game was set.

The gang attacked the family one day on February 25th. They were told that everyone would be at home at the time. When they went in with their guns, seeing five people seated in the living room they ruthlessly killed them all and stole the furniture to make it look like a robbery. But little did they know that Leonidas was out on an errand and that the fifth person, who seemed like a 13 year old, was actually Leonidas' classmate who had come to visit for a school project.

When Leonidas came back he was devastated. He found his family lying lifelessly on the floor. He couldn't say anything. He couldn't do anything. Luckily a neighbor had spotted the whole thing and called the police. When the police arrived the found Leonidas kneeling on the floor with lifeless eyes.

Leonidas was then taken to the hospital while the police investigated. It didn't take long for the mystery to unravel. After finding out the gang that did this, the police rounded up a few of the members and after questioning they managed to find that the person responsible was the victim's uncle, Sanele. Sanele was arrested and his trial was pending. But due to lack of evidence, as he hadn't paid anything, he was freed. But the police realized that Leonidas' life may still be in danger so they had been keeping tabs on Leonidas.

It had been almost a month since the incident but Leonidas had been quiet and timid ever since. Today was a turning point. According to Leonidas' memories, today was the day that he would get a new mother.

The front door of the classroom opened and a tall man with dark circles under his eyes and dark patches on his lips stepped in. The class immediately went quiet. This was Leonidas' class teacher. He looked around the class until he found Leonidas and gazed at him for a second then said "Leonidas, come with me to the principal's office".

Leonidas stood up and walked out of the class room as the rest of the class looked at him with various different gazes. He did not care though. He stepped out into the concrete corridor and began following the teacher to the office.

After a few seconds of silence the teacher spoke with an audible sneer "You're very lucky kid, they found you a white lady to adopt you". The teacher looked back expecting to see tears but was instead met with an indifferent Leonidas who looked around almost as if he didn't care about the teacher's insignificant existence. The teacher fumed.

"Nxx, you're lucky I'm even paying attention to a curse like you. Can't even respect your elders... Sies!" he admonished through gritted teeth. The community was rife with gossip and the hottest topic was how Leonidas had cursed his family all so that he could inherit his family's new found fortune. The teacher felt proud of himself for his snap at Leonidas and started turning his head to continue walking. But he immediately felt a pressure he had never felt before. It felt like his life was not in his hands anymore and his bladder was very close to releasing. He looked back and saw Leonidas looking at him with the coldest glare anyone has ever looked at him with in his entire life. His legs buckled and he fell to the floor. Cold sweat was raining down his face and his back. He couldn't explain it.

Leonidas kept walking as he stepped around him and didn't even look back. He could not see the teacher's teeth clattering and him muttering to himself almost like he had went crazy. Luckily, Leonidas was already close to the principal' office door. He knocked once and a booming voice came from the inside.

"Come in!", said the voice. Leonidas stepped into the office and looked around. At the age of 13, Leonidas was at a prepubescent height of 1.4 meters. The principal was sitting but his height was 1.6 meters. If he stood up he'd be 1.95 meters tall. Leonidas greeted the principal and noticed two people standing beside him. One was the state lawyer, Mr Thamil Jacobs, who worked on the case and the other was a woman that Leonidas knew very well but should not have known right now.

"Leonidas you remember me right?", said the lawyer. "I'm here today to give you some good news. You're going to be adopted by Ms Ana over here", the lawyer gestured towards the lady. She was a white woman with dirty blonde hair and an upturned nose. She had bright blue eyes and a smile on her face making her seem very friendly and approachable. She stepped forward and introduced herself.

"Hi Leo, I can call you Leo right? My name is Anastasia and I work as a lawyer in the same office as Mr Thamil. I heard about your situation and I couldn't help but be moved. I know you don't know me yet, but I want you to know that you can feel safe with me."

"Leonidas, why don't you and Ms Ana spend the day together just to get to know each other? Hm? What do you say?", said Mr Thamil with a hopeful gaze.

Leonidas on the other hand was overwhelmed. He had been thinking about a way to save his parents and his siblings but it was too late now. Their mortal souls would have long dissipated in Limbo. Now he had met this woman again. Although in his first life he avoided Ana as much as he could, she never gave up on him and would always be there to help with anything. That was until Leonidas was 18 and he decided to leave and go start a business in America. The next time Leonidas would be in South Africa was on the day of her funeral in 2060. He regretted how he treated her in his first life and vowed to treat her like a mother this time.

Leonidas replied to the lawyer "Sure. I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know her."

And from then on Leonidas and Ana spent the day together at the theme park going on rides and eating chicken at the local Chicken Licken fast food place. When they came back, Mr Thamil had Ana sign some papers and that was all it took for him to be this lady's new son. During the next few weeks, Mr Thamil had Leonidas move in with Ana who lived in an apartment in Midrand, Johannesburg. At the beginning of April, Leonidas was setup to start at his new school, the German School of Johannesburg.

In the morning of the 1st of April 2012, Leonidas Mira stood at the front of a new classroom. 20 odd people were looking at him with various gazes ranging from interest, to disdain. The class teacher, Ms Leah, introduced him to the class.

"Today we have a new classmate joining us in our class 8e. Leonidas, introduce yourself" said the teacher with a perfunctory smile.

Leonidas stood at the front of the class, looking straight into the eyes of of everyone and after a while he started.

"My name is Leonidas Mira. I don't have many interests, other than myself. I like people who know themselves and hate people who lie to themselves. It's nice to meet you. Let's get along."

They had no idea at the time, but they were currently stupidly staring at someone who would go on to become the most powerful man in the history of humanity.