4The next day I was determined to start finding some answers about Grandpa that I desperately needed. And there was only one person that I knew of that could give me some answers: Grandma. Grandpa and her had been married for what, fifty-some years? She definitely should have the answers I want.
As soon as I ate breakfast and made sure I had my drawing of the demon dog from the other night, I sped off on my bike to Grandma and Grandp-err...Grandma's house. After a while I arrived at her house, getting more and more anxious with every passing moment. I rang the doorbell, trying to hold in my anxiousness, even while Grandma opened the door and led me to the house's living room.
Once we had sat down, she asked, "So Ike, what brings you over here today?"
"I came to find out some more about Grandpa," I said.
"What do you want to know about him?"
"Was there anything…unusual about him?" I asked, not wanting to come right out and plainly ask yet.
Grandma chuckled, "Well he had a great sense of humor and loved to help people."
"No, was there anything that set him about from others?"
"Not really. Ike, what's with your sudden interest in your grandfather?"
I sighed, reaching into my pocket to take out my impression of the demon of Ghost's Pass. "Grandma…The other day I and a couple of my friends visited a place called Ghost's Pass that's known to be haunted. And while I was there I had an experience…"
"What do you mean Ike?" She almost sounded nervous while asking.
"I encountered a wolf-like demon…" I said slowly as I passed the picture I had drawn to her. AS she studied the picture, her eyes widened in what looked like fear. "And there was something it said to…It called me…an Angel…"
Grandmas didn't look at me as she stood up and walked into another room in the house. After a couple of minutes, she returned with a dark green jewelry box with a golden feather design on the top of it. "Ezekiel Porter," she said as I gulped. The only time anyone was allowed to use my real name was when something extremely important was to be shown or said to me. "What I am about to show you can only be told to a select group of people, understood?"
I gulped and nodded. This was what I had come to find out about, I could feel it…
Grandma nodded and passed me the box, wanting me to open it myself. I nodded once more before carefully removing the lid of the box:
Inside the box were a few feathers, a small stone cross with a blue gem inside it, and a few drawings of what looked to me like demons.
"Your grandfather, Max, was unique," Grandma said. "And I'm sure you've already figured out what he was; an Angel." She stopped, probably waiting for this to sink into me. "And what that hellhound said was right; you've taking your grandfather's place as an Angel."
"So it is true…" I mumbled, examining one of the brown feathers that had speckled white dots on them.
"Yes," Grandma started again. "It is also customary for the Angel being replaced to leave behind a few feathers to increase the wing growth speed of their replacement."
"Wing growth?" I asked, alarmed.
"Yes…" She said. "The feathers will dramatically speed up your wing growth…But you shouldn't worry about that yet…You still need to worry about your power."
"My what?" I asked, feeling more and more confused by the second.
Grandma nodded, taking the stone cross out of the box and into my hand. "Focus on the gem of the cross."
I nodded dumbly, before staring the gem down some. After what seemed like forever, the blue gem turned silver, just as I started feeling a weird sensation in my free hand. I opened it up, just as something appeared in it: a silver sphere. I mean, it didn't have any hieroglyphs on it, or any notes of any kind. It was just that: a silver sphere.
"And here I was thinking I would get fire abilities..." I sighed, disappointed. The sphere must've heard my wish, for after I said that, it glowed and was absorbed into my skin. Before I could react further, a small fire appeared in my hand. But this fire was different from other fires; mainly because it was silver. Yeas, a silver fire, weird huh? But anyways, I panicked and closed my hand quickly, extinguishing the flame. But soon my curiosity got the better of me and I figured out how to call upon the flames quickly. I looked at Grandma, who just smiled.
"Good, but I'd feel safer if you had a weapon to defend yourself with," she said.
Before I could respond, the flame in my hand started morphing around and taking a form. Soon it was solid: a small hunting knife was in my hand.
"And I'd feel way safer with a sword," I grinned as the knife glowed and slowly shifted into a katana. "Awesome!" I said as I examined the blade.
"Looks like Max was right," Grandma murmurs before looking at me. "Your grandfather wanted you to start training as soon as you gained your powers."
"Ok," I said as I started to get up to go, thanking Grandma for the information as I left and headed back home.
…
Over the next few days, which unfortunately were ones full of school, I started working more and more on my powers, but then Wednesday hit, and things got pretty bad.
…
That day had started off like any other; I woke up, did my morning routine, and rode to school on my bike. But that's when I ran into 'Her.' That's right, Her, one of the, scratch that, the only person I hate as much as she hates me.
Her name's Akane Iyanna, and she's had a rough life, with her cheating mom and her abusive cheating lover that 'took advantage' of Akane. So you think that'd get people to be kind to her right? Wrong. Truthfully she had pissed off every person I our entire school. Everyone knows when to ignore her brown hair and eyes, along with her figure.
And of course I just have to run into her on this very morning. While I was waiting for the light at the intersection to change, she rides up on her bike. Just perfect.
As I turn to look at her for a second, she growls, "What're you looking at baka?"
"Nothing," I said. "What're you doing here?"
"Stalking you," she said sarcastically while rolling her eyes. "Going to school, what else?"
I glared "Whatever." And that was the end of that. We rode the rest of the way to school in silence. I soon found my friends and forgot about her til later…
….
As soon as the bell rang, I told my friends I had to run errands for my parents, and sped off on my bike towards our town's largest forest. I'd been heading into the middle of there for the past few days now to work on my powers, which were coming along quite nicely.
After a couple of hours of non-stop work on my abilities, I looked up to see the sun starting to set in the sky. All that time I had been working on mastering my abilities and I didn't even pay attention to the time! I grabbed my stuff and hopped on my bike, speeding towards my house.
Suddenly, a buzzing noise hit my ears, and I stopped. It almost sounded like a swarm of bees. The buzzing soon grew louder and louder as the buzzing noises soon surrounded me. When the buzzing was at its loudest, I saw my fear surrounding me: demon wasps. I could tell they were demons because of their glowing red eyes, which were scaring the hell out of me.
I set my stuff down as I drew out some silver fire in one hand, and made a katana in the other. Though I knew how to use my powers freely at this point, the odds were greatly against me. I was weak from all the training and they had me greatly outnumbered. I bit my lip, thinking this was the end.
But I was determined to go down fighting. I raised my hand, blasting the first group of wasps with my fire before they all swarmed at me at once.
I started slashing and burning the endless swarm of wasps that were around me. But no matter how many I killed, there were always replacements for them. Soon I had no choice but to fall down, exhausted.
The swarm of wasps buzzed excitedly overhead. They buzzed to charge…before a ball of a black-like substance started chopping them down. The ball moved like water through the air, shifting shapes often to kill the demons.
When the final wasp had fallen, the owner of the sphere stepped out of the shadows, the last person I would've expected to save me: the person who hated me in return; Akane Iyanna.
As I stared at her, there were two words that crossed my mind:
Black Angel.