1 The beginning of the end

My name is Skytel and I am now the most powerful leader of the most powerful group. We are notorious among the other clans. We are the Hybrids and we work from the darkness among the human world. This is the story of my rise to power.

"Leave her alone!" I yelled at the group of thugs. This group had been following this woman for quite some time, at least as long as I had been walking the same direction and when she turned into an alley, they got close.

"Why don't you just get out of here, kid? We would hate to have to hurt a child." The leader of the group said back without turning. He was a rough looking man, considerably bigger than I was at the time. Besides his stature, he was mostly average except he had a long red beard and mustache combo.

"Please, just leave me alone already. I am just going home from work." the woman begged through tears as she pulled her skirt back down. The gang just kept trying to lift her skirt up and take her shirt from above her shoulders.

"You heard the lady. She said to go away. If you do not follow her directions, I will not hesistate to put you down." i said firmly looking at the group. There was no way the 4 of them would be able to beat me and this woman needed help so I figured why not. The leader let go of the woman's throat to turn towards me. He signaled one of his lackeys to me and the biggest one of the group walked full stride towards me. He was even bigger than the leader but he walked slowly which told me all i needed to know.

"You should have listened when you had the chance." The big one said before grabbing one of my arms with both hands. As he started to squeeze, the pressure he was exerting was intense. With a fake yell, i called out and the man started laughing and turned his head. The man was big and strong but stupid and had no battle instincts.

"You fool; DON'T TURN YOUR HEAD AWAY!" The leader yelled at the man but it was too late. With all the force of my free hand, i elbowed down into the man's arm and snapped both bones in his forearm. He yelled out in pain and let go with his other arm to grab his limp arm. Without even a thought, i spun and elbowed the man in the temple knocking him out.

My arm had a red spot on it from where the man was holding me. He was very strong indeed. If not for my previous martial art training, i may not have gotten out of this fight. The other two lackies came barreling down the alley towards me with rage all over their faces.

'The arm will have to wait' I thought to myself before looking up and running towards the two. Just when they got in range, I launched a flying knee at one and caught him square in the nose. He fell back slamming his head into the street behind him. The other threw a punch at my head but only hit my forearm as I brought my arm up to protect myself. Even this man was bigger than I was but noticeably less so than the others.

All of them together still would not equal my sensei from martial arts. When the man pulled back again to punch, i whipped my arm out at full speed and slapped the man on the side of the face stunning him.

"You've never been truly slapped before, have you?" I asked before slapping him again on the same side. Before I could slap a third time, the man brought his arm up to cover that side of his face so I hit him on the other side. The leader watched on as I continued slapping the man.

Every so often he would guard both sides of his face with his arms but that left his torso open which I kicked into the same spot on his ribs every time. The man only had two options: get slapped or get kicked in the ribs and the slapping option was more embarassing but less painful so he went with that one. After a few moments of this, I brought my leg up and over in a large crescent shape onto the top of the man's head. He fell to the ground, not unconscious, but decided it best not to get back up.

"I warned you to leave the woman alone. You should have heeded my words." I said angrily walking towards the man. There was not even an ounce of sorrow or intimidation in his eyes. He was confident he could beat me even after watching the rest of his gang get obliterated.

"If you think I will go down like the rest of them, you are sorely mistaken." the leader said letting go of the woman. There was a red mark around the woman's neck that would have to be repaid in full. The man walked towards me rubbing his wrists and cracking his neck. When we were face to face, I could see there was a massive size difference between us.

I looked up at him and he looked down. I was barely above his chest. As I looked up into his eyes he started licking his teeth like I was not going to be a problem. Before the next thought even crossed my mind, the wind was gone from my chest. The man threw a lightning fast punch into my stomach. The taste of iron filled my mouth.

"What happened to all that confidence from before?" the man whispered into my ear while I was leaned over. With an impressive level of technique, he mirrored my feet and tossed me up and over his head. I was laying flat on the ground gasping for breath but the attacks did not stop. The man was standing over me punching down into my torso and face.

As i struggled to catch my breath, I could finally breathe well enough to grab his legs and slide myself from under him. With a sharp elbow to the back of his head, I distanced myself from him. He would not go down like the others.

I spit out the blood that was pooling in my mouth before going forward to continue the assault. I was fighting full force now unlike with his henchmen. The man was parrying and striking back a good amount of the attacks I threw at him. With a kick to the chest to throw the man off his guard, I ducked down and gathered strength into my fist. With everything i had left, i hit the man in the chest and felt the bones crack under my fist. He fell over unconscious from the blow but I had nothing left. If that punch hadn't knocked him out, I would have been in a bad situation.

I woke up the next night back home in a daze. Images were flashing through my head of limping home half-aware. After rolling out of bed and grabbing a cup of orange juice to wake myself up, I heard music blasting down the street coming towards me. It was my best friend Fias(pronounced Fye us) in his car coming to pick me up.

When he was three houses away, the music changed from punk rock to rap. He always did that like I would not hear his music down the entire street. I dashed up the stairs to change into my varsity jacket and some better pants. Just before jumping in the car, I remembered to lock my front house door. I lived basically alone due to my parents' jobs and it was a relatively bad part of town so if I left the door unlocked we would almost surely be burgled by the morning.

"Hey buddy, ready to party?" Fias said to me after I jumped over his door into the passenger seat.

"Of course, who do you think i am?" I said with a laugh. We rode along the town into the neighborhood of the party. It was in the better part of town among the better off people of the school. If there was a school party and I wasn't there, it was not much of a party. When we got out of the car, all the normal people came and dapped us up as we entered.

"What took you so long?" Fias's girlfriend asked him. Fias was as popular as I was due to him being the star soccer player of the district. His girlfriend was gorgeous as well. She was a little over 5' and had shoulder length blonde hair. She did a winged eyeliner a lot of the time.

"You know how it is with Skytel, Nikki. He likes to take his sweet time no matter who or what is waiting on him." Fias chuckled back. The woman's name was Nicholas but she went by Nikki most of the time. She was a relatively thin girl but incredibly in tuned with the different cliques of the school. When I said in tune, she was a cheerleader but got along with the anime junkies, the goths, everyone.

From what Fias said, she watched anime a lot in her free time but I did not care too much about it so it never bothered me one way or the other. She also had quite a reputation among the gaming community as one of the best in her chosen battle-royale game of which I forget the name.

"Shut up, jerk." I laughed back before elbowing him in the arm. We walked through the hall into the kitchen where the alcohol was. There were drugs circulating somewhere too but with the drug testing on all the sports teams, Fias and I could not indulge since Fias was on the football team and I on the lacrosse team. The lacrosse team was not quite as popular but you could say we were more athletically inclined.

It was an ongoing feud between the two teams. Nikki grabbed a drink for Fias and I before she went to hang out with her friends. We stood around the island and talked like usual. Various people kept coming up and joining the conversation as the night went on. It was a big house and an even bigger party.

We were finally on winter break which meant the notorious Jackston party thrown by the richest kids in the school.

We talked for an hour before the drinking games started. First up was beer pong and Fias was on a team with his girlfriend of course. I was paired up with the leader of the cheerleader squad, Lindsay. She was a tall red-head woman who was quite the looker herself. Most of the kids of the school were too afraid to come up and talk to her because she lead the cheerleaders.

In truth, as i discovered, she was just looking for some fun and would probably click with anyone who talked to her. After a close game, Lindsay and I came out on top. I was already somewhat buzzed from drinking 9 cups of beer and 3 shots of rum. Lindsay was clear headed from not drinking but being focused on the matches. She was obviously the better player so she stayed clear while I drank. Teams came and went under Lindsay's awesome power of pong. We cleared teams no problem for a time.

As we were nearing the end of the line, a team stepped up who had something different about them. They were confident they could win. I would have to step up in this match if we wanted a chance at winning.

"I don't know what it is but I am getting the vibe they know how to play, Lindsay." I told my teammate. She looked over at the pair and nodded back to me.

"You do not have to call me Lindsay. Just Linz is fine. But i agree nonetheless." Linz said to me. We walked back over to the table and geared up. Linz was playing near perfect but every shot she sunk, was matched by one of theirs. I was getting the feeling they could have won straight off if they wanted to but did not.

The other team sunk all their balls first and Linz had to sink the last remaining three to tie it and cause a sudden death. She sunk two effortlessly but a loud noise from the speaker outside made her wobble just a touch and she missed. We shook the team's hands and went our separate way.

Someone came up to me from outside in a rush, "Motoro is looking for you, Skytel". The sound of those words silenced everyone in the kitchen and made me nervous. Fias stood up from the couch with his girlfriend and was at my side as we walked out the back door to the deck where Motoro was waiting.