4 Chapter 3: Lies

Leo felt his aching jaw get hit over and over again without mercy, each hit being more powerful than the last as the supposed 'Red Reaper' wailed upon him, her own knuckles becoming stained with a mix of his and her own blood.

They were outside, away from the large crowds that she had prevented from following, it now only being Leo, her, and the two overly large teens that were holding Leo in place.

The red-eyed girl glared at the heap of blood and flesh that Leo was at the moment, not even an ounce of pity in her eyes as she looked at her victim. She looked at her two bodyguards for a second before waving her finger in the air.

They dropped Leo immediately and bowed to the girl before entering the school, gesturing everyone to go to class, leaving her and Leo behind.

"Do you know now?" She questioned, lifting Leo up by his brown hair, tilting her head in the process as she looked through his cracked glasses, his bright green eyes holding nothing but contentment.

"You say you are the Red Reaper," Leo said, spitting out some blood from his mouth. "I say you're lying," She took a step back, shock going across her face as her eyes narrowed at the boy laying on the ground.

"How dare you?" She shouted before kicking him in the face, just hard enough to send him a few feet across the ground, slamming into the brick wall that made up the school. "Who the hell are you to tell me I'm lying? A nobody like you? I've heard of you, you can't even form a proper fighting stance! Who the hell do you think you are?"

"M-My name is L-Leo Apollyon," Leo whispered just loud enough for the girl to hear. "And you said you are the Red Reaper, but that's not your true name, is it?" Her glare intensified and Leo let out a small, unhumorous laugh, startling the black-haired teen as she began to shift from anger to curiosity.

"Of course not, the Red Reaper is a nickname because of my red eyes. My real name is, well, it's none of your business really," She said, walking up to him, the sound of her shoes clapping against the concrete sidewalk echoing throughout the small area of the campus the two were in.

"F-Fair enough," Leo struggled to get out as he sat up, tenderly holding his jaw, which, to some miracle, was not broken. "But still, I at least know everyone who beats me up names," He said, a stupid fake smile on his face. "We got Conner, Brad, Josh, a girl named Trisha, another girl that's called Shannon, Marcell, Travis, Dallas, Felipe, and finally, we have you." The girl rose her eyebrow.

"That's it? Some of the other guys in this school who're plenty stronger than you get bullied worse than that," Leo nodded.

"Yes, but I said getting beat up. I don't bother to memorize by emotional tormenter's names, you know, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt me?"

"You're just stalling," The girl noted. "I'm tired of hearing your mouth, it's quite annoying. It's a miracle I've let you speak in my presence for this long, I'll beat you down so badly you won't be able to open your mouth, nor your eyes." She began approaching him and began pounding on the poor boy, who let it happen.

Things were better this way. If he were to retaliate, things would get a lot worse for him than they are now. He would deal with these constant beatings, no matter what injuries he sustained after they were finished. It was no big deal.

For now, at least.

Flashback

"Please don't! I'm sorry, I'll switch sides! I promise! Just please don't kill me!" A man shouted fearfully as he tried to merge with the wall where his entire body was pressed up against, trying to get away from his assailant, who was dressed in all black besides their red hood.

They held a sword in their hand, the tip of the blade dragging across the ground, making it sound as if a piece of metal were going across a chalkboard, piercing the tense air like a hot knife through soft butter.

"Why should I spare trash like you?" Leo asked from underneath the hood, tilting his head, waiting for an answer. "You participated in countless experiments resulting in many deaths to the Union. You've even experimented on humans, and look at them now," He gestured to the several piles of black goo on the floor behind him, making the scientist shake even harder than he was before, fear gripping at his heart like a sleeping child to a stuffed animal.

"I'm just an understudy! Please! I can tell you where the real doctor is at! The man behind it all!" Leo looked down at the man, his crimson eyes glaring at the pitiful sight in front of him.

"You would give up your own colleagues to save your pathetic life, die with honor coward." Leo finished as he raised his sword, making the scientist's eyes widen as he shouted.

"Please don't, I have kid-" He began, but was cut off as he suddenly found his head disconnected from his neck, his blood pooling on the floor below him as the spray of blood stained the wall which he had been leaning on so dearly.

"Kids?" Leo finished his last words for him. "I would ask you who gives a damn, but you're already dead." As if on cue, several men armed with swords burst into the room, scouting the place before they let their guard down.

The commander of the men stepped forward.

"Red Reaper, sir!" He said, saluting the teen in front of him. Leo waved him off, his mask hiding the smirk that played upon his lips. "What are your orders, sir?" He asked. Leo surveyed the room for a split-second and nodded to himself.

"Gather all the documents and get all of the information from the computers on a hard drive. Then burn the bodies of the New Confederates and I.D. the bodies of those who died from the experiments and send them home." The man saluted before giving his men the orders that were relayed of him.

Leo began walking towards the exit but stopped as he saw the twelve operating tables, each one having stains of blood on them. He quickly walked around the room, making sure none he didn't get in any of the soldiers' way until he was right back to where he started.

"Damn, only nine piles of gooey remains? What happened to the other three?" He spoke to himself quietly, trying to wrap his head around this whole mess.

"Is there a problem, sir?" A soldier asked, barely older than eighteen, most likely enlisted as soon as he got out of high school. Leo shook his head.

"Nothing that I can't handle. Go back to work," The teen saluted before doing what he was told. Leo sighed as he walked out of the lab.

Where in the hell were those bodies?

Flashback End

"Master Leo, you instructed me to wake you up an hour after you got home from school. It is six o'clock P.M., sir, I believe you are well-rested." Leo groaned as he sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as the bruise that was on his chin was slowly fading away.

"Thanks, Phineas, what have I told you about calling me Master though? I thought I told you a long time to get rid of that whole nonsense. You're like a grandfather to me, not a servant, and I'm sure Hayden feels the same way," Phineas, an older man with greying black hair and a small beard growing on top of his lips with a fancy suit on smiled at the young man in front of him.

"Ah, but Hayden is only three years old Master Leo, I'm sure he does not understand his feelings completely." Leo shrugged as he stood up, stilling in his school clothes.

"I'll be going out Phineas, but I do want to see Hayden before I go. I haven't seen him since Saturday," Phineas' eyes brightened, taking joy as he watched the younger brother interact with his older brother.

"Ah yes, he should be with Lady Patricia at the moment. I believe she's reading him a story," Leo nodded at Phineas, silently thanking the man as he began walking out of his room, only to stop at the doorway.

"Please have my stuff ready to leave when I come back, I need to get into the deeper parts of the city quickly if I'm to make it in time." Phineas bowed.

"And here I thought you didn't think of me as a servant," He said, his tone indicating he was kidding. Leo grinned at his personal butler/grandfather-figure.

"Indeed, but if you weren't comfortable around me, you wouldn't have replied like that. I'll see you later, Phineas."

"And I shall see you later as well, Master Leo." Leo exited the room as he walked down the spiraling staircase that led to the base floor. He walked through the large kitchen, where a single woman was working furiously at slicing up vegetables, carrots, and lettuce alike scattered across the floor.

"Hello Mary, how are things in the kitchen today?" Leo asked as he peered over the woman's shoulder, only to get pushed back lightly by her dirty elbow, not that he minded.

"Terribly sorry, Master Leo. But I must prepare everyone's dinner tonight quite urgently." She said. She was a young woman, somewhere around her mid-twenties to her early thirties. She had a slender figure with light blonde hair that was wrapped in a bun that sat upon her head as to keep out of her way. She had bright blue eyes and a pair of hands that knew there ways around the kitchen blade she often wielded.

"Oh?" He said, amusement in his voice. "A date perhaps? Who's the lucky guy? You aren't going to break his heart are you?" Mary rolled her eyes at her young master's words.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever ya little brat." Leo grinned at her words.

"You know, it's not really proper to talk to the person who pays your salary like that." She rolled her eyes once again.

"Yes, but you are in my domain at the moment. My kitchen, my rules." Leo held his hands up and backed off a little bit, a playful smirk on his face.

"Of course, that's always been the rule since I was a child yes?" She hmphed as she sliced a vegetable rather harshly, causing Leo to take another cautious step back.

"Yep," She answered, not bothering to face him. "Do you plan on dining with your little brother tonight?" His smirk turned into a small frown.

"I have prior engagements. He will have to dine with Phineas and Patricia again tonight," He began walking away. "Have a good night, Mary."

"And you too Master Leo!" She called out before getting right back into her work. "What a troubled boy, that one," She muttered to herself.

Leo entered the living room of his house, it being decorated with multiple bookshelves, several couches, and love seats, a leather recliner, a wooden table in the middle of the room with a T.V. stand in front of the window with a flat-screen T.V. sitting on top of the stand with multiple different consoles connected to it.

In the recliner, sat Patricia, an old woman with white hair and wrinkling skin, with glasses resting on her nose that framed her copper-colored eyes that spoke age and wisdom. She was in the traditional maid uniform that most of the other maids wore.

Like Phineas and Mary, she was a permanent part of the household, unlike the other maids and butlers who only worked there part-time, those three were fully devoted to serving the Apollyon family.

On Patricia's lap, sat Hayden, who had combed blonde hair that was swiped to the right side of his head as he wore what most toddlers did, a plain green shirt with an orange dinosaur on the front with a pair of little brown pants with bright blue Thomas the Tank Engine socks.

Leo knocked on the side of the doorway that led into the living room, getting the pair's attention. Hayden's bright blue eyes widened when he saw Leo and instantly climbed out of the embrace of Patricia and into the embrace of his big brother.

"Leo! Where were you? I haven't seen you in forever!" Hayden shouted, his high pitched voice could be heard from miles away. Leo couldn't keep the smile from coming on his face as he grinned at his little brother, kissing him on the forehead.

"Hey buddy, sorry I haven't been around. I got school ya know?" Hayden nodded as he hugged his brother tightly, pushing his head into Leo's neck, trying to burrow into him.

"I wish you never have to go to school again," Hayden's muffled voice came from his neck, causing Leo to chuckle.

"Well, I gotta you know? Someone has to have the brains around here." Hayden took his head back and looked at Leo weirdly.

"Then I'll be the strong one okay! You be the nerd, and I'll be the strong guy!" He patted his biceps as if to make a point, causing Patricia and Leo to start laughing in unison.

"Oh my, you do have some big muscles, Master Hayden," Leo sat Hayden down, letting the three-year-old on the ground to walk, but the little boy only running circles energetically around the teen.

"Are you staying tonight Leo? Are ya? Are ya?" Leo felt a pang of guilt hit his stomach with the force of a jackhammer but willed himself to keep calm. He bent down to get eye level with Hayden.

"Sorry Hayhay, I can't. I have work to do," Hayden frowned and felt tears sting his eyes as they flew freely down his small face, causing Leo's guilt to go up even further.

"Hey, hey," Leo spoke softly, grabbing the smaller child as he gave him a large hug. "How about this? This Saturday, we'll go out and do anything you like okay? I don't have school and I can put off work that day, it'll just be us." Hayden sniffed as his tears stopped flowing, hiccuping as he tried to wipe away the tears.

"Y-You p-p-promise?" Leo eye-smiled at his younger brother as he held out his pinky.

"I pinky promise," Hayden intertwined his tiny pinky with Leo's own and they shook on it. Hayden's demeanor immediately changed to excited and playful.

"You hear that Patricia! Me and Leo are gonna have a day all by ourselves!" Patricia smiled warmly at the two children she considered grandchildren.

"I heard, aren't you happy? Master Leo is gonna take you anywhere you want!" She said, equally excited.

Leo may have loved Hayden with all his heart and would've destroyed the world if it meant keeping Hayden safe, often neglected his little brother by accident. He went somewhere at nights more frequently than he used to and hasn't been spending too much time with Hayden as much as he used to, and there was that time where he wasn't even there when his little brother was born, and he only came back when Hayden turned one!

It was a weird situation, so when she got to see moments like these happen, it warmed her heart.

"Yep!" Hayden shouted. He waved at Leo.

"Bye-bye, Leo!" He shouted. "I know you have to go, I'll see you on Saturday!" Leo smiled at his little brother. "Patricia and me are gonna finish this book!" Leo waved at his little brother and at Patricia.

"I'll see you both later, have a good night the two of you!"

"We will," Patricia assured. "Stay safe, Master Leo." Leo grinned.

"Always," He replied easily before slipping out of the room.

Leo arrived at his room, the door closed as Phineas stood outside of it, Leo's face stone cold.

"Shall I expect you at the usual time, Master Leo?" Leo nodded.

"Of course, see you then." And with that, the teen walked into his room, leaving the makeshift family alone once again.

Leaving Hayden alone.

Again.