The trouble returned in the evening. Turns out Alex had to choose one of the two empty beds to sleep in, but for some reason they stank so terribly as if they had been used as toilet for years. While few bullies were already expectantly awaiting his reaction, Alex scratched his head and walked out in the small yard.

Even though he now had to sleep in shit or kick another weaker child to the floor to take his bed, he didn’t like either option and chose to spend the night outside. It was already spring and while nights were a bit chilly, he would be fine.

After peeing in the bucket at the door that was put there for exactly that purpose, he found a spot with lush grass and quickly fell asleep with a thought, ‘How come there are no girls? Were all the infants in the first nursery also boys?’

The next morning he woke up early and already finished his exercises and meditation when the nuns came over. He asked for a permission to wash himself and, while it was given with a short snort, he could not think of any other way to befriend his warden.

Nun refused to say her name and remained cold despite him being polite, cute and helpful. Alex didn’t know any other ways on how to present himself as more likable, thus he just gave up.

During the breakfast the bully returned with another older kid in tow, but after both got pushed to the ground Alex could ‘enjoy’ his disgusting porridge in peace.

Unfortunately it didn’t end there. After the meal Alex returned to the yard when he was surrounded by six larger kids, one of them being his first bully. The nun was gone and there was no one who could stop the escalation, but he wasn’t worried – weren’t they only a bunch of toddlers?

The next moment he was proven wrong. Before Alex managed to say ‘what’s up?’, one of the fake toddlers kicked him in the head from behind and the rest as if commanded began kicking him at the same time – face, chest, legs – they didn’t care where their kicks landed.

Alex’s first instinctive reaction was to protect his head, but a split second later he realized that the kicks were not ‘that’ painful and he rolled out of encirclement and punched the closest guy on the nose.

“Ahrrrrgh!” Two screams full of pain resonated around the yard attracting attention of all the children. Even those who were inside immediately ran or crawled out to see what went on.

‘F*ck! For god’s sake, how f*cking hard is your head!’ Alex cursed to himself while rubbing the knuckles on his left hand. It was likely he had fractured a bone or two.

On the other hand – the guy who attacked him rolled on the ground holding his face with both hands while blood seeped through his fingers. From what it looked like Alex had broken his nose.

At the painful sight the remaining five bullies took few steps back, but then gathered their courage and encircled Alex again.

“Seriously?” He said and pointed at the kid on the ground, “Do you really want to end up like him?”

The five exchanged glances full of anger, but then one of them put his hands up like he was some kind of a boxer and came at Alex once again. He long didn’t have the reflexes of a toddler and even sighed before his elbow connected with the solar plexus of the attacker.

While Alex was about half their age, theoretically he still was beating up children thus he didn’t feel too good about what went on, but there was really no other choice.

Before Alex could relax, he purely on instinct caught someone’s leg that was directed at his abdomen. Now he stood there holding the right leg of his first bully while the latter kept awkwardly jumping on his left. The rest also stopped in their tracks confused and not knowing what to do.

‘Why do you have to do this? All here are just children! There isn’t anything even remotely worthy to fight over!’ He thought, ‘I can’t really let you continue like this. With me being too soft, you’ll keep on coming … sigh … blame yourself for starting it first!’

With a long exhale Alex shouted, “F*ck you!” and kicked the poor bully between his legs with all the strength he could muster.

Most of the present didn’t know the excruciating pain such move could cause, but they all were boys here and instinctively gasped at the sight while the bully grabbed the spot between his legs with his both hands and after whimpering a couple of times fell down and passed out.

All of that would be ‘fine’, but suddenly the guy on the ground began to glow in a golden light. It was hard to describe what followed after. Even letting a hungry leopard in a monkey cage would not cause such chaos.

A minute later few nuns rushed in, but to no one’s surprise ignored the screaming children and tunnel-visioned on the far side at the crawled-up body who shone like a small sun.

To Alex this felt like a déjà vu seeing how nuns picked the kid up and jumped excitedly around shouting, “Vova awakened! Vova awakened!”

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Half an hour later bishop Roy Gregory arrived. He was surprised by the still glowing and passed out Vova, and especially by his size.

“Just how old is he?” Bishop asked.

“Just turned three years old, your grace.” One of the nuns Alex saw for the first time shamelessly replied, “We feed them really well.”

‘Mother, huh?’ Alex thought, ‘What a cute and well behaved offspring you have there.’

Bishop furrowed his brows and looked around. Only now nuns realized in their excitement they forgot to hide few children away like they usually did.

“We’ll soon have the Midsummer cleansing ritual. I’ll send few priests over beforehand.” Bishop said and carried Vova away.

While Alex didn’t understand the meaning, from the reaction nuns had he could guess it was obviously nothing good.

During the upcoming days nothing interesting happened, except the kids began to kick each other between the legs loudly shouting ‘f*ck you!’, apparently trying to become chosen as well. Even though the words Alex said at the time were in English and no one understood them, it sounded particularly magical – probably like some kind of a spell.

Wailing and crying filled the surroundings, but no one seemed to care. For some reason such situation was considered normal.

Weeks flew by and while most of the children gave up, few most stubborn persisted. They even came to Alex and asked him to kick them, only to leave disappointed when he shooed them away.

The summer came with a wave of heat and water became the commodity everyone fought for. Alex’s performance from months ago was still fresh in the memory of others, thus he didn’t lack anything and was left alone, mostly spending his days practicing in the shadow.

At some point he noticed that all the children who were clearly older than the special age of three were separated and moved to another building that had entrance to their yard. For some reason Alex couldn’t even hear them at all and only saw few times when they were allowed to come out for a breath of fresh air.

He soon found out why. A large squad of guards in familiar silver armor accompanied by three elderly priests dressed in gray robes arrived and began to expressionlessly inspect the children.

“This one … and this one as well … this … no he’s still young.” They picked up the older ones and gathered in the yard.

While most of the children kept crying, instinctively feeling that something bad was about to happen, Alex got up from his spot and came over by himself. He had no illusions of not being picked since he was well overdeveloped for his age. Practicing the force of nature and eating triple the others got allowed him to grow well.

“Behind that door there are more children. All of them older than I!” Alex said with a wide smile plastered across his face while pointing at another building.

‘There you go, you bitches! Next time think twice on how to properly take care of children!’ Alex thought.

Even though he knew he did this as a payback, he had a formal reason to back up his actions.

As the silence filled the yard one could hear how few women began to cry hysterically somewhere nearby. Apparently there was someone else who was paying close attention to what transpired.

“What are you standing there for? Go and kick that door down!” One of the priests barked at the guards and soon crying and screaming children of different age, probably even up to ten years old were pulled out of the building.

Most were pale from the lack of the sunlight and dressed in rags, but from their fat cheeks it was obvious someone took good care of them.

“Alright! How many have we got?” The same priest asked the guards. Apparently he was the leader here.

“Uhmmm …” One of the guards seemed to hesitate, “Your honor, there are over twenty … twenty four. If added to the other groups we’ll have forty five in total.”

“Good. It’s nicely divided by tree. Load them up in wagons.” Priest said, then thought for a bit and added, “Most of these are obviously way too old to be here so put a guard in each of the wagons to maintain order.”

‘Divided by three? What do you exactly intend to do with three groups of fifteen children?’ Alex thought while the rest of the children cried or tried to run away in panic. Of course, they were easily gathered by the guards.

It was only two days later when he found out, but first they were transported in covered wagons not too far from the convent. Alex couldn’t see where to, but at the end of the journey they joined similar group of children, except these were not much older than three or four, and all were neatly put in large cages as if they were some wild animals. The cages were located in a large yard so there was no telling where exactly this was, but luckily they were covered with cloth and children were not sitting directly in the sun, although they sat or lie directly on a dirty ground.

Kids were carefully guarded and for some reason guards didn’t allow any inner conflicts. When a couple of ten-year-olds came at Alex looking for revenge, they were quickly pulled out of the cage, stripped and mercilessly whipped in front of the others. For some reason the guards skillfully avoided doing any serious damage as if afraid to lower the price of the wares by braking.

Most children kept crying while Alex continued to meditate. He had a thought they’ll become slaves, but the whole process didn’t make sense thus he found the idea to be unreasonable.

But there were few things worth a thought. The bored guards turned out to be more talkative than nuns and in whispers discussed the latest events in Serenity. After moving closer and leaning at the bars, Alex finally could overhear most of the gossip.

Turns out a week ago the capital was shocked by the return of their army that carried back the body of one of the cardinals in a wooden box. While the five year long expedition itself was a success and they conquered quite a few barbarian lands, the Holy empire payed a heavy price as well. Not only cardinal, but also dozens of chosen and hundreds of holy warriors fell, to not speak about the regular soldiers who died.

Serenity, of course, was thrown in a bit of a turmoil and particularly because of the cardinal’s death. There were only five fixed cardinal spots and the ones who remained actively sought ways to increase their influence, probably, and this was Alex’s guess, to one day become pope.

He had no idea how the new cardinal was picked or elected, but most likely he was chosen from the ranks of bishops thus the dudes in the red robes were currently probably going crazy as well.

Such news was something Alex longed for during the past couple of years and it didn’t matter if it was exaggerated truth, at least it provided some perspective to the world he was born into. Unfortunately he suspected that nothing he heard mattered since he was probably going to be sacrificed to ‘the mighty god Ra’ or something similar.