“Yoko, it looks like we caught ourselves a big one!” laughed a tall, young boy wearing a shirt and pants with a bunch of holes in them.

He was speaking to a young girl, Yoko, hanging from her legs in the rafters ten feet above, and the catch in question was another young boy strapped to a chair and gagged. Yoko, overall, didn’t really care, all she was concerned about were the profits.

“Well, what do we do with him Darius? Do we even know who his parents are? How much do you think we can get for him?” she asked.

“I’m getting the feeling that these two aren’t going to be the nicest company,” the tied-up boy thought. “ Neither one of these two look over ten, so they’re close to my age, at least. Can’t even walk around Acumenos without some criminal bothering you. Also, the board that girl is sitting on looks like it’s going to break, maybe when she falls, I can use whatever commotion that causes to get out of here.”

“Well, that’s kind of our biggest problem,” Darius said, “When I found him, Damien I think, he was walking around alone, as if he’s never been to this part of town before. I was just going to pass him off as a normal kid looking for his parents and mug him, until I saw his eyes. Come look!”

Yoko sighed and sat back up. Unfortunately for her, the board broke from under her, and she came tumbling down. Though, with some impressive reflexes, she managed to fall safely with a roll. Yoko even posed as she rolled back to her feet. That did leave a sharp piece of board to start falling on the tied-up boy, Damien, only just grazing his clothes, luckily.

Yoko walked to the tied up boy and stuck her own face in his, “They’re purple alright, so what about it?”

Darius’s expression changed from a look of utter joy, to a look of total annoyance, “What do you mean, so what about it? Have you ever seen anybody else with purple eyes?!”

Yoko barely thought for a bit before giving an answer, “No, I don’t think so. Why? Are you thinking of selling his eyes to someone? That’s low, even for you.”

“I think I know where Darius is going with this,” assumed Damien.

He looked towards the fallen board piece, Damien’s hands were tied behind him, but his fingers are still free. If only he could get a bit closer.

“See, this is why I’m the boss, and you’re the underboss idiot! Lady Chancellor Mariah, she used to come to the orphanage every so often!”

Yoko placed her fist in her hand, “That’s right! She had these really pretty purple eyes, but where does that bring us? Doesn’t that just mean you kidnapped a member of the royal family?”

Darius opened his mouth and raised a finger to answer, however he slowly lowered that same finger and came to a realization, “Yoko… I’ve made a horrible mistake.”

Darius was pretty much panicking, unsure of himself, Yoko on the other hand seemed nonplussed, “Alright I have an idea, but I’m not sure if it’ll work. What if we hit him really hard in the head, that way he’ll forget all about our meeting?”

Damien finally got his first sense levity, “ Yep, they’re still kids to come up with something stupid like that. I might just be able to convince them to let me go, I’ll just need to get the reasonable one to-”

“Okay…Okay!” Darius agreed, “Yeah, that might work, I can’t think of any better ideas at least.”

“-negotiate with me… I need to get out of here.”

Darius started to shuffle around in his chair as if he was panicking, rocking back and forth.

Darius walked close to the tied-up boy and kneeled, “My liege, I’m sorry if this hurts at all.”

Yoko on the other hand was walking confidently towards a large wooden paddle, “Come on Darius! Stop sucking up to the kid, he’s not going to remember either of us after this anyway.”

She began to twirl and admire the paddle before she started walking back. Luckily, the tied-up boy’s rocking finally bears fruit as he fell over to his side.

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“I guess you’re right Yoko, but still, he’s royalty, and what you’re… we’re about to do, they could kill us for this! Maybe we should do something else, give me a bit, I’ll think of something!” Darius exclaimed.

“They’d kill us anyway for kidnapping him,” Yoko responded.

Damien could only really see up to their waist at this point, and one of his ears was firmly pointed at the floor, so a lot of their conversation was muffled. He chose to mostly ignore their conversation, while going back to work finding the board piece. Quickly, but as quietly as possibly, he shuffled his hands around to the touch the board.

“Move out the way Darius!” Yoko cried, “I’ll do it since you’re too much of a wimp. I also kind of always wanted to do this to someone.”

“Sounds like I’m running out of time ,” the tied-up boy thought. Fortunately, his hands managed to touch the board. Grabbing onto it, he cut the cloth around my arms. “ Here I go!” With his legs still tied to the chair, Damien raised his arms to block the incoming attack.

“What the!” shouted Yoko in surprise.

“ That hurt!” Damien thought as he powered through the pain, grabbing onto Y

oko’s leg and tripping her.

“Yoko he’s loose, why is he loose?! I thought you said you tied those up well!” Using their confusion as time to cut the cloth around his legs and mouth, Damien managed to return to his feet with the sharpened board still in his hand.

“Forget that Darius, just grab him!”

Darius was a big kid, probably half a foot taller than Damien. Lucky for him, it seemed that Darius didn’t have the same ability to move like Yoko. Without much though, Darius just lunged at Damien, allowing for an easy dodge. In retaliation, Damien also gave him a sharp hit to his rear, in order to immobilize him, also just because he wanted to hit the boy who had kidnapped him.

Taking a quick look around for any exit, Darius found one dead ahead, right behind a podium, in fact. When taking a more general glance around, Damien looks realized that he was in some sort of church.

Darius bolted towards the door but heard the sounds of footsteps quickly getting louder. Out the corner of his eyes, Damien also noticed several small shadows staying hidden behind the rows of seats.

“Are there more of them?” Damien thought, “ shouldn’t worry about that now, this girl is a much more pressing problem.”

Damien stopped his run from Yoko in front of the exit and took a big swing at her. He hoped that the sudden change in direction would confused her, but she nimbly dodged by sliding under the swing. While behind him, Yoko jumped on his back and started to swing steer Damien around. Yoko wasn’t all the strong, but her full weight on his back really caused Damien to stagger.

“Fall down already! If you don’t, I’ll starting biting!” Yoko threatened. Damien took one look at her before glancing back at his hand, large wooden board still inside it. “Won’t be too long before Darius gets back up, then we’ll-”

Were her final words before the board met her face… hard. Yoko immediately slumped off Damien, and he left to the exit. Taking a look outside, Darius could see that they were surrounded by a forest, but he could still hear the hustle and bustle of the city. From the outside, Darius also saw that the place wasn’t a church, not quite.

A small sign beside the door read out , “ Ms. Marie’s House for the Misfortunate, I remember this place. Didn’t mom shut it down because of the reports of abuse?” Thinking of his mother, Damien was caught off guard when he found himself at the mercy of someone’s blade.

“Y-You better get back in there, or- or I’ll- I’ll.” The boy said weakly as his knees nearly buckled under him.

Standing with a knife in his hands was young boy that looked a bit younger than even Damien, who only just turned six. “Yeah, sure, I’ll do just that,” Damien replied, “Now that I’m not tied up and can speak, will you guys listen to my side of the story before you beat me over the head with a large stick?”

Darius knew it might not be a good idea to try and speak with people who wanted to sell or ransom him at one point. Especially when he could just run away, but he felt something special about them.

“Y-You’re lying!” The little boy yelled, “You just want me to lower my guard, so you can run away.”

Damien, in response, walked inside and sat in one of the seats, “Actually, I’m thinking about joining. I’m not a Grayson, I’ve been trying to tell you all.”

“R-Really?” asked to boy as he slowly lowered his weapon.

“Yeah!” Damien lied, “My name is Damien, but my last name is Colors!”