Dแดส 07: Tสแด Hแดสsแด
" [ energetic, humorous, extroverted ] "
Tell about a good deed your kalon did to cheer up someone else.
note: Slade is made up for the purpose of this story and is not a real kalon!
There's a difference between doing something truly for someone else, and doing something for someone else in hopes of getting something in return. No good dead should be used simply as a way of gaining recognition. That is a fact that
Ludovic has yet to learn. In present times, it is not typical of him to aid others, and when he does, he almost always does it to benefit himself. He does not do so in any sort of ill-natured or manipulative manner, it is simply how he was taught. However, there was a time, in his youth, when he was the most gentle soul you could ever know. A time when he would give everything he had for the benefit of another, and not simply for his own sake, even if it was entirely undeserved...
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"Silence!" A voice hissed through the darkness. "You'll give us away."
A paw came out of the same darkness from which the hiss had, and promptly thwacked Ludovic over the ear.
"Ow!" He huffed. "Was that really necessary? All this for a dumb game..."
"A game?! You think this is a game? Gosh, the others were right. You'll never make it here! You'll be tossed back to the curb you came from." A loud, resounding chuckle erupted from outside their hiding place, and as the door to the wardrobe creaked open and the moonlight from the room beyond poured in, it grew louder and more terrifying than before.
"He's right, you know." The kalon that had found Ludovic and the other kit was meant to be training them, teaching them how to hide in plain site and use every tactic to their advantage... among other things. His voice was rattling. The sound of it screaped the inside of Ludovic's ears and hollowed him until he was full of nothing but sheer terror. "But what he doesn't realize is that neither of you will succeed if the other fails. If we kick out one, the other goes with. But with how pathetic you've been as of late, it would appear your fates are already sealed."
Ludovic cowered from the bared teeth of the being before him. His name was Slade and he seemed to enjoy his job all too much. The thought that anyone could enjoy such a position as his chilled Ludovic to the core. Suddenly Ludovic was seized by a strong, solid force and thrown to floor outside the wardrobe. The other kit who had been hiding with him,
Induma, pressed himself as close to the inside of the wardrobe as possible, perhaps in hopes that he could melt away from the conflict before him. But alas, it was of no use.
Noticing Induma's moment of cowardice, Slade proceeded to pull him from the wardrobe as well. He landed harshly next to Ludovic's side with a loud groan.
"They're fools to think the lot of you could ever succeed in our line of work! Fools!" His voice pounded like a war drum as he drew closer to the two kits. "Orphans, can you believe it! I told them, I told them it would never work! Why rescue the meek and needy off the streets when we could take the strongest kits from their homes and raise them to be killers with twenty times the strength as the pathetic beggars we now employ?"
Slade tssked his tongue and proceeded to circle the kits as if though stalking his prey. "No, no. They never listen. 'No one will miss them.' They say. 'It's better this way because no one will come looking for them.' Yes, well. If we can't turn out proper assassins,
not only will no one come looking for them, they'll also not pay us to work for them! Fools! Mad fools, the lot of them!"
Ludovic turned to Induma and stared into his eyes, hoping for some kind of sign that he wasn't as frightened as Ludovic himself was. He needed some sort of anchor, but he found nothing of the sort in the other kit. Realizing how powerless Ludovic caused Induma to challenge himself. No way could he let himself be as lowly and cowardly as Ludovic. Thinking that Slade would respect his show of bravery, Induma stretched out his limbs from where they had earlier laid frozen, and began to stand on shaky limbs. But how sadly wrong the kit was...
Slade, still sucked into his mad man's rage, began to storm towards the kits with the gait of the devil himself. Ludovic's eyes went wide and he stood to his full height, not fully conscious of his doing so. Instinctively, Ludovic ran with all of his weight directed toward Slade's path. The two of them collided and fell to the floor, clawing at one another defensively.
Without a moment's hesitation, Induma took the opportunity to turn and run out of the room and down the hall, having no intention of helping Ludovic fight off the kalon which had initially been aiming his anger toward him. This came as no surprise to Ludovic, of course. He was used to Induma being the one to torment him. Why would he help him fight off the negative advances of another?
As Slade and Ludovic grappled on the floor, they rolled towards the open doors of the wardrobe, and as their weight crashed into it,
the wardrobe came tumbling down on top of them. Ludovic, having been on the underside of Slade's attack, was protected by the larger kalon's body, and the weight of the furnishing did nothing more than knock Slade unconscious atop of him.
As he struggled to wriggle out from under both Slade and the wardrobe, Ludovic heard a crash down the hall. The noise was followed by a furious symphony of shouts. His struggle became more urgent and he quickly managed to crawl free of the weight which had landed upon him. In a frantic state, Ludovic rushed out into the hallway, and upon doing so he slammed his arm into the opposing wall. The thud which came from this action attracted the attention of two guards, who seemed to have headed in his general direction once they heard the crash of the wardrobe. His pounding into the wall did nothing more than pinpoint the location of the conflict for them, and they began to rush towards him.
If there was one thing he had learned well during his stay with the assassins, it was how to be agile. The stealth aspect, however,
still required much improvement. He quickly turned to run down to the other end of the hallway, away from the guards. Knowing full-well that the roof came up to meet the window which lay at the end of the hall, he dove through it and tumbled out into the cold, nighttime air.
His feet connected to the surface of the roof, as did his elbows, with a not so pleasant impact. Ignoring the pain, he immediately took off along the top of the building, the guards not far behind. Suddenly he could hear Slade shouting 'after them!' No doubt he had informed everyone upon waking up that this situation was all entirely the kit's fault. Ludovic was nearly out of reach, hopping along building to building, when he turned to see Induma being held captive on the street below.
He had every right to be there, leaving Induma as he had, even after he had tried to help him. Yet, Ludovic still couldn't bring himself to shake what Slade had said earlier... Despite knowing that Slade was not entirely right in the head, he couldn't help but take the message to heart: 'neither of you will succeed if the other fails.' And he was right. Ludovic would surely fail without Induma, because if he were to parish, who would he have to count on. Though they had been pitted against one another by forces much larger than themselves, the fact of the matter was that they were all each other had in the world.
Turning on his heels, Ludovic went back to aid Induma. He got to the street level and, as stealthily as he could muster, snuck up behind the kalon which had captured the other kit. It was clear he was waiting for enforcement, because he alone would not be enough to hold the two kits... inexperienced as they might be, they still had some level of formal training. In a bit of a childish manner, Ludovic stomped the foot of the kalon, and out of reflex, he released Induma from his grasp. The two kits made eye contact and smiled wistfully, despite their situation. After a moment's hesitation, they took off running down the street. But it was already too late.
Slade, and other higher ups blocked both ends of the street, surrounding the kits and leaving them hopeless. From the depths of the group emerged one kalon, immediately recognizable. It was the most feared --and revered-- kalon of their time. The figure that emerged came and stood before them, stopping only a few feet away. The two kits clung to one another in terror.
"From the looks on your faces, I believe I can assume that you know who I am?" A wry smile spread across her face. "Do not fear me,
children. I mean you no harm. Though the events of today were unfortunate," she paused to turn and look at Slade, daggers in her eyes, "those who are responsible have been held accountable. I hope, however, that it has taught you a valuable lesson."
Ludovic and Induma released their hold on one another only slightly, and exchanged a confused glance between them.
"That your partner," she gestured between the two kits, "is the most valuable resource of all. Though this lesson was not intentional, it is an important one, nonetheless. One that you would have needed to learn eventually, and we would have taught it to you properly had one particular individual not rushed the matter. Remember this, seer it into your brains: neither of you will succeed if the other fails."
