Raijinken: The Present - 1. Here we go... Again.

Raijinken: The Present
Chapter 1: Here We Go…Again

Outside of Richmond, VA
2-fuckin’-am

*Ring.*

(Who the hell is calling me so damn early?) I groaned as I rolled over in my bed, groping for the phone on the dresser beside it. Didn’t really bother to check the caller ID.
Couldn’t have cared less about who it was if I did.
“Who are you, and do you want to die.” My voice was scratchy from sleep, but still held that tenor quality.
The person on the other end giggled. “Such a nice person, aren’t you?”
Raiden. My teacher/friend/pervert/all-around-bastard. He’s lucky he’s, you know, him. Or else he would be a fried piled of ash, wherever he and Fujin are right now.
“What the hell do you want old man?”
“I’m not old, fool.”
I lay back down on my pillow, phone still to my ear. “Sure you aren’t.”
“Whatever. Listen-“
“Raiden,” I paused to yawn. “The last time I listened to you, the Black Plague happened.”
“Shut up. Anyway,” I could hear keys tapping in the background. “I think we’ve gotta lock on the power signal.”
I shot up in bed, fully awake. “Where is he?”
Perhaps I should explain why I said ‘he’ instead of ‘they’. See, for some reason, our powers only go to men. This is good for me, since I really have a problem with women. (Hera issues. Hate that bitch.)
It’s also why I stay with men in my bed. No fish for me!
“Somewhere in the city, and, if I’m right, probably a college student, since that is how old the rest of you look. Perhaps at VCU?”
“Maybe…” I shot over to my laptop on the other side of the room. Holding the phone up with my shoulder, I swiftly moved my hands over the key board. Hacking into the database for the school, I swiftly added our names into the roster.
I didn’t worry about someone finding out that we didn’t pay for enrollment. Put up a firewall just incase anyone tried to check.
“We’re in. We start next semester.”
“Do well in school!”
“Go to hell Raiden.”
“See you there. Bye.”
“Say hi to Fujin for me.”
“Will do.” He hung up, leaving only the dial tone to keep me company.
I wish I could go back to sleep, but there was no way that I’ll be able to. Too excited.
Guess it’s time for everyone to get the hell up then.
And I can do this all from the comfort of my own room!
Lighting rocks.
I moved over to the corner of my room, the only outlet where nothing was plugged in. Placing my hand over it, I sent a spark of lightning down my arms.
The lights started to flicker, quickly intensifying to an almost blinding quality without being overloaded.
Of course I had to wait though.
3…2…1
“RAI!”
Right on schedule.
Okay, here’s the great part about living in a mansion:
Lot’s of places to hide when someone is out to maim you. Which happens to be a lot in my case.
I quickly ran out of the room, which is extremely fast considering I move the speed of almost light.
Not light itself.
Almost.
Back to the matter at hand.
“RAI, I SWEAR IF I FIND YOU…!”
Hmmm…sounds like King, our lion and resident fire starter.
As I sped around the corner, I felt a sharp heat rush over my back. I swerved around, coming to a halt.
Only to see a hole with scorch marks around it in the wall.
“I’m not cleaning that up.”
I turned around preparing to launch off again…
Only to run right into a wall and end up flat on my ass.
Wait…
There’s no wall in the middle of the hallway.
I think
“Rai.”
I look up at the brick shithouse standing in front of me.
“Oh…hey D. Wat’s up?”
Ah D, the darkness man, spirit of the mountain lion. He has dark skin, is sometimes scary as all hell, and tall, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the way he acts around his opposite and husband, the light user Ray. Found them both in a Mayan temple, about to be sacrificed or…something. I don’t know. The Mayans were a tad bit upset though, tried to kill us too. As you can see, we’re still here though, and they’re not.
And he always is able to sneak up on me, which I’m still not really sure how that happens.
Oh right, I should mention this before I forget. Our powers need a balance
He sighed. “Rai, what is the meaning of this?” His voice also had a very deep quality to it. Sexy deep, not scary deep.
I got up, gripping the big man’s night shirt happy as all hell. “Raiden thinks he found him!”
D raised an eyebrow, “Does he now?”
Apparently, I don’t understand sarcasm. “Yes! Yes he does!”
“And it couldn’t have waited until the morning?”
“What do you care? You like the dark.”
His dark eyes became almost pitch black, showing off his aggravation “Yes, I do.” I shrunk, just a little bit. Man is scary; I’ll be the first to admit that. “But I also like my sleep. Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been gone for the past two days hunting a demon.”
“Oh believe me.” I muttered under my breath. “I noticed. You two were extremely loud, you know..”
Before he could respond to that (luckily for me because I might be knocked out in the forest somewhere two seconds from now) a hand grabbed D’s shoulder.
The hand belonged to his lover, Ray, the light bringer and cheetah.
Weird thing is, even though we found the two of them in almost the same place, Ray’s pigment is more along the lines of a vanilla frappaucino.
Sorry, can’t help it.
I just like coffee.
“D,” His voice was light. Nowhere near feminine, just light. Like a high tenor or something. A good comparison to his significant other. “Leave him alone. I’m sure he didn’t mean to aggravate us by waking us up in the middle of the night,” He looked at me. “Did you Rai?”
Okay, usually I would have said something along the lines of, ‘Of course I did!’.
Fortunately, I like life.
What I actually said was: “Sorry, I just got really excited, and-“ I paused. “Did it just get warmer?”
Damn, forgot all about King.
Maybe I should elaborate on who I call, ‘The Literally Hot Asian’. I met the man after Cronos more or less ‘created’ him and his partner/opposite, Kai, the water spirit and tiger. I mean, in that last battle, Cronos did turn them against me, causing me to go practically insane and rip my grandfather to shreds. They do still feel sort of guilty for not being able to fight back against Cronos’ control, but I’ve forgiven them.
The fact that he’s a lion doesn’t affect his personality too mush either.
…That is a lie by the way.
Luckily, afterwards they, Hermes, and Aries (hey, he may be the god of war, but family comes first. Of course he’s going to care about me!) Somehow got me under control, keeping the chimera’s powers from fully taking control.
King rounded the corner, a ball of fire swirling angrily in his palm.
O-ho-ho.
Not good.
“Now King…” I started, bringing my hands up. “Hold on.”
He came at me, pushing me against the wall. He held the fire in my face.
“What the hell is up with you.” It wasn’t a question. “It’s three a.m., and I’m trying to sleep. What. The hell. Do you want.”
I was sweating buckets, so I had to tread carefully here. “We, uh…” His glare grew fierce, well…an ‘er’ should be added to the end of that. “We found him.”
It took him a moment to figure out exactly who ‘he’ was. But when he got it, he nodded, extinguishing the flame in his palm.
“Okay…and why couldn’t this have waited until the morning? When people are actually awake?”
I wiggled out of his grasp, quickly moving behind the largest object in the hallway, in this case D.
“Okay, one: technically, we aren’t exactly people. Two: excitement is a powerful thing. Can’t help it sometimes.”
A voice came from behind us. “Yeah, it doesn’t help that you’re usually on a permanent sugar high.” It laughed.
I turned around.
“Oh shut up, Zeph. You too Aaer.”
Oh right, Zephyr and Aaer. These two bastards. Okay, well, Zephyr is the wind machine and cougar and is mostly a bastard, and Aaer is our clock and saber tooth tiger. He’s actually the nice one among us.
I that enough for you?
No?
Damn ya’ll some needy people.
Okay, um…
Well, Zeph sort of got his powers from…
Screw that. He did get his powers from me.
I blame the chimera.
No, Aaer is sort of special case, well, we’re all special cases, but his is very different. See, after I defeated my grandfather, his powers got separated from his consciousness. Apparently, from what I was told, Cronos’ power went almost directly to Aaer, giving him power over time. Which is extremely cool, because it is fun to do things in slow motion.
The only thing I still don’t get is…
How the hell did these two get together?
I mean, there is sort of a trend in our…groupings. Fire to water, earth to lightning, light to dark. But air to time?
Ah well, better stop before I hurt myself.
“So…” Aaer started. His voice was very melodic, base-like. “We found him?”
“Yeah.” My fatigue was catching up with me.
“Where?”
“VCU.”
“Signed us up?”
“You know it.” I yawned.
Zeph noticed. “Ah, I wouldn’t go back to bed if I were you. We’ve got a demon.”
“Aww, damn it.”
“And Rai,” Kai said behind me. “Since you woke us up, you get to take care of this one.”
There was a murmur of agreement as everyone started going back to their respective rooms, Zephyr and Aaer going back to the elevator that led them to the basement. I followed them, murmuring on ways to get them all back in the morning.