Chapter 15 - 14: Truth And Lies, Another Disaster

When Leo heard that his shop was on fire, he immediately bolted towards the location of his shop. That was his years of hard work. How could he let it burn like that? Wouldn't he be back on the streets if that all went to ashes?

In a few minutes, he could see smoke rising in the distance. It was indeed the area where his shop was.

Suddenly, Leo's eyes turned grim as a terrifying thought appeared in his mind, "Father! He is not in the shop, right?"

Leo immediately opened the interface of his smart link and dialed his father's number.

"Pick up! Pick up the phone, Father!!" Leo screamed as he ran through the streets and took the shortest way possible by breaking into a few private properties and trespassing them.

"Tsk!" He clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction when no one picked it up and the automated voice began to ask him to leave a message behind.

Leo suddenly closed his eyes and remembered that feeling from before and a Yellow colored energy gushed out of his body. As soon as it did, he felt the throbbing around his ear again. But he didn't have any time to pay attention to it.

He took a heavy step on the ground and suddenly shot forward. His speed drastically increased and his abilities had suddenly multiplied. This was Leo's first time experiencing this sensation and it was really different than what he had thought.

"I need to take the shortuct.." Leo felt the urge to get there as soon as possible. He was really having a bad feeling about it. 'Sorry, Uncle Arnold…'

After apologizing inwardly, he jumped over the wall entered someone else's garden.

A middle aged man had been standing near his window feeling the morning breeze and sniffing the sweet smells of the flower in his garden when Leo passed by like a storm scaring the heck out of him. The beautiful flowers planted in the garden were mercilessly crushed under his feet.

When the man finally noticed what had happened, he couldn't help but scream in anger, "Stop there you damn brat!!!" But Leo had already vanished by then.

In a minute, Leo had arrived at the alley where his shop was. He couldn't help but turn a bit emotional at the sight of his shop. It was engulfed in flames and black smoke continuously rose from it. The fire was raging like a storm and a crowd had gathered around. Some of the people were trying to get the fire out by bringing in buckets of water, but it clearly wasn't helping much.

There were no signs of people from the fire service arriving and there were no sounds of sirens as well. It could only mean that they hadn't even entered the radius of a mile from them.

Leo pushed aside the people in the crowd as he went further towards his shop.

Suddenly, a familiar lady in the crowd entered his eye. She was around her 40s and had a few wrinkles on her face. She was currently gazing towards the blazing shop with a concerned look.

Leo recognized her.

She was Aunt Jessie from the opposite shop. She did business in second hand parts of Commercial Mechs and Robots.

"Did you see my father, Aunt Jessie?" Leo asked with a concerned expression.

"Who is your father, child? Do I know you?" Aunt Jessie asked in confusion as she looked at the unfamiliar kid in front of her.

Leo really wanted to curse himself.

"I mean…is there anyone inside there? I heard my father had gone into the shop." Leo asked pointing at his shop.

"Except for the owner of the shop being trapped in there, we don't know about anyone else." Aunt Jessie said with her her hands interlocked in nervousness. "The fire service will be here at any moment. Don't worry, even if your father is trapped in there, I am sure he will be fine."

Even though she didn't recognize Leo, seeing his worried face ,she couldn't help but feel bad for him and tried to console him.

But hell, Leo wasn't a kid. Sugar-coated words weren't going to work on him. They weren't even in the radius of a mile. They probably weren't going to make it in time.

Leo turned around and darted into the nearby store. It was a store where they sold clothes, curtains and mats. He picked one of the mats and backtracked, "I am taking this with me, will pay later, Uncle Vin."

Uncle Vin who had been standing out looking at the situation with a worried expression turned around on hearing the unfamiliar voice but Leo had already become thin air by then.

Leo hurried back to his shop with the mat in his hands. A man suddenly appeared before him and tried to block his path when he noticed Leo dashing towards the burning shop.

Leo recognized him. He was the nice uncle from the neighboring glass shop, "Stay away kid! It's not safe here."

His voice was loud enough to attract everyone's attention, but Leo didn't pay any heed to his words. He tilted his body and stopped his feet skidding through the gap between the man's feet who was standing there with his hands and feet wide apart in an attempt to block Leo.

The crowd looked at the scene with wide eyes as Leo passed the man and then draped the mat over his body before barging into the burning shop.

Several gasps escaped from the crown in shock as Leo disappeared in the flames.

"Stop there! Its dangerous!" Aunt Jessie shouted, but Leo had disappeared. She could only continue to stand there and stare at the shop in flames with a worried face.

….

"Bang!"

Leo flew into the shop as he broke through the burning door and crashed onto the floor. A pain coursed through his hand as his elbow seemed to have landed on the embers below. He could only grit his teeth as he climbed back onto his feet.

He was honestly a bit surprised at his own body movement there. He knew that he had got a stronger body than the previous one. But he didn't remember himself being so athletic.

The shop was pretty simple in layout. The ground floor laid bare and there wasn't anything which could be hidden here. It was basically a giant hall.

He turned his head trying to see if his father was around but didn't manage to catch his image.

He began to move and as the crackling noises of the wood which was blazing from corner to corner entered his ears reminding him of the fact that it could fall at any given moment.

The heat was close to the point of becoming unbearable, but Leo ignored it and began moving towards the stairs. They used the lower level as his shop while the upstairs had a room that his father used sometimes to just laze around randomly.

"Bang!"

As soon as Leo took a step forward, a burning plank broke off the roof and crashed down in front of him. One more step and he would have been buried underneath it.

His face turned dark looking at it.

The structure had started to crumble. It seemed that fire had done enough damage. He had to find his father and get out fast. He quickened his steps and climbed the stairs which gave out a creaking noise.

But, Leo's steps suddenly paused. His eyes widened and he immediately ducked before taking cover behind a corner.

"Are you going to die in silence?"

He could hear a light voice coming in from the room. It didn't belong to his father. Someone else was in there. He raised his head and peeked through the corner as his hands and body continued to feel the heat of the flames, yet he continued to grit his teeth and endure the pain

The door to the room was slightly open which gave Leo a chance to look in. He stretched his head further out and his eyes suddenly dilated as the sight of his father entered his vision. His entire face was covered in blood with flames raging all around him. He had shut his eyes tight for some reason and seemed to be facing the other person in the room who was not visible to Leo.

"I...don't know....what you... are talking... about.." Leo's father, Von, spoke with difficulty.

Suddenly, a hand came forward and grabbed his throat. The person seemed to be wearing a black color coat and there was a tattoo of a sword in chains on his wrist, "Do you want to die?" A voice sounded and it was different from the first one. There were more people in the room.

Leo looked at the scene and felt his blood boiling. He wanted to rush in and tear the guy apart, but he kept his urges in check. He honestly didn't know how he was able to keep himself calm in this situation. If it was the earlier him, he definitely would have done something.

But now, as if he had changed somehow. He realized that it was not the time to be acting recklessly. Rushing in will only decrease the chances of getting his father to safety. He had to act calm.

"Is there any other person in his family?" the first voice asked.

"A child who seemed to have died in a space accident a month earlier." Another voice replied. They had done their research.

"What have you received from all of this? Stop being stubborn. You know how much we value you. Just change your mind. A new world is awaiting you….It's time for you to end your sufferings. Its been 17 years of hide and seek…don't you want to see how your wife is doing? Don't you regret leaving her and your entire family behind." The first man spoke in a serene tone.

Leo's face changed and he froze.

The word mother and family was really foreign to him. After all from what he knew, his father was raised in orphanage, so there shouldn't have been a family to begin with. As for his mother, she had died after giving birth to him.

Were all those lies then?

Just what was the truth then?

"You will regret if you refuse us.." The man's tone began to sound threatening.

"I haven't regretted much. My life had indeed been full of misery, but it was of my own choice. The only thing which I regret was not giving my son enough love. I was too focused on raising him for this day so that even without me, he would be able to live. But, he is gone. I didn't perform any duties of a father, nor did I give him the love he deserved." Von said with a self-deprecating laugh. He had done his son wrong.

'Father….' Leo muttered inwardly as tears filled his eyes. His nails dug into his palms as he clenched his fist in frustration and anger.

At this moment, a siren began to be heard. The people from the fire service were here.

"What do we do with him?" The man holding Leo's father by his throat asked.

"Let him burn to his death...if we kill him, it might raise suspicions. The old dogs of the Federation has got a strong nose after all." The first voice replied.

"What about the thing which we are looking for?"

"Do you think a dog like you have the qualification to be asking questions?" the first voice asked.

"Apologies...I didn't realise it.." the man replied with a quivering voice and immediately flung Von aside.

His body crashed into the walls of the room. The tremor led a burning plank to fall off burying Von underneath.

Leo gritted his teeth and when the voices had finally disappeared from the room, he barged in.

He then scanned the entire room and found his father in one corner and immediately moved to help. He lifted the burning plank with his bare hands ignoring the pain as his skin burnt and then took the mat off his body and wrapped his father in it.

"Crash!"

As he was about to take him out, parts of the ceiling suddenly caved in blocking the exit of the room. Leo could only turn towards the window. It was the first floor. But he had no choice. He lifted his father on his shoulder and ran towards it, before diving out.

As soon as they were out, the house collapsed with a crashing noise as the burnt pillar couldn't withstand the weight anymore.