My name is Luke Astron. Nice to meet you. You may recognize my last name, and yes, I am part of the Astron family, the fourteenth heir to the throne for the kingdom of Couprisia, in fact. Anyway, I hope knowing that doesn't change your opinion of me. Unfortunately, I've had quite a bit of experience with friends walking away upon learning my last name. You would think that being from a millionaire and famous family would attract people, but unfortunately it also attracts people who hate me for being privileged, and those who get close end up walking away to avoid being attacked for associating with me.
My life is not the most fun life in the world. I usually spend all my free time at the Training Center, where you pay a little to be allowed to fight monsters that are bred on the inside. There you get some prizes with a value that depends on how many monsters you beat. Since my life at school is always spent alone, these moments fighting are a good distraction. Also, the fact that my family has trained me since I was a child to fight monsters helps a lot to make it easy for me to fight them. But I'd rather have friends at school and have fun when I'm there studying.
Anyhow, I'll have to finish this presentation. Today is my first day in high school and I don't want to be late. I plan to keep my last name a secret, and act cool so everyone will want to be my friend. I hope it works out. Thanks for being the first one I've been able to talk to so much, but I think I'll have so many friends soon that I won't fit in time to associate with you.
I'm sorry, I know we just met, but I guess this will be our goodbye. Nice to meet you, dear diary.
Luke Astron didn't make any friends in the first six months after entering high school. His little experience getting friends made it impossible for him to know how to act cool, so he proceeded to become nothing more than an easy victim for the bullies at school.
"Son, have you written in the diary I gave you?" his mother asked him one day.
"A little..." he replied.
I can't tell her that I've already written on almost every page because that notebook is the only one I can talk to.
Determined to end his lonely life, he went to school prepared to make a friend. His intentions were immediately ended when he was greeted by a group of delinquents from his class: three guys with tattoos on their faces despite still being in high school. Their bodies bore several scars from bladed weapons, with some of these scars leaving bald patches in their scalps.
"Today we're going to fight some guys from another school, so we need some training" said one of them.
Then, he threw a tremendous punch in Luke's stomach that left him on the floor, desperate for air.
As he tried to get up, the whole group started kicking him all over his body, giving him no time to rest. All he could do was defend the back of his head with his hands. The kicks hurt so much that tears came out of his eyes no matter how hard he tried to suppress them.
They used to play cruel jokes on me, like putting garbage in my backpack and sometimes even spitting on me, but this is the first time they've hit me.
"Do something at once are you just going to stand there crying?"
Who said that out of the three of them? He had no idea. He didn't care much either way, being on the receiving end of a beating.
The Astron family was known for their martial arts techniques, their members were trained in combat from birth, therefore, the strength they possessed were superior to anyone in the entire kingdom. The problem was that in order to avoid the inappropriate use of this training, the family members were forbidden to use violence against other people, unless they were fighting for the good of someone else.
I can't break that ancestral rule for something as self-centered as avoiding getting hit.
"Let's leave it here. This guy's not even good for warm-ups."
The bullies went to the classroom, the same one Luke attended, leaving their victim lying on the floor, full of wounds and his body hurting deeply. It was impossible for him to move an inch. No one went near him for fear of becoming another victim of the bullies, so Luke had to go to the infirmary on his own after finally being able to get up.
The school Luke attended was located in Astros, the capital of the kingdom of Couprisia. It was a school for the most privileged in the whole kingdom, with the highest entrance fee in the entire Zodiacal Island. At the same time, people who were afraid to help because of the possibility of being another victim also existed. Such is human nature, no matter the money on their pockets.
To make matters worse, since the bullies were members of privileged families, as much as the victim was, there was little teachers and school workers could do without fear that they would use their privilege to cause them to lose their jobs. For that reason, when Luke arrived at the infirmary, the nurse did nothing more than treat his wounds and send him back to class. Wasn't he the prince of that kingdom, how could that nurse treat him like that?! Well, he was one of many princes, and the Astrons didn't like to be favored, so by law they were to be treated as normal citizens.
When he entered the classroom, he was greeted by looks of pity from his classmates, the complete indifference of the group that created those wounds and a surprise: a girl sitting at the back of the classroom, next to the table where he sat. He was surprised that from her white hair protruded two black horns, both of them small and with a certain inward curvature. He had never seen that girl before, so he assumed she was a new student.
He sat down at his table and tried to start a conversation with the girl.
"Do you want to be my friend?"
Simply saying what he wanted most was his best attempt at starting a conversation.
The girl's response was a disgusted grimace and cutting words:
"I don't need friends. Mind your own business."
Unfortunately for her, Luke only heard the word 'friends'. So he was convinced that she was his first friend. Throughout the class he continued to comment on random topics to her, trying to start conversations.
Yes, I just got into this school, the girl commented monotonously between the many exchanges of words Luke forced out of her. I decided to leave my previous school because of a personal issue, she added. Kelly Lunis is my name, was another of the things she said. Yes, I like animals too, she replied when Luke expressed his love for cats. In fact, I have a bunny at my house and it's....
Surprisingly, despite how cold she was at first, Kelly ended up having a rather intense conversation with Luke by the end of the class.
As they were about to leave for recess she said to him.
"You are definitely obnoxious. I have no intention of being your friend or anything like that. But this has been the first conversation I've had with someone in a long time, so I thank you for that. You see, people usually stay away from me because of this mutation on my head, so I spend most of my time alone. I've done some research and apparently these things," she pointed to her horns, "are because I'm a being called a Vestal."
At that word, "Vestal", a sharp pain invaded Luke's mind. Suddenly, memories of another life that was not his own began to invade his head.
It can't be, I...
His real name was Aaron Skletu, an ordinary human living on Earth, who, after dying, was reborn in the world of Starlight Legends, a famous video game by Astral Entertainment. The body in which he was reborn was that of one of the main characters, Luke Astron, who joined the hero's group around the middle of the video game's story.
Many of his memories as Luke disappeared the moment he remembered his old life, but he remembered enough to know that many of the things that happened corresponded to what the game's codices said. This was horrible, because the girl in front of him, Kelly Lunis, was one of the infamous Seven Vestals. They, under the command of the Great Goddess, destroy the world and kill most of the population, it is then the hero's job to defeat them and return the world to its former splendor.
The best I can do now is let things take their course. I know that the hero wins in the end, and that I will be part of that group, so I know I will be safe no matter what. The problem is that I have no idea about the relationship between Lunis and Luke prior to the events of the game. Lunis is one of the first Vestals to be defeated, and Luke is only introduced halfway through the game.
Now that I remember, there was a scene where Luke reacted sadly when the hero mentioned killing Lunis. It's quite possible that they were friends as kids. But this does nothing but create problems. If I'm not sure what those interactions were, it's very likely I'm going to cause changes in the events of the video game.
That being the case, the best option is to win her friendship. Then, I must use her friendship to make sure she doesn't do the damage she did in the game. One less Vestal shouldn't change the story too much, so it shouldn't cause too many problems. Plus, I make sure of my survival in case of the worst case scenario: that she turns evil like in the video game and kills me before meeting the hero. If we are friends, she may not attack me because I'm close to her. Befriending her and preventing her from becoming evil is the safest option.
It's decided, then. I will become her best friend.
But before I worry about those things, I have something to do....
Aaron approached the same group of bullies who had beaten him in the morning. They were sitting on their desks chatting about an unimportant subject.
"What's wrong? Do you want me to hit you more?" commented one of them when he noticed his gaze.
Without answering, Aaron threw a straight right in the face of the speaker. The guy went flying, hitting several desks in his path and leaving a chaos of pencils and notebooks around him. The rest of the bullies immediately went into combat stance.
Aaron was ready to punch the rest of them when...
You must not break the family rule!
Who said that? Was that my voice...?
Without giving any importance to what happened inside his mind, he proceeded to beat the rest of the bullies. Fists and kicks came from him. To the one who was on the ground, he picked him up and beat him just as he did with the others. He used all the training he remembered from the Astron family to repay them for the suffering they gave him for six months.
The bullies were taken to the hospital on stretchers, and Aaron did not attend the rest of the day's classes, he simply went home.
Kelly watched the entire fight.
What happened to him? A few minutes ago he seemed like someone completely different.