22. Abort

Because of his ankle, he had to levitate his way home, which was as quickly as running, although it took more of his energy than the other. That’s why when he was in the adjacent neighborhood, he had to land and took some time to catch some air. 

He still couldn’t understand what was wrong with him, why suddenly he got grumpy and unfocused. When listening to the Awkward Boy talking about past celebrated birthdays, he was still fine and calm, for a moment there, even wanted to celebrate his birthday with them, until he was asked when it was. It was in ten days, but he couldn’t say it, not because they might find weird or curious that it was the same day as The Protector; he didn’t say it because he knew all the people in the island would be more focused in his birthday than him, as selfish as it looked. For that reason, his answer was that it passed already, so they needed to wait a year to know it.

With his head in a complete mess, he arrived at his house without knowing how. He just went directly to his room, to his bed and laid down without even taking his shoes off. He felt as his head was filled with noises he couldn’t understand, illogical and loud that didn’t allow him to think clearly. He neither knew if he was feeling sad, angry, jealous, overwhelmed or what. 

It was until late in the night that he was able to fall asleep, when his mind was too exhausted to be awake.

In the morning, his mother had to woke him up, after his alarm was completely ignored five times. She even touched his forehead to know if he was sick, and she was almost convinced that he was lying when he denied it. With a quick breakfast and saying for the eleventh time that he was feeling fine, he went to his training.

He was in the middle of his ascension when he looked at the horizon beyond the seashore. And just when his eyes landed on the ships, the alarm went off.

As fast as he could, he ran to the nearest watch tower with his phone ringing because his military trainer. This time there was twelve ships, none looking as a travel cruiser or a cargo ship. Even at that distance, he could see their weapons.

“Yeah, I’ll go to do a reckon, make them prepare all the power.”  Only in those times in need he was in charge, he easily felt the confidence and the strength to guide them. It was in those times where The Protector’s mask was stronger than the rest.

He jumped from the cliff closer the tower, at half the jump he started to levitate and go directly to where the ships were coming. He never saw so many being so close, he was almost sure that they didn’t know about him being the protector of the island, the only person with superpowers because he was sure that he didn’t let no one to saw him. They couldn’t be planning a war against a lonely island with uncommon riches or something worth destroying.

He was flying with twenty meters between him and their ships, he was instructed to be always that far so he wasn’t discovered by their navigation system.

It didn’t matter from where he looked at it, those were war ships. While talking and streaming what he was seeing to the militia, he knew that fight would be the only solution.

“Engage” said the leader of the mission through his phone after one hour of waiting the ships to get close to their island. After warnings coming from the island stopped.

 

The protector boarded the first ship in seconds, before their radars could read him, he was on deck, hitting and getting rid of every sailor he came across until they raised the alarm.

With the first ones that came to meet him, to beat him up, he knew that it wouldn’t be an easy job. Every one of them had a different offensive power, all trained to fight, all adults fully grown and with so much experience.

Winning against the first ship took him two hours, ending with a punctured lung, broken bones that he refused to acknowledge, and some big injuries that he desperately burned or froze before stepping in the next ship while the other started to sink.

The moment he aborted his mission, just pausing it to go back the quarters to heal all his broken bones that now hindered his every movement, the anemia that weakened him and the exhaustion after using every power he had to kill as much as crew as he could before sinking the second ship. He jumped into the water before getting back to the island, just to clean himself up from all the dirt and blood of his enemies and his.