An Unwelcome Hero - shadow slave

As soon as he received his instructions, Chiron got to work. He followed the simple direction. The watchtower wasn't something gigantic in the first place and neither were the grounds allocated to it. Even without the directions, it would only take 10 or so minutes to find your way around it.

And after several minutes of looking, Chiron finally heard the sound of what was probably someone yelling and something flying through the air and the archery range finally came into view. He rushed as much as he could. "Charlie! Charlie!" Hearing his voice, one of the archers turned around and looks at him. He narrows his eyes and sighs.

Chiron interpreted that as him being Charlie and quickly approached him. The muscular man was wielding a large great bow and shot his knocked arrow, hitting a bullseye with great ease and looked back at Chiron with a great deal of annoyances. Said man seemed to not even realize this fact and walked up to him in a friendly manner.

He stopped his running and walked up to the archer and said "Hey, you know where Charlie is at?!" The archer's eye twitches, as he smacked his bow's top onto Chiron's head, bonking him surprisingly hard.

Chiron rubbed his head with an awkward smile and Charlie told him "Follow me for a bit, old man. Apologies instructor, I need to help this incompetent old timer." The man leading the archery group nodded his head, while looking at Chiron skeptically and off the two of them went.

Charlie guided Chiron to the watchtower and they walked at a slow pace, as Chiron tried to slow their approach as much as poss by pretending to be tired out from the run, even though the body of the middle-aged man he took over seemed to be quite in good shape. He used the time to ask questions and Charlie, surprisingly, kept answering. He seemed to not even be fazed Chiron was asking him such basic questions, which helped him greatly.

The first thing he explained were the Awakened in the fortress. "Morning and night time are watchmen hours, when specialized Awakened were assigned to guard the horizon and watch out for an enemy attack. Those watchmen are the top authority. An order from a watchman is directly and swiftly executed!"

He cut his word to wait for Chiron's confirmation and waited till he nodded his head with a smile "Yes yes, sir!"

"I am one such watchman of this watchtower. Each has 2 watchmen. Your duty is to patrol the city in daily shifts. What you do on off-days is your own business. We have 3 patrol units of 30 guards each. Other towers have different amounts. Your unit moved out today, before you woke up. You can take any map off the wall and choose it as your route. Make sure to put your name card in the map's slot, so we know who is on that route and can hold them accountable. Are we clear?"

Chiron nodded furiously and said "Won't forget it no matter what!" He quickly got his name card from the guard roster and went to receive his route. He was, unsurprisingly, the last to take a route and his was through the slums. An obvious "late comer" loss. Without much of a choice, Chiron took the map of the slums and began his duty *back to home, I guess. Let's hope my rent hasn't gone up.*

But, not even a half hour later, he realized why no one chose the slums. Well, he knew just by the name in reality. The city, that looked so alive and bustling had turned into a smelly, disgusting bundle of socks cramped into one tight basket. Chiron breathed in deeply and exhaled "Home sweet Home!"

Some would call it a horror or a filthy region, but knowing what the true worst of the world had to offer, this place didn't even have an effect on him. *Compared to where I used to "live", this is basically a paradise!*

"AAAah!"

*Minus that. I just had to think and Jinx it! Next time, just shut the f"ck up and do your damn job. Sigh, we didn't have crime back home and now it's my job to fix this! At least give me some memories for this effort!*

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Chiron jumped at the opportunity to fight. He ran towards the noise and quickly approached it. *Remain vigilant.*

As soon as he arrived, he saw a man with his face covered in green cloth holding a younger teenager by the mouth to silence him. On a closer look, his other arm was around the boy's neck and a bit of redness was spreading on the boy's white top.

Chiron kept his hand on his sword and his height at 7 feet tall. He was confident he wouldn't be in much danger, as this assassin-like person was attacking the boy. If he was a serious threat, they would have been apprehended by the watchmen.

*Unless he is REALLY good at hiding or faster than eyes can see, but that isn't happening in my first nightmare.* With a false sense of bravado, Chiron stepped out and looked at the assassin "We can talk this over. You can let go of the boy and hand yourself in for questioning. If you coopera-"

The green man's hand seemed to flicker and a *whoosh* Sound was heard. Chiron barely managed to move away, as something grazed his head. The dagger cut a bit of his hair and hit the house behind him.

*Crap, I can't move with this stiffness. And what was that knife throwing?! Throwing knives aren't a thing! Since when can a thrown knife just fly directly forward. It's attached to a rope! That's possible.*

He watched the human in front of him and made sure to keep track of the knife as well, so he didn't suffer any unnecessary loss, as he unsheathed his sword. "You're an awakened. Guess taking this boy alive isn't a possibility."

Before Chiron could say anything, the assassin swung his hand down and the boy's spine was directly cut open and with a small dagger from that back of his neck out of his eye ended his life on the spot. *Oh no he's good!*

Chiron condensed his body. This was an actual awakened, unlike him, who could pass himself off as an awakened due to having an initial ability, but was most definitely not on his level. Fighting him, as a weaker, less skilled and lower rank meant almost certain death. *Heh, I'm a turtle. He can't kill me. I'm invincible!* The looney thought to himself, but he wasn't exactly wrong, he was, theoretically, more than durable enough to survive.

The assassin quickly swung his hand and threw another dagger at him. Not wanting to be on the defense for the entire time, Chiron decided to make use of his ability for the first time and his body shrunk down. His original towering height of 7 feet was condensed into 6'6" and he looked at the man standing before him with a smirk, as the dagger hit his arm and barely drew blood.

The assassin noticed his ability and smugly said "You're ability is to condense and become more durable, but you become slower and less agile. In short, the more you condense, the slower you become. Quite interesting. You're almost an opposite of me, how unfortunate for you! I wanted this boy to bring back alive, but killing an enemy awakened will earn me more than some farm boy with his inferior information."

Chiron analyzed the speech and came to one conclusion from all the information he had gathered *The fight's already over!* And he was completely right.

The man's figure in front of him blurred and appeared to the left of him within a second. Chiron smirked, as he swung his sword at the assassin and what he received was a sharp pain in his right shoulder, while his sword hit nothing but air!

----

A.N. Next chapter a BANGER, one of the best I have written so far, so hope you lot love what's coming