Grumpy Alien King by Celeste King
Xxuric
There are moments in life when you realize that some things that you thought you knew weren’t true at all. Learning who you really are, for example. Or your parents, perhaps. When you discover that there are whole worlds existing inside people that you had no knowledge of.
Today was one of those days. And the person that I was learning about…was my son.
I hadn’t thought much of him as a warrior, over the years, if I was being honest. Dahrial had always seemed more of a bookworm, than anything else. Studious. Serious. Focused on the tasks at hand.
And let’s be clear: I never thought that was a bad thing. It just was what it was. Which is why I thought he needed a little help in finding companionship in the first place. My assessment of him in that regard is the whole reason Heather was brought into the mix in the first place!
The whole of his life, I just never expected much from him in a more aggressive way.
But I had never accounted for him falling in love.
“Damn it, dad, we have to get moving!” he said to me with urgent command in his voice.
“I hear you, Dah, I hear you. Let’s just get ourselves set before we go. We don't know what we may be heading into.”
Fire flashed in his eyes then, catching me by surprise.
“Fuck that,” he said with a hard tone. “I know where they are and we’re gonna head there now. You hear me?”
“Dahrial, I hear you, I’m just saying let’s take a moment to catch our breath and figure out—”
“They have Rulora, Dad. They have her. And I’m not going to let that happen. I can’t. I love her. And she’s waiting for me to get there. To save her. I’m not letting her down. No matter what. I’m not letting her down.”
I looked at him a moment in quiet admiration. Turns out my boy had a bit more steel in him than I had ever given him credit for.
And I found myself feeling pretty proud of him.
“All right, kid. Lead the way. I’ll follow you,” I said simply.
He nodded and headed off, with me following him for a change.
Dahrial moved with assurance and more athletic grace than I would have given him credit for. Kid was full of surprises today, it seemed.
As we made our way though the house, suddenly two henchmen from the gang appeared out of nowhere, tackling us both and sending us into the walls.
“Dahrial!” I shouted as I watched his foe pound his head into the floor.
“Bad idea,” Dahrial growled and as I watched, he reached out with power, grabbing the thug by the neck and, using all his strength, he whipped him around, slamming him against the floor.
The thug sputtered and couched as Dahrial shifted his weight and pulled himself up on top of him.
“Better off keeping your eyes on yourself, grandpa,” the goon grappling with me spit out.
I felt a rage race through me, giving me a charge as it did.
Swinging my left arm suddenly, I caught the thug with a cross shot to his jaw. He went flying off of me and hit the floor on the other side of the hallway.
“Not a grandfather yet, you dumb prick, “ I snarled at him. I pulled my right arm back, made my hand into a fist and pulsed it down with force.
It connected instantly and my opponent went down like a ton of bricks, out cold.
I scrambled to my feet to help Dahrial, only to see him on his feet, his opponent in one hand, jacked up against the wall, the other hand pounding away at his enemy.
“TELL. ME. WHAT. YOU’VE. DONE. TO. HER!” he shouted.
I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Dahrial.”
“TELL ME!”
“Dahrial, stop.”
“Don’t tell me to stop, Dad, I need to fucking know!”
“Yeah, I get that, but you’re not paying attention to your buddy here. He’s unconscious for sure. I would guess that you’ve beaten him into a coma, actually.”
Dahrial stopped then, looked at me, then looked at the rumpled heap in his hands.
Without ceremony, he dropped him and the thug fell to the floor of the hallway like a rag doll.
“Right. Sorry. Just got a little worked up there.”
I laughed.
“Don’t have to apologize to me, Dahrial. This poor bastard is the one in rough shape.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.
He was shaken a little by his own capacity for violence. I could see it in his eyes.
“You ok?” I asked with concern.
“I won’t be ok until we get her back, Dad. You know what I mean?”
“I do. Completely,” I said, nodding.
In truth, and I wasn’t quite ready to admit this out loud, but I was worried about Heather. I knew that she could take care of herself. There was no question about that, but I still couldn’t help but wonder if she was all right. And doing everything I could not to allow that wonder to fester into worry.
“C’mon,” Dahrial said, snapping me back to the moment I was in. “We’re close. They’re not far from here.”
“How sure are you Dahrial? How do we know they haven’t been moved already?”
He looked at me then, dead certainty in his eyes.
“Because I can feel it, Dad,” he said simply.
If I couldn’t trust that, then I couldn’t trust anything.
“I’m with you. Lead on.”
Dahrial quickly made his way through the building, as if he was following some kind of internal radar.
He brought us in front of a door, with the sounds of struggle on the other. I looked at my son and saw alarm in his eyes.
“We have to get in there!” Dahrial shouted at the top of his lungs and threw his weight against the door, cracking it open.
As he fell in on top of the door, I followed closely behind, ready for another fight.
Instead we saw Rulora calmly sitting on a chair, watching Heather beat the shit out of the two guards in the room with them.
Heather looked up at us as we tumbled in.
“Oh, hey fellas,” she said with a pleasant, breezy tone. “What’s going on?”
