by Newbiel
"Who is she though?" He asked himself.
Nathaniel was confident that this woman's face was so peculiar that there was no way that it was an hallucination. But who was she? And from where did he know her from? That wasn't from Marc that he knew for sure and he was confident he would remember her if he met her in his youth. He had trouble putting his finger on it but there was something peculiar about her face. She was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen but that wasn't it. There was something almost alien on the way that she was behaving.
The only good news about this was that considering that Na-Yung hadn't come back yet, he must have passed out for a few minutes at most. Getting to his feet, he dust himself off and used his phone as a mirror to see if he had something on his face. Once he had fixed himself and made sure everything was good, he looked at the bow on the ground. With an apprehensive face, he picked it up with a finger and propped it on the arrow case.
Few minutes later, Na-Yung came back with a huge case in her left hand.
"Sorry, the coach wanted to talk about our next tournament." She apologized.
"Don't worry about it." He smiled.
She then picked up the bow, wiping it using some sort of cloth and then putting it in the case that she had brought with her.
"We can go now." She said.
"Wait, really? You don't have to stow all this gear away?" Nathaniel asked, showing the target and arrow on the field.
"We usually do but since you are here, I excuse myself and since it's the first time, they didn't give me a hard time." She shrugged.
"You don't have to dodge that for my sake you know, I could have waited longer."
"Maybe but the girls saw me talk with you and told me in no uncertain terms that if I had the chance to 'hit that' I must for their sake and tell them afterward all the glory details." She smirked and Nathaniel laughed.
"Since when do you practice archery?" He asked.
"Eight years soon to be nine I believe. Why?"
"I was just trying to find a point of comparison. How much time would you need to be able to hit the bullseye of a target, two hundred yard away using a bow similar to yours without having to aim?"
"You mean outside of having an absurd amount of luck?" She frowned.
"Of course." Nathaniel nodded.
"I can myself shoot at that distance and hit the bullseye two out of five shots. Without aiming, you will need to be naturally gifted with the bow and having at the minimum at least decades of experiences."
Decades. That word rings long and hard in his mind. That wasn't making any sense at all why he could do it. Himself had lived less than two decades of life and Marc never even saw a real bow in his entire life outside of once in a movie and it was a really bad movie. There was something he was missing, he was sure of it. He needed to figure it out before he started going crazy.
"Are you alright?" Na-Yung asked.
"Yeah, I just have a bad headache, it's going to pass don't worry."
"You sure? I have some Ibuprofen in my bag if you want… Hey, what's that?" Na-Yung said, pointing at something on the campus.
Lifting his head, Nathaniel followed her finger and saw what she was talking about. Students were running in that direction, shouting to their friends about something. On the distance he was seeing a trail of red, moving in line.
"I'm dreaming or it looks like a trail of torches?" Nathaniel asked.
"I'm hearing shouting but I can make out the words, Nathaniel you have a better hearing than me, can you understand what they are shouting?"
Nathaniel focused his soul to enhance his earring which for some reason was harder to do than usual. However, when he understands what they were shouting, Nathaniel's eyes turn sharp and he start running in that direction.
"Fuck! Nathaniel, wait for me!" Na-Yung shouted, launching herself in a run, trying to follow him.
******
"NO MEANS YES, YES MEANS ANALS! NO MEAN YES, YES MEANS ANALS! NO MEANS YES, YES MEANS ANALS! NO MEAN YES, YES MEANS ANALS!"
Around twenty fraternity students were parading in two lines, led by someone around twenty years old, each having a torch in their right hands. They were shouting this over and over again in front of where the women society had their local office. Many students were massing over them, recording it on their phone, some with amusement on their face while the others looked angry or just plain sad.
Preening at the attention on him, the leading frat guy keeps yelling higher and higher, even as the woman's start exiting their room to look at the commotion with a mix of disgusted and scared expression on their faces. Smirking, and puffing his chest, he was going to lead the pledges on another tour when he saw someone run in front of him.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?"
Nathaniel, using a voice made to be heard on the battlefield, cut through the twenty peoples chanting and stopped their marching all together. Nathaniel just had to look at the womens exiting the Women Society Center, the crowd that had formed around and the fraternity members to get a gist of what was happening here and that made him even more angry. Stopping a few steps to his side, Na-Yung was looking as angry as him and had an expression on her face that look a lot like Camilla's, the one where she looked at everyone around her as a target for a fight.
"Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck away before we are going to move you ourself!" The fraternity leader yells at Nathaniel.
"Oh Yeah? Move me then." Nathaniel said, making a step forward and coming even closer to him.
"Last chance before I'm going to break your jaw!" He threatened.
"Now, I have a second chance, interesting. To come in front of the Women Society with your little gang of pets, chanting a **** anthem, that you have the courage to do so. But now in front of me, you are cowering away like the little bitch that you are. You are a disgrace to this University, to your fraternity and to every walking man on this planet." Nathaniel said slowly, enunciate each word clearly so that anyone around them could hear them.
That seemed to do the job as he saw the fist that was coming to his face. He could have avoided it, blocked it but he did none of that. Nathaniel just let himself get punched in the side of his face, staggering back a few steps. He did not hurt that much to be honest but Nathaniel was going to do a show of it.
"That's all that you got!? My grandmother is hitting harder than you!" Nathaniel shouted, walking right back in front of him.
That made him even more angry and he hit Nathaniel again in the face. This time, Nathaniel falls back to the ground, a hand to his face. The frat guy had no idea what he was doing and didn't know how to apply force on his punch. Nathaniel purposefully bit his tongue this time and when he got back up, made a show of wiping the blood that was leaking from his mouth with the back of his hand.
'I believe that should be enough now." Nathaniel thought.
The frat leader chose this time to kick him but Nathaniel had another idea, he dodge barely the leg that was coming to hit his stomach and launch a punch of his own. He made the most ugly, wasteful attack in his entire life but packed it with enough power that it hit him in the side of his jaw and he felt the bone shattered. The leader yelled in pained before falling to the ground, blood spurting from his mouth.
The atmosphere still for a second, no one thought that Nathaniel was going to be the one coming on top of this fight and they were looking at the frat guy who was writhing on the ground in pain, bloodied. The pledges were the most surprised as they knew their handler was a boxer and they had trouble believing that he lost to a pretty boy who look like he never worked out in his entire life.
Na-Yung on her side was smart enough and understood what her friend was doing. This is why when everyone were gobsmacked by the issue of the fight, she already had her phone out and press three digit on it.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Hello, I'm Na-Yung Kim. We are on the Campus of Columbia University. My friend just got attacked by someone. Can you please send the cops
and an ambulance at my location please?"
"Don't worry ma'am, help is on the way. Don't hang up please." The female operator answered.
Chapter 237: :
An hour after that phone call was made, Nathaniel was in an examination room at the Presbytarian Hospital. One NYPD squad car wasn't far from the Campus and so they were here in a couple of minutes. Seeing the situation, they called back up and another ambulance, the frat guy being ushered in the first one that arrived considering the gravity of his injury. Ten minutes and twelve more cops later and Nathaniel was taken to the hospital too after giving a statement to the officer that questioned him.
He could have pleaded the fifth and refused to give a statement to the Police but he had nothing to worry about in this case. The right to self defense is a constitutional right protected under the second amendments of the constitution. That was the reason why he let himself get beaten up, so that he had probable cause to break that frat guy's jaw. It wasn't even the chanting that ticked Nathaniel off but the fact that he liked it so much. That he craved the attention so much that even when doing something so reprehensible, he still liked being the focus of so many people.
A quick survey from the Police department among the crowd that had gathered and the huge number of videos taken during the incident absolved Nathaniel of any wrongdoing and so he was put on the back of an ambulance the moment it had arrived. He did not have to check his phone to know that a huge number of the videos taken earlier were already hitting social media and he expected a call from Maggie any moment now. Considering that he was already under scrutiny by the traditional media because of him taking down his law professor, he knew the video would be quickly picked up by them as well.
Once examined in the ER, Nathaniel was brought into a single room where the nurse assured him that a doctor will come visit soon. He was surprised to see a doctor coming to his room a few minutes later with a chart in his hand. After examining Nathaniel with attention, he noted down some things on his chart.
"You are going to be okay Mister Lyndon." The doctor finally said. "Your right hand needs to be bandaged, your tongue is split probably after getting punched and I'm afraid the left side of your face is already starting to swollen." He added in a caring voice.
"Thank you doctor." Nathaniel answered.
"It's normal, a nurse is going to take care of your hand. I'm going to prescribe you anti inflammatory and pain medication for your face, you just need to rest for a couple of days."
"I'll do that doctor."
He was going to exit the room when Nathaniel stopped him.
"I know that you can't give me any information about the man who attacked me but he seemed more injured than I and I wanted to know if he was okay?" Nathaniel asked tentatively.
The doctor turns in his direction and looks at his face, seemingly searching for something and when he was done, he sighed.
"His life is not in danger if that's the question you are asking but it's going to be a long road for him. I expect him to be in surgery for another twelve hours at the minimum. I can't say anything else about this matter I'm afraid."
"I understand, thank you doctor." Nathaniel nodded, deep in thought.
The doctor nodded as well before making his way out of the room. Even if it was not his place to judge, he was secretly satisfied that his patient cared about the other boy status. He was there when the college kid was wheeled in and he had seen the horrifying damage that he had with his own eyes. To put it into perspective, he once treated someone who had been attacked by someone wielding an aluminium baseball bat and the damages were meager compared to the boy that was in surgery at the moment. He had looked when he was ausculpting Nathaniel that his hands were not one of a fighter and considering his injury and his behavior, he seemed as surprised as them about the injury that he managed to cause. Maybe there was something wrong with his bones and it was the reason that he was so heavily injured? The doctor thought before making his way to the operating theater to make sure it could be important.
With a newly bandaged hand and a blushing young nurse that was exiting his room with a picture of him signed, Nathaniel locked his jaw to his pain that he was feeling. For his ploy to succeed and people to not ask questions, he had to focus his will for his injury and swelling on his face to not head on their own. Considering that even his normal healing was several times stronger than average, he had to purposefully stop the healing process on each part of his body which seemed in return to accentuate the pain that he was feeling.
It was at this moment that the door of his room was opened and his two mothers entered followed by their security escort. Upon looking at him, they looked sad and upset and immediately went to his bed to hug him.
"Moms, what is going on?" Nathaniel asked, baffled.
He then looked at Michael who was among the security personnel following them who quickly nodded back, understanding the unspoken message.
"We will stay outside and make sure you are not disturbed, sir." He said before closing the door.
"Mom, I'm fine! Stop it!"
"You don't look fine! You look terrible!" Mary said, upset.
"Jeez, thanks." Nathaniel answered bitterly and a little bit amused at the same time.
"If you are fine, why don't you heal then?" Mary added angrily.
"Then millions of people would find it weird that I healed an injury that would take them weeks to resolve in half an hour, don't you think?"
"Oh… yes, I didn't think about that." She seems embarrassed now.
"Intellectually, we knew that you would be fine and that you could have beaten that boy without difficulty but there is something really peculiar about watching your own son get beaten up on national television." Karine added.
"Sorry, I should have called you but I thought you were going to understand what I wanted to do and why I was doing it that way."
"You should have yes, you have no idea what it's like to be a mother, Nathaniel." Mary rebuked.
"Especially considering that you were really busy today, let me tell you that some of my colleagues were really not happy about you and so about me as well. You should have told me about it before exposing your professor like that sweety." Karine continued.
"Sorry for the trouble mom." Nathaniel apologized.
"Don't worry about it, I trust your finding and if they really have a problem with it, I don't really care. I don't need them to do my job. I just wished you would have told me about it before going through with this. You always had that mean streak when you were the target of someone ire."
He wanted to counter the point but he knew better than to argue with his mother when they were like that. Insted, he chose to stick his tongue out, using the moment to heal the cut part on it in front of their very eyes.
"After everything that happened, I still have trouble believing what I'm seeing when he does things like that." Mary said, shaking her head.
"You and me both, love." Karine agreed.
"When we will be home, we need to talk. Something happened to me earlier today and you need to know, maybe you would be able to help." He said with gravity. "But, not know, this is not a safe place to have that type of discussion." He added quickly seeing the expression on their face.
"We understand sweety." Karine nodded.
"Oh I was going to forget, Maggied called me when we were arriving here. She told me that she couldn't reach you so called me instead. She is sending her love to you and wishes for you to get better soon…" Mary started when Nathaniel stopped her.
"There is absolutely no way that Maggie said this, mom, what about the truth?"
"Okay, she's happy that someone finally punch your stupid face and sad that she wasn't the one doing it." Mary sighed.
"That I believe." Nathaniel laughed, shaking his head at his agent's behavior.
"And she told me to tell you to check Twitter, something about you that I didn't understand as the line cracked at the end."
Nodding, Nathaniel took
his phone out of his pocket and fired up Twitter on it. He wasn't surprised at the huge number of notifications because he expected it. Looking more into it, he noticed that the same sequence of sentences was coming again and again and continued mounting in terms of numbers. More than that, even in the world trend, the same words were currently top2 and rising rapidly in terms of number of tweets.
"... Golden Son?" He said out loud.
Chapter 238: :
"Golden Son?" His mother repeated in puzzlement.
"Yes, he seems the twittersphere took upon themselves to give me a nickname." He said bitterly, giving his phone to his mother.
"Nathaniel, those numbers…" Mary began, stunned speechless by the huge numbers of tweets talking about it.
"I know, it's already too big to ignore it or to try to stop it." Nathaniel added.
"Why don't you look more happy, Sweety? People love you enough to give you a nickname as flattering as this one, you should be more thrilled about this." Karine asked.
"I'm already high profiled as it is but now because of this, every journalist, pseudo journalist or just the first moron with a blog are going to take my life apart to find some dirt on me and when they failed, they are either going to invent something on me or simply go after you or grandpa and grandma in an effort to discredit me. America loves nothing more than to create heroes and then bring them down. I'm not even mentioning the different personalities who are going to go after me in an effort to clout chase and just thinking about it, I'm already annoyed."
"This is the ransom of success, sweety. You need to learn to live with it if you want to continue in this line of work."
"I know mom, I know. Sorry for that, I just had a really bad day today." He apologized with a tiny smile.
"It happens sometimes, you don't have to apologize to us, sweety." Karine said with a loving smile, patting his hair.
