Chapter 48 : The Debate - Alejandro Part 1

“Jesus…” he kept muttering, as MAJORS thronged around him, doing whatever was necessary of them, at least he hoped.

Alejandro was feeling nervous. Nauseous even. He wasn’t used to talk in public, especially on such a scene. He was seriously reconsidering his participation in this debate, even if Shannon had sworn that he would be admirable. It was somewhat harder to believe that when the smallest debater after himself was old enough to have known some of his great-great-great grand-parents. Even the Minor ones, of course – it was mostly about them, whoever they may have been, if they even existed, he was thinking about right now. It was either that or thinking about his stomach trying to escape from his mouth.

“You’ll do fine sir” assured Jim Paolini, standing like a living monolith next to him, eyeing suspiciously any who came too close to his charge. “And if you don’t… well, honestly, with that old rascal Waid here, nobody would hold it against you.”

“Yeah, sure… I would still have loved to be able to hear whatever the hell they are talking about…”

In an attempt to be “fair” to the two support-guests waiting in the wings to enter and be viciously launched at each other –at least it was how Alejandro envisioned it- the tv-crew or their direction, or whoever had the power to do so, had decided that they wouldn’t hear what was said on the plateau. Which meant that he had no idea who he was called to debate with, what was truly talked about, and if he would come out as a ridiculous but amusing buffoon weakening a strong case brought by Shannon, or a true wrecking-ball of ineptitude putting the final nail in the coffin of an outgunned giantess’ plea. Hopefully, it’ll be the former, he thought darkly.

“Come on, you’ll be fine. Do you think that old rascal has anyone out there able to get back at you? It’s probably some member of his privileged clique or whatever. They don’t expect a Minor to talk back to them. So you advancing arguments? You’ll destroy them.”

“You’re awfully optimistic, you know that, Jim?” asked Alejandro, a little amused by his bodyguard’s antics, in spite of himself and the pressure he faced tonight.

“Well, to be frank, Sam told she would beat me black and blue if something happened to you. I think she really likes you, you truly changed how she sees your Kind. She assumed that you were all rather vapid and easy to Bond with, so the way you act with her like with anybody else… She told me you’re a great friend and she don’t want you to be sad.”

“She actually said all of that? I can’t believe it, it’s a little…”

“Well… Okay, she didn’t word it that way. But I know my Sammy!” laughed Jim, just as some unknown MAJOR approached the chair where Alejandro was resting – as best he could.

“Mister Ferrand? If you don’t mind, you’ll be up and on stage in five. Care to come with me?”

Without waiting for an answer, the man, who could have been anywhere for his thirties to his seventies, turned around and started to walk through the crowd. With a sigh and a nod toward Jim, Alejandro jumped out of the chair and walked –almost ran, really- behind the assistant or whatever his job was. It was easy to forget how Minors were treated by most MAJORS when leaving as secluded as he had, or being in High School, where everyone and their mothers wanted to get their grubby hands on those of his kind. Here, there was at beast an utter lack of interest in him, at worst cold disdain or mockery, he could see it easily in the little glances, the upturned frown, the laughs behind his back… Would he had suffered the same behavior if he hadn’t been crippled but an attractive-looking Minors, an easy prey to snatch and consume? Probably not, he decided.

“There” said the assistant, not even looking at him, stopping so abruptly that Alejandro almost collided with his ass. “You’ll be called in a few.”

And just like that, he disappeared. Returning to mundane tasks which obviously ranked higher than caring for a confused and nervous wreck of a Minor. The young man –still a teenager in truth- almost cried out after him, ready to beg to know who he would face in this section of the debate. He somehow feared a trap. Howard Waid was too foxy, to cunning, to not have prepared something bad for him, something to crush him and get the most juice out of him. At least, it was what Alaric and his wife, Ariel, had told him when he had called them this morning.

“And here we are! Back to give YOU the debate of a century – wait, scratch that, of a lifetime!” said a feminine voice, so loudly that he flinched a little. “And for that, I give you a very personal duel! Two Old Creek, California, born and bred, yet radically opposed in every sense of the way, torn asunder by tragedy. Give a round of applause for Ada Mac Ferlan and Alejandro Ferrand!”

He almost heaved. He had to clench his throat, grinding his teeth harder than ever, to keep it down. He may even have blanked out for a second. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. It was a name he had hoped he would never have to hear again. He had dared to dream that he would never have to face one of the members of this family, after the parents of Joseph had fled Old Creek in a hurry, as the insanity of their son had finally been revealed. At the cost of his arm, his innocence and almost his and Alaric’s lives.

A sudden surge of rage managed to overcome his shock. While a part of her had suddenly considered fleeing and avoiding the debate, he had squished it in a second. It was obviously Waid’s gambit. To give a national –if not worldwide- platform for Ada’s thesis to be heard and relayed, when she had had so far to resort mostly to tabloids and other blogs of dubious repute on the web. He had learnt about her a long time ago, in those sleepless nights when the horrors of the Incident drove him to search about Joseph and his family. He had read about “Ferrand the murderer” of a poor, innocent, white boy – a MAJOR killed by an envious and hateful minor.

It had been a hard blow, at age ten, to discover it. The first time, he had cried himself to sleep, silently, so as to not wake up his parents, and had awaken so shaken that he had had a fever and had suffered an inspection by the town’s doctor, something he hated, since it had meant letting someone, anyone, touch him. Back then, he didn’t even trust his own parents –only Al’, and his twin couldn’t well drive him to the doc, no matter how much he may have wished he could. It had been the firsts of many hours spent learning about this smear campaign and the assholes who promoted it.

It was something that neither Waid nor Ada suspected, he was willing to bet on it. They expected him to come on stage, shaking, frightened and easily corralled toward whatever outcome they had in mind. Probably Mac Ferlan getting a posthumous revenge with his sister pushing for all the world to see that the minor who proclaimed that he wanted the best for his kind was a murderer, a racist, a dangerous element which gave terrible ideas to other of his kind and that if allowed to spread, his ideology would gave rise to more of his ilk, who enjoyed killing MAJORS.

“Well, it’s a game you’ll lose, assholes” he whispered to himself as he entered the stage.

He didn’t look at Shannon, Waid and Magret or whatever her name was. He didn’t even grace Ada with more than a mere glance before waving enthusiastically to the public, allowing a smile on his face. He doubted it looked too genuine, he wasn’t a great smiler at the best of times, and those it was not. But he felt confident that such a display of calm and certitude would surprise Ada, making her sloppier in her accusations and behavior. It was the silver lining he needed to keep in mind: in the end, they had more to lose than him. Theirs was the world to die, so that his could be born. A kinder, gentler, fairer world. It would be worth it to be roughed up if it hastened its birth.

“Ada, Alejandro, I’m so glad to have you here tonight! I didn’t even try to come up with such a set-up, but when it happened – I won’t lie – I did nothing to discourage it. I think that you two sit pretty neatly on each side of tonight’s debate, and I hope that you’ll be able to both show how personal those matters can end being, for everyone involved, MAJORS and minors alike!”

“Thank you Margaret” said Ada, putting her right hand on her plump bosom, her high-pitched voice already grating on the Minor’s nerve, even if he did his best to protect his poker face. “I can’t tell you how invaluable it is to me to be there tonight, to finally be able to tell the world what truly happened in Old Creek, all those years ago. To clear my family’s name from unfair taint and shame.”

“That’s a bold statement! I mean, I don’t think much people remember what happened in your hometown, all those years ago, but those who do must be…” started Margaret, before being interrupted, as Ada sat in her chair.

“Nobody knows what truly happened. Some people saw to that” she added, looking disdainfully at Alejandro, who was still standing.

“And one of those people for whom the truth still matters would like to have a chair” he replied as calmly as possible with his anger soaring with every word she uttered.

“Oh, sorry!” said the hostess, not looking or sounding truly sorry at all. “Shannon, would you mind? His chair his under your sofa, I’m sure you can get it out with your feet.”

“Not a problem at all, Margaret” smiled his fiancée, who barely glanced at him, which surprised him a little.

She deftly got the chair out from under her with just the tip of a foot. However, instead of pushing it toward him, she leant forward, offering the world a tantalizing view of her cleavage, which made him blush deeply. He was quite used to those boulders and yet they had kept all their power over him. Plus, he felt strangely self-conscious when they were in view like that, feeling a tad too small for them. And now a very large audience indeed was enjoying their glory, and it made him fell all the more pathetic because of it, as if everyone would laugh at him for being so puny compared to the she-titan who effortlessly get his chair ready.

“There, you should be comfortable” she said to him, finally looking straight at him, and beaming a bright smile which reinvigorated him.

“Thank you” she whispered, his back turned to the audience as he walked toward the chair and finally sat, happy to be able to rest his legs – he wasn’t sure how long he would have been able to stand-up with the pressure he felt in this arena.

“You two are so cute together… Is he the minor you were talking about before our last short break, Shannon?” bluntly asked Margaret, looking at him as if he was a rare piece of meat.

“Ah… Indeed he is” softly replied the giantess, blushing visibly, even with her dark skin to hide it – Alejandro started to wonder what she had actually said about him now, and a cold sweat started to form between his shoulder blades.

“Whoa, it adds even more tension to Ada and him debating here, tonight. I’m sure that everything will be fine, however. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be!”

Alejandro could think of at least a dozen reasons it wouldn’t be. The most obvious was that Mac Ferlan would try her damned best to paint him as some kind of petty, disgusting little gremlin, one who had hated her brother forever and managed to trick him into getting killed. It was a constant of her rare interviews and a reoccurring theme on the conspiracy blogs where she was supported. Of course, he didn’t know how well she would push for this idea. He didn’t know her much, she had left Old Creek when he was barely five, moving to the East Coast to get famous or something. He somehow doubted it perfectly succeeded, but she didn’t seem in need either, so she had had least partially achieved her goals. He was willing to bet she would try to cross him from her list of things to deal with tonight.

“Well, I’ll try to not lose my cool, but fair warning, it’ll be hard” explained the blond MAJOR, glancing at him disdainfully. “After all, I did not expect to see… him, here tonight, so it’ll be hard to keep a lid on my feelings.”

“We don’t want you to have one. Just, no swearing and no throwing things at each other, that’s it, really” laughed Margaret, which grated on the Minor’s nerves.

“Well then, I’ll try to forget a little that the murderer of my poor little brother is…”

“Killer” interrupted Alejandro, looking straight at her.

“What?” she asked, blinking several times, clearly surprise by his intervention.

“Killer. I killed your brother. I would have murdered him if I had planned for it. I didn’t, ergo, I killed him. In self-defense, and to save MY brother” he added, glaring at her, daring her to respond to it.

“So you’re admitting it, first thing! You have blood on your hands!” cried out Ada, a glint of triumph in her pale eyes.

“My hand. Your brother crushed the other to a pulp after he tried to Bond-rape me to turn me into an obedient sex-slave for him to abuse” he shot back.

He heard the gasps and the screams he expected. MAJORS loved to pretend that they were tough and ferocious, but they lost all their countenance when exposed to a traumatized or crippled Minor, and didn’t really know how to deal with one who was abrasive and with some backbone but already claimed. Even Waid seemed taken aback by how blunt he was about everything. As for Mac Ferlan, she clearly wasn’t expecting it at all. She was opening and closing her mouth, her pale face turning red. Probably because of her anger – Joseph’s had done the same. He smirked at her a little, letting himself enjoying it, for as long as it would last.

“Right out of the gates!” gasped Margaret, who seemed unsure of what he had just said would do to her audience. “But I guess it was expected with how much baggage you both have with each other.”

“It’s especially a case of this… mongrel, being particularly badly tempered and educated” growled Ada. “Why, he interrupted me rudely when I told the truth. Yes, the truth, you despicable little monster!” she hissed at him as he snickered.

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you in the face lady. You were long gone from Old Creek when your brother abducted me and tried to make me his toy. What would you know about the events of that night, anyway?” he added, doing his best to keep his voice even.

“Who knows what happened that night, exactly?” she countered, guffawing now, clearly happy with what he had just said. “The only testimony we have is yours and your “twin” – if a MAJOR born in the same time as the likes of you would accept to be called that. Who else saw anything? Nobody! You pretend that Joseph would have kidnapped you, but I knew my brother! He may have been rough over the edges, but it was because he was an absolute alpha MAJOR! Anyone who truly knew him would agree with that!”

She could feel her seething. Alejandro’s own anger seemed to pale in comparison to Shannon’s. Not that they were Bonded so he could read her thoughts. But they had been Bonded enough by now to have some sort of link, which let him feel how she felt, when he was close enough. He had never realized that until now. But her rage was now so great that he couldn’t ignore it. Strangely enough, it made him feel calmer. She wasn’t taking in his own anger, but knowing that she was absolutely backing her, feeling it, was like standing on solid ground.

“If he was an alpha MAJOR, then your kind has a problem” he replied coldly, almost snarling. “He went around, beating everyone who even dare to lay their eyes on ME. Me! Because I was the sole Minor in Old Creek – now that I’ve left, there is none back there. Perhaps you’d like to know how I felt, being constantly prevented from playing long with the few friends my age I had because he would always come and beat up kids six years younger than him.”

“Boys will be boys!” barked Ada, bright red now. “And let’s be honest. Your kind likes to be dominated. You all crave it, no matter how much you pretend you don’t. You can’t deny you are inferior to us, in every way, mental and physical and you seek out stronger, better mates, to uplift you and your inferior genes. And you’re basically stating that you were the one who drove him mad with envy anyway! And, quelle surprise! You were alone with him the night he was killed!”

“That’s a great back and forth, Ada, Alejandro” interjected Margaret, a crisped smile on her face. “But I think that we should have some more formal questions about this night, and how it affected you. I think I would like you to go first Ada; and I’m sure that Alejandro would be a gentleman enough to not interrupt you, if we do that.”

She looked at him and he nodded slowly. He didn’t like it very much, but he hadn’t much of a choice. While he could exchange back and forth with Joseph’s sister for a long time, he really couldn’t afford to come out as arrogant and too assertive. He had already pushed it, if he was honest with himself. He needed to give her some room to breathe and spew her lies, to better destroy them later on. If he managed to do so. It was the edge he was walking on. If she had too much leeway, if he couldn’t crush her version of the Incident, he was almost certain that a lot of Minors would suffer in the future.

Suddenly, long fingers coiled around his shoulders, he gasped a little and looked up to see Shannon, leaning behind him, her gigantic breasts threatening to spill out of her robe. She said nothing, she didn’t even gave him a peck. But he felt better, stronger. His minuscule size compared to her, which often bothered him, because he felt unworthy, was somehow reassuring now. If he truly failed, he could always hide himself from the world on her body, between her breasts or elsewhere – they had the ropes for that at her mansion.

“Hum, okay so… who was your brother, Ada?” asked Margaret, clearly surprised by Shannon’s actions, but doing her best to remain professional.

“Well, he was” started the MAJOR, with tremolos in her voice which sounded fakes to his, “a very bright and brave little boy. He always wanted to go out and explore, and confront all the things he could find, to show how strong he was. I remember, when he was five, he saw a bunch of older kids throwing shit in our lawn and he beat them black and blue, one against three, and far smaller than them. That’s the kind of kid he was. He never backed down from a challenge, he never shirked from danger when it came to reminding everyone of how much of a MAJOR he was.”

Remaining silent was proving to be harder than he had assumed. He had to grit her teeth really hard, almost willing to bite his tongue to keep it from running. Waid’s encouraging smile to Ada didn’t help, and while he could feel the simmering resentment from Shannon, he was surprised to feel that she somehow acquiesced at this description, probably because it was basically the way MAJORS saw the world: somebody throw a paper on your lawn, send them to the hospital to prove how tough and dangerous you are, and get the mate of your dream.

“Then, someday, he was all the news in town” said the blond woman, with her annoying high-pitched voice. “A minor in Old Creek! It hadn’t happened since forever! He was like the third in town, and it was mostly because his parents were outsiders, brought from far more mixed placed – they never truly grasped the Old Creek life – kind of like the Matthewson, who also were from elsewhere” she added, throwing shade at the living giantess who couldn’t really answer – she had talked a lot already and it was Ada and Alejandro’s turn.

“And how did you see this event. Were you already unhappy with it?”

“Well, no” admitted Ada. “I was like a lot of teenagers back then, really grumpy that kids would get a shot at him before anyone else, which makes sense, really. So, I wasn’t actively interested in him, and at first Joseph wasn’t. But this little… boy… drove my brother mad with lust. He would purposely show near Jo’, and would demonstrate how weak and pathetically in need of a strong handler he was, yet constantly refusing my little brother’s advances, when he was the absolute alpha of the kids. Always running back screaming to Mommy and Daddy, while his mind very loudly broadcasted how desperately he sought out a mate!”

“I see, I can understand how it would make someone –well, a MAJOR- more than a little aggressive, that kind of behavior” pondered Margaret, to Alejandro’s fury. “But how was it taken that Joseph was interested in a same-sex partner? I mean, I don’t want to say that homophobia is stronger in the countryside but…”

“No need to apologize. It’s true that us country bumpkin still values more traditional and God given relationships. But it also mean that we all know this simple truth: minors don’t count. If you’re a chick and you have a girl minor as a partner, you can perfectly have a happily married life with husband and kids. So everyone agreed that if Jo’ wanted to have this minor for a companion, well, he could, and even deserved it, considering how tall and strong he was for his age – I’m almost willing to bet he could have been a Cyclopean.”

“But don’t you think he may have been too strong, too alpha for little Alejandro here, as a child? After all, minors are easily frightened, unlike us, so perhaps he came off too violent and dangerous in a kid’s impressionable mind?”

 “I don’t think so. I think that you don’t give minors enough credit in their ability to manipulate us. He knew how Joseph felt about him. He knew that and he played it against my brother. And he did so to murder him and get a twisted revenge on his betters!”

The last few words were almost spat and hurt him like no other. There were so much venom in them that it reopened all his wounds. He felt the scar tissue on his chest burning, his left arm itching atrociously, as if fire ants were devouring it. Even his rage was replaced by utter disgust and loathing. He had tried to formulate a plan, a counter-attack, but hadn’t really able to, and he discarded everything he had painfully managed to build up. He was raw and hurt, and he would use it to destroy her lies, once and for all.

“That’s quite the revelations… but what IS the other side of the story? Alejandro, if you would?” Margaret turned toward him, smiling at him, as he took a deep breath.

“Well…” started the Minor. “I could try and rebuke every lie and half-truth that Ada spewed. But I don’t think it would be the most effective way…”

“Really, I think it would be powerful and useful for our audience” pouted the host.

“Perhaps. But earlier, Mac Ferlan said that no one had been there the night of the Incident. No one could prove what truly happened… Well, I disagree, there is someone who can do just that. If Ada, Waid, any MAJOR truly is as brave and superior to Minors as they claim to be.”

“I’m not sure I see how…”

“I was here. I remember everything, because it’s been etched in fire and acid in my memories, forever. And I can show anyone willing to know what truly happened. If they are brave enough, and not just here to serve your audience lies and racists propaganda.”

He looked straight at Ada and grinned. It probably didn’t look pretty, but he honestly didn’t gave a shit about it. Around him, he heard the whispers of the public and the sofa where Shannon was sitting groaned as she moved, probably tensing up. She couldn’t know what he had in mind, but she could feel his resolution and anger, as he could feel her impotent rage and concern for him. He would have loved to talk about it with her first, but he couldn’t afford it. He had to go all in. Go big or go extinct.

“I can Bond with Ada, Waid, you, so you feel my side of the story.”