ALIASES
|| Holton || Holt || Len || Lenny || Lenoir || Buck || Bucky ||
"Kill the boy and let the
man be born."
Maester Aemon
To the woman who saved me all those years ago, thank you.
Bucky Lenoir was well known within his small town in Kentucky. The feral child, they called him. The boy who lived in the last house next to the railroad that separated Anchorage and Middletown. The one who had no parents. He grew up in a small run-down shack two miles from town, halfway between was a small house where an old croon lived. Some said she hexed her husband, killing him for his fortune. Though, that was far from the truth.
Vermillion was an older woman, well out of her childbearing years when her husband had passed from Tuberculosis. Bucky had yet been born; the woman had always wanted children.
When Bucky was born, Ver was the one who helped his mother through the process after walking a mile down the tracks to Ver's little cottage. His mother wasn't married, nor was she in the middle class, making his father be anywhere but near the picture. Due to the trauma of childbirth, Bucky's mother unfortunately passed away with his name on her last breath. Bucky. Vermillion hated the name, but it was the least she could do. His middle name, Thaddeus, was the widow's husband's name. Of course, he kept his mother's maiden name as well. Bucky Thaddeus Lenoir was born on April 19th, 1926, and was left in the hands of a stranger whom felt was a gift blessed to her after her husband's passing.
Lenoir grew up on the railroad tracks, hiking to school and back every day until he was thirteen years old, and World War II began. He was fascinated with war. To have a bigger purpose than yourself, to protect the ones you love. Len had the idea of joining the Army even before the war started, but when it did, it called to him. Three years later, he begged Ver and convinced her to forge his paperwork and move his age up a year. That way, he was able to join with a guardian's consent. So, at sixteen, Bucky joined the United States Army as an infantryman.
It was a rough three years on the front lines. He lost many friends along the way but kept going. Nothing was worse than the letter that destroyed his spirit, the one that announced Vermillion's passing. She was an older woman when she'd helped his mother all those years ago, but he never thought she'd pass when he was unable to be by her side. Though, she'd have wanted it that way. To not burden him with her inevitable death brought on by the same illness that killed her husband. Vermillion was a woman with spirit and dreams. She was a grouch when he was a child but always had a soft spot for him. She had told him once that he had unthawed her soul. Her light in the darkness. She was his mother, even if she never bared him.
During the last year of the war, a first lieutenant approached him during a convoy out to Berlin and pulled him aside. He explained that he was a part of an elite organization called GΞПIX, in which they were working on a series of projects, one of them being called Project Ablee.
Project Ablee was a standalone series of experiments for ten soldiers Genix deemed qualifiable. In which Len fit the criteria. Perfectly. He agreed to help with the project, in full belief that it would be the end to all wars. Little did he know that PA would be the first of many to attempt to make the perfect soldier.
Even after the war, Len aided the secret company with their experiments. Every month he would go to their plant and get tested. His blood replaced with something purple. Each time leaving feeling like he could stop a freight train. Little by little, Lenoir became the ultimate weapon. Years went by and Len found himself healing minor injuries quicker, his reflexes almost too good, his bones and muscles stronger. As if he was becoming immortal, little did he know, he was.
It started to become a dangerous addiction. Every month to get his fix. To feel stronger, be better, act faster... His mind was sharper than ever. All thanks to the little nurse that pumped him full of whatever drug it was. His little redhead firecracker. Annie. She was his nurse during his treatments, helping him in and out of his chamber before and after every visit. They talked more and more with each visit, kindling a fire forbidden beyond belief. Coincidentally, Annie lived in Anchorage across town from where he grew up. Though unfortunately her family knew him well. He was the boy who lived in the shack on the railroad tracks.
Even with his newfound riches from the Project (whom paid him handsomely to keep his mouth shut), they saw and treated him as if he were made of dirt.
With more years down, struggling to convince her middle-class family he was actually worth a damn, Len convinced Annie to run away with him. They'd travel, get married, cross the country and never look back until they were old and grey, surrounded by grandchildren and even great grandchildren. She loved the idea, and within a few months, they packed what they had and ran away together, refusing to look back.
TO BE CONTINUED.
