Main Title: Children of the Eagle
Chapter 1 – Children of Aguilar
Andre Aguilar was a talented young acrobat of a travelling circus. Handsome with athlethic body but humble, he met a young woman in a rock climbing competition. Time and again they would meet in rock climbing events. Both being competitive, they soon find themselves attracted to each other and fell in love. The young woman named Cathleen Bien found out that he was working in a travelling circus but loves to compete in rock climbing events. Sharing the passion for the sport and enjoying each other’s company, they soon find themselves in love to each other.
Soon Cathleen eloped with Andre and lived with the travelling circus. Their love grew and had a triplet of two sons named Andrew and Andro, and a daughter named Andy. The children bore the same birthmark as their father – a mark that looks like a flying eagle. Andre taught them the tricks of the trade of being an acrobat, freerunning and parkour. The other circus members taught them how to throw knives, fencing, kung fu, boxing, animal taming, and secretly with lockpicking, picking pockets, con tricks and swindling. The latter secrets without their parents knowing. Cathleen home schooled the children as well as the other children in the travelling circus. She also taught them with proper social norms of the elite and classical music and literature.
A revolution broke out in the country and circus entertainment was no longer much desired. Some members went out of the circus to work for other people or start up a small business. Andre being used to high trapeze and walking on ropes, worked on an electrical company who climb poles and install wires. Cathleen would do private tutoring to poor family and do street vending. The children would also do their hustle as street performers while their mother was doing street vending. The children were already 8 years old. They live in an abandoned apartment building construction where they spend their weekend freerunning and jumping up from ledge to ledge with the final challenge of jumping to the next building.
One afternoon Andy got into an accident while doing a street performance. Cathleen rushed her to a public hospital where an attending doctor in the emergency room recognized her as a former classmate. Concerned for the state where Cathleen was in, the doctor called up Cathleen’s father who was now a politician on a high position of the government. The father had Cathleen and Andy transferred to a private hospital. When Andre arrived with a friend and his two sons at the public hospital, he was met by two men to inform him that they will take him to his wife and daughter. When Andre became suspicious, the two men grab him and struck him. Before he went unconscious, he signal his friend to take his sons away.
Andre was taken to an abandoned warehouse where he was tortured. Then a rich looking man of authority came who turned out to be Cathleen’s father. He did not aproved of the acrobat being with his only daughter and offered vast amount of money to Andre to surrender his children to the father and not to see Cathleen again. When Andre refused he was beaten again until he fell half conscious. A loud cry was heard when Cathleen saw the beaten Andre with swollen eye, bloody lips, bruised body beneath the torn shirt. Cathleen hugged Andre and begged for his life and promised the father not to see Andre again. Knowing the tricks of escaping from being tied on a chair with handcuffs, Cathleen slipped Andre a piece of nailfile and diverted the father and the captors attention.
Having loosened himself, Andre surprised the captors and escaped with Cathleen on a car. A car chased ensued and then got into an accident where Andre and Cathleen’s car went off a seaside cliff. Andre with Cathleen in tow reached the cliffside with Cathleen dying. Cathleen made Andre promised to go and hide with his sons and not to attempt a rescue on Andy. Andre reluctantly promised Cathleen as she died on Andre’s arms. The pursuers were catching up and Andre once again escaped from the area.
Andre contacted his friend and agreed to meet on a smuggler’s boat heading out to another country that night. Andre made some preparations and made sure he was not being followed. Andre did not know that he was planted a bug when he was unconscious in the warehouse to know his whereabouts. When night came he went to the port to meet his friend. When Andre was approaching the port, he noticed a group of men closing in. Andre signal his friend to leave without him as he led the pursuers to chase him.
When the boat began heading out to the sea, one of the son named Andro jumped into the water to go to his father. Andre’s friend jump in to go after the son. One of the pursuers mistook the friend as Andre and began shooting. Andre’s friend was hit when he was about to reach the son. Andro panicked as he saw the man gasping. Andro dived deeper and away from the area as a ship was heading out. The propeller struck the drowning man and blood and bits of flesh covered the area.
Andre escaped the pursuers by jumping from building to building. Then finally hid on one of the departing ships. Suspicious of being bugged, Andre searched his body for a planted bug. Then endured the pain of extracting the bug from behind his thigh. As he crushed the blinking bug, he watched the lights fading on the port and his hope of seeing his children again.
Epilogue – The Fate of the Children
Andy was resting on the private hospital together with his grandfather Ulric Bien, the father of Cathleen. A man came in to bring bad news that Cathleen died in a car accident and Andre and his children drowned in the merchants’ port. They did not mentioned the details in front of Andy but later told Ulric that Cathleen suffered from injuries in the car accident and Andre with a child possibly with another were struck by a ship’s propeller while trying to escape by the sea. Blood and flesh covered the area and they had to leave the scene to avoid being caught and questioned. The grandfather told Andy that they will be moving to the main city. And she will be living with the grandfather and called her Catherine.
Andro was found floating on the sea near the port by a merchant boat. He was taken aboard and revived. He kept silent when asked who he was and who his parents were. He did not trust his rescuers as the face of the drowning man still fresh on his mind. Later he claimed that he escaped from a smuggler’s boat who were trafficking illegal immigrants. The merchant owner of the boat promised to take care of Andro.
Andrew was dropped off the smuggler’s island as no one knew where he was supposed go. As he was new to the island, he was brought to the island chief and was asked who he was and what background his family were. He told that his mother was a street vendor and his father was being hunted by a group of people. The chief was hoping he was a son of a rich family so they can ask for a random. So he was dismissed and was allowed to live and work in the island as no ne will take care of him there.
Andre, believing he was still hunted by the men of Cathleen’s father, lived in the slums area called the “Hoods” and joined a group of thieves and robbers. He was a very valuable addition to the group because of his expertise in acrobatics and parkour. He grew a burning rage towards the rich and politicians but show a fondness in helping out poverty stricken people. Soon he was called “Marquis of the Hoods” then later as “Macky”.