Chapter 1

"I can't believe she did it to me again and I was stupid enough to let her!" thought Dusty to himself as he quickly moved away from the entrance of the Night club headed towards where he parked his car.

James Edwin Mitchell, Dusty to his friends, had not liked for anyone to call him Jimmy or Eddie since he was a kid. He stood 5'1l in stocking feet with straight brown hair he kept cut relatively short.

He realized early on that it was too easy to call him Jimmy boy, Jimbo, etc and he hated those names. But as all kids do he wanted a nickname that he would like and he settled on Dusty as something quick and easy.

All the kids called him that at first because of his former quick temper that would often cause dust ups with almost anyone. It wouldn't take much to get him to fight almost anyone. But later it just stuck and soon he wasn't going by anything else.

The only exceptions to that rule was his Mother, who was the only one who called him Eddie because his middle name was the same as his deceased father, and his grandmother who called him Jimmy because he was named James after his grandfather who tried to fill in as a father figure since his Dad died early on in his life.

For those two women he made an exception because they were special in his life, and he really loved them.

But by far the largest blow dealt to Dusty's life was when he lost all three during a freak car accident. They were on their way home from dinner when it happened. Thankfully Dusty was visiting a classmate at the time.

A semi tractor trailer carrying several large generators for the local power plant was running behind schedule and attempted to cross a set of train track against the signal by going around the arms and got stuck partially on the tracks.

When the oncoming train struck the semi, it in turn spun it hard, snapping the chains on its trailer holding the multi ton generators. This caused the generators to shift, where they in turn all rolled off the trailer and into traffic next to the semi, crushing two cars and heavily damaging two more as they rolled into the street.

As emergency crews worked hard to clear the resulting damage it was found that one of the cars crushed contained the bodies of his beloved mother and grandparents.

Suddenly he was now 10 years old and everyone that he had depended on in his life was now gone. Once Dusty found out he was devastated. He was now orphaned.

Dusty had one last surviving relative an aunt, his father's sister, who lived two states away in Indianapolis Indiana, and he lived with her until he was 19.

She tried to love him as best she could, having never married herself or having any kids, but he was a difficult child. When he came to her he felt abandoned by his mother and grandparents and couldn't rationalize that what happened wasn't anything that he could have prevented.

As hard as she tried with him, for about two years she noticed that he was starting to hang out with a bad crowd and was getting into trouble.

His grades dropped, he was skipping school, stealing, hustling other kids, and it looked like he was just waiting until he could get out of school where he might find real trouble.

Even though schooling came easy to him with his photographic memory, he refused to go and that was causing him to flunk out.

But the one thing that bothered her the most was that he really seemed to like to scam people. It came easy to him. He really liked playing games like Three Card Monty or coin drop. But anything that required slight of hand was something that he was good at. He was very intelligent with a quick wit.

He also had very fast hands and eventually he didn't even need to cheat, just his speed was confusing enough. It was almost like watching magic to see him do slight of hand.

With his memory and hand speed made it unfair for anyone playing against him.

But eventually some friends talked to his aunt and suggested that she enroll him at one of the local martial arts schools to work on his temper and maybe provide an outlet for his anger.

She let Dusty pick a school and he decided on Muay Thai, but often told everyone it was a form of Kickboxing because it was easier for them to understand. Not everyone had heard of that form before. But it was a savage hard hitting sport that seemed to appeal to him.

But he thought with his fast hands, and with just a little practice, he would quickly dominate everyone in the school and with the rough crowd he hung with it could come in handy.

But suddenly he was in for a rude awakening.

Everyone seemed to be better than he was and the line was wrapping around the block twice to teach him that running off at the mouth about his limited skill might not be the wisest thing to do.

Even though he could use any move that he seemed to see just once, he didn't always know the correct time or place to put it in to practice.

Before he was used to outsmarting everyone he ran across or confusing them into doing what he wanted them too. But he soon found out what you brought to the ring was all you had, and he didn't currently have enough skill or ability to back up the checks his mouth kept writing.

He needed time to get his body to do what he could easily see. But he had a real interest and talent for it and soon he started taking it seriously.

He dedicated most of his off hours to stretching, training, and perfecting his skill. He found that if he concentrated on his foot work, stretching, and his kicks daily, that he soon became faster and quicker than everyone else around him.

He also eventually worked his way up to doing the speed bag with 10 pound weights on each of his wrists for hours at a time. His hands became even faster then they were before while he was growing up.

The more he learned the more he wanted to know. Soon he was studying all the different obscure forms of the art. He was quickly learning all the different fighting styles contained within.

Some were even ways to attack mounted troops on horseback, not that that would ever come in handy in this day and age.

During those years he soon was good enough to be really dangerous. It only took a few short years before he was the top in the school and before long was deciding to branch out into state competitions.

And over those years as he matured, what also helped his temper was the ability to know that he could put someone down easily. That was enough to stop him from always trying to prove himself against everyone he came across. If someone wanted to fight him all they had to do was meet him at the gym.

Somewhere along the way he lost his temper and deep seated anger at the whole world and became mild tempered and quiet. But the biggest lesson he learned over the years was to keep his mouth shut and to think before he acted and it started saving him more than he ever thought possible.

He quickly made new friends that weren't trying to always find trouble, and his new friends found him to be fun to be around. But often around anyone new he was really quiet until he got to know them better.

By the time he was 17 he had a complete new circle of friends and quit trying to scam and cheat others. He had really turned his life around because of the hard work his aunt invested in him. She helped him return from going down the road to being a small time hood to a productive member of society.

But during those same years his aunt had been diagnosed with cancer, and by the time he was nineteen she passed away. She lived long enough to put the boy on the right track and make sure that the money left for him by his grandparents for his college went for that.

She also made sure that he enrolled at IU in Indianapolis, her old Alma Mata. He decided to pursue an industrial engineering degree similar to hers.

He easily made the deans list his first year. He tried hard to show her his dedication during her decline. He really wanted her to be really proud of him before she passed on and worked hard to make sure that happened.