Chapter 2: Alone

“Your personality is deduced by what you do when you're alone.” 

I started searching everywhere. No one was in the stores, nor the houses, nor the mall. The only place in the city I hadn’t checked was the temple. I flew up there, and dodged the traps. When I got up there, I found someone. The Shogun. 

     “I thought you died.” I said. The Shogun had never shown me his face. He always had a dark mask. But he was about to take it off. When he did, I saw a completely different man. The right side of his face was scarred. The left side was burned. 

     “From now on, you can call me… Ren.” Ren explained everything. 

     “This is the Alternity. It’s a dimension indirectly proportional to Vurth. I pulled you here right before you died.” I shook my head. 

     “How are you alive? I saw you die in front of my eyes.” Ren got up. 

     “I pulled myself into this dimension, so my body just built itself back up until I was ready to come back. But I’m not going. You have to go, though.” My mouth was wide open. 

     “Does that mean you pulled Elise in?” He nodded. 

     “She left though. She said she had to help you. Her body recovered moments before you nearly died in the forest.” He told me I had to wait till my body was ready to go back. I nodded, and left. I had about three days to kill. I would spend them in harmony. 

Later…

Three days had passed, and I was ready. I had been training to master Renzutzu, and I learned the final skill. “Only use this in dire sequences. Your powers will buff the strength, and might make a crater in the world.” Ren told me. I nodded. I felt ready, even though I knew I could be seeing Ren for the last time. As I said goodbye, he started casting a spell. He muttered a series of words, and it sounded like a blend of many languages. I wasn’t bilingual, I only spoke English. I stumbled into the portal, and my mind stopped. Blank. When I woke up, I saw someone in the distance. Elise. She was fighting off a horde of Aberros. I had many questions. How was Elise surviving? What did the Aberros want? Why did Uncle Brody fall out of a spaceship? Why was he out to get us? Just then, I saw Elise being backed up by a corner. I drew my bow, and lit three arrows at the same time. I fired. Two arrows hit, and one flew past the Aberros and hit their vehicle. It resembled a tank, and I had struck an arrow straight into the machinery. It started speeding up, and took out the first wave of the Aberros. Elise jumped out of the way. When she got up, I appeared at her side. Together, we took our stances. 

     “Elise, you attack them from the front. I’ll sneak attack. Most of them don’t know they’re fighting two people.” I ducked behind a bush, and saw the second Aberro wave coming. At the back was their vehicle, and the ones walking held weapons resembling scythes. I knew this wave was tougher, so I took my stance after getting high ground on a hill. I drew my bow, and lit the arrows. The tank headed towards Elise, and stopped. I knew it was about to shoot, so I fired my three arrows. Two completely missed, but one hit the Aberro driving the vehicle, killing him instantly. His head fell against the buttons, and it looked as if he had pressed the self destruct button. The tank blew up, killing the entire second wave of Aberros. I jumped down to Elise, and wrapped her in a hug. We stood there for maybe five minutes, but we had to leave. I quickly grabbed her and flew towards the temple. We would have to wait it out there. I didn’t want the Aberros to track us to my lab. When the sun rose, I started down the hill to my lab. I pressed a button, and the door opened. There it was, my beautiful lab. It was completely intact. All my equipment was there, but I still had my bow drawn. Once I had finished checking the base, I rushed down the aisle to my flame enhancers. The worst had happened. The parameters for the room were open. I always left them closed. I walked in, and saw… the entire room ransacked. Elise walked in. “Oh… oh my gosh.” She stumbled over something and fell to the floor. I found the object, and it looked like some type of trigger. There was a note attached to it. It said, Meet me by the clock tower at 9. Come alone. Uncle Brody didn’t know about the lab. So who was this?