On the other side of the door was a large and open courtyard.

A lot of men in heavy armour were running around and swinging blunted metal weapons at each other.

Everyone stopped in place and waited.

Soon, a man, who Anna thought was the commander, approached them. His armour was of an obviously higher quality than that of the other men.

"Are these the Heroes?" His first action was to question the maid in a gruff voice, his eyes flicking rapidly over the three. Pausing on Mike and Shannon, he seemed to disregard Anna because of her lack of armour.

"Yes sir," the maid spoke quietly, and respectfully, much more so than when she apologized to the Heroes for entering the room or asking them to follow her.

Anna thought that the maid probably had a good singing voice.

Nodding curtly, the Commander removed his helmet.

He exposed an attractive face with high cheekbones and a square, manly, jaw. His piercing blue eyes stared at Mike and Shannon, he also had short brown hair, which had been trimmed closely to the scalp, military hair styles were similar in both worlds.

There was a thin field of stubble covering his chin.

Without warning, his eyes aimed at Anna, seemingly penetrating her very soul.

Anna flinched under this stare.

"Who are you?" The Commander spoke in an imperious tone, as though she would have to answer, having no other choice.

The muscles in his body tensed minutely as his right hand tightened on leather-bound hilt of his sword.

The way his body tensed, the gesture of his hand tightening on his sword seemed to be a signal. The other soldiers stopped their training and aimed their weapons at Anna, ready to attack the instant their commander did.

"I am a Hero as well, summoned alongside these two. But... Something went wrong." Anna explained vaguely, keeping her hands down and her body still, showing no sign of aggression.

She couldn't help it, her voice rose slightly at the word 'Hero'.

Internally, she had accepted that she could no longer consider herself a Hero of the world.

None of the people in the courtyard relaxed as she spoke, even Mike and Shannon looked worried, the Commander studied her closely. The courtyard silent and still, he signaled with his free hand for one of his men to go somewhere.

Anna was scared for the next few minutes, as there was no break in the tense atmosphere. While she was struggling against apathy and depression, she still didn't want to die, since it would send her to the future awaiting her in Arre's realm.

Mike and Shannon were more relaxed than anyone else, they felt on an instinctual level that Anna wouldn't start anything, and that she meant no harm.

Finally, the guard came back and passed on the message that he carried.

The king denied that more than two Heroes had been summoned the night before, he said that she was an impostor and that they should kill her.

Before the soldiers could move, the messenger revealed the rest of the events.

Supposedly, the Arch Priest of Arre had spoken, saying that he had a message from his god. His orders were to exile Anna from the castle, but keep her close-by, so that she could be conscripted when the fighting started. Whatever happened, she wasn't allowed to be killed, unless by the hand of Arre himself.

Because of the power that the Church wielded, the king agreed with the priest's words, he didn't even need a second to consider.

He then said that if she didn't leave the castle voluntarily, he would mobilize the soldiers, and Mike and Shannon, to use force to make her leave.

Anna, of course, decided that she was going to peacefully follow instructions.

Mainly because she didn't want to get attacked by her brother and best friend, so she agreed to peacefully leave.

A seemingly random soldier was selected by the Commander to lead her from the castle.

He pointed his sword at her and told her to walk in front of him, he would occasionally poke her with the blunted metallic blade, saying that she was moving too slowly.

She had no idea why he acted like this, but it just made her roll her eyes.

She couldn't muster any more emotion than mild annoyance.

 

 

Ever since she had been kicked out of the castle, she spent the time sitting against the stone surface of the front wall of a shop that was near the massive metallic gates of the royal castle.

The fact that she would probably never see her brother and best friend again, let alone her family from Earth, repeated itself over and over in her chaotic mind.

She realized that she was alone, and that unless she found help, it didn't matter how strong or weak she was, she was going to get eaten... Not in a good way.

For some reason, she found that she was suddenly almost uncontrollably missing the Internet and her computer, her parents and her friends... Even Brian. She suddenly wished that Brian had come with them, then at least, she would have a way to relieve stress.

Without Anna realizing it, time had rapidly passed and the sun was going down while she still aimlessly sat unmoving against the shop wall.

She knew that the patrolling guards had been freaked out by her, but she just couldn't care.

However, things changed when the sun had set and it was almost fully dark.

The girl had appeared.

Her face was completely blurry, to the point of invisibility. But from what Anna could see, she was a slim, fit, girl. One who looked to be around fifteen, if judged by the visible development of her body.

She had long, silky black hair, which blurred slightly as it overlapped with the edges of her face.

It was her clothing, however, that caught Anna's attention.

The strange girl was wearing jeans and a black tee-shirt with the popular Nirvana smiley face on it.

"Greetings Hero," while the girl's face couldn't be seen, Anna could hear a slight amusement in her voice, it seemed to her that the girl was smiling in a friendly way.

Anna twitched, the voice seemed strangely familiar, the feeling of familiarity poked at Anna's mind.

But it also calmed her.

The image of the door leading to the staircase to the dungeon appeared in her head for a split second.

"Yes, you are correct, that was me." The girl giggled, a perfect replication of the giggle that Anna had heard in the darkness, part of what had lead to her finding, and then freeing, the Angel.

Anna wondered why the girl was talking to her.

The girl moved closer to Anna's supine form and leaned down, her indistinguishable face getting closer, but not clearer. The smile visible only in Anna's mind widening, but there was no malice in it.

With her face close to Anna's ear, she whispered quietly, "Be on the roof of the castle before the moon reaches the middle of the sky."

Anna looked directly into the girl's blurred face, and suddenly completely silver eyes were visible, and Anna saw kindness in them.

Then, with no more words, or warning at all, she straightened up.

Before Anna could react, the girl shimmered like a mirage and vanished.

Anna fell into thought, trying to decide if she should follow the strange girl's advice, she had a deep and instinctive feeling that the girl could be trusted.

<Do it>

The Angel chipped in at that moment.

Though the Angel had said that she would be sleeping, she seemed strangely active.

<I am asleep, well, mostly. Who and what I am sleeps, but my soul is conscious and bound to yours. It is difficult to explain this in a sufficient manner to someone with no knowledge of Magic, let alone Soul Magic. I both sleep, and am awake and conscious.>

The Angel answered Anna's thoughts, and Anna could swear that she heard something akin to amusement in her voice.

"She is asleep and awake. Her Divinity Area, the section of the soul which contains her Primal Personality and Knowledge is still awake, but everything above that is asleep.

"A Primal Personality is what all beings start out with at birth, uncorrupted by experience, and easily influenced, but what that being is like without their inhibitions, the true person."

My explanation won't make much sense to someone who knows psychology by Human standards, but this is more to do with Souls than with the mind itself.

"Since she is unprotected by her Acquired Personality, the real Angel sleeps without dreaming.  She can remember and think, but to her it is like the horrible things happened to someone else, like she saw it in a movie or in a dream.

"While she is free from the pain, it would still be unpleasant for her to remember these things, it seems like she really wants to help you, like you helped her.

"Because without the protection, her mind is also closely linked to yours, so much so that your emotions and thoughts feel more real to her than what happened to her.

"Every time she speaks and interfaces with you, her mind gets more linked with yours." I couldn't help but explain to Anna how it worked.

Anna looked up at me with slightly glazed eyes.

It seems that I couldn't simplify it enough either.

Anna struggled to understand the explanation for a few seconds, before she just shrugged and started her story again.

She had tried for several seconds to decide whether she should follow the strange girl's advice. But she had long decided to trust the Angel, so she followed the Angel's words, and trusted the girl.

With all of that considered, she waited until the moon began to rise and then she walked over to the walls of the castle.

Looking up at the walls, she instinctively knew that with the increase in power that she had received from both being summoned as a Hero and from the Angel, she could climb this wall fairly easily.

With a shrug, she walked up to the thirty meter stone walls and jabbed her fingers into the sheer stone and started climbing.

The way she climbed wouldn't work on Earth.

Without thinking about how she could do it, she stabbed the tips of her fingers deep into the stones.

She felt some happiness at the feeling of pure power surging through her body.

On reaching the top of the walls, she looked up at the castle itself, looming six or seven stories above her.

With a jump, she cleared half the distance, before rapidly climbing the wall like a popular superhero with spider powers.

She rapidly made it to the top of the main castle building, though the turrets towered higher still above her, she just sat on the flat slate plateau.

It took a lot less effort than she had expected.

Sitting down, she wrapped her arms around herself.

She felt the urgent need for physical contact, the almost overwhelming need to be held and comforted. The illusion formed from her hugging herself only helped a tiny bit.

While Anna was telling me this, I was still embracing her, we hadn't separated for the entire course of her story.

I squeezed her, because I too knew the need for a hug.

On my actions, she smiled slightly.

Her head was tilted and covered by her hair, I could barely see her reactions through the deep blood red shroud.

After a small pause, she began to explain, in stilted words, about the grief and terror overwhelming her, her tears started flowing again as she seemed to relive the pain. Speaking about her heart breaking, the freezing cold core forming in her chest, consuming her from the inside.

As she spoke, I started to rub her back, my other hand entangled in her hair. Her eyes were half closed as she enjoyed the sensations, seemingly finding comfort in my actions.

I knew all too well the feeling that she described, I had experienced it and much worse four years ago, and even now I would find myself falling back into the pain.

Since we had almost arrived at the time of our meeting, I was curious as to how she was planning on ending her story.