2

I was waiting for my next mission assignment. Usually they don’t take this long. Finally, I got it. My eyes widened when I saw the number. The number was 0010010. If you have red the first book, you obviously know that that number is the same number that Erick usually hangs out in, I actually don’t know if he lives there or anything. 

I went to where I was assigned to go. When I arrived there, it was flooded with water. There was no sign of Erick anywhere. I walked around a bit, but Erick still didn’t appear. I then noticed something, my knees were once again in the water. My eyes widened. Hopefully nothing happened to the point where I was far too late to save the day or something like that.

I was wandering around for a bit when something threw me up and slammed me back down to the ground. It then held my neck under the water. The water wasn’t from Giplantis because there was no oxygen in it. I pushed upwards, tearing whatever it was that was holding my neck under the water. It felt kind of scaly.

“Oh Charlie, I see you’ve made a friend!” Erick exclaimed sarcastically. 

“Yeah, I guess I did.” I replied annoyingly sarcastically, looking up towards him. 

I looked towards the creature, it was the same sea creature that tried to kill me back at Giplantis.

“What is he doing here?” I asked.

“Just helping me get something out of my way!” Erick remarked sarcastically.

“It’s gonna take a lot more than a ‘friend’ to take me down!” I yelled.

I unleashed my form and lept towards Erick. He dodged out of the way. He began throwing green hack-blades at me. I dodged all of them. One that I dodged landed on the Delmar. When it did, Delmar looked confused as to why he was here. Just then, Erick shot another one at him and immediately Delmar was back to his hostile self again. I knew what this meant, Erick was controlling him, maybe that’s why he attacked me, because Erick sent him to. 

I then started remembering the dream even more, it was starting to distract me from the battle. Erick then threw me to the ground. I could barely stand up.

He summoned a green hack-blade and aimed it at me.

“Looks like you’ll be joining my side after all!” He cackled.

I couldn’t move out of the way, I was too weak to. Out of all the things that I would have hoped not to happen, I hoped that he’d at least not make me hurt Megan in any way, shape or form. 

Just as it was about to hit me, Aquatic came out of nowhere and stood in front of it for me. She then collapsed onto the ground, tail on her head. Why did everyone have to come in to try and save me? 

“You need to get out of here!” She yelled.

I didn’t know what to do so I left.

For the next few days, I kept having that same dream over and over again, where there’d be a girl crying over ashes in water that was supposedly from Megan.

Megan stayed within the facility, really only as someone who watched everyone from the cameras. That’s actually the riskiest job since most likely an alien will sneak in there and kill you, so hardly anyone was in security.

I was sometimes called to work there, mostly with someone. There was now even someone nearby who was trained to attack and kill an alien if it ever tried to hurt the security people. 

I decided to visit Megan. I told her about what happened.

“So Erick has been controlling that creature all along?” She asked.

“Yeah.” I replied.

“The name Aquatic reminds me of my sister.” She said.

“Her form even looks like yours but as a water monster instead.” I replied.

“Then it could possibly be that my sister is undead like me and she was that creature that saved you, and in that case, we have to save her too!” She said out loud.

“Not so loud, the guards are outside.” I whispered.

“Right.” She responded.

The next work day, Megan followed me to 0010010. I knew there was no point in talking her out of it, she was a hard-to-give-up person when it came to stuff like this. I didn’t know how she’d be able to fight, though, it was covered in water, it’d be impossible for her to even move one step in there. 

Luckily, she ended up being some genius and she climbed to the top of the spacecraft. She then used her lava powers to shoot lava from her hand (in her lava-human form) and made a huge spot for us to walk on safely.

We were waiting for them to arrive. They were nowhere in sight. Just then, Aquatic burst through the stone, water splashing everywhere. I hid Megan behind me and made sort of a shield to protect the water from hurting her. 

It was just Aquatic, though. As expected, she had that glitch around her head. 

“Sister!” Megan cried, “Please! You don’t have to fight for Erick!”

I knew there was no way talking would fix it. I didn’t know how anything could fix it. That’s when I realized that Erick was the only one who could release them from his control. Luckily, I knew how to make him falsely do it.

Erick soon appeared.

“Well, Well,” he announced, “looks like little Charlie and his girlfriend are struggling to beat someone their level! Perhaps maybe I should make it harder for them!”

He then started shooting out red hack-blades, the kind that I didn’t need him to shoot out. I needed him to shoot out the green ones so that I could undo what he’s done to Aquatic and supposedly Delmar. 

“Bet you couldn’t even hit me with your green blades!” I yelled out, trying to get him to use them.

“Very smart,” he declared, “but I know what you’re trying to do.”

That obviously wasn’t going to work, but how would I get rid of his control now? 

I kept dodging and attacking Erick. Surely he had to give up at some point. He didn’t. He kept on attacking and I kept on dodging his attacks and actually attacking him.

The battle was getting more and more intense as Aquatic kept on destroying the stone platform, there was almost nothing left for Megan to walk on. She kept pouring more and more lava onto the water and Aquatic just kept destroying it. 

I started remembering the dream again. Surely it couldn’t have been some inevitable future where Megan and I both die and Aquatic would be left with grief, endless grief. I then realized that it was evitable so I teleported me and Megan away.

“We have to go back!” She demanded.

“If we do, you’ll die!” I replied, “I. . . I saw it in my dreams, they never lie about the future.”

Then I realized that maybe Megan wouldn’t die to Aquatic, but rather Erick, because of that dream I had a couple of months ago. But, if that is true, then what did that dream mean? I couldn’t let whatever it was that was going on to happen. 

The next day, the minute I finished my morning routine, I immediately got a mission assignment. They never assign missions this early. I looked at it regardless of how early it was. It was 0010010. Erick was starting to become more of that one annoying family member who won’t leave you alone, rather than a villain.

I accepted it anyways, after all, the mornings were usually boring. When I arrived there, Erick was flying in the air. 

“I see you’ve needed your morning defeat, ay?” I joked.

“I wouldn’t begin if I were. . .” He said, pausing at the end.

“Dang, is it so early you forgot your evil lines?” I joked once more.

“Oh no, I was just thinking that you wouldn’t want to start this battle if I was. . . her. . .” He said, as if he was trying to make it sound menacing or dramatic or something.

I scoffed. About probably not even one minute later, Erick 

summoned Megan to his side in the air. Her upper body was tied in two orange things that wrapped around her. One below, and one on top with a glitching effect kind of like a hack-blade and one at her ankles. Her hands were tied behind her back and her mouth was covered with the same orange thing.

My eyes widened.

“Let her go, Erick!” I demanded, “This is between you and me, not her!”

“Of course, right after. . . Something. . .” Erick replied. 

He then held a green hack-blade, aiming it at me. I knew what he wanted, he wanted me to not avoid it or try to resist it. I would rather lose my freedom than to see Megan harmed in any way, shape or form. He even held a red blade towards Megan’s head, most likely more of a warning sign to NOT disobey what Erick wanted. Usually, the villain loses and the hero wins, but now I think that it might be the other way around. 

I stood there, even letting my arms rise a bit, at least to where my hands and my waist were at the same height level, even though my hands were apart from my waist. Megan did shout something but Erick had her mouth covered so it was muffled. 

As the blade was approaching me, I realized the dream, could it be that I successfully avoided the latest dream I had, but now me and everyone else had an unavoidable fate?

Just then, right as the blade was about to hit me, a gust of water flew across right in front of me and where the blade was. When the 

water cleared, the blade was gone.

“Let my sister go!” Someone demanded.

We all looked to the side, it was Aquatic. Water poured down onto the ground from her, revealing her human form. My eyes widened, it was the same girl from the dream with an aquatic look.

“I tire of your arrogance!” Erick yelled.

He then shot a green blade at Aquatic (I’m just gonna say blade instead of hack-blade) Aquatic avoided it by simply just pouring out some water from her hand. 

“I should point out that I have a red blade pointed directly at your sister’s head!” Erick yelled at Aquatic.

While he was distracted, I shot a fire ball at him. Erick got knocked down. When I knocked Erick down, Megan also fell down. There was still water there along with the stone platform that Megan had made. But now, Megan was going to fall into the water. Me and Aquatic tried to help, but we were held back by Erick. 

Megan was about to fall into the water. I tried to release myself, but I couldn’t. That’s when the urge to let out my form came in. I let it out and it immediately destroyed the orange hack-ropes I guess. I immediately ran and lept up towards Megan and carried her in my arms. Erick grunted.

“ENOUGH OF YOUR GAMES!” He yelled.

Aqua shot him in the face with some water. Me, her and Megan couldn’t hold back our laughter.

Erick lunged up forward and shot red blades at us all. We quickly scattered out of the way. I decided to teleport us out of there and hopefully we were safe, for now at least. 

Erick wouldn’t give up, though. I knew that since I cared about Megan and Aqua, Erick would most likely victimize them instead of me. I didn’t want to put their lives at risk. I told them to stay on Giplantis for a while, at least until Erick was taken care of, in order to put them out of the risk of Erick.

I had just completed a mission at Giplantis. Now I was given a mission at the main headquarters (which they called SSHQ). Only the company’s respected workers got missions there. It had a full security system proving you weren’t aliens and everything, too. Of course, it was only the headquarters who did this because the company couldn’t afford to make more of these devices.

Everyone there was super nice, even more nice than the people on the airship in Giplantis. They were very social, too. Most of the time whenever you passed by them, they’d say, “hello” or “how are you right now?” 

It didn’t change, either. I guess with the security of no aliens, they didn’t fear anyone because they knew that they were just normal human beings. Well, except me since I am Humalien (that’s half human, half alien for those who haven’t red the first book).

Even the supervisors and security guards were nice there. There was one guard who was mute and could only really wave, though. 

The headquarters was all fancy and stuff like that. It was even cleaner than the airship, and the only messy place there were the showers, which the shower room was quite small, and plus, it hardly had many towels on the floor since we picked them up. 

This place, however, was SPOTLESS. Everything was a very light tannish-yellow color, especially the floor in the cafeteria. The cafeteria had a vending machine and tables that looked like it belonged in a middle or high school cafeteria. I didn’t mind that, they never really get too fancy with decorating in order to save money. We were called for a meeting there.

The big boss was there, the owner of SpaceSloths. He had golden blonde hair with a white patch that I assumed was a birthmark, white skin almost as pale as the moon with some brown patches, and green eyes that looked like emeralds. He wore a fancy business suit with a tie, slick and smooth arms covered, including with white gloves, and sleek and smooth black pants. He also wore brown boots that looked like they were from some cowboy rodeo. I did hear that the big boss was a very diverse man. 

He shared with us a plan. A plan that would connect all the liveable planets together with a bridge. We all liked that idea. He then shared another idea, however. He said that we’d be killing every single alien, even humaliens if they still existed. My eyes almost widened, if they found out that Megan and Aqua were aliens, they’d kill them. Then, it hit me.

“But sir,” I announced, “the aliens are stronger than us, it’d be dangerous for all of us!”

He paused for a second. “Perhaps that you are right,” he said, “well I guess we’ll just stick with the bridges then!” He announced

Thank god Megan and Aqua will hopefully be okay.

I was eating at the cafeteria with other boys. Some of the girls at the table next to us were giggling. I assume it was at us. The guys, at least some of them, stared at the girl.

“Man, having a girlfriend sure will be great.” One of them sighed.

“My ideal girl is beautiful and cooks well!” One of them announced.

“Mine is kind, gentle, and beautiful.”

“I like girls who are just like me!” 

“Hey, new guy!” One of them announced to me, “What’s your ideal girl?”

“My ideal girl is smart, kind, strong, tough, open-minded, pretty, and she’ll stand up for others and do what's right.”

They all looked at me amazed.

“You’ll be a man of full luck and prosperity if you actually find a girl like that!” One of them joked.

“I actually think I have.” I announced. One of the guys patted me on the back.

“Both you and her must be very lucky!” He announced.

I usually didn’t really talk about my ideal girl very much, mostly because before I met Megan, I never really had one, I never really would have even thought about having a girlfriend.

I finished doing my task. I had to place crystals into something and examine them. These crystals were different, they were glowing and glittering. It then started showing something, or maybe I was in another vision. Yep, I was. I was in another vision.

There were two figures. There was that girl with the golden sun-themed look, and the humanized night sky figure. They were standing right across from each other, 2 feet apart, at least. On the ground was the dead body of the orange figure. 

“The war has brought chaos, and left nothing but despair.” The sunshine figure announced.

“I’m sorry, Melody.” The night-sky figure said.

“It’s not your fault, Chronos.” Melody (the golden figure, I assume).

“Crypto was a good man, he didn’t deserve this.” Chronos said.

“May you live in harmony, Melody.” Chronos said, before blowing up.

The vision ended. I shook my head and began examining the crystals again. Just as I finished with the crystals, I heard something coming from the vent. It sounded like something was moving in them. Out from the vent came an alien. My eyes widened. I ran. I didn’t want to expose my Humalien identity so I just pretended to be a helpless human and ran away (please do not be offended if you're a human reading this).

The alien chased me around. Others noticed how I was being chased by an alien. They all got scared and called a meeting. The alien was now trying to kill EVERYONE. A nearby security guard tried to fight off the alien, but the alien knocked him backwards and started killing so many people all at once. This was without a doubt an alien assassin. I bolted for the emergency exit, so did the big boss. He immediately reported that an alien had come to invade the main headquarters. 

The alien cornered me and the owner. We were both trapped, presumably with no escape. That’s when Megan came in. She attacked the alien assassin. They both continued the battle. I tried talking the owner out of following them but he refused.

Megan then transformed into Molten. The owner’s eyes widened.

“Never return if you have intentions of harm!” She demanded.

The alien assassin got scared and ran off. Megan then transformed back into a human.

“Megan!” I yelled, “You transformed in front of the owner of SpaceSloths!”
“I had to do what I had to do, Charlie, I had to protect those who live and work here!” She told me.

“An imposter protecting the humans?” The owner announced curiously, “So is that why you couldn’t work in the water, and not just asthma?” 

“Yes.” She replied.

“Hmmm. . .” He announced.

“You both may go now.”

When we returned to Giplantis, we saw humans protesting that aliens live here. They were shouting and cursing. There were even children involved, too. 

“The aliens are heartless, cold-blooded and bloodthirsty killers! They all must go!” One of them shouted into a blow horn.” 

The human race could get disturbing, they always believed that they owned wherever they landed on or walked on. They believed that they could just take somebody else’s universe and claim it all for them, banishing those who rightfully belonged there more than they did. But that’s just how humans are, they’ve always been greedy and power-hungry. They’d do anything and everything just to get their way, even if it meant that natives lose their rights just to simply live where they belonged.

Megan and I just walked away. There was no control that we had over these protests. Things were getting bad and chaotic. Every time I ever get close to bringing back the peace we all used to share, something always pops up that pushes us further back. Why couldn’t we just all get along? Was it that maybe there was something or someone that truly was the peacekeeper of all? 

I began studying and studying about the ancient past. I had to learn more about why humans and aliens have to be enemies. Then, I learned that the two races have been at war even before we actually knew for sure that aliens existed. There were many alien concepts from earth, of which many were just these green beings with no ears and fully pitch-black and shiny eyes.

Even the aliens came up with the concept of humans, they believed that humans would look like them, only with 6 hands, and 3 legs, for some reason. I mean, I guess I couldn’t blame them. Neither side knew of the others’ existence for centuries upon centuries. 

There were children playing outside, one of them with an alien. They used their tentacles (because that’s common in most aliens that aren’t too advanced) to catch a ball. The other children were fine with it, though. I smiled, at least somebody else in this world was getting along. 

It was at a park in the open. It had beautiful trees, the grass was perfect and healthy. In the center of the park was a fountain and hover benches that were white and had some outlines in blue. They were as shiny as always. There were flying cars all around us, too. You’re probably thinking that with all of these technologies that we have, there aren’t many plants around. That’s not the case, plants are more common than ever here. Since we already had so many resources and tech from earth, we now can keep our beautiful forests. We even have supplies from other planets, too.

Just then, a woman of one of the children came up to them. She immediately pulled away the alien child. She and the alien child looked a lot alike so I assumed that she was her mother. I overheard what she told her alien child.

“They’re humans, they hate us!” She scolded them.

I felt bad for that child, every child deserves to be able to play with another child regardless if they’re aliens or not.

The mayor of the city called everyone for his announcement. I don’t really remember what he said, but I do know that he lied in his speech. “And do not worry humans, I shall make sure there’s a solution to all your conflict that even the aliens should agree with.” He announced. That was his lie. 

What he meant by that was that we were going through segregation again only this time, instead of African Americans, it was aliens. There were specific or part of some libraries that aliens could not go to. There were specific restaurants that aliens could not go to, specific jobs, specific stores, etc.

This was all wrong, and the aliens didn’t agree with it. The schools were even divided between humans and aliens, aliens could not even go to college.

There have been several protests about what the mayor has done. He hasn’t listened to any of them no matter how big or how violent it was. He just straight up wouldn’t listen. It wasn’t just aliens who protested, either, some humans protested, too. 

I haven’t mentioned very much about Bryan and Kevin in a while, they started their own protest against it themselves. They had the most followers in the protest, too. 

The mayor was starting to get sick of all these protests. He immediately declared that any human protesting would be arrested and any alien protesting would be killed. This man was just another Erick, only more messed up, and in some cases and perspectives, that’s just straight-up impressive.

Wait, but what have I done so far? Nothing! And I hated it. I couldn’t let this continue on. The aliens have more of a right to live here in freedom than we do. This was their planet before us, just because it looks and feels like earth doesn’t mean that it’s ours for the taking and nobody else’s. 

I decided to start not a protest, a revolution. A revolution to overthrow the mayor. Nobody joined because they feared the mayor. Everyone except Megan, Aqua, Bryan and Kevin. I knew that the people wouldn’t listen to any ordinary human. There were even men behind us, ready to attack. They aimed their guns at us.

“Listen, we’ll be nice and let you end this revolution and not suffer any consequences, but if you refuse we will kill and arrest you!” They shouted.

I looked at them. We all looked at each other. Humans don’t see anything unless it is out of the ordinary. So, I revealed my form. Everyone was shocked. They could tell I was a Humalien because I still had parts of my skin even in my form. Everyone was shocked. The others revealed their forms as well.

Suddenly, others had the courage to stand up to the government as well. They ran towards the mayor’s residence. The mayor ordered the full force of the government and military on us. Of course, we were able to avoid their attacks. The mayor kept sending more and more men in. 

There were news reporters nearby, they were talking about the chaos that was going on. There were modern flying tanks everywhere 

and the soldiers were flying on rocket boots.

The battle was filled to the brim with the voices of humans and aliens who have had enough of this segregation and the military. By the end of the battle, the mayor had no options left other than to give aliens the same freedom as humans. When everyone had heard about the victory of the battle, they all roared with cheers.

The next week, I finally returned back to work again. When I checked to see where I was assigned, I paused for a moment. It was 0000123. I decided to go there anyway. Sure, maybe the monsters there might have wanted to kill me still, and maybe there was no Megan to help guide me through it, but still, I was willing to take my chances.

As I was walking there I remembered Delmar, he was still under the control of Erick. I knew that I had to somehow find a way to free him from Erick’s control. I say somehow because Erick was pretty smart for a villain. Usually in the movies and TV shows, the villain is always outsmarted, but Erick was pretty hard to outsmart.

I finally once again arrived. The place was far too quiet. I kept looking around. I looked at my tasks, it said to enter the library. This better not be another attempt from Erick to try and kill me. I sighed and left for the library. Redd came out. Luckily, I knew he was blind, so I just moved out of his way at the same pace of his legs. 

I then quietly walked towards the library. Everything seemed more abandoned and destroyed than before. I opened the door to the library. It was messier than before. It was like trying to hike on a mountain to get through all of those books and bookshelves.

I looked around, the library was apparently bigger than I thought it was. That, or they did some renovations here. I looked around for a bit. I’d constantly check my tablet to see if I had somehow completed my task or not. 

I then heard a strange voice calling my name. It was coming from behind me. I turned around and entered through a pair of doors that I’ve never seen here before. I was back in my past. I was in elementary school. I was on a swing, but I wasn’t swinging. I was just rocking myself back and forth very slowly and barely. Either that or the swing was just swaying in the wind.

There was a gang of kids coming towards me. My brother was leading them. I remembered that the teachers at that school liked me more than they liked my brother. This made him jealous. 

My brother threw me off the swing and laughed. His entire gang started circling me like wild large cats when they encountered each other. They were all smirking evilly at me.

“How is it that I get less attention as a kid with powers from my teachers than little weak Charlie with no powers?” My brother asked.

“Because I have more personality than you.” I replied. My brother stopped and frowned. He marched at me like a raging bull.

“Listen here you little crap! I am better than you! So don’t you dare act smart with me!” He shouted, throwing me to the ground again.

His friends held me in place as he was about to throw a punch. I rotated myself and swung his friends right at him. I then ran off back to home. A few minutes after I returned home, my mother called me down angrily. She started scolding me about what I did to my brother who “did nothing to me.”

The flashback ended. I guess that’s what me and my mom were arguing about all those years back.

Right there in front of me was Chronos. He was looking at the wall and I was behind his sight.

“I know you know me from your dreams.” He said.

“But didn’t you . . die?” I asked.

“Yes, but as you know, we’re all undead here.”

“So you’ve been watching me.” I concluded. 

“Yep.” He replied, “Me and Melody have.”

“So you know about Erick, right?” I asked.

“Who’s that?” He asked.

“The guy who’s been trying to kill me.” I replied.

“I don’t recall any of that happening, but that name Erick sounds familiar, do you know what his full name is?”

“His full name is Erick Lorck.” I replied. Chronos froze.

“Erick Lorck. . .” He whispered, “I thought. . . .”

“You thought what?” I asked.

“I thought he was dead. . . after all, the last Humalien died. . . How did he come back?” Chronos replied.

“I didn’t die.” I said, even revealing my humalien form.

“That must be why.” Chronos said.

“You see, there were four races, humans, aliens, Humaliens, and glitches. Glitches were known as corrupted aliens. They can never take form without a human, humalien, or alien virgin, however. They mostly like to prey on Humaliens rather than using their body as a way to take form. Erick Lorck was the leader of these glitches, many say he naturally has that form and didn’t take it from a victim.” Chronos explained.

“Be warned, if he overpowers you and kills you, peace will never be brought back ever again!” Chronos warned me.

“I’ll try not to die.” I replied.

So now I was back on the airship a few days later. Chronos had teleported me outside. I was wandering through the airship when I heard a little boy crying from a room. There were bones in that room. I was about to investigate but then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, it was a green hack blade. It was too close and too fast for me to dodge it. I felt myself losing more and more control as I tried to grip on to my mind as hard as I could. I couldn’t fight it any longer and gave up. I was in some void with this glitchy clone of me. Hopefully my friends can get me out of this soon, because this clone of me looks anything but friendly.