Volume: 1 end Chapter 7 [split up from our path]

Michael and Tommy were on foot, a big mistake they didn't take a camel or two

Since the WHOLE continent of Retere was a desert, made by, you guessed it; Retere

The immortal Jellyfish, curruntly residing within it's one and only host

Kallen

"So.. yeah, I really should have given you two some sort of way to get out of the desert, no?" Kallen asked

You see, Kallen can apparently control sand

But only the sand he makes or sand nearby temporarily

His sand however is permanent under his control, no matter from how far away he is

Point is, he can make clones

"Man, why'd you make this dessert?"

  Tommy asked, whining a bit at the Kallen clone

"It's desert, not dessert" Michael replied

While Kallen just chuckled a bit at the two's expense

"Hey! How'd you know I'd said it wrong? Dessert and desert sound the same!" Tommy yelled out, blowing out any creature in a 5 meter radius

Of course, there was none, so no harm done

Exept for Michael's annoyance to sky rocket

"Does lalazhard give you some sort of dictionary super ability or something-" Tommy rambled on

"Oh god, just tell him yes and to shut up, welpling" Michael felt a voice from within say

He couldn't agree more.

"Yeah yeah, he gives me that sort of stuff, now will you please be a bit more quiet?" Tommy just grinned vigorously.

"Look, Kallen, I know you're a bastard and all, but please! There has to be a faster way to travel from Retere! It'll take us two weeks of nonstop running just to get out!" Michael pleeded

Kallen just stroked his chin in thought and smirked.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, cause I did now" was the last words Michael felt before feeling one with the sand

And then vomiting

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<with Michael and co; at the borders of Retere>

The border of Retere was a mix between sand and grassy land

Tommy was curruntly barfing all of his breakfast, lunch and dinner he could have eaten.. then again; knowing Tommy, it could very well just be his insanely large breakfast he loved to brag about

'I have got to ask Tommy how to cook, atleast he took those useles- I mean, now that I think about it, usefull classes..' Michael just thought, vomiting nearby aswell

"How..h-how did y-you-" Tommy wanted to say, but he had to vomit out even more food, or alcohol, or whatever he ate or drank

"You get used to it" was all Kallen said while smirking

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<after the little barfing session>

"This is at most I'll be able to travel with you guys, the heroes village is just near that mountain range" Kallen said while shaking Michael's hand and pointing with the other at the huge mountains

Michael swore they used to be bigger

"But seeing as Michael's here, I guess I don't have to worry.. now just to reach out to my old dessert- I mean desert" Kallen chuckled nervously due to Michael's glare

"Your old desert?" Tommy asked

"Yeah, the great desert of Retere, or just Retere wasn't my first.. and I swear, it isn't a desert, it's a damn beach!" Kallen explained whilst grumbling

"You called it a desert yourself" Michael pointed out with a grin on his face

Kallen just blushed while denying ever saying that

"N-no!"

"So.. this is good bye for now, eh?" Tommy said, tears in his eyes

'So dramatic' Michael thought while rolling his eyes

'Seconded' lalazhard responded again

Michael could FEEL the smirk coming from the great beasts face

"Well, not unless you visit my old des- I mean beach.. damn it" Kallen said, cursing at his bad habit

"Its near the Illusion forest, just after it should come a huge river.. I'd thought it was a small ocean, thats why I'd made that beach.. turns out that was a river" he grumbled out

"So Illusion forest huh?" Michael asked while looking at the mountains

"Yup, you'd better be careful, the owner of that forest is one of ours" Kallen replied with a wink

Michael just smirked in response

"What does that mea- hey! Kallen!" Tommy asked in confusion to Michael, before yelling out in concern to the sand clone turning into sand

"Don't worry, that was just a clone, now get going, you don't want to be late or the blizzard will catch up to you" Kallen said, communicating through the sand

"B-b-blizzard?!" Tommy shouted in fear

"Yup, two months ago, blizzards started popping up at around this time, every day, so you'd better hurry up"

Saying that he hated the cold would be an understatement

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<With ???> two months earlier

The mysterious spider masked figure had vanished once again, into thin air some how, leaving Edwards Body In some mountain range

If he was lucky, he'd find the note the figure had put in his pocket

If he was exceptionally lucky, he might've found a few basic supplies scattered around in the icey cave he was unconcious in

Luck does favor the bold though.

And Edward was always more confident than others in his ability to survive

And now, he was definitely in his element

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<back with Michael> present time

Michael had begun his trek to the reach beyond The Heroes village, both literally and symbolically

And by his side, his best friend would accompany him

"Michael.. I think I'm hungry.." his annoying best friend, sure, but a man he'd be glad to put his faith on now

"Come on, lets stop to eat!"

God the glutton never stopped complaining for food, ever, especially if he were hungry

'Just stop for some damned food, welpling, you and I-' the great beast started before a garbled 'hey!' Could be heard from his mind

That was still creepy for him to say

'And that thing know you puked out whatever abomination you'd made and called it 'food' Lalazhard said, momentarily forgeting about his disgust for the 'thing' and focusing it on Michael's food he'd cooked earlier in the morning

In Michael's opinion, the Dragon was right about one thing

He had puked it out

'And you want him to shut up, don't you?' At that Michael agreed

"Alright alright, we'll stop" Michael said while grumbling about how it hadn't even been five minutes from the border

"I'll go and hunt something for us" Michael said, while walkibg off to find something at least

"Oh, yeah, and you should go up that mountain, I'll follow through and bring along something" Michael said, turning back to see Tommy nod and go on towards the walk able area on the mountain

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<with Tommy> after an about an hour or so

The blizzard at the mountain range was getting worser by the hour, and he hadn't even seen a sign of Michael, he was currently contenplating whether he should go ahead

'No.. I can't leave Michael alone in here.. I know that this place has something of value to him' Tommy thought out, shivering from the sheer cold

'I. Hate. Winter.. and anything cold.. maybe not icecream, but I don't.. like.. the cold' he felt his conscious slip

The blizzard had started to freeze him inside and out

He had fallen flat on his face, not able to withstand the darn blizzard

He could have sworn he had heard a 'Tommy!' From somewhere.. the voice felt strangely familiar

At the moment though,

He would be lucky not to get frost bites

"Hey!--- you--- damnit!--- save--- him--how?------" he thought he'd heard a low mumble after he'd fallen, his legs giving up on him

His last thoughts would be of how he'd have loved to have spent his last moments with Michael

After all he was-

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<with Michael >

An hour earlier

Perched on a tree

He had found his prey, a lonesome deer eating some sort of plant

Poor bastard never even knew he'd eaten a poisonous plant

Animals near the great beasts areas usually perished due to the influx of energy found at these sorts of locations

If the energy didn't kill them, plants adapting to the poisonous energy would

And this deer would be no different, a not long way from the mountains, but still close enough to Retere for the plants to be wilder than any where else

"Sweet.. I just hope Tommy can eat this.." Michael said, hopping down from the tree he'd been perched on

"May your soul rest in peace" Michael quickly prayed while summoning a portal to keep the deer fresh

The portal was black in color, likely from nothing being in there

'Merits of being what ever I am'

He slowly picked up up the carcass of the deer and paced it in the portal's room, it'd died almost instantly, or if it were still alive, barely that too, Michael's portal would have killed it

"Now.. to find Tommy" Michael said with determination

After fourty five minutes or so of enduring the constant hail throwing bigger shards of ice, he'd thought he'd seen Tommy

"Tommy!" He yelled out, but to no avail

Though, that shouting seemed to no avail

The blizzard had been running so heavily,  apparently the weight of it caused a small avalanche

'God damnit! I'm not fast enough!' Michael thought while running, having to believe that tommy would have been okay

Suddenly though he had to come to a stop, but try as he might, he couldn't stop

There it was, a cliff that led off to the higher Gremnite plains

That wouldn't matter though if he couldn't survive

He was pressed between a rock and a hard place, so he had to jump

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<with Michael> ??? Time after

Michael was in a bed, a soft one at that

He felt as if he were in heaven

'Is this what death feels like?.. if so.. I'm all up for it'

"Nope, you're not dead, not until you pass on my genes, baby!" A rowdy voice answered

"Oh, it's you... what do you want? Come here to take over my body again?" Michael asked, still lying on the soft bed, in his mindscape he presumed

"Nah, I just realised that would be a stupid idea; 'cause look, I don't want you dead, I want YOU to have atleast one kid in your lifetime" the voice answered

Michael still couldn't open his eyes

"Is that too much to ask?.. anyways, talking about you getting laid aside, you're nearly dead"

That startled him so much that he leapt out from the bed

"Well, well, well, you escaped deaths grasps didn't you?" The figure responded, and now finally michael saw who it was

Calem

"Argh, what do you want you parasite? Here to mock me on my wrong choice to jump? Well I couldn't sto-" Michael wanted to say before the figure just shushed him

Now that he took a closer look he could see Calem was upside down, not in the regular sense, he didn't seem to be affected by gravity

Calem would have looked nearly identical to Michael if not for the fact that he had-

White hair and glowing red eyes..

creepy

Michael just shivered at the thought and even more when he looked into the mans(?) Eyes

"Atatat, nope, just here to commend you.. I can fix broken bones, regenerate entire limbs and even shattered or sliced up hearts, but you know what I CAN'T fix?" Calem, the thing that was apparently the reason for his psuedo-immortality sludge asked

"Frozen blood?" Michael asked as Calem just walked back and forth for a bit

"Yes and no, I could fix that, but it'd be like trying to heat up an ocean with your bare hands.. nearly impossible, see? It'd take to long to heat up, and by that time poof! You're dead!" Calem said with a creepy grin plastered on his face while asking Michael

Michael just sighed

"Yeah yeah, but what's it got to do with me, and why was I in a bed or something?"

At that point, Calem wasn't the one who responded

"Because your reckless behaviour caused you to be impaled by something, that 'thing' over there tried to resurect you, but nearly failed.. if you hadn't waken up from that 'soft' bed, you'd have gone to hell"

Michael was shocked, hell?

"Now come over here, that 'thing' is trying to corrupt your very essence, I can feel it trying to take over you"

At that Michael just quickly ran back to the 'Cage' room he had dubbed

But he turned back to see Calem's frowning face one last time

"Oh, yeah, thanks for saving me, even if you tried to take over my body and all, see you around" Michael just thanked, with a mock wink

"Just doing my duty to save your stupid ass, nothing to thank me there.. you know; you die, my bloodline dies so consider your self even if you have more children in the futur-" Calem tried to say with a grin at the last part

"Not happening with my reputation" Michael just cut him off with that

He just smirked when Calem shouted in frustration at Lalazhard's meddling with his 'plans'

Moving along to the 'Cage' room

Calling it a simple cage would be a mocking of its grand stature

It was seven golden and dare say, absolutely massive gates locked in as one, layer after layer

The gates looked to be more taller than any of the mountains he had heard of, dwarfing them in terms of not only length but also width

And there he was, in all his glory

                    Lalazhard

the Great Red Emperor Dragon

In his false form he was massive, ranging in at a few kilometers at least, larger than most mountains

And his true form?

Calling it gigantic would be a crime at least

Michael was sure that Lalazhard's true form dwarfed even Retere, maybe even the continent of Retere, that's how massive The Most Powerful Beast of the world was

But because he almost never showed his true form, it set Michael on edge immediately

"So, what did you want to say?" Michael asked a bit curious as he moved back, grabing and sitting on one of the chairs two he had thought up of for his mindscape, just a simple little house with two chairs, no windows and no decorations, just two chairs, and not unlike his apartment in size

The only difference being the walls, ceiling and floor being all black, pitch black, pure black and any other adjectives that could describe how black it was

It was almost disorienting for him, but luckily, since it was his mind; he knew where the walls were and all.

"You should know that you being impaled by that sharp rock or what ever it was that you hit sent your body in distress, sending all of reserves to that 'thing' but it was nit enough so lets just say that my energy was also needed to heal you up" lalazhard spoke, fluttering his gigantic wings a little

'Man, I'm never going to get used to how big he is' Michael thought

"I know, but enough of that; all you need to know is that I expended a great portion of my energy... so.. I'm going to have to recover by sleeping for a bit"  Michael just sighed, this day was not going well for him

"For how long then?" Michael asked getting a bit worried

"At least a week or two by how much I used" Calem responded for him, leaning against the doorless frame that lead to his room/chamber/dimension

"Maybe a bit more, but I'll still be able to talk to you in emergency situations, and even then, you have that 'thing' to take your hits for you" lalazhard spoke, his disgust for Calem unhidden

"So, no armour then? What about my sword? Dagger?" Michael asked, a bit uneasy about having to fight hand to hand or with magic, two things he hadn't used for a long time, since it'd reminded him of Alan

"You'll only be able to access the dagger.. maybe, maybe the shortsword if I get enough energy.. but not more than that and definitely no armour so you'd better hope you can dodge fast enough"

This day sucked already for Michael, he'd lost his best friend, gotten impaled, nearly died and gotten taken over by Calem and now he would be back to his childhood weapon; his dagger

"Well, you'd better be off then 'cause someone's there, tending to your wounds or something" Calem said once again grinning a grin that could rival Tommy's grins, in annoying Michael atleast

And with that, he left the mind scape

It felt like being lifted from water, except that he was able to breathe.

'I wonder who saved me... I mean it was Calem.. but who took me in?...

Oh god it'd better not be the S.E.D..' Michael thought with a bit of fear

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<in the outside world>

"Oh, hey you're finally awake" an old sounding voice called out to him

Opening his eyes, he could see it was a rather tall female with long black hair down to her waist, a pale face you'd usually see on the mountainside folk

Who was she and why did she feel familiar?