Trials of preservation
"Know yourself before you know others, judge yourself before you judge others, trust yourself before you trust others. Only by facing yourself can you face your destiny."
- Anonymous
Location: Unknown
Time: Year 16 of the Era of Change
Era: Era of Change
Steven once more fell unconscious and only woke up, which felt like a considerable amount of time. But now, instead of being surrounded by suffocating darkness, he was standing on a concrete road, a very familiar road to Steven. Yet Steven couldn't determine where he had seen this road before. It was something he knew was important to him, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember where it came from.
"Where am I?" asked Steven to no one in particular, but before he knew it, a small and adorable little white dog appeared before him and spoke. "I said we were going to have fun, no? This is where the fun begins!" said the little dog with a smirk as it waved its tiny tail furiously. "That didn't really answer my question, though?" stated Steven with confusion. Hearing this, the little dog rolled its eyes and started walking along the seemingly endless concrete road. Seeing that the dog wasn't going to answer him, Steven followed it, for he didn't seem to have another choice. Though Steven noticed something as he followed the dog, the seemingly endless concrete road had an end. It was an old and abandoned graveyard. "You know what this graveyard is, don't you?" asked the dog turning around to Steven while smiling. "I don't. Yet I feel something very familiar from it," said Steven with a solemn and painful gaze while looking at the graveyard ahead. "So, it already has begun to take effect? Well, it doesn't matter. One way or another, you will have to remember what you have forgotten if we want to escape from this place." Answered the dog while slowly walking to the entrance of the graveyard. Steven shook his head in confusion and asked himself why all these strange things were happening to him. Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that this graveyard was an important, as well painful place for him.
No matter how hard he tried, he found no answer to why he couldn't remember why this graveyard nor the concrete road they had been walking on was so important to him. As Steven was thinking of this, the dog called out to him: "Boy, are you coming? We don't have all day!" The dog growled this with a frustrated tone as it stood in front of the graveyard's gate, furiously waving its tail and growling at Steven. Seeing this, Steven chuckled and steeled himself to face whatever he was about to be confronted within the graveyard. He didn't know what awaited him, he was afraid, but he knew he had to do it, not just for himself, but for his friends, all of them. With this determination, Steven proceeded to walk to the dog, waiting at the gate. Yet, he suddenly noticed after walking for a few steps that he was already in the graveyard.
Surprised by this development, Steven quickly looked at his surroundings to see where exactly in the graveyard he was. "Hehe…" laughing at Steven's reaction, the little dog chuckled to himself and proceeded to pull Steven's attention back to what was important. "Boy, you can think about what is happening later. For now, we have our first trial of many to get out of this place." Said the little dog as it looked at the two tombstones in front of him and Steven. As he heard this, Steven turned his attention to the two tombstones in front of him, putting his growing curiosity and shock to the back of his mind. Looking at the headstones, Steven couldn't read what stood on them, so he proceeded to squat and then look closer at what the words on the tombstone said. After squinting his eyes, which felt to him like a good 5 minutes, he finally could read what was on the tombstones. With anticipation, he read what stood on the tombstones aloud: "Here lie two people, who left the world far too early, here lies the parents of Steven, Amanda and Karl." As he spoke out these words, Steven trembled and could speak no more.
Tears followed out unendingly from his eyes, and hollow and deep pain gripped Steven's heart. He fell to his knees and wanted to shout, yet he couldn't. All that came out of his mouth was: "I now remember, I remember it all! How could I forget?! Why did I forget?!" "Hehe…I told you, boy; we are going to have a lot of fun!" said the little dog while snickering at Steven. "Who- no, what are you?" asked Steven with anger in eyes that seemed to be like a wildfire, threatening to burst out at any moment. "You are finally asking the right question, my boy! Where should I start? I guess I'll have to start from the beginning…" As the little dog started to explain to Steven, unbeknownst to them, far away from where they were, maybe not even in the same location, a peculiar situation was unfolding.
Location: Foundation Faction Harbour
Time: Year 16 of the Era of Change
Era: Era of Change
If Steven were to see what was happening at the Underground Mining Area's top, he would be shocked. The scene could only be described with the word, chaos, absolute chaos. All the buildings that had been repaired, refurbished, and even upgraded had been destroyed. A massive battle was underway in the ruins that were once one of the Foundation Faction harbours. There were three groups in this battle. One group was the Foundation Faction themselves; they were in the ruins' centre and were surrounded by the two other groups. Although this did not mean that they were losing. The Foundation Faction had many strong members with upgraded elemental equipment who put up a fair fight against their attackers.
The other two groups were not allies. Despite fighting against the Foundation Faction, they were also fighting against each other. These two groups were Phillip's group and his comrades, and the other group was a horde of rotting corpses and giant grotesque looking spiders. Additionally, the spiders and corpses were not exactly on each other's side either, as they fought against each other as well. If Steven were to observe it, it would make him feel nostalgic and remember the great battle Royale's from significant events before everything had changed.
Although it seemed chaotic, it was far from that. The rotting corpses and grotesque spiders served as a distraction for Phillip's group against the Foundation Faction. Which made it much easier for them to attack the officers and high-ranking members of the Foundation Faction and cause chaos between their ranks. Yet, before Phillip and his comrades could do any significant damage, a large explosion erupted from the Foundation Faction centre. Following this, a strong gale of wind swept through the area, pushing all of those who did not belong to the Foundation Faction far away.
Reacting to this, Phillip grunted and called Temarr, the old man and the scarred man, to him and gestured to them to follow him as he charged once more towards the Foundation Faction. Nodding to Phillip, Temarr, the old man, and the scarred man all charged with him, aiming for the Foundation Factions group's centre. But a sinister and dark laugh stopped them in their tracks. This laugh had an ominous and dark energy to it. It was very powerful, and if not for Phillip, Temarr and the other two, being quite strong, they would have, like the others, felt extremely dizzy and sick, as the rest of Phillip's companions nearly fell unconscious when they heard that laugh.
Seeing this, Phillip's eyes squinted, and he poured all of his energy into his arms, holding his pickaxe so that he would be ready to strike at any moment. Yet, before Phillip and the others could even react, an extremely grotesque fat man appeared in front of them. Contrary to his appearance, this fat man was extremely fast. Phillip could barely catch this fat man's movement and knew that if he didn't put a stop to that fat man's action, he would soon be in a perilous situation. Seeing that he had no choice, Phillip steeled himself and embraced his suppressed raging and dark emotions. Phillip was then surrounded by a blazing bloody red aura, his eyes seemed to be made out of red rubies, and his muscles, as if they were made out of pure metal. Even the pickaxe in Phillip's hands was reacting, as it turned crimson red and became 2 times larger. The others watching the battle knew if they were to interfere, it would not help the situation. Instead, it would make it worse. Therefore they concentrated on fighting each other and warding off the grotesque corpses and ridiculously large spiders.
Even though the corpses and spiders were preoccupied with ripping each other into fine tender pieces of flesh, the higher ranking and more intelligent members of their respective groups targeted and attacked the Foundation Faction. Phillip's companions had not forgotten their original goal. They did not allow themselves to become side-tracked like their subordinates, who could only focus on killing each other. As the battle ensued, what remained of the harbour was destroyed to an even further extent, making what was once a prosperous and recently repaired harbour nothing more but a scorched battle site, with a bunch of rubble scattered around the area. As it seemed that this chaotic scene would continue for quite a while, something extremely unexpected happened.
A large ship came speeding towards the harbour. It was so fast that it had no time to slow down, and before anyone could react, the ship crashed into the battle site of where the three groups were located. The ship rolled around and crushed quite a few of the corpses and spiders, as well as some of the Foundation Faction. The Knights of Freedom, though, Phillip's companions, due to not all being in one spot, were relatively spared from the damage and only had a few injuries on their side. Everyone was astounded by what had just happened, and momentarily stopped fighting against each other. Yet before even ten seconds had gone by, everyone was back to fighting each other, as they couldn't let themselves get distracted in such an important battle.
Yet what they didn't expect was that someone was actually in the ship, much less that they had survived. Since before they could even react, a powerful surge of energy spread over the battlefield. This energy was much more powerful and vicious than that of the fat man's power. It made his strength seem pale in comparison. Following this powerful surge of energy, the wreck that was once a ship, cracked open and a man covered in ash walked out, dragging two unconscious men with him. "Damn these stupid ants, making me save them! Why am I such a kind person? Making promises to ants! And then even keeping them! Sigh, I am such a kind person!" said the man covered in ash with a strange smile.
Hearing this, Phillip and everyone else couldn't help but cringe at what the man had said, as seeing how he held those two men, he didn't seem to be very kind to them. Yet the man covered is ash, didn't leave them any time to think about anything else. As he then proceeded to throw the two unconscious men on to the ground and then stare at the three groups in front of him. He had icy eyes - eyes that seemed to stare right into their very souls, and the smile that accompanied these eyes was even worse. This smile held so much contempt, disgust, and hatred in them that the three groups were overwhelmed with an emotion they couldn't explain. As the man saw that the three groups were frozen in front of him, he shook his head and stopped smiling. He then said: " I shall ask only once, where… is…the…boy?" He asked this exceptionally slowly and very threatening manner as if to warn them that if they did not answer him correctly, they would die instantaneously, without even putting up a fight.
Location: Unknown
Time: Year 16 of the Era of Change
Era: Era of Change
As the little dog finally finished explaining its great heritage and its origin to Steven, it was dumbfounded to find out that Steven had passed out and was sleeping with his eyes open. It realised that Steven hadn't listened to him at all and that Steven had slept through his entire explanation of how great he was. Thinking of this, the little dog was infuriated and proceeded to bark extremely loudly in Steven's ears to wake him up.
"Woof! Woof! Woof!" Being forcefully woken up, Steven stared at the dog with mild annoyance but soon put that aside, as he saw the little dog wasn't all too happy with him. "You stupid little boy, how dare you fall asleep in my grand explanation of my legendary heritage and origin!" The little dog was furious. "What do you mean, how dare I? What do you expect?! Finding out that you for some reason forgot that your parents died and remembering all the pain accompanying their death is quite exhausting, you know?!" said Steven to the little dog, not showing any compromise.
"Grrr…fine, this great one shall forgive you! Seeing that we have wasted so much time because of you, we better move on!" said the little dog shaking his head in frustration at Steven. "Go where and why?" asked Steven with confusion. "You shall get your answer sooner or later. Just follow me!" said the little dog, not bothering to give Steven an appropriate answer. Sighing, Steven stood up and stretched his legs as he had been asleep quite a while. After doing this, he sprinted to the little dog and followed him, not knowing what their next destination might be.
All Steven could think about, though, was why had he forgotten his parents and their deaths? Why had he forgotten so much about his past and only now remembered it all? What was most important to him was the question of the concrete road he had previously walked on. As he could still not remember why it was so important to him and so familiar. Thinking of these things, Steven, with a cloudy, confused mind, continued journeying with the little dog. Not knowing, he would only get more confused and face trials he could never have imagined. What Steven did not notice, though, was what the little dog was saying under its breath. If he had heard it, he would have become even more confused: "I hope you are ready little boy, the trials you will face will be harder than you can ever imagine. You will face yourself and the things you hate, despise and fear most. For only if you face and conquer yourself can you conquer your destiny and create your own path in this dangerous world."