The preparation and the new beginning

The next morning was quite calm and quiet for Atlas. Alice left the hospital as soon as they allowed it, and now Atlas was packing his stuff and was getting ready to leave.

"So, packed all your stuff?"

Atlas turned his head to the direction of the voice and saw Bond.

"Yep, all settled. Lead the way".

The two left the hospital room and headed to the exit. On their way, Atlas said all the goodbyes to the workers. He even apologized for the noise he and Alice (especially) made during their stay here. To which he got a very weird reply.

"What noise? Your room was the quietest. I hope your healing process has been good. Take care of yourself."

That was weird to hear, since it was impossible not to hear Alice play her guitar. However Atlas did not dig into it hard, since he had more important matters to think of. At least for him.

Their walk from the hospital to Bond's place was chill. They talked about different topics that they both liked, and more and more, Bond felt like Atlas' close friend.

When arrived, Atlas was very surprised to see a house. Not just any house, something between a good countryside villa and a mansion. They were in a part of the city, Atlas never had been.

It was a very quiet place with lots of trees covering the view. Lots of different houses that were hiding behind green walls of plants and trees. Everything screamed that it was no ordinary place. Rather something elite.

"Dude, are you rich? Richie rich?" Atlas could not help but ask. It was hard not to, since Atlas has never been to such fancy places before.

"Well, more like no than yes. This house was given to me by my father. Before I was exiled from my family."

Atlas wanted to ask more, but knew that it was a serious matter for Bond, so he restrained himself from asking.

Entering the house was twice as exciting as seeing it from afar. Everything looked bright, clean and expensive.

After the entrance, was the hall which had a large stairway onto the second floor. Kitchen was to the right of the stairs. Following Bond, they went up the stairs. There was a long hallway with a variety of doors.

Opening one of the doors, Bond invited Atlas in.

"You can stay here"'

Looking around, Atlas tried his hardest to comprehend what was going on.

The room was very bright due to the two large windows, which were as tall as the walls. In between them, there was a large double bed with an absurd amount of pillows. Walking towards the window, Atlas could see how beautiful nature was. Lush green trees, bright green grass. The pure amount of greenery was hard to imagine for Atlas. Even though his town was not as big as the big cities full of skyscrapers, never has he seen THIS amount of vegetation.

Putting his backpack with some clothes of his and some other stuff, he immediately fell down on the bed.

This was the biggest bed he ever laid on. Closing his eyes he remembered last night. When finishing the family talk, his power started to act on itself. He did not activate it, yet it was active. It even freaked out Alice, since it was very spontaneous. Atlas quickly came up with some explanation that he was just testing whether his powers still worked, after he got beaten up. Obviously it was a lie. He had no idea what happened there. But he needed to test it. He did not know the exact reason, but he was pretty confident that that random outburst of his power wes related to his mental state. That night, he never felt more confident and ready for the future.

"Dude, we just got here, yet you are already sleeping?" said Bond who was watching Atlas sinking into the bed. "Well, I have some stuff to do today, family related, but feel free to use anything here. Food is in the fridge. Don't burn the house down. If you want to leave, keys are on the commode."

Atlas was not sure what was the commode he was referring to, but he was mostly thinking about the tunnel. He was going to return there.

Now sitting alone in the house, he finally got to activate his ability. The feeling of activating his ability could not be compared to any other feeling, yet he was enjoying the feeling.

Opening his eyes, he felt that there was virtually no difference. Well, it's not like he was expecting some sudden powerup, just because he talked to his family. Well, at least he hoped to.

Next thing on his list was to prepare for the next scouting walk into the mystery tunnel. Last time he was almost annihilated by the strange fauna of "planet zero".

"If I want to change, I need to face the danger" Atlas thought to himself. It would be a lie to say that he was not afraid. He was, and quite very. However his excitement was stronger.

Leaving the house, Atlas found the keys on a somewhat antique kind of nightstand. Exiting the house he made his way towards the large supermarket nearby. These kinds of supermarkets had all different kinds of products. From groceries to building materials.

His plan was to get something even remotely reminiscent of a weapon. Last thing he wanted to do was to go there empty handed.

Since the firearms are illegal unless having a license, which is really hard to get and the horror weapons (weapons made from horror bodies and their power cores) are only obtainable on specialized markets and can only be bought by licensed hunters, the only option left for Atlas was to improvise with the weapons.

Entering the market, he saw endless corridors of different products and stuff lying around.

"Okay, what do I go with?" Atlas thought. The first idea was to buy a metal bat which is rarely used as a weapon nowadays but was still better than nothing.

Going to a sports section, he immediately started to look for metal bats. But something caught his attention.

A full body suit for hockey. Remembering the pain he experienced there, it was a no brainer for him to buy. He wanted to protect himself.

"I will definitely look weird in it, but who is gonna laugh at me there, right?"

After spending some time in the shop, he decided to buy:

hockey armor

metal bat

survival kit

a pocket knife

a few bottles of water

some food

"Well, there goes this month's budget. At least I am ready. At least hope to…" Packing all the stuff he bought in a large bag, he ordered a taxi.

—----

It was almost evening when he arrived at an abandoned site. He ordered a taxi a few streets down, so he would not raise any suspicion.

This time he was carefully looking at his feet so as not to fall down again. He vaguely remembered the place.

After some time of looking around he decided to use his ability.

"It helped me out, it will surely help me find it, right?"

And he was right. After turning on his ability his eye started to glow and immediately he noticed a strong source of energy somewhere under the site.

As he was seeing the energy flow, he could see how it was being absorbed by the Tunnel.

It was as if he could see air flowing in and around. He quickly noticed the energy entering into the growing somewhere in the excavation nearby. It took Atlas around 15 minutes to find the portal in all of the different cave pathways which was located right under the working site.

Now Atlas was standing right in front of the Tunnel. Tunnel to the place he so craved to return to. It looked exactly as he remembered. Golden and white, spiraling towards the center. And the immense temptation to touch it.

"Not yet, not now!" Atlas had to remind himself why he was here. He left his stuff in the cave, about 30 meters from a portal. He was a bit scared that the portal might suck them up. Carefully hiding the stuff he bought he decided to head home. He was to return the next day. He didn't want to enter there at night. Moreover he wanted to take a good rest before his next adventure.

Arriving home, he met Bond who was cooking food in the kitchen. Whole kitchen smelled funny.

"Ah, it is indeed cool to have a wife like you," Atlas said, looking at Bond who was wearing an apron.

"Shut up dude. Where have you been?"

Although Atlas trusted Bond, it was still better not to tell him for now.

"School dorms. Was locking my room and packing my stuff since I now live in a freaking mansion." Atlas replied.

"Don't get too cocky, I might change my decision based on your music taste" Bond said smiling.

Atlas did not reply but smiled. Rarely could he talk to someone like that. Friendly talk without nothin to worry about.

Atlas could not sleep much since he was thinking about the next day…

—---------------------

"Well, I am now ready." Atlas said, entering the mystery portal.

—---------------------

Somewhere in a tall skyscraper was a man sitting on what looked like a very expensive chair.

"Mr. Abergreen, here is the information about the boy you were looking for." said a lady with short ponytail and very thin glasses.

"Thanks, darling. Go ahead and go home. I will stay here for the time being." said a man in a suit. "What do we have here? Atlas d'Prince. Nothing special about him. No abilities. He was discharged from a hospital not long ago. Well, should've stayed there Atlas, I don't forget and I don't forgive."

As the man finished his monologue, his fingers started to spark as he burned down a piece of paper he was holding.