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Chapter 14: Return

The world had grown a bit darker, and Dune and JawBreaker were looking at me as though I had just fought an entire army and lived. I got up, and had thought there was something wrong with me, so asked. "You just ripped the head off of a... what was it again? Orc? Yeah, and it just showed nothing under it!" I was a bit baffled by them, and said I didn't have control of it. "My eyes just gave me a red tint, and I couldn't help myself.'' They were a bit afraid of that, then said that we should leave. "How?" I asked. "Just say redemption." said Dune, then he vanished. "Redemption." said JawBreaker, and she vanished as well. I was confused on why the word was redemption, but went with it. "Redemption?" my eyes seemed to shut off. I couldn't see a thing, and then everything. We were back inside the room, and I was standing straight up. I started to move around, and saw that JawBreaker and Dune were both packing up the room, lighting the lanterns. It took a second, but soon after I came back, I had a headache. "Argh, what was that place again?" "Dimension two." said Dune, now holding the last lit lantern. "Let's go. They shouldn't have any more News makers at Rumblers home." said JawBreaker, pushing down the rope ladder. We started our embankment, and soon found ourselves in front of the hole that I came from once again. They started walking away, saying goodbye, and I went up. I knocked on the door, then found Grrga lifting up the hatch. "Welcome back, I suspect you had a good time in Branch Zero?" "I have to admit, it was pretty fun." I answered, getting out of the hole. There was a second of quiet as I got up, then he started to talk again. "You know, since you won that tournament, you now have a higher standing than the ruler. You could become an entirely new ruler if you wanted." I hadn't thought of that, and found myself wondering if it would be like ruling the world. I decided against it, and grabbed my cot. "It's been a pretty long morning, and I wanna sleep. Wake me when lunch is getting ready." I said. Grrga laughed, then went out, supposedly to get back to his job.

It was at about midday when I woke up. There was a nice scent in the sky, just like bacon. Peter was in the kitchen again, making lunch for us. "Grrga told me to head over and make some lunch. Hope you enjoy bacon and beef." he said. I had learned that Peter didn't care much for vegetables, but found they were delicious in the stew I created three nights ago. I got up, and started to chop up an onion. He looked over, and said, "What're you gonna do with that?" "oh i'm not doing anything with it. But you're gonna put it in with the beef." he looked a bit disgusted, but found the onions helped make the beef taste like his mothers. "I never watched her make us food, but by the food we just made, I think she'll be pretty happy with me." I looked at him, and smiled. The food was amazing, if not for a couple additions of tomato slices, and fresh corn. We were having a bit of fun making the food, and by the time we finished eating, Grrga had come home. We kept some for him, and he ate it as quick as ever, almost trying to stuff everything at once. "Dish shtu- itsh deri- shish!" he said, food barely fitting in his mouth. I laughed a bit, then went outside. Peter went into the other room, doing who knows what, and Grrga got on the couch and read the new paper that came out the day before. I closed the door, and went off in disguise to the fourth branch. Along the way, there were a couple people still talking about the fight that happened the day before. "They say he got up after Takken's punch!" said a lady I was passing. Her friend gasped, then said, "You mean he got up from Takken's Fury blow!?!" "Yeah! I didn't think it was possible, then out of nowhere he took his blades off and just started punching. You know, they say he did it randomly, but I think there was some sort of rhythm to it." to that, I let out a smirk, and kept on my way. It wasn't known what I truly looked like, though the few who did know never seemed to show up. It was only when I showed up at the mansion that people started to speculate. There were so many whispers that I could barely hear myself think, and so I chose to turn around. They watched me turn around, and it went quiet. "Yes, I'm the Force-Blader. Now pipe down." I opened the door and went inside. Everybody stopped whispering, and picked up their speed as they walked along. There were a couple who stayed, though they knew to keep moving. The next thing I knew, Ghost was in front of me, grabbing me and pulling me to the training grounds. "You'll be trained by all of the Supers for the next couple days. Dune and JawBreaker told me what happened in Dimension two. And how you ripped the head off of some sort of... oak... I don't know, it was cool though, how they described it." I was still a bit confused, but didn't care much. She went off into a different room, then came out with my blades. "These are nice, well built, not too heavy, and.." she grabbed an apple and threw it in the air, followed by a couple blurs and the apple falling in pieces. "Pretty sharp.'' She gave me them, then pulled out her stuff. "I want you to try to hit me, and don't hold back." she said bluntly. I was a bit hesitant, but she started tripping me as we fought. There was a split second where my eyes turned red again, but then it was gone as soon as I was on the ground. "If you're not gonna fight back, there's no reason for you to be here." she said mockingly. There was a second where I just grunted, then I got up. My blades fell to the ground, and the tint of red came back. There was a look of confusion on her face, then I came to her. It took me two thirds of a second to be face to face, then another quarter for my fist to be by her face. She moved to her right, and grabbed my arm. There were three quarters before she pulled me on her back. Another third went by, and I was in the air, with a staff rotating to look down. I hadn't expected this, but still grabbed the staff. Ghost looked a bit more scared, then came up to me. We switched places, where I was now on the floor, and she was in the air. I watched as she tried to grab the staff, but knew I had to pull it away. There were three quarters, then a loud THUMP on the ground. She had fallen, and my mind was set back to normal. I went over to her, but she vanished. Then there was a sound from where she had come from. "So that's pretty cool, your hair tries to spike when you're like that." I looked over, and she was over there, with a black tint in her eyes vanishing. I watched as she walked past me, grabbed my blades, and went back into the room. I was dumbfounded, and would have probably stayed that way if Engraver didn't show up.