As the weak link amongst the combatants present, Tyrone knew he would be a target... especially since Spryta had shown her willingness to protect him at all costs…

Even compared to the children fighting for their lives, Tyrone had little to no control over his mutant ability…

Fires spewed, blanketing the forest floor…

Acids melted through trees…

Plants grew rapidly, entangling soldiers…

The mutant abilities of the children were incredibly powerful…

Still, the soldiers were exceptionally trained and moved as a unit… when one soldier was entangled, another would head for the kill shot…

Like this… Tyrone and Spryta found themselves at a disadvantage, having to protect some of the children who would die otherwise…

Tyrone was performing well for someone without any technique, but with his mutant ability, he would have been able to do more...

Sadly, he could not call upon the darkness flowing through his veins…

As a matter of fact, he didn’t even know what his mutant ability was…

It always kept him guessing and honestly, he was leaning a bit towards being a vampire or something similar…

A soldier took aim at Spryta from behind, but Laura was quick to split the soldier in two using her adamantium claws…

Tyrone had never witnessed such a precise cut in his life… even the soldier’s jewels were perfectly split…

Amidst the intense battle, a Hispanic woman dashed out of the forest’s darkness… in her arms were two injured children…

“Gabriella!” Laura yelled, calling out to the woman who had aided them all in their escape…

Gabriella ignored Laura’s screams and instead, placed both children on the ground and dashed to a nearby soldier who had taken aim at the children…

Unlike everyone else there, Gabriella had no special training or mutant powers… all she had was the will to protect the mutants she considered her children…

And there was nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her children…

Gabriella could not fight, so she rammed her body into a nearby soldier, clinging to him as she pleaded for the violence to stop…

This specific soldier wore different stealth clothing from all the others, signifying his status as the leader of this massacre…

However, no matter how much Gabriella begged as she clung to the soldier, it was obvious that her pleas were falling on deaf ears…

“Run!... Children, run!” Gabriella yelled, a heart-breaking suffering was detectable in her voice…

Laura was slicing soldiers left and right in an effort to reach Gabriella, but it was a fruitless effort…

The soldiers protected the Captain like mindless drones…

And it didn’t take long for Tyrone and Spryta to notice that the soldiers were indeed acting uncharacteristically…

Tyrone dashed to the side and snatched a rampaging Laura, hugging her into his arms as he retreated away from the horde of soldiers…

Spryta waited until Tyrone was next to her before she created the illusion of lava erupting from the ground…

Laura swung out of Tyrone’s arms and dashed towards Gabriella… she didn’t care about the lava illusion since, even if it was real, she would heal just fine…

Laura wanted to rescue Gabriella at all costs, and Tyrone could not aid her in the endeavor… he wanted to save at least one child but obviously, Laura didn’t want to be saved…

With Spryta’s lava projection, the soldiers scattered away…but a sudden frown from Tyrone made Spryta anxious…

“What is it?” She questioned, trying hard to keep the illusion of lava going…

“These soldiers don’t feel fear…” Tyrone murmured, finally noticing a subtly shift in the soldiers’ state of mind “They felt it, but it just disappeared a couple of seconds ago… almost as if-”

“As if?” Spryta asked, also detecting an unpleasant change in the soldiers…

Her ability to create illusions dealt with the mind as much as the senses… so she could feel the shift in the soldiers’ mental states, albeit not as clearly as Tyrone…

“GET DOWN!” Tyrone yelled, leaping atop Spryta and cradling her small body into his arms…

Spryta felt a slight thrill within Tyrone’s embrace, but the thrill was gone because of what followed his actions…

---BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM---

Smoke and dirt shot into the air, clouding the already darkened forest…

Spryta and Tyrone were tossed across the ground, through trees, and onto the shore of the nearby river…

Spryta was the first to awaken to the carnage, and she could instantly feel Tyrone’s shallow breathing on her neck…

It felt like the soft, sweet kiss of a loved one departing for eternal sanctuary…

Tyrone had used his body to protect her at the last possible second…

With her eyes clouded with ash, Spryta examined Tyrone’s body with her hands and she instantly became aware that his back was severely burnt…

Actually, based on the explosion just now, it was already a miracle that he survived at all…

Spryta clapped her hands and the dust particulates in the air cleared…

Anyone would make the mistake to think that Spryta was simply an illusionist, but the line between illusion and reality was very thin…

Spryta brushed the dust from her eyes and was greeted by the sight of burnt bodies, uprooted trees, and just chaos…

Some of the bodies were soldiers but most were the children that failed to escape…

“What a mess…” Spryta groaned, looking at the destruction caused by the explosion…

Safe to say, if they had not been tossed away, Spryta doubted that they’d still be alive… yet, this was a sight she had seen thousands of times before…

Even if all her memories were not clear, she knew enough…

Spryta turned her eyes to gaze at Tyrone’s body, and an overwhelming feeling of anger overtook her…

She had not felt such despair since she first came to Earth… it felt like her first heartbreak all over again, and it only took one heartbreak for her to learn never to love again…

Actually… she could not say… when or how it happened… but she had genuinely grown to care for Tyrone…

Thankfully, there was hope yet…

Tyrone’s back was so badly burned that Spryta could see his spine, but instead of blood, she saw black smoke leaking from his wounds…

“Dark Energy…” Spryta muttered, familiar with the unique energy signature “Why didn’t you teleport away?”

Though Tyrone’s exact ability was a mystery to her, Spryta was sure of one thing – whenever he was in danger, the ability would activate to save his life…

So… what had changed? Why wasn’t his ability working as usual?

These were all mysteries that needed to be solved after they found a place to rest…

Yes… Tyrone was dying but at the very least, the Dark Energy in his body would ensure that he does not die from the burns…

Spryta’s eyes turned golden and just as she was about to release her illusions on a larger scale, a sudden dip in her cosmic energy reserves warned her that she was limited somehow…

Never in her several thousand years of life had Spryta felt a lack of Cosmic Energy, but for the first time ever, she had to consider the fact that she was running on fumes…

It also didn’t help that Tyrone was unconsciously absorbing chunks of her Cosmic Energy to balance the Dark Energy within his body…

---RUFFLE---RUFFLE---

The ruffling of footsteps made their way to Spryta’s ears, and she knew that the soldiers were scoping the perimeter of the blast, looking for stragglers that were blown away…

After all, the soldiers had to confirm that everyone was dead…

Without the energy reserves for combat, Spryta’s body glowed with golden lines… She and Tyrone became invisible to everyone but themselves…

Spryta stuffed her hand into Tyrone’s mouth, attempting desperately to stifle his groans of pain…

The last thing they needed was another confrontation… the battle wasn’t even theirs to begin with… they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time…

When Tyrone lost consciousness, Spryta carefully rose to her feet and walked into the water, allowing both herself and Tyrone to drift along with the currents…

Soldiers near the bank flashed their lights over the river, but never spotted Tyrone and Spryta as they gently drifted downriver…

“Fuck!” Spryta whispered beneath her breath, dissatisfied that the soldiers had cast a wide net to search…

Even after they were a mile away from the explosion, Spryta still caught glimpses of the soldiers near the bank’s edge…

By now, Tyrone’s breathing had steadied, but Spryta could still more or less guess his health status… things were not looking good…

He needed rest, and he could not get that in a cold forest where they were being hunted…

Time passed by… eventually, after thirty minutes of drifting, the river carried them far enough to escape the soldiers’ perimeter…

Even then, Spryta remained holding Tyrone for another couple of minutes until she was absolutely sure that there was no one nearby…

When she was confident, Spryta dragged Tyrone out of the river…

“I need to push it…” Spryta groaned, biting her lip in pain as the outline of two golden-fairy wings sprouted from her back…

The wind stirred as Spryta flexed the wings that she had not used for over a century…

Then, with a huge leap, Spryta’s wings expanded and she carried Tyrone into the air, heading for the nearest sight of civilization…

---------------------------

At the site of the explosion, a half-roasted body twitched atop a tall tree…

The blackened charcoal of a burnt body was quickly replaced by tender, flushed skin as Laura’s healing factor recovered all injuries sustained during the earlier explosion…

Due to fumbling, Laura fell from the top of the tree to the ground…

---BOOF---

A groan of pain escaped her lips…

She was not immune to pain, she simply healed from whatever wounds were inflicted…

So… every gunshot…

Every punch and kick…

Every stab in the eye…

Laura felt it all, and did not complain one bit…

She had learned long ago to deal out more pain than she received…

Using her superior sense of smell, Laura walked until she encountered the roasted corpse of Gabriella – the closest thing to a mother figure she had…

A few silent tears slid down her cheeks, but even then, Laura had no idea what it meant…

She had never felt loved, cared for, or respected in any way…

She was trained to be a weapon and that’s exactly what she was… No one ever showed her how to be more than the weapon she was trained to be…

Of course, much to the regret of the pursuing soldiers… they trained her a bit too well, and now, they had dozens of dead soldiers to show for it…

For the first couple minutes, Laura attempted to pick up the scent of her fellow mutant children, but amongst those that escaped the facility was someone who specialized in hiding tracks…

So Laura couldn’t find them even if she wanted to…

Just as she was about to reach the pinnacle of her frustration, Laura noticed a small drop of blackened blood on the ground…

The pungent scent of blood shocked her nose… and thankfully, that just meant it was easier to track…

Laura didn’t particularly like Tyrone, but he traveled along with Spryta and Laura liked that Spryta smelled like roses and apples…

“Follow…” Laura muttered as if convincing herself that this was the right move…

She broke into a run, following the familiar scent of Tyrone’s darkened blood… hopefully, she would find someone that could assist her in getting to Eden…

-----------------------------

Spryta’s wings flickered a couple of times…

It was a bit too much – focusing on flying while also carrying Tyrone…

By this time, he had already regained consciousness, but the pain was occupying most of his thoughts…

“We need to land…” Tyrone groaned, knowing how physically taxing it was for Spryta to carry him all the way…

They had already flown dozens of miles away from the forest… if they weren’t safe at this distance, then Tyrone doubts they would ever be safe again…

Still, Spryta remained stubborn and kept flying…

Something about the entire situation was rubbing her the wrong way, but the moment her flying became erratic, she knew it was time to land…

Luckily, she had already arrived at a suitable location for rest…

With her enhanced eyesight, Spryta spotted a motel with little to no cars in the parking lot…

She flew down… losing control of her rings a couple of feet in the air, causing her and Tyrone to fall onto the street below with thuds…

“Argh!” Tyrone groaned…

Spryta scooped Tyrone into her arms and rolled them off the street just in time to dodge an incoming truck…

---HHOONNNKKK---

“Fuck you too!” Spryta flashed a middle finger in response to the obnoxious truck driver…

“cough… cough… Glad to see you’re still the same…” Tyrone laughed aloud, even though it pained him to do so…

Spryta quirked her brows “What makes you think I’ll ever change…”

Tyrone sighed as he lay on the ground “For a while there… you seemed different... I am just glad that your memories coming back didn’t change you…”

“Actually, I don’t remember all my memories…” Spryta admitted “It’s like I know who I am but the details are fuzzy… it’s like I should be able to remember every detail of my life, but the earlier memories are blurry…”

“You mean… you feel human?”

“Yeah…” Spryta nodded her head “I am not used to feeling human…”

Tyrone felt the skin on his back reconnecting… it was not fully healed, but it was enough for him to sit up…

“Did you do something?”

Spryta nodded “I call it trick healing… it fools your body into thinking you’re okay and your body works towards that goal… but Tyrone, you’re not a healer… eventually, your body will realize it was tricked and you will die!”

Tyrone hopped to his feet “Honestly, I have been dying since the moment I traveled back in time… this is not new news to me?”

“Time wut?” Spryta choked…

“Nothing…” Tyrone groaned, cursing his slip of the tongue for a moment…

“Well, pray that I remember something that can heal you…” Spryta murmured, unconfident about that suggestion…

Tyrone frowned, unsure of what to do next…

But first, his clothing was covered in dirt and grime…

With a wave of Spryta’s hands, his clothing returned to normal… Spryta’s clothing remained relatively unharmed throughout the earlier battle…

“Is this real?” Tyrone questioned, tugging at his shirt and pants to guarantee that it was real…

Spryta shrugged “I can make some things real with enough effort… there is just a lot of new information in my mind that I am trying to fully grasp…”

“Then let’s start at the beginning…” Tyrone suggested, offering Spryta a hand that she quickly took…

They started walking towards the motel in the distance… it was about two miles up the road, which gave them some downtime to discuss their next move…

“So… as I said… we start at the beginning…” Tyrone stated “Like… what’s your name?”

Spryta shrugged, scrunching her face to recall some of her memories “Honestly… I am not even sure…”

“Then we just need a pen and paper for you to try signing it…” Tyrone added, “I saw on television that sometimes your body remembers what you don’t…”

Spryta frowned “I don’t think I use pen and paper to sign my name… I feel like I sign it differently…”

“Then how do you sign it?”

Spryta paused and then threw her hands into the air… fireworks sparked into existence, and dragons spun and twirled in the air, spelling a single name – Sprite…

“Sprite… your name is Sprite?” Tyrone stifled a laugh “Actually that makes a lot of sense… Spryta just didn’t roll off the tongue…”

“Sprite, huh?” Spryta nodded in contentment “I like it!”

The duo continued their discussion as they made their way to the motel ahead…