I might have been only twelve years old, but I would consider myself smart for my age.

But I had no idea what was going on here. I was staring into a dark stormy cloud that appeared to look vaguely like a human, while it was so cold that all the hairs of my body stood on attention.

“J̷a̸c̶o̸b̴ ̷L̵e̷k̴k̸a̷s̷!̷ ̶Y̶o̸u̸ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̷c̶h̴o̸s̶e̸n̵!̷” screamed the voice, sounding broken and desperate. It also strangely enough sounded like two voices, those of a man and woman overlayed on top of one another, one calm and the other suffering although which one did which changed with each word.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I wanted to go back-back home. But I couldn’t. I had to be strong. Strong enough to fight it.

“What are you?” I screamed, looking at what I thought was its face.

A red glow appeared on its head, three vertical lines that felt too much like eyes were focused on me.

“I̸ ̷a̵m̴…̸y̵o̷u̶r̶ ̵b̴e̷g̴i̷n̵n̸i̵n̵g̴ ̶a̷n̶d̶.̸.̴.̸y̶o̴u̷r̴ ̵e̵n̵d̵.̶” it said as its dark form neared me, swallowing me whole.

I woke up with a start, rubbing my forehead. I was in my bed, alone in my room. Looking at my phone I realised that it was nearly twelve o’ clock at noon and that I had two missed calls from George and Michael. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk with anyone, but they were the only true friends I had, so I made a mental note to at least text them later.

Looking out the window, I noticed it was snowing. Snow was a regular occurance in Heraklion for as long as I remembered. Granted, I lived closer to the Vasileies village than the city itself, but the weather was mostly the same.

I hated that.

We’d only get a few weeks of sun and warmth and I always made sure to cherish them. According to Mr Chris-my caretaker-however I barely missed the wonders of Summer and Spring. Months’ worth of warmth and sunlight.

Forcing my way over to my desk, I took out a notebook from its drawer, removing an old beaten down notebook. My ‘Dream Journal, Part Two’. Flipping to about halfway through to the first empty page, I began writing.

‘July 25, 2055.

‘I saw the giant human-like thing made from clouds and I followed the same routine I always do. I knew nothing, stood up to it, and it said the same things as always.

‘If you’re reading this Mr Chris, then I want you to know I’m sick of writing these things. I know you said they weren’t a problem, but maybe we should try and do something about them? Actually, there was one difference today. It’s head glowed. Three lines, vertical. And red.’

The fact that I had to write the thing in English made me a bit mad as well. Greek was my language, yet it seemed like Mr Chris, my caretaker, was insisting on teaching me every other language out there. And I didn’t even use most of them.

Hearing some muffled voices from outside my room, I held the pen and notebook in my hands as weapons in case it was a thief. Genius move of course.

I kicked the door open and I saw my caretaker in all his bald glory sitting at the kitchen table, talking gibberish with a muscled blond man that had two soldiers standing behind him.

“Ist das der Junge?” said the oddly soft voiced man in, if I was correct, German. Of course, out of all the languages in the world, he had to speak the one I was the least confident in.

“Du machst einen Fehler. Sein Vater ist ein Verrückter.” replied Mr Chris. While I couldn’t make out a lot of what he said, the word Vater stood out to me. If I was right, he said something about my dad, that he was something.

Now I barely remembered my father, so I was a little happy since Verrückter sounded way too much like a swear word to be normal. The man deserved nothing less in my opinion. Granted, most German words sounded like swear words to me, so I probably wasn’t the best judge.

“You’re Jacob Lekkas, correct?” said the unknown man in perfect Greek. I was quite surprised and based on his chuckle, it must have been pretty obvious. “Don’t look so surprised, yours is a great language. It was also easier to talk to your father like this.”

“My father?” I asked, shocked. “You know him?” I said, and I was certain that the man’s following cringing was mostly because of me as he looked at his shoes.

“I do. I am Henry Meiers, you can call me Henry. You are needed, Junge. Have you heard of the Progression Series?”

“Have I? Robots standing at twenty meters in height. Humanity’s greatest creations! So complex and powerful, that they need two pilots, perfectly in tune, to control them. Used to defend our people from monsters and other robot users, they are all around awesome!”

That’s right. I was a big robot-y nerd. My nerdiness levels reached the size of the Progression Series. Although Henry Meiers seemed to get quite sad when I started mentioning what the robots were and what they were used for.

“You can’t be serious Henry!” said Mr Chris, slamming his hands on the table. The two soldiers turned their guns towards him, only putting them down at Henry’s signal.

Wait. Did they want me to become a pilot?

“You-you want me to-”

“Indeed I do. You’re very much like your father, Junge. Your skin tone your hair. Your eyes are different though. His are blue, you see. Blue and quite cold.” the blonde man sighed. “So what do you say?”

“Mr Chris?” I said slowly, turning to look at the man.

“I don’t like it. But I have to look at the bigger picture. It has to be done.” replied the man, looking at me as he rubbed the back of his neck.

It took every ounce of my power not to explode out of excitement right then and there. Settling on just hitting my fists together, I thought I handled it pretty well. “Of course I’ll join! When do we begin?”

“Slow down Jacob. You-you need to understand something. You’re no longer going to be living in Heraklion. For the next few years at least.” sighed Henry.

“W-What?” But my friends, my school, my life. It was all there. “I can’t do that.”

“You’re going to have to. You can talk to any friends you have through social media and calls.”

“But it won’t be the-”

“Your father requested you specifically.” said Henry. “I don’t know what life you led here before but you have to leave it behind. We’re already quite late, so just get dressed and-”

An explosion interrupted any further discussion. The house’s front half was destroyed, with rubble, fire and smoke scattering everywhere.

A creature twenty times larger than a human roared down at us. Snow fell on its pure white, scale covered body. It had six webbed arms and a large, round mouth with gargantuan teeth sticking out of it being the only feature on its face.

Run. My whole self screamed for me to run, but I couldn't. I was frozen at the beast's sight.

“That’s-That’s-” I instinctively reached for Mr Chris, the elder man putting his arm around me protectively.

“I believe you called them ‘giant monsters’ Jacob?” smirked Henry, although the way he held his left arm and limped toward the monster, he was clearly hurt. Raising his left arm while wincing, he spoke to a watch that I hadn’t noticed before. “Attaque. Code rouge.”

The monster raised its hands to strike the ruined building once more. And us along with it.

“Jetzt!” said Henry through gritted teeth.

The monster was pushed behind and away from us by a barrage of gunshots before falling to the ground.

“Worry not. The cavalry’s here.” said two male voices in simultaneously. They spoke in English, but they clearly struggled a bit with the language. Still they were so synchronised that even their mistakes in pronunciation we perfectly matched up.

Turning around so fast I almost got whiplash, my eyes widened so much they could have popped out of their place.

A giant half-red half-white robot was standing there. It was big and beefy with a blue glowing V on its chest and two big machine guns mounted on its shoulders. Three dots in the shape of a triangle dominated its small head, and it was facing the recovering monster.

“Best to get out of the way-”

“-for Mark Three has a monster to slay.”