Tangela and Celestia were in the middle of playing, what seemed to be Mecha Obliteration when I entered our dorm. Mecha Obliteration is a fighting game where you can choose from a wide variety of different robots, then duked it out to the death. And from the looks of it, Tangela was currently whooping Celestia’s butt

“Dammit!” I can’t even beat you once!” Cel yelled in frustration, as her mech blew up.

“Well, I’ve had many years of practice, thanks to the young miss. I practiced a lot on my free time.” Tangela responded.

I closed the door behind me. “So in other words, you cheated,” I stated.

Both Celestia and Tangela jumped. Wait; was it possible for spirits to jump? Since they technically float off the ground. Well whatever, if they could, Tan certainly jumped.

“Finally you’re back! We were worried sick about you!” Celestia stated.

“Sure didn’t look like it.” I joked.

“Oh stop it you twit, you know I’m telling the truth. So what happened is everything ok?”

I told them about my confrontation with Trevor and his gang and meeting Atlas Ryder.

“Shut up!” Celestia exclaimed. “You did not meet the school’s number 2!”

“Well, I did.”

“That’s awesome!”

“What? Why is that? It’s not a big deal.”

Celestia groaned. “How dense are you El? Do you watch the news? For someone who wants to get to the Zone Games, you know nothing. Just the fact that you met him is amazing!”

“WHY?”

Tangela cleared her throat to get our attention.

“If I may butt in, Elenore, Atlas Ryder is not only the number two at this school, but he also placed fifth at the Zone Games with his partners, making him quite popular for the media. Only, they couldn’t find him. Soon after last year’s Zone Games, Mr. Ryder suddenly vanished from the scene, nowhere to be found. This garnered him the nickname: The Lost One. Many people speculated that he returned home to Nebula.

“Nebula? I’ve literally never heard of this planet before.” Cel and I responded.

On the wall-mounted TV, a planet popped up on it. Celestia and I looked at it. It was roughly two-thirds of Vextel, which is the smallest planet of the interstellar planets. The surface was gray and green. The screen claimed that 85% of the planet’s surface was covered with, musky green water, while only 15% was the gray surface. It didn’t seem like a planet I wanted to live on.

“I’m not surprised that both of you hadn’t heard of it.” Tangela continued. “In fact, not many people have. Nebula is a planet that resides in the nearest solar system. Even with the fastest mode of transportation, it takes about a month’s time to reach it. Another reason is that Nebula is not an interstellar planet. When the planet was discovered by the Beings, the Nebulans resisted the Beings. Only after being threatened with the destruction of their planet, only then did the citizens accept the Beings’ sovereignty. At the time, Nebula was allied with neighboring planets; Maniax and Abstral, in an alliance known as the Trinity Pact Alliance. The governments of those planets, don’t view us I a positive light, but they still partake in the Zone Games.”

I wasn’t expecting to get a history crash course, on the history of planet alliances.

“I’ve heard about the T.PA from my dad once. He said the reason we don’t hear from them often is that they don’t communicate with the interstellar planets very often. Dad states that they see us as enemies, but don’t attack out of fear of retaliation from the Beings.” Celestia added on.

Tangela nodded. “Now getting back to Atlas Ryder, he has barely any information on him. We don’t know his family, personal information or date he was born. His planet refuses to give this information up if they even have it. All we do know is his appearance and his magic art.”

“He said it was called Soulpurge.” I recalled.

“Soulpurge is a new emerging magic art. It was only discovered about a year ago. From what data is available, Soulpurge is a form of magic that attacks the soul directly, making it extremely powerful, making it a Grade 1 along with Diviners and Chaosers.” Tan explained.

“Now that Mr. Ryder has reappeared on the public image since the last Zone Game, it must mean he has intentions to win. He’ll be an obstacle for us El.” Celestia pointed out.

We decided to leave the conversation at that. After all, we had many days to come up with a strategy to beat him and his partner, whoever that may be. We all played against each other in a couple of matches of Mecha Obliteration. I won the majority of the matches, cause I’m the best at this game, with Tan close behind, and Cel at a very distant third. We called it quits for the night, we all hit the sack, and I almost instantly fell asleep. Hopefully tomorrow, I wouldn’t be immediately assaulted by someone else.