CHAPTER 2

IDENTITY CRISIS

The mach train had finally reached its destination and the renegade members onboard begun to unload the items and equipments they were able to secure. They had reached their safe camp at the continents end away from Blank Point City.

Arriving at an off the radar area at the end of the continent, a place populated by none but was readily equipped with the neccesities for living; everything was very much prepared for them; the kids had been well taken care of and given a bungalow to stay in. The team over the time settled and were able to put things in place, set up the various security measures. it had been almost a month and the stranger they found in the train had still not woken from his slumber or whatever that it was.

Discussing, chattering and laughing amongst their selves in the bar, Mirika suddenly interrupts them .

[*Bam* the door slams against the wall]

Mirika: *pant* *pant* [with her hands resting on her knees in a half bent position, she raises her head]

-He’s regaining consciousness.

In the room at the ICU ward where he was resting, with a drip on him and his readings steadily as a normal person, he laid on the bed with his eyes opened but not much aware of his surroundings yet, the door creaked opened and four renegade members trooped in with Kato breaking the silence that reigned the room.

Kato: [He takes a few steps closer to blonds’ bed side, Kato stared on at him with lots of unanswered questions ]

I see you’re finally awake; to believe there’s some one who can actually sleep for a whole month. I didn’t know if you were in a comatose or dead or whatsoever but now that you’re awake.... I have some few questions for you. Who are you?

Mirika: Kato! He’s barely regained consciousness and to ask him out of the blue like that…

_; Who am I? [He said undertone]

Kato: Did you say something, I can’t hear you with your voice so small, speak louder.

_: Who am I? [The voice screeching and as clear as day]

_: Who am I? [He sat up slowly on the bed]

_: Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? [He grabbed his golden hair and robbed his hands thoroughly through it as his eyes widened like a maniac.

Mirika: He’s---

Kato: Hey calm down would you, you’re gonna scare the kids around. [Kato reached out his hand to calm him down, but just when his hand him, the blond disappeared from the room.]

[The other renegade members present stared on in awe.]

Kato: Aahhh!! This is not how I pictured everything to play out! We were supposed to have a talk between men but…

[Standing at the bed side enraged, Mirika shouts]

Mirika: You idiot! You rushed in when you heard the news of his wake without asking further. His medical reports shows he’d suffered memory loss, a long term one at that. The cause of it; I haven’t found yet so I don’t think he remembers anything even if he wanted to.

Kato:*sigh* you should say stuff like this sooner, stupid sister.

Mirika: [Groans in anger] First of all, it's not wise to charge onto someone just when they regained consciousness. I thought u knew better!

Kato: Alright. Alright. Listen up brothers, he’s a confused individual on the loose… oh not just any individual at that, he’s like us, probably more powerful... And we need to make sure he’s safe.

[The renegades present each understood in their own way what Kato’s words implied and gathered a handful few to search for the blond haired]

And from that particular time, the search roamed the area and beyond looking for the missing individual but had no luck. It wasn’t that they weren’t looking hard enough, in fact, they searched everywhere twice and still had no luck given all their speed.

With the wind brushing on him as he ran, Kato received the disappointing news from the other teams.

Kato: Could he have gotten that far in such a short time?

Guan: Kato, no luck here either. [His right hand man informed him through the com device he had in his ear.]

Kato: ALL UNITS! Keep searching till you find him. We can’t let him fall into the hands of the enemy.

[There was a brief static radio sound on the com channel as another person relayed their info]

Malcolm: This is Malcolm, I see something.

Kato: Where are you?

Malcolm: I’m at the forest at the edge of the continent. There’s something among the rocks to the oceans shore. It looks like…. {the com was cut short, something had happened to Malcolm and his team and all the renegades linked to the com channel heard a long static radio noise]

[Running at higher speeds to the location Malcolm gave out]

Kato: Renegades! Half of you return to the base to protect the children and the frail in case of any surprises. The rest of you head to the continents edge with all your strength.

{Kato removed the com link and pressed on faster]

Kato: Malcolm… Tch! [Few seconds later, Kato had reached the designated location and he was searching, and calling his name; hoping to find Malcolm.]

Kato: Malcolm! Malcolm! [Boom]

A wave of air accompanied by a couple of trees tossed around came rushing past Kato but he was quick enough to put up a defensive stance.

_: Race with me!

_: Somebody race with me! Let’s see who’s the fastest of us all.

Race me!!! [A voice leapt at Kato and It echoed the whole area as the ground shook with a rumbling sound]

Kato: Is that so? Well if it’s a race you want, then prepare yourself.

A few minutes had passed since Kato’s arrival, the surrounding was in quite the mess from the blonds assaults and 8 remaining search party members had arrived at the location.

Guan: Kato, you found him.

Kato: Stay back guys, this is between him and me.

[Kato took off his long robe and begun walking towards, facing the seemingly and lost in thoughts speedster.

[Standing face to face]

Kato: Now let’s get this over with.

[And without another word in the span of a heart beat, the two started out across the ocean separating the continents, running on water at high speeds, they were seemingly in the same lead but upon closer observation, Kato was in the lead by a millimeter. Speeding on the continents across the globe, caught up in their own game, they ended up going around the world 16 times. Chasing and catching up with each other.

Kato: [Speeding across the world somewhere with the blond at his side, he couldn't help but notice how this guy was still keeping up with him] -He’s fast!

Almost reaching their starting point for the 17th time Kato suddenly sent a punch flying the blonds way.

Noticing the attack before hand, he counters and delivers a punch in return knocking Kato across the ocean to a nearby island.

Blondie had stopped running, and he walked fiercely on the water to the direction where he punched Kato with elegance and confidence.

Sent crushing unto a mountain on the large island somewhere across the ocean, Kato rose from the rubbles.

Kato: That’s good, this will do. This will do just fine!

[He takes an offensive pose and vanishes from the crash site at high speeds seeming instant and not a second lag between his vanishing time and arrival, he appears in front of the blondie as the battle progressed even further.

They exchanged countless blows which had more than enough force to splite the oceans. On the receiving end of attacks that had more than enough potency of destroying the mountains behind and sending shockwaves across the island and beyond was the nameless blondie, the birds and other life forms present on the island fled due to the scale of the battle, fleeing the island for their dear lives.

And across the ocean, the blondie retaliated with punches that caused the sea levels to rise, stiring up the oceans and causing tsunamis that travelled across the ocean thousands of kilometers.

Dealing quite the damage to each other; consecutive attacks of such caliber clashed several times rocking the continent as they moved away from the island battling on the ocean. The force of their battle caused the ocean to rise in great heights almost drowning the island they were fighting on.

Continuing their battle further and taking it into the skies with shockwaves of their battle pushing away the clouds rendering the sky clear as ever, Kato couldn’t keep up as he thought he would have as he was being pressured, overpowered and cornered by the blonds’ inhumane attacks. Feeling his life in danger if he doesn’t fight at his best; his eyes suddenly darkened as his entire being changed to red with dark patterns corsing all over his body.

Suddenly, the sky was colored with red and dark patterns as hundreds of Kato's after images amidst a thousand wave duplicates suspended in the air. A couple of the after images and wave duplicates launched themselves like missiles and flew straight to the blond's direction.

The after images were just a distraction that could be dispersed with little to no effort but the wave duplicates were a different case.

Wave duplicates are basically clones that carry 50% of the users actual traits and have the ability to take individual actions different from the original. And as such they came at the blond from all directions.

The blond quickly launched relentless barrage of punches taking out more than half of the wave duplicates and dispersing the after images, he didnt notice early enough that Kato had charged in with the other batch of wave duplicates and as such, he was slow to react to the attack.

Kato managed to land a heavy blow on the blond sending him flying downwards into a couple of large mountains, causing them to crumble on the island then and crashing into the islands ground destroying it. The blondie was sent flying and bouncing across the ocean; like a tossed stone on a water body, several kilometers into the forest where everything begun.

A WORLD FOR THE SPEEDSTER GOD