"You better come back soon Batman! Or I'll hunt you down" Avalynn exclaims, her face scrunched up in worry, it doesn't take reading her mind to see that she's clearly worried he's not going to show back up for a very long time like the last time he left.

Adelram grabs Avalynn up into a hug "I will Ava, I promise" he assures kissing her on the cheek.

She doesn't look very convinced as she looks down, tears welling in her eyes. "But what if you're lying?" She whispers, her eyes glued to the floor.

"How can I prove to you I'm not?" Adelram asks, watching Avalynn with sorrowful eyes.

"I don't know" Avalynn says, her voice wavers as it cracks noticeably.

"How about this, you know how much I absolutely love my motorcycle right?" Adelram questions.

Avalynn's frown doesn't disappear as she nods her head yes.

"Well what if I left it here until I return? You know I can't live too long without my baby, so I'll have to come back soon" Adelram offers hopefully.

I watch in absolute adornment as the forlorn face that was once on Avalynn, quickly vanishes, a look of hesitant relief replacing it, and-surprisingly-a small smile pulls at the corners of her lips. "Really?" Avalynn questions a little skeptically.

"Really and truly. I'll leave it here until I come back, and I solemnly swear that I'll come back soon okay? Pinky promise?" Adelram asks.

Avalynn wraps her small pinky around Adelram's, and gives him a smacking kiss on the cheek "okay, you better not be lying" she warns.

"I'm not" Adelram assures.

After that he says goodbye to Cayden, by giving him that weird guy hug.

Then Lanna, who simply glared at him with crossed arms.

I had read her mind, Adelram and her were super close growing up, they were like that...oh wait, I forgot you can't see my crossed fingers, well anyways, they were closer to each other than they were to anybody else, and then suddenly, without warning, Adelram left. Lanna had no idea where he was, and he didn't speak a word to her or contact her in any way throughout the two years that he was gone. During those two years, Lanna had been going through so much pain, she found out her boyfriend of six years had been cheating on her with her best friend-besides Adelram-of fourteen years, add that with Adelram leaving suddenly without a word, and she had slumped into a deep suicidal depression, which she has yet to get out of.

Then Everett, who appeared to rather be anywhere but there. Everette seems to despise Adelram, though when I tried to read his mind to figure out why? I found that he was only continuously picturing different women's boobs...including mine. Somebody needs to knock some sense into this hormonal teen, he's seriously starting to gross me out.

Then Melina. Melina looked like she wanted to cry, but she smiled and gave him a bear-crushing hug, whispering threats quietly in his ear about what she would do to him if he didn't come back soon.

And last Ray. The man gave him a pat on the back, beaming at him as he told him that he was proud of him for risking his life to save somebody else's.

After I said goodbye to everyone-and rolled my eyes at all of Cayden's goofy goodbye flirting-it was time to leave.

The realization didn't hit me until we were leaving the Eribiss's golden gates.

We're going to face Slyder, we're going to save Abigail.

It's as though despite all of the thousands of thoughts and scenarios I've had about this, it's only now really setting in what we're doing.

"How are we going to get there if we don't take your motorcycle?" I ask Adelram as we walk out the golden gates.

"I know a guy" Adelram states simply.

Adelram hasn't spoken to me much after that awkward moment last night.

After driving to a quiet field, he showed me some tricks to using my powers, and tipped me on some of my combat stances and moves. We stayed there practicing until dawn, we both were exhausted by that time so we drove back to his house and went straight to bed. Despite all of my worries, fear, and overall anxiety, I fell asleep almost immediately after collapsing in bed.

We walk in the woods for about a half an hour, taking random turns here and there, (well they seemed random to me seeing as how I have no idea where we are, but Adelram appears to know where he's going.)

Adelram slows down to a stop, looking around over his shoulders before clicking his tongue twice, after a moment, a similar sound echoes back from somewhere in the distance.

I have no idea what that was about, but I decide it's probably best if I stay quiet. About ten minutes later of us standing here silently, a scruffy looking guy walks up to Adelram, looking around anxiously.

The guy has brown hair shaved almost to his scalp, plain brown eyes, a scruffily beard, and a thin, creepy looking mustache. He's wearing a dirty white wife beater, revealing his sleeves of tattoos, and low rise ripped, baggy jeans.

"Who's she?" The guy barks angrily as he glares at me. "She's cool" Adelram assures the guy. The guy narrows his eyes at me before snapping them to Adelram, "you expect me to just let her see because you say 'she's cool'?" The guy asks skeptically.

I wring my hands nervously, unsure of what to say or do. "I said she's cool" Adelram insists, a threatening tone lying beneath his voice.

The guys' thoughts are annoyed and angry, but he fears Adelram, so even though he wants to leave me, he allows me to go with them.

"Fine" the guy reluctantly gives in.

"Good, now lets go, we have no time to waste" Adelram reminds the guy.

With that we all begin walking, where to? I have no idea, I'm simply following close behind on their trail to this secretive place.

The guy must know that there are mind readers around because he keeps his thoughts in circles, over and over again repeating the song Beautiful-by Eminem.

After I don't even know how long, they both stop walking and look over their shoulders. The guy-who's name I have yet to learn-cautiously walks up to a small, almost unnoticeable tree and snaps off one of the leaves. He's about to do something with that leaf, when he suddenly stops and looks behind him right at me "I let her come with us, but she can't watch this, make her look away" the guy demands.

Adelram looks over at me expectantly, as if to tell me to do as the guy says. I quickly turn around. "Close your ears" the guy demands. I roll my eyes but do as he says.

After a moment, Adelram taps on my shoulder, I open my eyes and unplug my ears "can I look now?" I ask, Adelram nods yes in response.

When I turn around, I'm completely dumbfounded to see a small shack, the size of a porter potty now right in front of me. While it is small and dark like the rest of the woods, I'm sure it wasn't there before, I don't know how the guy made it appear out of thin air, but I find it quite incredible.

"Come on" Adelram mumbles as he walks forward towards the small shack. I furrow my brows in confusion but walk with him. What is this place? Why is it so secretive?

I look back to see the guy is following close behind me. Adelram gets in first, closing the door behind him, there's a few clanks here and there, and then suddenly no noise at all. I look back at the guy in confusion, looking for a explanation. The guy nods his head for me to go in too, though it's clear in his expression that he utterly despises the idea of me going too.

I gulp noticeably and walk forward, getting inside the small shack. Inside it's made of plain old looking wood, there's nothing that really sticks out about the place. I look all around while simultaneously trying to figure out what I'm searching for, when suddenly the floor beneath me is gone and I'm jerked downwards into pure darkness.

I'm about to start screaming when suddenly I land on hard wood floor. I force my squeezed close eyes to open to see a long, dimly lit hallway. I frown, unsure if I should move forward, but after a moment of standing here in near darkness, I decide I might as well. But before I get the chance to, I hear a loud crash behind me, and jump back with a shriek, only to find the tattooed guy looking at me blankly.

"Come on" he growls, grabbing my upper arm roughly as he pulls me forward, faster than my legs can take me.

"Ow let go" I demand "like I'd let you go and risk you running off" the guy scoffs. Despite my protests, the guy continues pulling me forward with a tight grip on my arm until we reach a large, purple door. I stare up at in utter confusion, why does this all seem so familiar? It isn't until I hear shouting from inside that I realize I've been here before, in my dream that time that Slyder knocked me out with his boot.

I can't make sense of the fact that I dreamed about this, I mean sure it was different somewhat, but even still I find it strange that I had dreamed of this very place, it all looked almost exactly the same.

Before I can finish this thought though, the guy swing the door open to reveal Adelram and another guy yelling in each other's faces.

"Enough!" The guy beside me demands, almost immediately the buff guy takes a step back, though Adelram looks like he's still ready to beat the guy to a pulp.

It's not until the buff guy that had been in Adelram's face turns around that I realize it's the same guy in my dream. The buff steroid dude.

Before I can fully process this, the tattooed guy leads us down another, much shorter hallways, and into a dark room. He finds the light switch and turns it on to reveal a very large room full of fancy, luxurious cars, and motorcycles, everywhere.

I feel my jaw drop as I look around at all of the hundreds of vehicles and motorcycles in front of me. Adelram smiles a little to himself as he looks adoringly at the cars.

You'd think it was a room full of naked super models the way he was looking at them, kinda creepy.

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"Come on Adelram, we have to get going, just pick one!" I exclaim for the fifth time since we got here forty minutes ago.

"I know, I know, but look at this beauty This is a 1969 Chevrolet Corvette ZL-1, do you know how rare these are?" Adelram inquires as he wipes his hand against the smooth surface of the yellow hood. "Or what about this car? The SSC Ultimate Aero" Adelram enthuses as he stares wide eyed at the white car. "Uh, how are we supposed to afford this?" I question skeptically. Adelram shrugs in response "Felix over there owes me one" Adelram states simply.

At that, the tattooed guy-who I assume's name is Felix-begins grumbling profanities under his breath.

"I don't care about what car it is, we need to go before it's too late!" I remind Adelram impatiently.

Adelram sighs deeply "fine" he grumbles before standing up. "We'll take the Ferrari Pininfarina Sergio" Adelram informs Felix who angrily grumbles under his breath as he grabs a key that was hanging from a nail inside a safe at Adelram, who catches it before flashing Felix a smug grin.

🔹🔹🔹

"Do we even know where we're going?" I ask Adelram as we pull out onto the road in the fancy schmancy car.

Adelram nods his head yes.

"How long will it take to get there?" I question.

"About thirty minutes" Adelram replies.

"How do you know we're going to the right place?" I interrogate.

"I just do" Adelram answers confidently.

"What if Abigail's already dead?" I ask.

"She's not" Adelram states simply.

"What if Slyder knows we're coming, so he's leaving with Abigail right now?" I interrogate.

"He's not" Adelram answers.

"What if I forget how to use my powers?" I ask.

"You won't" Adelram assures.

"What if-" before I can finish my hundredth what if, Adelram interrupts.

"Look, I know you're scared and you're nervous, but asking a thousand questions isn't going to help. We've got this Princess. Sure Slyder is powerful, and he's killed hundreds before, but that was before you, you're a hell of a lot more powerful than you think, you learned so much faster than anybody Mr Komachi has ever taught, you have multiple powers, and Slyder's targeting you. As crazy as it sounds, you should really take that as a compliment, he only goes after the potential immensely powerful people, he goes after them before they learn of their powers because he knows that once they learn their powers, they could destroy him. And look, you've learned your powers, you can destroy him. Together, we'll take down Slyder and save Abigail, you just got to have a little faith in yourself" Adelram preaches assuringly.

He sounds so sure, so confident, not a hint of worry or skepticism in his voice, it makes it hard to doubt what he says.

I feel myself relax slightly, and even if I did only relax the tiniest smidgen, I'm grateful for it.

"Thanks" I say quietly.

🔹🔹🔹

Throughout the rest of the car ride, we just talk, we talk about anything and everything, and by we, I mean me.

I've been blabbing non stop on and on about whatever randomly comes to mind. Adelram doesn't stop me nor does he interrupt, he simply listens and replies when a reply is suitable because he knows I'm only doing this to keep my mind off of what's up ahead.

And finally, he says the two words I've been terrified to hear since we left.

"We're here"

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