The man that raised me since the war started is dead before me and I don’t feel the slightest hint of dismay. He used me to protect his precious Great Oracle. He forced into me the pride of being Aidoshian knowing full well that I wasn’t. He is just as bad as Sokon and Fantasia for leaving me in the sewer to die. However, Elvion on the other hand was a lost soul; he was unsure what to believe in. He may have hated the Gandole for killing his parents but he never had what it took to be a soldier. His innocence was his greatest attribute and flaw. I hope he is alive, or at least had a quick painless death.

I see a small crumbled up piece of paper in Timpuji’s right hand. I reach down and take it from his withered grasp. It is a picture of us when we were a family nine years ago. We were in front of one of the old Brotherhood hideouts. Fantasia, Elvion, and I are standing in front with Timpuji and Reaka kneeling down behind. I crumple up the picture and angrily throw it as far down the street as possible. I turn around and began running as fast as I can through the streets. The darkness wraps around me until I can’t see.

The darkness then forms into the living room of my uncle’s house. Many of the fixtures on the wall have fallen and my uncle is on his phone talking to my aunt who is out of town. The television is switched to the news. The reporter is in a helicopter overlooking the city that is covered in the plume and ash from the destruction of the Great Oracle temple Allaco. My uncle turns up the volume.

“War has engulfed the Aidoshian city of Halima,” The news reporter says in a grim voice. “This is the darkest day in all of Aidoshian history. The Oracle temple Allaco was the first target of the raid and none of our Great Oracles are thought to be alive.” She is barely able to talk, her voice trembling. “Let us take this moment to pray for truly difficult days lie ahead…”

She stops talking when she sees a missile zoom towards the helicopter. The pilot tries to dodge but the chopper’s tail is hit. My uncle watches in horrid silence as the helicopter spins out of control, flinging the screaming reporter to her death right before the screen goes black.

“Kai, go upstairs. Get your bag,” my uncle says trying to look as collected as possible. “Then come back down here and sit down. Don’t go to the door or to the windows.” I get up and run up stairs, the darkness once again overtakes me.

I am before my destination, the remains of my uncle’s house and of my uncle. He is reduced to only a skeleton but I do not expect anything less after ten years. I think hard to remember what happened as I step over him and walk into the house. The decrepit remains are an eerie shadow of what it used to be.

I can see my thirteen-year-old self as a ghostly apparition running back down the stairs. Then I hear someone scream outside. My younger self runs to the door and looks outside. Gandole tanks and soldiers are marching through the streets. I can hear the sounds of war overtake the city once again and the Gandole ruthlessly fire at anyone they see. The ghost of my uncle hides behind his car in the driveway trying not to be spotted. My younger self is scared stiff when I watch the Gandole strike down entire families who are trying to run away. My uncle knows it is just a matter of time before the young me is spotted in the door way. So he gets up and run towards me pushing me into the living room. The Gandole shoot him in the head before he could even make it completely inside. I watch my younger self turn around and run out the back door trembling in fear.

I chase after my younger self running out of the house. I follow for three blocks going towards the blaring horns that lead to safety bunkers. I stop at the corner and see the wreckage of what use to be the bunker. The phantom-like image of the street overtakes me and I can see the world as it was back then. People lining up outside the bunker as a military squad rushes them inside. The younger me rubs his eyes and starts walking across the street to the bunker. I’m right beside him. Suddenly the younger me is thrown to the ground by a quake. The soldiers rush to attack positions fearing something coming. The quakes don’t stop becoming more and more violent and often.

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The younger me yells for help and one of the soldiers sees him. He starts to run from his position, but he never makes it. In a flash the bunker explodes in a hellish fire that throws my younger self down the street. Only stopping when I roll into the foot of one of the Myrmidons. It takes a step that nearly crushes the younger me. The Myrmidon takes a step backwards as young me struggles to stand up. This Myrmidon looks different than the one I saw in the capitol. Though it is the same height, it has much more armor and weapons strapped across its body. The Myrmidon lifts up its foot and places it over the young me and plays around like it is going to step on me. As it does, its foot hits young me in the head knocking me to the ground. I start bleeding dangerously from the head and black out and the hallucinations end.

The blow to the head is why I cannot remember any of this until now. I do remember everything from this point. When I wake, war has truly overwhelmed the city, soldiers on both sides are fully deployed and fighting for control. I can barely stand and my vision is blurred because of blood loss. Crowds of people run down the street to escape the war zone; no one stops to help me. As I struggle to make it to my feet after falling several times someone accidentally knees me in the face and keeps running. The next thing I remember is waking up in a Brotherhood sanctuary. Timpuji found me in the street and carried me there while I am comatose. That is the first time I saw Timpuji and where it all begins.

I sit down on the sidewalk and look up at the sky, slowly sliding further back until I am lying down completely. Having this part of my past revealed has not changed my decisions. I’m a Gandole now and that is how it is going to stay.

I don’t have too long to myself, before the Alpha Myrmidon appears hovering above the street. Thrusters in the same shape as the wings of birds extend from its back. This is the Myrmidon Aihl pilots and the only one I know by name; this is the Alpha. I knew he would come after me sooner or later. The Alpha lands with a loud bang and the concrete gives in a little under the weight. The wings fold back as bird wings do and the Myrmidon bows down on one knee. Its chest opens upward revealing Aihl inside. He slowly steps out as wires come out of his back through nodules that follow the metal spine along the back of his suit. He throws off his helmet into the seat of the Myrmidon. He jumps down and starts to walk towards me.

“So this is where you’ve been?” He asks.

“Yep,” I respond. “I had to return to check on some loose ends.”

“Oh, okay. That’s cool,” he says angrily as a blue energy surrounds his entire body.

He suddenly vanishes and reappears over me, the energy flowing from him more violently than before forming into the ghostly appearance of a wolf. The ground beneath his feet starts to become molten red. I jump up and take a step back to not share the same fate.

“But if this happens again, I’ll kill you,” he says. “This Seed Azure Fang can catch even you.”

“You don’t have to worry,” I say. “I had to bury my past.”

“Reaka did the same thing,” he says as the energy stops flowing around him. “Maybe I was wrong about you. You might be the same as her after all.”

“Don’t compare me to her,” I say. “We are not the same.”

“Hmm. You will have to prove that,” he says. “For now we must return to the base.”

“Not yet. There is one more place I have to visit before I can return,” I respond.

“Where?” he asks.

“There,” I say as I point up at the remains of Allaco on Mount Kyro.

“Very well,” he says. “But I will be coming with you.”