In the dark forest, Penelope had her sword out ready to fight against the gang members. In the tree house, Kathleen and Bastructour were observing the fight Penelope was about to engage in. Kathleen looked on worried for her friend.
Kathleen: “Please Penelope, be careful…”
Bastructour looked on with amusement as if not taking Penelope’s abilities seriously.
One of them moved in with a bat causing Penelope to back away immediately. She was able to turn around to block a hammer by another gang member. Using her blade, she slashed a few gang members back. Some were injured but not to the point where they would be unable to fight. Instead of expressing fear on their faces, they were smiling evilly as if amused by Penelope.
Penelope: “Still find this funny? You won’t be laughing once you are on the ground…”
The gang members started to charge to her with their weapons. Penelope was able to use her weapon to block many bats and weapons by the gang members. She soon changed her weapon to an arrow. By bringing out a bow made of energy, she started to fire at each gang member. Her arrow shots seem to damage them a little bit but not too severely.
Penelope expressed a look of frustration as the laughing gang members slowly came closer to her. Despite her attacks, the gang members appeared to push off the attacks just to get near her. She had to summon back her sword form just in time to counter the gang’s attacks. Through her blocking the attacks of each gang member, her weapon began to crack. Once her blade shattered, she was left vulnerable without a weapon. From that moment, one of the gang members pushed her to the ground.
She quickly got up for one of them to jab her in the gut with a bat. Another one hits her on the back with a wooden stick. She immediately went to her knees leading to them beating her down. Through her beatings, she tried to fight back but the numbers game overwhelmed her. She was helpless as they took turns beating her up.
They then picked her up to restrain her in a standing position. Penelope struggled to move while seeing them with evil grins. She looked directly at one of them to spit to his face. The gang members went from evil smiles to angry expressions.
The same female with the bat once again jabbed her in the stomach. Another one smashed a 2 by 4 to her back forcing her to the ground. They started to collectively beat her down with punches, kicks and weapons.
Once Penelope could no longer fight, the gang members looked at her with dirty smiles.
Gang Member 47: “She isn’t tough!! She’s weak!!”
The cheering mob made Penelope react in anger. Given her injuries, it was hard for her to stand up and fight them. Even if she had the physical resources to fight, she realized that she was outmatched.
One of the gang members emerged out to Penelope's sights. With a dark grin on his face, he was carrying a metal shovel in his hand. He had the intention of cracking her head open with it.
Penelope lay on the ground with great anger. Even when she faced death coming, she wasn’t afraid. Instead, she was upset that she wasn’t strong enough to hold the gang members off. A look from her face showed the refusal to give up. She was like a warrior who refused to admit defeat.
Back in the tree house, Bastructour was sipping on her tea observing Penelope in a helpless position. She appeared uninterested by the sight of it. Kathleen was crying out tears forcing to see her friend getting beaten up. She looked at Bastructour with a look of trying to plead with her. She then looked to Penelope thinking to herself.
Kathleen: “Penelope… Please don’t get back up… Please don’t fight back…”
Bastructour: “Really...? That’s all you have? Such garbage... Finish her off...”
Kathleen: “Wait!! Don’t kill her!! The crimes you are committing to could lead to your fall too. Let’s me help you to show you that peace can be a solution. It might be a solution to stop the False Awakeners too. If we work together, we could stop them.”
Bastructour looked at Kathleen with disgust.
Bastructour: “How stupid!! You are too goody and sweet for my tastes… And I hate anything that is cute and lovely dovely… We will fix that soon enough… Finish her off… Now!!”
The gang member with the shove was about to go in for the final attack. Kathleen looked on with sadness in her eyes but felt powerless to do anything. She covered her face with her hands crying. Penelope was on the ground angry and wanting to do something to end the situation.
Penelope: “I need to awaken my powers!! I need them awakened now!!”
As soon as Penelope opened her eyes, she saw the blue sky above her. She went into sitting position to learn that all of her injures were gone. What was weird for her was that the Gang Members, Bastructour and the corrupt forest were also gone. Replacing them was a forest of wildlife and diversity. The vibe and appearance of it was the opposite of the forest she was recently in.
Penelope: “I remember... This was one of those images the Lady of the Light showed me... Maybe this is where I’ll gain the strength to crush those monsters...”
Penelope noticed a flash of light to her sights. When she turned around, she noticed it was the Lady of the Light.
Lady of Light: “I welcome you back on the World of Transcendence Penelope.”
Penelope: “Lady of the Light. I’m glad that you’re here… I am facing a big problem…”
Lady of Light: “I understand. You were in a dark forest fighting against Bastructour’s Minions. You showed great perseverance in the face of adversity. By experiencing what the Forest of Wildlife could offer you, you will have the ability to overcome your trials there and to rescue your friend.”
Penelope: “Let’s hope so. By the way, this place is far better than that forest I just woke up from…”
Lady of Light: “I will see you again once you have received what the forest here has to offer you.”
The Lady of the Light disappeared leaving Penelope alone. Penelope started her journey deeper in the forest. There, she saw in one location countless forms of plant life. There were red flowers with needles inside their petals. Yellow flowers with very moist leaves were on some bushes. There were also plants that could camouflage themselves to match the appearance of their environment. In their original color, they were blue-purplish. Together, they collectively express landscaping beauty.
When she observed the trees in another location, three tree species stood out to her.
One species of trees were spherical in shape with leaves around them. Their barks were hidden from the leaves. They looked like 10 feet high bushes.
Another type of tree species had snake-like leaves that started from the top to the ground.
Another tree species further out looked like it had been inverted. The leaves were made of tree bark and the tree bark was made of leaves.
On some parts of her journey, she ended up in a place where countless animals dwell. She saw alien-looking animals emerging out from the bushes and trees. Some were similar to looks to the squirrel species but the rest couldn’t be described. The difference was that they were of a variety of hair colors. With them, she noticed three other species that looked alien to her.
There was a cubic rat-looking animal that had a tail and an eye on each side of its body. Looking at it made it seem like it was an alien spider of some kind. It rubbed on the ground to move.
A spherical being that had many dog faces on random areas of its body. Each dog face expressed a different emotion or personality of the animal. Moving like a ball, it rolled all the way into the bushes.
The last type of species was a being that strike her as the most alien. Its body appeared as two triangular prisms’ tips fused together to form an ‘X’ prism. Eyes were on the top prism and the mouth was on the bottom prism. It bounced from top to bottom to move.
Penelope looked at the species with a smile.
As she could continue her journey, she started to see her whole environment starting to glow. It was radiating out unique colors. Everything from the trees to the animals roaming about was glowing in their own colors.
When Penelope looked carefully at the glowing environment around her, she saw humanoids emerging out from that environment and out from every living thing. In the process; the animals, trees, and plants disappeared from her sight. There was only white space all around her with the countless humanoid beings roaming about. The sight almost overwhelmed her.
The humanoids stood as a collective force of light. From them, she could feel purity and love. It was like she was seeing the spirits of the animals, plant-life and the environment in humanoid form. Her eyes showed that she just remembered something.
Penelope: “I got it... So that’s how my powers work... Finally, something to teach those monsters a lesson.”
The Lady of the Light reappeared to Penelope’s sights.
Lady of Light: “Well done Penelope. You now have the power to summon forces from your environment. They would embody energy and light. You also have the ability to rely on your forces’ strength.”
Penelope: “Thanks. With these powers, I can finally stop what the Impure Order is doing in that forest. I can finally save Kathleen from that creep.”
Penelope awakened from her vision experience to see many gang members looking at her with evil laughs. The man with the shove had it up in the air. He was ready to smash her head with it.
Penelope: She appeared serious. “Round two...”
The man with the shovel was about to smash her head until she immediately summoned her weapon. She emitted an energy pulse to push the man into the mob. A few gang members fell back as a result. Fear gradually replaced the confidence the gang members had before. She got up to her feet to stare at them in the eyes seriously.
Penelope: “You are all lunch meat...”
Penelope raised her weapon to the air to flash an orange flash of light. Afterwards, things around her started to glow in orange color. Out from dark environment, spirit beings started to emerge. The spirit beings came from the trees to the grass. They soon formed into humanoid beings radiating orange light. It was like they were spirits in physical form. They went near Penelope's side as a group of warriors.
Kathleen looked at Penelope’s army with a sense of curiosity.
Kathleen: “Where did those beings come from? Could this be Penelope’s power?”
The Gang Members looked at Penelope’s army with a look of anger and fear. Some were holding their weapons firmly. Most were standing in one spot refusing to run away. Penelope looked at her army then pointed her weapon towards one side of the mob. The humanoids smiled with her for a moment before moving towards the gang members.
The gang members took their attention away from Penelope and to her spirit army. They were firing shots and using their weapons to attack. No matter how much effort they gave, it didn’t affect Penelope’s army.
Penelope’s spirit army slashed each gang member into defeat. With each slash, a gang member bursts in dark smoke. Within a few minutes, all of the gang members were defeated. A look of happiness was on her face. Her spirit army turned their attention to Penelope. They expressed a smile before disappearing into light.
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As she could express more happiness, Bastructour’s laughter instantly changed her mood. With anger, she looked at Bastructour dead in the eye with teeth showing.
Bastructour: “You have awakened your powers... So, what? Don’t think that will save you... I still have a lot more stages for you... To let you know, they are far worse than what you faced here...”
Kathleen: “Why…? Why enjoy seeing people in pain…? Do you care about your own troops?”
Bastructour: “If they are weak, they are garbage…”
Kathleen looked down to the ground depressed.
She, her servant and Kathleen faded into nothingness leaving the tree house behind. Penelope waved her fists in the air for a moment to show how angry she was. She then noticed something shining to her right. When she turned to her right, she discovered a portal that was suspiciously there. It was in the form of a thin circular energy disk. Through it, she saw another environment that appeared like a barren land of some kind.
Penelope: “She is baiting me into this portal... I don’t care what she gives me; I’ll beat her in her own game...”
Penelope looked at the portal thinking of her decision of whether or not to use it. Eventually, she decided to venture inside it. On the other side, she ended up in the middle of nowhere. There were no cities for miles. The only thing she saw was a few small bushes. With them was the feeling of the burning hot sun to her body. The portal that led her to the barren environment was nowhere to be found.
Penelope: “Where did that Lieutenant take me?”
She looked around some more until she saw something moving in the sky slowly. When she focused her sights on it, she discovered it was a small plane. Anger was shown on Penelope’s face when she noticed Bastructour relaxing on a chair inside the see-through plane. She was drinking a cold tea with a lime on top the glass. Near her, was Kathleen expressing concern and sadness.
Bastructour: “Welcome to your second stage... The Unforgivable Landscape... This is all about survival... Ha... To make things more interesting, I will prevent you from using your powers...”
Penelope: “You might be relaxing and happy now but just wait once I get you!”
Bastructour: “Ha... Empty threats... I’ll let this harsh unforgivable landscape take care of you. If you could survive long enough then you could end up in the next stage...”
Penelope: “No sweat! I could easily handle this test!!”
Kathleen looked on with the look of hope that Penelope would pull through for her. The blimp carrying Bastructour and Kathleen disappeared leaving an angered Penelope alone. With Bastructour gone, Penelope focused on the situation she was now facing.
As she could act, she instantly collapsed to the ground on her knees. She held her stomach out of discomfort and slowly shook her head out of feeling dizzy. Intense hunger and thirst then came to her attention.
The hunger was so intense that she was compelled to eat even the sand on the ground. She was holding her stomach while moving back and forth. Stomach pains made it difficult for her to run or walk quickly. It was like she hadn't eaten for weeks.
With the hunger, the thirst was unbearable to her. She felt the sensation of her mouth being dry. Her whole entire body ached for water. She placed her head to the ground trying to wrestle through her body’s needs. Exhaustion took hold of her that moving her body soon took a lot of effort to do.
Penelope: “What... What happened to me...? This feeling is... terrible...”
Penelope reflected back in one of Dream Club Meetings she was in. She recalled back when the Awakening Books could offer them assistance. With the energy she had left, she struggled to get onto her knees. From that position, she summoned out her Awakening Book.
Penelope: “A... Awk... Awakening Book... I... I need help... T... That creep Lieutenant sent me... to this place... I feel... so hungry... thirsty... and exhausted... Is there a way to survive... in this place...?”
Her Awakening Book emitted out a pulse of energy. Such energy consumed a surface area of 100 km. Afterwards, her Awakening Book responded back.
Awakening Book: “I detect clean water under bushes around here you could use to satisfy your thirst. As for your hunger, you could eat ants of the right species... For shelter, I may suggest that you dig a cave. Good luck Penelope. Remain strong and surely, you'll survive...”
Penelope: “My book is right... I'm not going to allow that creep to beat me so easily...”
Penelope slowly got to her feet then started to walk. Enduring the demands of her body, she began her days of living on the barren landscape. She tried to use her powers but she couldn’t. All she could summon was her book and weapons from her book.
On cold nights, she had to sleep on the cold ground shivering since digging a cave took too much out of her. To keep warm, she had to do some simple exercises. She also had to keep alert of any wild animals in the area. Constantly looking out for threats was what made it difficult for her to have a peaceful sleep.
In the mornings, she collected ants that covered her body. She checks them before eating them raw. Despite they tasted bitter, she didn’t care since she needed them for her survival.
She searched for bushes as a water source by pulling them out to drink the roots. Another way she could have found water was to dig the ground. She wasn't going to try that since she knew better than to exert herself in her condition.
Despite having so many food and water resources for her body to consume, she still felt hungry and thirsty. To constantly be in that state where she couldn't satisfy them was unbearable to her. She looked with a sense of not wanting to give up.
Her constant hunger and thirst persisted for weeks. She was highly reliant on eating ants and drinking out of bushes. Unfortunately, the number of ants was becoming scarce and the bushes were getting harder to find. Penelope expressed concern but controlled her desperation.
Over the course of two more weeks, she was physically getting weaker. She was exhausted due to the burning heat and days where she couldn't sleep. No matter where she went, the area around her was the same like everywhere else. She was at the point of dying of hunger and thirst. Going down to her knees, she was in a state of helplessness.
Penelope: “Damn it!!! Why am I so hungry and thirsty all the time?!? Damn that Lieutenant for doing this to me!!! Where is that portal!?! How long must I endure this for!?!”
She pounded her fists to the ground expressing great desperation and anger. When she turned her attention in front of her, she saw with relief another portal. It showed a dark pathway that led to a white light. She had to muscle her full willpower to crawl her body into the portal. Once inside the portal, the environment around her was pitched dark.
The light she saw earlier was really another portal. It was 50 feet from her. A pathway made of blue light led her to it.
The hunger, thirst and exhaustion she suffered were gone. She was able to get to her feet to shake herself off. To her right in the darkness, she saw two lights moving around in a circle. In between them was Bastructour who was observing her while laughing. She appeared to be sitting in a mini office with a female troop massaging her shoulders. Kathleen was with her who was by herself sobbing. It appeared that she was going through internal pain.
Penelope expressed so much anger that she almost couldn’t contain herself.
Bastructour: “Remarkable... Any typical human won’t last long in such conditions you’ve experienced... Your task now is to make it to this portal... That’s all...” She gave off an evil grin.
Penelope: “I had enough of your stupid trials!!! I’m done with your dumb games!!”
Bastructour: She went to anger. “You don’t get to decide that now! You are my prisoner! Be glad that didn’t finish you off when you were weak and helpless!”
Telling from Penelope’s body language, she wanted to fight Bastructour. Penelope had to control her strong urge to start a fight against her as long as Kathleen was held as a hostage.
Penelope: She slowly expressed a grin. “Fine!! Have it your way!! What doesn’t destroy me only makes me stronger!! You’ll regret pushing me like this!!”
Kathleen started to speak to warn Penelope.
Kathleen: “Penelope, be careful please… I can’t bear the sight of seeing you suffer like this…”
Penelope: “Don’t worry Kathleen, I am much tougher than her dumb games. I promise that I will save you from this monster…”
Bastructour gave off a huge laugh for a moment.
Bastructour: “I’ll meet you in the next stage... If you could make it there... Kathleen’s fate now is decided by what you will do…”
Bastructour continued laughing as her, Kathleen and Bastructour’s servant left Penelope’s sight.
Penelope: With anger on her face. “That lieutenant is going to pay for using my friend as a hostage!!”
As Penelope was about to walk to the portal, she heard a thunderstorm. She looked around to wonder where the source of the sound was coming from. The place around her was so dark; she couldn’t perceive anything far out in the darkness.
Soon, she felt small drops of liquid touching her skin. She ended up slapping her skin quickly as if she was being hit by mosquitoes. The small drops became a full-on rain shower. Frequent loud cracks of thunder occurred with frequent lightning.
Penelope moved around in agony. The rain that was touching her skin was similar to touching acid. She heard the sound of acid burning the pathway. It was slowly being corroded by the storm.
She immediately covered herself with a few dome energy shields. With the shields protecting her, she was able to recover herself but only for a moment. A lightning bolt zapped her shields to shatter them at the same time. In the process, the lightning bolt electrocuted her. The force of the lightning bolt made her fly a bit before landing to the ground. In a state of agony, she once again summoned her shields.
The difference was that now she had to move unpredictably and quickly. The reason was because she had to avoid lightning strikes that seem to target her.
She ran as quickly as she could to the portal but at some point, she couldn’t find it. The visibility by the storm was so low that she couldn’t see beyond her shields. It made it difficult for her to make out her surroundings.
She kept moving around trying to figure out what to do. Soon, she heard a faint sound of wind moving around. The sound of a breeze gradually became a sound of a tornado. Penelope looked around the best she could but couldn't detect the threat. She tried summoning ten members of her army to aid her. That proved difficult due to the rain storm easily overpowering her army. The army exposed to the rain burst into orange light before quickly fading away.
Suddenly, she felt her body being moved to a direction. Then she started to spiral around in a circle. She felt the sensation of being pushed upwards into the sky.
As she rises upwards, the acid rain storm gradually disappeared. She was able to perceive her environment now. What she discovered was that she was inside of a type of tornado. It had the width of an average sized house and the length of a 100 feet building. All she saw were debris flying around and quickly moving grey clouds. Debris in the form of sharp metals were cutting everywhere on her shields. One of her shields shattered in the process.
Without any choice, Penelope expanded her shields to push herself out of the tornado. Her strategy worked when she saw herself out from the tornado. She started to move downwards in the sky. When she looked beneath where she was falling to, she noticed with concern that she was falling to a sea of lava.
She immediately summoned a bird spirit of orange energy from the wind. The bird flew underneath her to stop her fall. It carried her up to the sky at a given altitude. From there, she saw a landscape filled with lava with grey-looking clouds above. It was far different than the dark environment she was recently in.
As she flew around, she had to avoid lava eruptions. Suspiciously, they were emerging to locations where she was going to be. Unexpectedly, she saw a mountain of lava emerge from nowhere. It moved around her to form lava walls. She had a look of shock on her face.
Penelope immediately influenced her bird to fly up fast enough before the lava walls slammed into each other. At a given height, she expressed relief for a moment until she expressed excitement. In front of her was another portal at a location where the lava couldn’t reach. That portal was on a sharp rocky terrain as if that terrain was once lava. Inside that portal, she saw lots of trees similar to those found on Earth.
Penelope: “Finally I’ve found that portal... I...”
She stopped her thinking to stare at the sky with shock. What she was seeing was a huge asteroid falling to her position. It was quarter the size of Mars.
She looked down at the portal. With no time to waste, she quickly moved as fast as she could to that portal. Soon, that asteroid slammed into the lava. It caused an explosion of fiery red light to move outwards faster than the speed of sound. Lava and the clouds were being moved back from its force.
Penelope went into the portal before the entire environment was consumed in a fiery explosion.
In a forest filled with trees, she moved out of the portal flying without the bird with her. She eventually slammed on a tree before falling to the ground. When she got up to dust herself off, she reflected on her situation.
Penelope: “That was horrible... She will pay for putting me through that...”
Penelope looked up through the trees to become aware of a strange sight. She saw a moon in the calm skies but it was blue instead of grey. When she looked carefully at it, she realized with surprise that it was really Planet Earth.
Penelope: “That's planet Earth over there... That means I’m on the Moon... This moon is very different from the moon in the physical existence… There is life here…”
Soon, a hologram of Bastructour's face formed right in front of Penelope. Penelope turned her sights from the Earth to Bastructour. Looking at Bastructour made Penelope react by getting into a fighting position. As she looked around the environment, she saw no traces of Kathleen.
Penelope: “You monster!! Where’s Kathleen!?!”
Bastructour: “She wasn’t of any use to me… I sent her someplace where she will be taken care of…”
Penelope: “You better not hurt her!!”
Bastructour: “Or what? You are too weak to do anything!! What you endured in that last stage was child’s play… It was only a fraction of what the Impure Members had to endure here!! The Battle Forest provides my Impure Members the places where they could train their abilities in!!! You are nothing compared to them!!”
Penelope: “Let’s see about that!! I took care of your gang members so I can handle the Impure Members!!”
Bastructour: “Arrogant as usual…It is time for you to experience what the people on Earth would one day experience… You will get the chance to experience the great potential my army possesses... To give you a greater incentive to commit to this level, if you fail to stop my army in time, the physical world will be doomed…”
Penelope: “Leave the physical world out of this!! This is all about you and me!!”
Bastructour: “Not anymore... For years, my army worked their butts off in that forest to strengthen their potentials for this purpose... I want to see if you could manage against them as a one-girl army... If you manage against them, maybe you could save the citizens of Earth...”
Penelope: “Curse You!”
Bastructour: “Good... Use that anger to crush my army. You are now responsible for the Earth’s citizens’ fate now... Ha...”
The Bastructour hologram laughed evilly that Penelope couldn’t stand her anymore. She reacted by using her arrows to blast the Bastructour hologram into pieces. Soon, she started to hear the footsteps of many people. To a distance through the forest, she saw Bastructour's army marching to Penelope's position. They were of the hundreds.
Looking at them, they were grey humanoid creatures with spikes all over their bodies. The type of facial expressions they gave off was scary and intimidating. Just staring them in the eyes would have given fear to anyone. With the look on her face, it showed she wasn't afraid of them. She went to a fighting position ready to engage against them.
Penelope: “Let’s do this...”