[ In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself, that is the true meaning of inner strength..]

Boom. Boom.

In a large room, a boy who looked to be 10 years of age was sleeping soundly when his door was abruptly opened and a young woman walked quickly to his bed and shook him.

"Hiro, Hiro wake up."

I heard my mother calling my name, I opened my eyes to see her shaking me telling me to wake up. I groggily got up from bed, my mother looked at me calmly and told me to hurry up and get dressed, I nodded tiredly still looking sleepy.

Boom..

I heard the explosion clearly this time realizing that all the explosions I saw while in my dream, while I was sleeping weren't from my dream or a figment of my imagination but from outside my house.

Another explosion sounded followed by screams of agony and pain, I cringed when I heard that.

"Hiro, look at me."

My mother told me, I looked at her with my body shaking in fear, I struggled to raise my head to look at my mother when all I wanted to do was hide, hide, hide.

My mother held on to me and I looked at her eyes, she looked at me with those calm blue eyes situated on her green face. she hugged me and told me.

"Be calm Hiro, what have I always told you."

I remembered what she had told me time and time again when I get scared.

'Rather than loose my rationality to things I cannot control, I should stay calm and gather more information about my current situation'.

I stilled myself and nodded, she smiled at me and said.

"The city is been attacked."

She stood up and went to the window and looked outside, my room was on the first floor of our two story house, we lived outside of the city in what you'd call a small village, I couldn't see what she saw, but she turned around quickly after letting the blinds down and said.

"It's the Stropers, we have to leave now."

When she mentioned Stropers, My mind went blank, the last time they came, they tried taking my mother away from me but my father fought with them and told us to run that he'll be right behind us, we ran and hid in a shelter but my father never came.

That was four years ago, and I've grown a lot since then. My mother had never gotten over the loss of my father, but she stilled herself and got stronger, she trained herself everyday and sometimes passed out after expending her body energy too much.

"We are going to the shelter."

My mother said. which snapped me out of my thoughts. She told me to pack up, I carried my small dagger, my holowatch, my backpack and a few supplies, the first time we were in the shelter, there wasn't much food, My mother and I had to share the rations we were given.

I went out of my room and walked downstairs to the living room where my mother was waiting for me, I sometimes wonder how she could be so calm in situations like this.

She was dressed in black armor that covered her upper body, she had a plasma rifle on her back and a plasma gun strapped to her right thigh, a long sleek black dagger was on her left leg. she looked at me while walking to the door and mouthed.

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"Calm down."

She walked to the door and opened it. The smell of burnt flesh and death assaulted my nose, This is different, I don't think it's the Stropers. I put my hand over my mouth to prevent myself from throwing up. I did throw up on the ground after stepping outside and seeing blood and the scattered body parts of some people. I looked at my mother who always stayed calm in every situation and I noticed a hint of fear on her face but she quickly looked at me with her calm blue eyes and said.

"Let's go."

We started moving, towards the direction the city where the shelter was, my mother held on to her plasma gun and kept it lowered to her side, we walked quickly passing through more destroyed buildings, we saw people screaming running in different directions, some were crying for help, I cringed and moved closer to my mother, all I wanted to do at that moment was close my eyes and my ears. But I couldn't, I had to keep going.

After walking for a while, I heard the sounds of weapons been fired, my mother held on to my hand tightly, I looked at her.

"We're going to have to find another way, The soldiers in the city are fighting with the Stropers."

I nodded and my mother pulled me in another direction, she was walking fast but she abruptly stopped after we turned a corner.

I saw what made her stop, it was a Stroper, it was standing in front of us, a few feet away from a collapsed building, we were in it's blind side but that wouldn't last for long if it moved.

My mother told me to wait, she bent down and took the dagger in her boot, and started walking to the Stroper as quietly as she could, she picked up a stone and threw in in another direction when she was close enough, the Stroper turned to look and she moved quickly behind it's back and sliced it's throat. She picked up the plasma gun and quickly turned around after hearing a sound and shot at another Stroper who tried to shoot at her.

She ran back to where I was and gestured to me to follow, I did and we continued moving maneuvering so we would avoid anymore Stropers.

We almost got seen by some Stroper when we got close to the shelter, but my mother realized that it was dead, it was leaning on a wall. This was the first time I saw a Stroper up close. The Stroper was a 6 feet tall life-forms, not that tall if you ask me, but they are very ugly, They have bat like faces with deep black eyes and large ears, they stand on two web like feet with three fingers on both hands.

My mother and I went past the Stroper to the shelter, it was a large domed building with meta shields my mother told me it was built by some life forms as a base but they left after staying for a short time and gave the dome to us to use as we please, when we got close my mother was scanned by the panel on the dome, only people from my race are allowed in the shelter. We went inside the shelter and saw a lot of people inside, some people were crying and others were just standing around staring into the distance.

I followed my mother to a corner where we sat down and she pulled me close to her, ruffled my hair and said.

"We'll be okay." I nodded.

....

In a spaceship high above a planet, the spaceship was just outside the orbit of this planet. Two men sat facing each other, The man on the right had white hair with a white beard on his young face, he had a handsome face, with sharp black eyes, while the man on the left had black hair and a black beard on his face that looked identical to the man sitting opposite him but with white eyes. the hover table between them, there was a chessboard with chess pieces on it, The man on the left looked at the one on the right.

"Your move brother."

The white haired man looked at the black haired man. He moved a piece which looked like a mecha forward blocking the movement of the black haired man's piece.

"Trying to capture my piece with just that."

He moved his piece to the other end of the board far away from the white haired man's piece.

The white haired man smiled and moved one of his piece which looked like a woman holding weapons from one end of the board to the end of the board and said.

"I win."

The black haired man looked at him with scrunched up brows.

"You cheated." He said with a smile.

"Hah. Maybe I did, Maybe I didn't."

They both looked down at the planet below with both eyes shining and said at the same time.

"Let the Games begin."

....

Eto woke up after hearing some sounds downstairs, he got up groggily and walked to the end of the hall, he got on the elevator and went down stairs, he saw Anna playing with a white cat, she was throwing M&M's in the air and it jumped and swallowed them. The cat looked at him with a condescending look before his sister saw him, she smiled at him and said.

"Hey Eto, guess what."

"Uh, you finally got a boyfriend."

She threw the M&M's in her hand at him and Eto raised his hand to catch some while shielding his face from the rest, he look at her with a smile on his face then put the M&M in his mouth and started chewing.

"No you douche, I found a kirin."

"Where." He asked with a skeptical look on his face. She pointed at the cat on the table. He looked at the cat on the table and said.

"Are you sure that's a kirin."

Anna looked at the kirin and nodded.

"The cat shook it's body and two tails appeared on it's back side, The eyes changed to a rainbow like color and the color of the kirin changed to black.