“Was that a good idea to discuss those things with Bolten being there?” Lakshman asked inside of his mind while Asura was still in control of his body.
“It’s necessary for the arrangements against him,” replied Asura in a quiet voice with a smile, being on his way to his room after separating from the first prince, “but seeing his reaction was worth it.”
He remembered the expression on the first prince’s face when he revealed that there was an alien among them.
“What?!” Bolten exclaimed in disbelief, jumping off his chair and look down at him. “Are you certain?”
“I’m positive,” replied Asura in a cool voice while the inmates blinked in surprise. “Go speak with Alestor. He knows it too.”
“But then…! Why? Why not reveal that information and get down to investigating?” Bolten asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion as if he believed there was an ulterior motive behind them keeping a closed lid on that information.
“If you want to alert the enemy of our moves, then feel free do just that,” replied Asura in a plain and simple voice, turning to look up at Bolten with a bored look on his face.
The first prince was taken aback by the bored expression on the Solaris Hero’s face before sitting back down. As he calmed down, he came to the realisation that there must be a plan behind him having to keep that information a secret until now. However, he felt confused as to how those two criminals fit into all of this.
Asura turned to them and said with a smile, “I repeat: There is an alien in the capital, but there’s nothing we can do about it because that alien is really powerful. How powerful? I don’t know, but we need to be on guard, and we need some means to bring light to whatever he is doing while disguised as a human. So, I want this information between us only, got it? If you want, share this information with only your trusted colleagues, and by that, I mean people that wouldn’t stupidly share this information with anyone else! Not even to their families, friends, or whoever else they know! Got it?”
The taller masked man nodded quickly in understanding, but the shorter masked man looked puzzled and asked, “I’m confused. Isn’t it proper to inform the Federal Bureau of Hero Investigation?”
“Report that to the government?” The taller man asked his colleague in a voice filled with amusement. “And what makes you think the government will do anything? They care very little about the poor people, let alone do anything about something that’s a vague as this, and that’s only if they even consider us seriously when we even try to report them.”
“Yeah,” replied the shorter man in a glum voice. “They never take us low class people very seriously.”
“Anyway,” said Asura, stopping their conversation and bringing them to focus on him again. “I want you to do the following in whatever order you see fit,” and he began explaining his scheme to expose the alien to the public.
Once his explanation was over, all three people in the room looked shocked at the big scheme that the Solaris Hero was planning. Even Lakshman, who had remained silent while Asura explained, commented in an exasperated voice.
“You know that a lot of lives are at stake here, right? Including the lives of these men.”
That comment made Asura think from the men’s perspectives and smiled as he said, “It’s your choice, and it’s your world to protect, with me being an outsider. You don’t necessarily have to follow what I suggested, but I strongly advise that you do because it’s for the sake of your world since I’m burdened with the role of playing the hero.”
He rose to his feet and turned to Bolten, asking him, “I’m done. You got anything else to add to what I said?”
“Um,” began Bolten, looking confused by him suddenly deciding to leave.
“If you got nothing to add, then let’s go,” stated Asura, not giving the first prince a chance to say anything. He turned to the two men and said, “You may leave now, but you will think over my proposal? I’m sure you will.”
After speaking to them with a confident smile, Asura turned and walked out of the room. Bolten was startled at his sudden departure before jumping to his feet and hurrying after him while calling for him to wait. Behind them, the two men sat there in their beds with a bewildered looks on their faces.
Bolten caught up with Asura a few seconds later and asked, “Okay. You’ve given them roles to play. What about me? Is there anything I can do to assist in exposing the alien?”
To that, Asura stopped and looked at him with a thinking expression before saying, “Bolten, there is one thing you can do.” As the price looked at him eagerly, Asura smiled and said, “Don’t. Do. Anything.”
Bolten blinked twice in rapid succession before looking shocked and exclaiming, “Huh?!”
“You heard me. Now, end of discussion,” replied Asura, turning on his heels and walking away at a brisk pace.
It took a moment for the first prince to snap out of his shock and hurry after him while asking, “Why? Am I useless?”
“No. It’s just that you don’t have any role to play right now,” replied Asura without looking at him, “but you have a critical role to play at the end. When that time comes, I’ll let you know. Now, let’s stop talking about it before someone overhears us.”
To his words, all Bolten could do was eye him with a raised eyebrow of puzzlement, but Asura did not care. He was more worried that his plan might fall apart if it gets overheard, and if by bad luck that person was somehow being controlled by the alien, his scheme will get exposed and then he’s back to square one. That was not something the king from another world would like since he was trying to do something despite feeling the urge in his heart of abandoning this world.
“Man, I don’t even have to do what I’m doing now,” he thought wearily.
“Don’t say that, Asura,” replied Lakshman in an encouraging voice. “It’s our duty as heroes to perform these acts, although, joining hands with a criminal organisation… I don’t know what to think of it.”
His words put a smile on Asura’s face as he replied in his mind, “Put it this way, Lakshman. I’m committing evil to destroy a greater evil. If you want evil to go away, then wishing that negativity is also evil in itself. So, give up the notion of ‘it’s bad to join the bad side’ because you can’t always be in shoes that always fit you.”
“That may be true, but you can choose the size of shoes you can wear.”
“If you have an option,” Asura corrected him, “and I’m going to be brutally honest with you; there is no option in the shoes we have right now because of the situation we’re presently in.”
“Okay. Point taken, but I find it strange how we compare our situation with the sizes of shoes.”
“Because it’s easier to deal with that considering the idiots I’m surrounded by,” replied Asura in an exasperated voice in his mind.
And so, after separating from Bolten at the next corner, Asura continued on walking towards his room, where Natsu, Vikram, and Martin were waiting for him. Apparently, the three men wanted to have him train them for an hour since they had nothing to do for the rest of the day considering the king had ordered them to be on standby in the meantime.
“Sure. That’ll kill time easily,” replied Asura with a smile.
“Hey, I’ll take over now,” said Lakshman inside his mind.
“No way. I’m finally doing something for a change, so leave me be until I feel bored,” replied Asura with his smiling turning into a broad grin.
With that, Lakshman became silent and allowed Asura to control his body, with which he used to train the three other heroes by heading to the training grounds. Natsu was trying to master his ability to nullify all elemental attacks, Vikram was trying to control his speed, and Martin was trying to grasp control over his ability to move solid objects, mainly focusing on items made of metal. Asura was training the three at the same time and, to achieve this, he used Doppler to split himself into three copies of himself.
“You’ve got to concentrate!” He scolded Vikram after seeing the teenager running around aimlessly, struggling really hard to control his speed. “You’re not some bird running around aimlessly in the wild!”
“Dammit! Don’t tell me what I’m thinking!” Vikram replied, who was already conscious of that fact as he came towards Asura and tried stopping, ending up stopping a little too far away from him. “I just don’t seem to be able to get a good grip on it,” he complained, walking over to him with a disgruntled expression on his face.
Asura shook his head and stated, “It’s not completely hopeless because you showed great skill in beating those criminal organisation members. All you’ve got to do is get into your head the distance you’re travelling, at which speed you should run at, and where you want to stop at.”
“Easier said than done,” commented the Sonic Hero wearily. “It just seems so impossible.”
“No. It’s not impossible,” replied the king from another world. “Watch me. I’ll go from here to there,” and he indicated towards the other end of the wall from where he stood.
Vikram nodded in agreement and watched silently as Asura took a stance before vanishing from sight and reappear standing at the wall. The Sonic Hero was surprised by how quick he was, and he was even more amazed that the Solaris Hero used the same speed to get back to him from the wall.
“That’s too fast,” he commented with a laugh. “It's like you’re teleporting.” Then, as if his own words caused him to doubt, he looked suspiciously at the hero and asked, “Are you actually teleporting?”
“Don’t be stupid,” replied Asura curtly, raising an eyebrow in annoyance. “It’s pure leg power that comes with practice of training my movement for years and years.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Vikram, waving his hand casually as if to ward it off. “You’re a king, and had training from birth, while I come a commoner family with my goal being that I wanted to enjoy my life. I thought I got it when I got summoned to this world, but… this is proving to be tougher than nails to learn.”
Asura raised an eyebrow in amusement and said, “Don’t be silly. Even a nail can be bent if we apply enough force to the hammer. Same method here. Keep practicing, do your best, and you’ll eventually succeed.”
Vikram sighed and said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” before resuming his practice.
On another end of the arena, the second copy of Lakshman was training Natsu to focus his mind in making his attacks vanish before they get to him. At first, they started off with Asura launching energy blasts of low power that Natsu was able to easily destroy, and they took the difficulty higher. That was when Natsu began to struggle because he felt nervous at seeing the attack coming and this caused him to feel stress due to his fear holding him back.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Everyone fears when they think they’re about to get injured,” said Asura after noticing his problem, “but you have to accept that, when in battle, injuries are natural, but ignoring the pain and fighting back makes you that much stronger.”
“I know,” agreed Natsu with a nod of his head, “but I just feel really nervous whenever I see the attack coming. I mean, I managed to destroy that destructive wave when the aliens detonated their own ship, but… I don’t seem to be able to handle this level of attacks?”
“If memory serves, I think you first gave up and thought it was hopeless to fight it?” Asura asked, remembering that it was Gram, Maxwell, and William that had stepped in to try and stop the wave while Natsu fell to his knees in resignation to his fate. “I think you gave into the initial fear of dying and surrendered automatically since you thought it was hopeless. It’s all to do with the mind, Natsu. Play mind games with your mind. You’re a lot stronger than you’re letting on.”
Natsu was very surprised by Asura’s words, making him smile softly at him and reply, “Thank you, Lucky. I think I’ll try out what you suggested.”
While Asura smiled at him on the outside, in his mind he thought in an exasperated voice, “That’s fine, but my name’s not Lucky.”
“He doesn’t know that,” replied Lakshman with a laugh.
“Yes, and that’s the frustrating part,” replied Asura severely.
While he was doing that, his third copy was focusing on training Martin to be able to move metallic items using the strange ability he had with the power of his gloves. They started the training off with making Martin to move small objects that Asura summoned, which were spoons, forks, and knives. With enough focus, the Magneo Hero proved that he can move such objects, and from there, Asura continued to summon larger objects from a variety of kitchen utensils to heavy objects such as pipes, rods and cylinders. At this, Martin began to struggle as none of the heavy objects budged from their spot.
Asura watched him working silently for a while and thought, “Well, this one’s self-proficient enough to not complain, nor ask me for any sort of advice.”
Often, Martin would stop trying and stand there looking as if he was thinking deeply about what he should do. Occasionally, he would glance nervously at Asura, only to look away immediately when he realised that he was being watched. This made the Solaris Hero realised that his nervousness was the main cause of him to fail each time when he looked away and tried moving an object successfully.
“Keep your nerves in check,” advised Asura, to which Martin merely nodded without looking at him as he hid the nervous expression he wore at that time. Asura, not knowing this, raised an eyebrow and thought, “Well, this one’s a different kind altogether. I have to wonder just what kind of environment he grew up in to be like this.”
“Give the man some break, Asura,” replied his current-self wearily. “Each and every person has their own circumstances that we don’t have any business in knowing about. So, let’s only focus on what we should be doing and leave their privacy to themselves.”
Asura shrugged and thought, “Fine. It’s not like I cared anyway,” before resuming to observe the Magneo Hero training.
Time went by quickly, and it was Natsu who reminded him of the time because he had been wearing the accessory on his wrist known as a digital watch. It was gifted to all of them in addition to receiving a reward money from the king, but he was the only one who put it on daily.
“I love this watch. It’s cool,” he muttered, which Asura overheard but ignored because it did not matter to him.
All four of them returned to their rooms, where they met up with Ward, Maxwell, and Fred, who complained at being left out of the training. Asura ignored them all, entered his room and closed the door before using the voice command to lock it without even glancing at them.
“You could’ve greeted them,” suggested Lakshman, sounding a little annoyed. “It’s very rude to ignore them like that.”
“Okay,” began Asura in a matter-of-fact tone while sitting down on the bed and massaging his arms, “first of all, they’re strangers to me, and second of all is that I’m really, really tired! Do you have any idea how much pain your body was experiencing yesterday? It’s even a miracle that I managed to fool everyone into thinking I was fine when my muscles were sore as hell!”
“Yeah. Sorry about that,” replied Lakshman sheepishly, “but I also experienced it last night, so we’re even, right?”
Asura snorted and said, “Whatever. I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when it’s night since I need to have dinner and attend a date with my wife.”
“I don’t like how business-like your words are,” commented Lakshman in sad voice, but Asura smiled as he fell on the bed and quickly falling asleep soon after closing his eyes.
He slept undisturbed for several hours before he was woken up with Lakshman repeatedly calling him, “Asura. Wake up. It’s about time before dinner. Come on! Wake up already!”
“Mmm?” Asura sat upright in his bed and let out a huge yawn before looking at the time.
Sure enough, it was past seven in the evening on the wall clock hanging on the wall.
“Good timing,” commented Asura, smiling broadly. “Time to eat!”
He got out of bed, had a bath, and came out to change into a different set of clothes that the people at the castle presented to him since he did not have clothes of his own to wear. After that, he left his room and entered the lunch area in the castle to find the other eight heroes already seated and having their dinner amidst cheerful chatter.
“Lucky!” Vikram called over to him when he saw Asura pause at the entrance, looking around for a space to sit at. “Over here,” and he patted the seat next to him as a gesture of wanting him to sit there.
Asura nodded and walked over to sit next to him before a waitress arrived with a plate and set it in front of him with a light greeting. As soon as she left, he began spooning in the food from the large plates and begun eating them with great gusto. The main reason for this was due to not having the chance to finish eating the food back at the family restaurant that they visited earlier that day.
“Slow down. You might choke,” advised Natsu, looking alarmed at the great speed the Solaris Hero was eating at.
“I’m hungry,” replied Asura simply with a shrug of his shoulders while everyone watched in amazement.
It took him a few minutes to completely fill his stomach with the food there before leaning back in his chair and breathing a sigh contentedly. Then he rose to his feet and departed from there, observed as he left by everyone in the room with surprises on their faces. None of them had ever seen someone eat so much food so quickly and leave so soon since it would normally cause them cramps in their sides.
“He’s a mysterious one,” one of them muttered before everyone returned to eating their food.
Asura hurried along the corridor before arriving at a spot near the courtyard and activating the two magic spells to hides him completely and not be heard by anyone else.
“I think it’s best that you take over from here,” said Asura, and they both instantly switched places.
“Okay, but why so soon?” Lakshman asked out of curiosity.
“I… don’t know how to behave with my wives,” admitted Asura weakly, remembering in the past how distant he was with them, the only time he was ever close to them was after conquering the world and starting focusing on his family. “You had more experience, so it’s better you take over.”
“Yeah. Okay,” replied Lakshman, understanding the sadness that Asura felt from the loss he experienced in the past.
He checked his surroundings to make sure he was the only one there before he walked out onto the courtyard and looked up at the tower of the castle to see Raze standing near the window looking up at the sky.
“Raze!” Lakshman called but them he remembered she could not hear him because of his spell. So, he flew into the air and soared up to where she was and deactivated his magic that was hiding him and greeted her, “Hello, Raze!”
“Woah!” She exclaimed, startled to see the Solaris Hero hovering in front of her as he seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Lucky! You surprised me!”
“Sorry about that,” he replied while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, “but I forgot to deactivate my hide magic, making it seem like I came out of nowhere.”
“Oh…! You have such a convenient spell…!” She remarked, sounding amazed. As he smiled at her, she looked up at him with the mask covering her face and asked, “Will you take me to flying around like yesterday?”
“Of course!” Lakshman said cheerfully. He extended his hand out and asked her, “Take my hand.” Once she did as she was told, he grinned and said, “Hold on,” before activating his magic to levitate her with him and then soar smoothly into the air.
“Woah…!” Raze said slowly, sounding as if she was enjoying the feel of flying through the air with him. “I wish I could fly like this with my own power someday.”
“I’m sure you will,” he replied, remembering how capable she later became in his home world, “but it takes a lot of practice.”
“No worries!” She replied instantly, her voice filled with fighting spirit while her expression was hidden by her mask. “I didn’t master using Blaze Cannon in a single day! It took me nearly a year to master it.”
Lakshman was surprised to hear that, making him ask her, “A year? Why did it take so long?”
“Well…” she began and hesitated for a brief moment. “I didn’t really have much of an ability, and my teachers were critical with me, so I ended up taking a lot longer than most people to master it.”
Lakshman raised an eyebrow and wondered, “That’s strange. Back in my world, you graduated from Astral Academy with top scores, although Emilia graduated with the highest scores one can achieve in that difficult place. So, how come it took you so long to learn that single spell? Maybe… they did it on purpose?”
Due to this, he asked her, “In what manner of way did your teachers train you, Raze?”
He was not sure why she was silent, but he assumed she was thinking about it because she soon replied with, “They gave me lots of books to study, and then told me to try visualising what I wanted it to happen, and then started training me to use magic using my M.E.D. In between all of them, I had many teachers switch in and out due to them losing interest in me. I mean, there was a time when I thought I was making great progress, but the teacher switched out and another teacher came in to tell me it was wrong, and I had to do it over again from the start. What’s wrong, Lucky?”
She asked him the last question after looking at him, to find that he looked thoroughly shocked by what she said. He could not believe how the people with high authority had purposefully misguided her. It made him feel very angry towards people that hurt his wife, and he did not care whether whatever reason they had, hurting his wife was a justifiable cause to imprison them for the rest of their lives.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?” She asked him again, reaching out and touching his forehead with her free arm.
The Solaris Hero smiled at her innocence and stated, “It’s okay. I was just thinking why there are no animals in this world. Did they die out?”
She nodded and explained, “Yes. Apparently, due to much of the world’s diminishing food supply, the animals died out of starvation, and I think the carnivores were hunted down because of how dangerous they were to humans.”
“Sheesh. That’s one hell of a predicament to face,” he commented, looking bewildered. Suddenly, he had a thought and it made him smile brightly as he turned and asked her, “Are you interested in meeting magical creatures?”
“You mean like the ones in your home world?” She asked him, sounding surprised and a little eager.
“Great. In that case, I’ll let you meet two of them!” He said to her, and then thought to himself, “If the magic works, that is.”
“Really?” She asked, sounding amazed. “You mean… we can go to your world… right now…?!”
Raze was feeling very excited about it, but she felt a little down when he shook his head and replied, “No. I don’t believe that’s possible. What I’m going to do is use a summoning magic to bring forth my familiars to this world.”
“Familiars?” She asked, unfamiliar with the word. “Are they, like, animals?” When he nodded, she seemed to become excited as she made a guess by stating, “Oh! So, they’re like your pets!”
“Uh…!” He began hesitantly, looking a little astounded by her choice of words. “No. I’d like to think of them as friends.”
“Oh…!” She said, quickly realising that he had a deeper bond with them than she had imagined. “I’m sorry to call them your pets. I didn’t know.”
“It’s fine,” he said, starting to feel excited at the prospect of seeing the reaction of his familiars when they get summoned from this world. “They’re big, large, really powerful, and have an air of majesty about them!”
“Awesome! I can’t wait to meet your familiar friends!” She replied excitedly.
Thus, they descended after a few minutes of flying, and Raze stepped away to a spot indicated by him to stand at. He did it as he was concerned for her safety, knowing that both of his familiars have large body sizes that could harm her if they got summoned in the wrong position that would cause either their wings, tails, or heads to injure her. After making sure she was in the designated spot, he immediately cast the magic to soundproof the courtyard and make them invisible to the naked eye.
“Alright,” he muttered, thinking about it. “I hope it works,” and he placed his hands on the ground before saying, “Familiar Summoning!”
In an instant, two magic circles formed in front of him before a dazzling light occurred that caused them to cover their eyes. A moment later, the light died down to reveal Phylex and Draga standing there with their head bowed to him.
“We came as you requested, master,” the two of them spoke telepathically to him at the same time.
Lakshman, who should have been feeling happy to see them, was instead looking alarmed by the sight of the two of them. It was not their presence that caused him to feel shocked but the body sizes of his familiars. For some unknown reason, he managed to summon both of his familiars in their small forms.