“That was a great miscalculation,” the alien thought to himself, who was in his room and seated on the chair.
He was thinking back to the events that transpired in the throne room between the Solaris Hero and the Royal Guards. Lakshman had allowed himself to get cuffed by them and came to the throne room filled with many people, from ministers to leaders with great authority in different fields. The alien’s plan was to humiliate the hero in front of everyone by labelling him as a threat and having then arrest him quietly.
The reason he had come to that conclusion was because he understood that the hero had strong principles and a strong sense of justice. Despite him being not guilty of anything, other than summoning monsters from another world, the alien was sure the hero’s strong sense of justice would not allow him to bring harm to those around him.
“But he defied all logic,” the alien thought, narrowing his eyes and looking annoyed as he recalled what had happened.
The hero had suddenly become aggressive, laughing and telling them they are wasting their time on him. Then he immediately knocked out the people surrounding him, including the commander of the League of Heroes. From there, it escalated to the point that everyone had to evacuate from the throne room as the hero engaged in battle against the Royal Guards.
“I thought he would accept their judgement and allow himself to get arrested,” he thought again, thinking back to what happened afterwards. “Clearly, I underestimated him.”
The hero had defeated all of the Royal Guards, and he did it without the help of his Hero Weapon, which he had stabbed into the ground before the fight broke out. After that, he proceeded to threaten the king and give the alien an arrogant look before flying out of there.
“Damn him!” The alien exclaimed, raising his clenched fist and punching his leg in anger as he remembered the events.
He was glad that he was able to get rid of the one problem that was blocking him from fully carrying out his plan in putting everyone at the castle under his mind control. At the same time, however, he was unsure whether he succeeded or not because of the manner in which his enemy had made his escape. It looked as if I won the battle, but lost the war.
Since then, he had shut himself in his room and avoided making contact with anyone as he was too furious to keep a cool head. After all, he felt his plan had backfired with the way the enemy had mocked him before making his exit.
“When I see him next time,” he muttered to himself and raised his clenched fist, which he exerted more strength into, “I’ll… I’ll…”
He did not know of the right word to describe what he wanted to do to his enemy. Torture the life out of him, put him through as much misery as possible, and finally, rip him limb from limb. It was his anger that motivated the alien to decide he should keep himself locked in his room so that he did not needlessly carry out violence on anyone because it would expose him.
Just then, there was a knock on his door, and he looked irritably towards it. Before coming there, he had warned all of his mind slaves to not make contact with him unless it was urgent.
As such, he rose to his feet and headed to open the door, expecting it was one of his mind slaves with some kind of urgency. He was taken by surprise when the person standing outside was the second prince, Santa, and several Royal Guards that flanked him.
“Woah!” He exclaimed in surprise, taken aback by surprise at their unexpected appearance.
Santa smiled and said, “Sorry, Mike. They didn’t want to let me go anywhere on my own because they feared an attack on the royal family ever since the Solaris Hero escaped.”
“Uh. No problem,” the alien said with a smile, acting quickly to rearrange his face so none of his irritation got shown. “So, why are you here, sir?”
“Well,” began the second prince, and the alien saw his expression become very serious, “we discovered the location of the Solaris Hero.”
“Really?” The alien asked, looking amazed before thinking, “Yes! That fool! There’s no escaping the advanced security of this world!”
“Apparently, he appeared at a place the aliens had first struck before their recent attack on the capital.”
While the alien nodded in understanding, he wondered, “The place that my forces attacked before attacking here? Ah! He must mean that city that I had nearly destroyed before he showed up and put a stop to my operation.”
He felt angry for what had happened at that time, but he did not show it on his face as he looked curious and asked the prince, “So, has his majesty ordered the security to go and arrest him?”
“Yeah. About that,” the prince said and hesitated, making the alien look puzzled.
“He must’ve defeated the security and escaped again,” the alien thought to himself wryly. “Seriously. Such weaklings!”
However, he was amazed when Santa explained, “You see, when our men reached the city, it was no longer there.”
It took the alien a moment to digest the information before he knitted his eyebrows and asked, “Sorry? I probably misheard you, because I thought you said that the city was… no longer there?”
He had thought that he must have misunderstood, but the prince shook his head and confirmed it with, “You heard it right, Mike. The entire city had vanished from there. There weren’t any traces of damage, destruction, or anything indicate that something had happened there. It appeared as though it just… vanished without a trace.”
The alien blinked in surprise by his words and asked, “Seriously? It just… disappeared?” Then he narrowed his eyes and asked, “But, sir, wouldn’t you be able to detect its location if you did a wide scan of the planet surface, or don’t we have that kind of tech?”
Santa smiled wryly and replied, “We do have it, and like you said, we did do a thorough scan of the planet surface, but for some reason, it did not appear on the scan either. It’s like it vanished from existence altogether.”
At his statement, the alien stared at him in shock before thinking, “Damn! It’s obvious that man must’ve moved the city to some other place on this planet and hidden it with some kind of barrier magic that makes it difficult to be traced, let alone get spotted on a system scanner.”
When he saw the alien, whom he referred to as Mike, was looking very worried, Santa smiled and assumed that he was feeling concerned about the safety of the people of that city and the wrongs that the Solaris Hero was racking up on his list of wrongdoings. This made him feel a great respect for the man whom he considered as a prodigy for being at the top of his class with both his scores and his power.
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“Don’t worry, Mike,” he said to the alien, who looked at him in surprise. “We are working tirelessly to capture that criminal and bring him to justice!” Then he clenched his fists tightly with a serious expression on his face and said, “I swear it after what he’s done to us and my family!”
“Your family?” The alien asked, surprised by his choice of words. “What do you mean, sir?”
Instead of giving an explanation, the second prince merely shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Mike, but it’s a personal issue. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Uh. Okay,” replied the alien, realising he would not get anything by pressing him any further. Then he smiled and acted like he was trying to show that he had confidence in him by saying, “It’s okay, sir. I’m confident in the system, and the people working for us to capture that man and bring him down before he causes anymore casualties.”
Santa in agreement and said, “You’re right, Mike. We will succeed in apprehending that man,” before he smiled at him and finished with, “I’m glad that you have such confidence in our system. We will not fail!”
After nodding at each other with smiles on their faces, Santa bid the alien farewell and departed. The alien came out and watched them go, then he made sure there was no one else there before shutting the door and locking it.
There was a moment of silence within his room before a mocking smile formed on his face as he said, “Stupid human. I’m confident in your system? That is so absurd.” He laughed and said, “You couldn’t even detect that I’m an alien, so what hope do you have of tracking down an enemy that’s very powerful? You’re just fooling yourself, stupid human.”
While chuckling to himself, he walked over to sit down on the chair and began to wonder, “Now, the real problem at hand is the mission that master has handed me that which he seeks, the power to make him truly achieve the ultimate.”
Even the alien had no idea what that meant, but he was excited nonetheless to see his master achieve his dreams. As such, he was willing to risk his life and put everyone else’s lives on the line to make that dream come true.
“The real question is where to begin,” he muttered, pulling out his notebook and looking down at all the details he had written down, contemplating about his options alone in his room.
[ ======= ]
Elsewhere, the eight remaining members of the Nine Heroes of Legends were in Natsu’s room to have a discussion on recent events. In there, Gram stood by the side with his arms folded in front and had his eyes closed, William and Fred stood side-by-side while standing to the side while Martin, Maxwell, Natsu, Ward, and Vikram sat on the beds beside one another.
“Man,” began Vikram, looking disgruntled at them all, “what a bummer this is?”
“You mean about Lucky?” Maxwell asked, and the Sonic Hero nodded.
“Yeah! I mean, who would’ve thought he’d become a wanted man?” Vikram asked them, looking amazed. “I didn’t expect it! Did any of you expect it?”
Many of them shook their heads while Gram remained still and silent as a statue. One could argue that he was probably ignoring them all and was sleeping while in an upright position.
“No one expected it, Vikram,” said Natsu in agreement. “He might’ve been falsely accused as far as I’m thinking.”
“My thoughts exactly!” Vikram said, smiling at the Zeklock Hero, who seemed to be thinking the same. “He trained us for quite a while now, and helped us slowly improve on our skills as heroes, so I can’t believe he would be a criminal.”
“It’s easy to think like that, Vikram,” said Maxwell, looking at him with a thoughtful expression on his face. “I mean, maybe he was doing bad things behind our backs while pretending to be a man of great honour?”
Martin, who had a nervous look on his face, was alarmed and hesitantly said, “But… But he helped us though.”
“I don’t disagree with that, Martin,” replied the Gundas Hero. “What I am saying is that there is the possibility of him just pretending and putting on a nice face. I mean, I’ve seen situations where the person appeared to be a good person but was rotten to the core and was the main reason that much of our military operations were leaked to the enemy.”
“So, you’re saying we should be aware of the two sides of a coin?” Natsu asked curiously.
“I certainly think so,” replied Maxwell with a nod of his head. “After all, a coin has two sides, and that means humans can have two faces as well, the face they show us, and the demon that they hide away in the shadows.”
There was a moment of silence in the room, in which William turned to Fred and asked, “What do you think of him, Fred?”
“Me?” Fred asked, looking surprised. When Titanium Hero nodded, the Bulwark Hero looked a little uncomfortable and said, “Well, he seemed like a really nice guy with strong beliefs. I mean, be it his actions, behaviour, or words, but they always convey the great mindset that he had going for him. So, I truly don’t believe he is a villain.”
William looked at him intently for a moment before nodding in agreement and saying, “Yes to all of what you said, and I think he’s just a nice guy that’s taken advantage of by the system. After all, every so often, to make an example out of something, a government would falsely claim something against an innocent individual, rub all sorts of crimes he had never done, and make an example out of him to establish fear in their people.”
“Really?” Fred asked, looking up at him with a surprised expression on his face.
The Titanium Hero nodded and replied, “Of course. It happened to a foreign country, where the government, when a huge scandal between the government and the people broke out. Apparently, to solve it, they pinned all the blame on a poor individual and sacrificed him to return their peace and instil fear in everyone to be careful in drawing attention to themselves.”
The Bulwark Hero looked shocked and exclaimed, “What a horrible country?!”
“It was,” agreed William, but he smiled happily as he said, “so it was a good thing that we destroyed them and combined their land into our country’s territory. That was the day when the citizens of the enemies were glad that their government was torn down and were given a bright future to look forward to.”
“That’s good,” said Fred, smiling happily upon hearing that news.
There was a moment of silence where everyone looked in their direction before Vikram turned to look towards Ward, who was seated in front of him and had his eyes closed.
“Hey, Ward,” called Vikram abruptly, “You’ve been rather quiet. Any input you want to make about Lucky?”
At that, Ward opened his eyes and looked at the Sonic Hero before he telepathically said, “Not guilty.”
“Really? Why do you think that?”
Ward gazed at him, almost like he was annoyed at being questioned, but he still answered regardless of how he felt.
“He is a straightforward man, not the type to resort to cunning.”
“Oh!” Vikram said, looking amazed.
“What’s your reasoning to think like that, Ward?” Natsu asked curiously.
To this, the Walmeky Hero looked towards the Zeklock Hero and said telepathically, “I can say so confidently because he is far stronger than any man alive on this planet. If he wanted to take control, destroy someone, or conduct some kind of evil scheme, it would have been easy for him to do it directly and get away scot-free. After all, what can a government do about a man that cannot be controlled?
Yet, he chose to be disciplined, listened to others ordering him around, and did his best for everyone. A true gentleman and a powerful warrior with no equal.”
While everyone was surprised and impressed by his words, Gram snorted and finally addressed them.
“You’re all so stupid,” was the first thing he said to them.
“What’s that?!” Vikram shouted, flaring up at once and glaring angrily at him.
“Vikram!” Natsu said, holding his hand up to stop Vikram. Then he turned towards the Tempest Hero and asked, “What do you mean, Gram? Explain yourself.”
The prince from another world shrugged and smiled a little as he said, “I just think you’re all stupid to continue treating him as an ally. The government’s labelled him as a criminal, and as heroes, we are tasked with the mission to apprehend him,” and he looked smugly at them. “There is no ‘we’ anymore between him and us. It’s just ‘us’ against ‘him’ in the truest sense, got it?”
As the room fell silent by his words, Vikram broke it by saying, “Dammit, Gram! You’re only eager to fight him! But you’re forgetting the fact that he’s much too powerful for you to defeat in your current state! In fact, none of us has what it takes to defeat him, let alone put a scratch on him!”
He was hoping to hit the arrogant man in a sore spot, and he succeeded splendidly. In an instant, Gram flew into a rage and unfolded his arms as he eyed the Sonic Hero with a menacing gaze.
“Don’t speak to me with such mockery, fool!” He snarled at him. “I may be weak now, but I’ll stronger! Mark my words! The next time he and I meet, I will defeat him!”
With that, he whirled around and opened the door before exiting and closing the door with a slam, leaving them all feeling stunned as they looked at the closed door in total silence.