2 years have passed since Andrew has died. On a casual day, the cat was chilling at his table, drinking his usual 5th cup of coffee in the afternoon, and working on drawing on a blueprint for a new weapon.
Suddenly, the carpet teleporter starts to sparkle with lightning. It instantly grabs the cat’s attention, but just shortly after, smoke fills the room. The cat quickly grabs his glove and activates the air conditioner, which clears out the smoke. He looks at the teleportation carpet, and to his surprise, after such a long time, he returns.
START OF:
SEASON 3: ADAPT
Stefan stood there on one knee with one of his palms on the floor and the other one on his other knee. Then he slowly got there, wearing a bright smile on his face.
“Missed me?” said Stefan, happily.
The cat scoffs as he takes a sip of his coffee.
“You fucked up my teleporter.” said the cat in a grumpy tone.
Stefan dusts himself off, then speaks once more.
“Yeah, anyways, how have things been since I left.”
“Eh, to be honest, nothing changed. I just went back to being lonely.”
“Has Ares been around here? Any signs of life from him?”
The cat is seemingly surprised by his words.
“Even after his brother being a complete asshole to him, he seems to still care about him. Quite a rare specimen.” said the cat in his mind as he took another sip from his cup.
“Nope, I might know where he is, but he hasn’t been here ever since we killed Andrew.” said the cat.
“Mhm… I see… Well, can you even teleport me if I accidentally broke the carpet?”
“Yeah, actually, the carpet is a new way of teleportation for me.”
Stefan is glad, but also intrigued.
“What’s the old version?” asked Stefan curiously.
The cat goes over to a drawer and grabs a weird-looking gun out of it. He goes into one of his rooms and grabs a jar of teleportation juice and loads it into the gun. He pulls the trigger, and an orange sparkle charges up on its tip. After 10 seconds, a blast is shot, which opens a portal 5 meters ahead.
“Go in quick, it closes rapidly. It’s unstable.” said the cat.
Stefan listens to the cat and rushes into the portal. He finds himself in... A world similar to Earth in a way or another? The infrastructure looked normal. Shops, blocks of flats... But no cars? And everyone there seemed to have their own elementalist coat, and some of them always have it active. Stefan was quickly confused by this peculiar new world. He starts walking on the road. He sees several people, some of them with blue elementalist coats, some red, some brown, and some cyan. All coats have different textures. The blue one looked as if it were partially liquid, the red ones looked just like his brother’s coat, the brown one looked like... Dirt? Stefan was seemingly confused but, at the same time, left in awe. He was really interested in knowing more about those people. They also seemed to talk in his language. He could understand them perfectly.
“What kind of world is this even? Are all of those people elementalists? I think I’m starting to understand why Ares came here…” said Stefan in his mind.
Stefan suddenly hears something in the sky. He looks up, and he sees a sudden, small red flash. In almost the blink of an eye, Ares slams into the ground. Stefan instinctively dodges it, barely. Ares breaks his fall to not crash and destroy the road, then quickly grips into his neck with his left arm. Stefan rapidly grips onto his arm and struggles, then they both realize.
“Oh. It’s just you.” said Ares before letting go of him.
Stefan takes a quick breath before replying in an angrier tone.
“Yeah, just me. What’s wrong with you?” asked Stefan nervously.
“I’m taking my job seriously. I’m a royal guard.” said Ares.
“For who? Is there some king around here?”
“No, you dummy. I’m a royal guard in general. I’m the defender of this realm.”
“What even is this realm?”
“The cat didn’t tell you? These are the 'Other Lands'. A realm of the elementalists. Just like Earth is for humans, Other Lands is for elementalists.”
“So… Is anyone in charge of this place? Any leaders at all? This looks like a functional human society to me.” said Stefan.
Ares crosses his arms, then smirks.
“Of course. There are three grand wizards. They’re the headmasters of this realm. They assigned me to defend it in case any potential threat appears. And since I don’t feel such dense energy like yours daily, I thought some random entity just decided to come here.”
“The three grand wizards?”
“Yeah. Come along, I’ll get you to meet them.”
“I get to meet them?!” exclaimed Stefan, shocked and slightly scared at the same time.
“Tsk, are you coming or not?” said Ares, as he turned around and started walking.
Stefan rushes by his side and starts walking.
“So, can you tell me more about this world?” asked Stefan curiously.
“It’s said that it was created fully by a mighty mythical warrior entitled 'The Champion'.” said Ares, with slight jealousy in his speech.
“The Champion? What contest did he win?”
Ares sighs deeply.
“He was… Extremely… Extremely powerful, to say the least. That’s what the wizards told me. They made a statue in his honor.”
“Oh, what happened to him?”
“He disappeared one day without a trace. Nobody knows if he’s dead, if he’s alive, or if he just quit and left the 'OLands' to rot. I have no idea if this place was any different when he was around here, but we’re doing just fine without him.”
"Why are there... No cars around here?"
"Because cars don't exist here. We're not technically advanced, but we do have modern infrastructure since materials are dirt cheap. It's just that the population is really low. Barely nine thousand elementalists live here if you exclude the children and the elderly."
Stefan takes a better look around the city and suddenly realizes how clean it is. He is actually beyond surprised, almost doubtful.
"Hey, out of context, but this seems... Unfamiliarly relaxing. As if... Something's missing. It's so clean around here, and nobody seems to be violent."
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Ares looks at Stefan, then returns his sight to the road.
"Yeah, elementalists are rather chill. We don't want to start a civil war by any means. It would be a sure purge." said Ares calmly.
"Yeah, I think I understand why."
They eventually reach a larger zone, where people sell their goods and food. In the middle, there's a statue made out of stainless steel, which represents a man pointing a large greatsword to the sky as he looks down, standing tall on his feet with his fist clenched. The man wears no facial expression. Stefan observes something peculiar about the greatsword, its crossguard and pommel seemed extremely, extremely familiar. As if he'd seen them before, but he doesn't know where. The cross guards are L-shaped, and the pommel has a cone shape. The statue itself was twice as big as an average man, and it was standing on a stainless steel plate that had a message marked on it.
"THE CHAMPION"
Stefan looks at the statue with great admiration, the light shining bright as it hits the tip of its greatsword. He zones out as he glares at it, but soon enough, Ares snaps him out of it.
"Hey, fell asleep? Let's go, we're almost there." said Ares after snapping his fingers in front of Stefan, which made him jump a little.
They continue walking, but just after a few moments, they are out of the city. A really empty field with green grass lies ahead of them.
"Whoa, it's so empty." said Stefan.
"Why would you say that?" asked Ares.
"I mean, I'm used to humans always wanting to expand their territory."
"There's no point in us expanding our horizons. We don't need anything to be improved, and we don't need more houses currently, so we don't need to expand our territory. In addition, we love the beautiful sight."
Stefan starts to get a better idea of the elementalist race. He isn't so scared about being here anymore, in fact, he feels safe and actually happy to know that everything here is so simple and lively.
"How fast can you run?" asked Ares.
"Uhm… I don't know, what's the world record for humans?"
"44 kilometers an hour."
"Double it." said Stefan.
"Hm, not bad. Can you keep up with me?" asked Ares.
"Yeah, I'll try."
Ares proceeds to use his method of quick travel and uses flame bursts to propel himself in the air and leap forward at high speeds. Stefan runs after him, actually being able to catch up to him. It takes a brief moment until they arrive at a hill, which Ares simply flies over, but Stefan has to run over it. Stefan smiles.
"It's time to put it into practice." said Stefan in his mind.
Then, right after that moment, his whole body gets covered in a blue outline, the same way he would get when he would stab himself with the champion sword, then proceeds to fully jump over the hill, 100 meters in the air, arriving at the top of the hill quickly. He then turns his mode off. Now he had to go downhill. He looks down and sees a weirdly shaped building. Ares has already arrived there. Stefan slides swiftly off the hill and arrives there in no time. Ares was standing there with his arms crossed, tapping nervously on the soil.
"You kept me waiting." said Ares.
Stefan finally arrives. He looks behind Ares, and he sees the strange building he's seen from above the hill. It looked like some sort of altar. Sure, it had stairs, and the building was made out of bricks colored in a very weird shade of dark blue-green. The building also had some vines on it. It mostly looked like a cube if you'd removed its stairs.
"What is this?" asked Stefan.
Ares turns around before speaking.
"Grand wizards, I have returned with another one who shall join the forces of the royal guards!"
Stefan is instantly shocked by his words, he did not expect to take him for granted as a royal guard this early.
"Hey, hey, hey wha-" but Stefan's speech was cut short as the altar unfolded itself, turning into a sort of a cool stone tower from the shape of a cube that it once had. At the end of the stairs, the wall rises and reveals an entrance. It was shining yellow from Stefan's perspective. Out of there, three old men come on. The first one was wearing medieval leather clothing, he had a giant stick in his hand. The second one had a really baggy blue robe, and he held a book in his right hand. The third one, as well had a baggy robe, but his was purple. He also had a purple wizard hat on his head, ironic. The second wizard speaks up.
"And who could this young fellow be?" asked the second wizard.
"My brother. He is willing to sacrifice his life for the royal guards and protect OLands." said Ares.
Stefan is even more shocked.
"WAIT WHA-" but Stefan's speech is interrupted once more by Ares, who holds his mouth shut.
"As I said, he's just a little excited. Ignore his annoying way of existing." said Ares.
Stefan calms down, despite being on the verge of tears.
"What did I do to deserve this...?" said Stefan in his mind.
The wizards look at each other before speaking again.
"Well then, come up. Introduce yourself." said the first wizard.
Both Stefan and Ares went up the stairs in front of the wizards. Stefan was anxious, the wizards were at least 2 meters tall each. Despite Stefan being 180 cm tall, the sight of old yet tall people frightened him.
"So, what's your name?" asked the second wizard as he opened his book.
Stefan's mind rushes in all directions, as he doesn't remember and doesn't know what to say. He really does not want to look like a fool in front of what could be the strongest people in existence.
"I uhm- uh… I… I don't know, I don't remember, I received brain damage two years ago… " said Stefan sheepishly.
"Oh, that's not a problem. I'll give you a name. Let's see… Hm, the serial code of our reality is '3B', a really powerful Arhanghel and also very loyal one was named Stefan, however, he was kicked out of heaven for numerous reasons. So, I'll name you stefan3B." said the second wizard.
"stefan3B… Sounds good to me." said stefan3B.