Worldly Magic Pt. 3

I’d spent a grand total of a week on that world, after the first day, I’d been allowed to walk around the place and the town. Everyone had been told about me, also considering that there was a guard around me at all times kinda spoke volumes. The one thing that did surprise me was that anything that I wanted to get was paid for through Alexander and the castle; I really didn’t know what in the world to make of that.

I actually spent a bit of time in different libraries seeing what I could of the history of this world, the one thing that I’ve actually discovered was that Alexander actually spent a bit of time after he took over getting rid of the history that this world had. However it seemed that there were people on this world that had kept a bit of that history back to make sure that when the time was right, that one person would be able to not only learn the truth, but make things right again. It seems that these people of this world actually trusted me to do that, of which at this point considered that I did meet a few of the doubles that came to this world, I was more than willing to take on.

I had been down in the basement of a shop reading over some of the history that I realized was more telling then what Alexander had shown me, an entire world that had been free and on the verge of complete and total change, going into a future of their own. However when Alexander arrived and had over powered our double that had been leading everything and killed him and took over, that’s when everything here had taken not only a change for the worse, but also at the same time, that’s when the magical field that was supposed to cancel out anything of science came into being and it surrounded the entire planet in one fell swoop, and there was nothing that anyone could even be able to do here to stop it. It changed the armor from anyone coming from off world into a tech free armor. What the field didn’t account for, and I seemed to be the only one that actually got through on this, was a modular design for the suit, that allowed it to adapt to any situation that was needed, and on this world it meant keeping the technology instead the suit with the outer shell changing only. That for me was the one thing that even I hadn’t expected. I knew that Alexander was consulting different sources as to how I could still have everything considering that on this world I wasn’t supposed to have anything, and should’ve been an easy kill, that however has no completely changed.

It had now been at least half a month since I had arrived here and I figured that at some point the last fight would, and that was when Alexander walked into the room that he kept me. “So it seems that you will get to keep your suit, however I must insist that when we battle tomorrow, that you keep to just what we’re going to be using tomorrow only.” He told me. He didn’t bother to give me a chance to say anything before he had left.

What Alexander didn’t know was that I had learned to summon the sword and then put it back again, however I still didn’t know where in the world the actual temple was located that had the sword resting in it, and there was nothing written down that would let me know where it might be. However after that little visit, that didn’t matter much, just making sure that I called the sword in order to be able to take Alexander on and defeat him. The thing that I didn’t like though was that I was going to have to kill him, and that was something that I seriously wasn’t looking forward to.

The next day I was waiting out in the court yard, but something told me that this entire battle was going to be going further than just here, I personally had a feeling that it was going to be spanning the majority of the castle. I knew that he wanted to keep me out of the throne room for some reason, and I had a feeling that was because if he didn’t die there, then something might end up happening, and I knew that I needed to get control over this world in order to be able to fix things.

I saw Alexander walking down, and I also noticed that he was the only one that had a sword on him. Not only did none of the guards have one, but at the same time, I didn’t have one either or at least he didn’t think that I had one. I knew right off what he wanted to do; he was going to kill me to make sure that he continued to do everything that he wanted to this world.

“Your life is mine, you have no weapons, and there’s nothing that you can do about it at all.” Alexander stated as he drew up his sword and came at me and tried going for my head.

Suddenly something in my head tripped and my hand shot out up into the air above my head, I could tell that he thought that I was going for the blade of his sword and he thought that he was going to slice right through my hand. However that didn’t happen, instead, a blinding light went out of the air above my hand and I could see as time slowed down to a crawl around me. The sword appeared in the air with the handle right in my hand that I wrapped my hand around taking a firm grip. Once the sword was fully there, I brought it down and to an angle and blocked Alexander’s sword from hitting me at all. I almost expected the crystal blade to shatter, but nothing happened. I looked up as saw that both swords had made impact, but the crystal didn’t shatter, and it didn’t do anything either, not even so much as get scratched.

“This isn’t possible.” Alexander said as he looked at the blades.

“Get used to it.” I grunted as I pushed him back.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that. No one can summon that sword, no one.”

I looked at the blade and the handle and then hefted it up. “Well looks like I’m no one. This world knows and understands that change was coming and is now here.” I told him as I came in for the attack this time.

Alexander back up, not wanting anything to happen to him now that more than just him had a weapon this time. As I came at him, I noticed that the sword was lighter than I first realized and was able to move it around far better, as if I had trained with that sword all of my life, this was something that I just couldn’t understand at first.

We fought as I had thought, going all over the castle, blows getting traded back and forth, and everyone keeping out of our way. All work in the castle from the guards to the servants stopped what they were doing, even those that had been visiting stopped what they were doing to watch us battle. I do believe that everyone knew what was taking place, considering that everyone had been waiting for this day for ages, the day that everyone on this world would be freed.

On we battled, and eventually we came to the one place that I don’t think Alexander realized where we really were. Once he realized where he was, he started looking around in a panic. “No this can’t be, I was directing us someplace else, each time that I knew we were coming here, I moved us away, how is this possible?” Alexander asked as he brought his sword around to face me. “You did this; you’ve used some kind of trickery in order to make me think that I was going someplace else, yet still coming here.” He said in a frantic voice.

He had no idea that the world and everything that he had worked so hard to keep was all fighting against him at this point. “You just don’t get it do you. Everything that you’ve tried so hard to keep, our doubles that you’ve either imprisoned on this world or killed, everything was working towards this day. The day that everything would not only change for you, but at the same time would be the end for you completely.” I told as I first knocked the now weakly held sword out of his hand and then gave him a side kick that slammed into the throne.

He fell back onto the floor in a heap, he realized at this point that the end was not just coming; it was here in full force. “Everything that you are, everything that you’ve done, everything that you’ve been on this world, it’s all come back down to this. For everyone that you’ve ever defeated, for everyone that you’ve ever hurt, for everyone on this planet that you’ve done anything to EVER. This here is the end, there is no coming back from this for you, no begging that you can ever do, nothing that you could ever say that would ever change what’s going to happen here. You actually never thought that you would ever encounter someone that was like me, someone that would actually ever be able to defeat you, one that could take this blade and be able to do the one thing that you’ve never been able to figure out about this world, and that’s save it.” I finished.

I kicked him in the gut again to get him to bend over and present his neck to me; I brought the sword up and then in one fell swoop brought it down and took his head from his body, the only time that I would ever take a life.

During that next point, what surprised me was that even though his head was now rolling on the floor, there was no blood, there was nothing. It was like he had been something else entirely. Then something that I will never forget happened, first Alexander’s body turned to pure white energy, and that energy started floating up into the air and came to start spinning around me, electrical energy arching out at me from all directions, and there wasn’t anything that I could do to stop it, and I realized exactly what was happening. This was the transfer point of the world’s control from one person to another, the energy lifted me up off the ground as everything that was around me started getting brighter and brighter, the arching energy increasing in speed to the point that it was just a flashing blindness. All at once that energy came right at me and enveloped me completely, and my world went completely white.

That’s all that I could see was a white world around, no people, no buildings, nothing but white. I looked around me and saw that I could still see my own body, beyond that there was nothing.

“You’re alright, there’s nothing wrong.” A voice called out.

I looked around and at first I couldn’t see anything. “Who’s there, please show yourself.” I called out.

“I knew that you would be the one that would be able to not only free this world, but at the same time do what you needed to do in order to end his terror that he held on this world.” The voice belonged to that of a man that I knew right off was the one that lived on this world and had been born here in the first place.

“Where am I?” I asked him.

“You are in the between, still the same world, but right now we’re both in your mind as well as the world that is all around but can never be seen. It was here that I told our double that there is only one man out there that will ever be able to defeat him. He killed and imprisoned so many on this world, so many whose families think that they’re never coming back. However now that you’ve not only defeated him, but gained the power that he had taken away from me, that power to be able to change this world back to the way that it not only was before, but also to allow our doubles to leave and go home.” He told me.

“I can’t bring back the ones that he killed can I?” I asked him after I got the chance to fully see him, dressed as he had been at the time of his death before.

“Sadly no you can’t, but for those that were supposed to be killed but he never got around to that, you have the chance now of sending them back home. I leave you now, but if you ever need my help again, just look back to the memories of mine that you now have. No matter what world you happen to be on.” He told me as he faded away and the world that I was looking as started to once again take form.

Once everything was back to normal in my vision, I was back in the throne room again, and once everyone saw what was going on, they kneeled down before me surrounding me. This was something that I knew no matter how much I said, they not only weren’t going to stop, and I had to get used to it.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, things had started to change and I had to make sure of it all before leaving, after all even I knew that I couldn’t stay, I had to get going to make sure that I could continue to see what in the world was out there.

After my last advisor tried to kill me thinking that the control would revert over to him if I died, I had him exiled and let me know right before hand that the power that I had could only go from one double to another of mine. My next advisor ended up becoming a dear trusted friend that wouldn’t lead me wrong and actually kept things straight with me constantly. “I’m going to miss this world.” I stated as we stood out on the balcony overlooking the city. I still can’t believe everything that happened here. And I still can’t believe that I was the one that freed everyone up here. All of the doubles have been returned to their home dimensions, and me, I’m about to go off on my adventure again.” I said as I leaned over the railing.

“It can’t be that bad.” My advisor said.

I smiled at him. “Trust me on this Chris, traveling from world to world can be great at times, but more often than not, I really don’t like the traveling alone part, but I’ve got no choice, most of the time I’m leaping onto a world that I have no idea what I’m going to be facing at all. That right there isn’t something that I’m willing to put any one through.” I told him.

I walked back to the throne and put my hand on it. “Just please make sure that everything here actually stays in one piece. I will come back at times, but more often than not, I’ll be traveling to different worlds here so people are going to be asking about me.” I told me.

Chris smiled. He walked over to the wall mounted swords and pulled one down; walking back over to the throne he placed the sword standing up on it. “As long as that sword is there and isn’t removed by you, everyone will know that you’re away. The only one that can remove it will be you, and there will be a guard stationed at the entrance to this throne room at all times to let people see, but no one shall enter.” He told me. He pointed behind me, and I knew that something was up.

I turned around to see the staff behind me, they had gathered during his speech, once he was finished, has all gone down to their knees bowing before me. They stayed that way for a minute before standing back up. “My lord, we shall keep not only your legacy going here, but let the people of this world that every once in a while as you’re off saving other worlds, you will every once in a while return to this world to see how everyone here is doing.”

I smiled at that. “Thank you so much. Now I must leave you, never forgot me, and I will return.” I told them.

I put my helmet back on and triggered the leap, and noticed that as I was leaping, that my suit returned back to the way that it had been before I had arrived on this world. “Alright now, let’s see what else is out there.”

--

Felix Sanchez

Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA

Alhambra High School

Class of '97

Ninja Chronicles Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesstories.blogspot.com/

Ninja Chronicles eBook Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ninjachroniclesnook

Ninja Chronicles eBook Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Chronicleskindle

Ninja Chronicles: The Return Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesthereturn.blogspot.com/

Worldly Magic Pt. 2

There comes a point in every person’s life, and more than likely it’s going to be in mine several times long before I stop traveling between worlds, that they have to make a choice that they’re wondering why in the world they made it in the first place. For me that choice came when I was standing out in a field right back behind the castle that I had been staying in for the past couple of days, I was going to be in a one on one tournament for my very life, mind you I would still get to live considering that I wasn’t going to die, at least not by this doubles hands, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now telling you all this now. But just the thought of everything that happens, and what I have to do in order to be able to get it all done, that right there was driving me nuts.

I looked over the set of weapons that they had there, and what he didn’t know yet, was that I had everything that I was going to need already on me. “So choose your bow already, considering that the first challenge is archery, choose your bow already.” Alexander stated.

I looked a few of them over and even hefted a few of them to get the feel of them, but instead pulled out of my belt something that looked like a rod of sorts and held it in my hands as I walked back over to the firing line.

“Do you honestly think that you’re going to be able to fire those arrows with a rod?” He said as he hefted his own and then fired a shot at the target since he was the one that was supposed to go first.

What Alexander hadn’t noticed was that I had shaken the rod a bit and the shape of the rod had changed, and what it had changed into was that of a handle. There was a button on the inside that I pressed, a moment later a full bow had completely unfolded from the handle rod, a bow with a built in string to it. I quickly strung the bow and reach back to where a quiver had completely unfolded once I had triggered the bow to unfold. Took one of the arrows and strung it up and took arm and fired it, all within a minute. I took the shot and fired yet again, I fired a total of three times, and all at the same target. Now considering I didn’t know when the next chance I would get to make them, I just made sure that they were all next to each other on the target. Once I was finished, I lowered the bow and looked at Alexander. “I saw that you owned one and figured that I could use my own.” I said.

I noticed that he wasn’t too happy about what I had done in the first place. “How in the world is that working, when no tech can work on this world?” He asked.

I walked over to him while hefting the bow and looking at it. “First off, this isn’t tech, mind you it’s made from tech, but it isn’t. This right here is made of micro-fold technology which allows it to fold up completely and extremely compact, it’s micro spring loaded, but can be opened and ready for use in less than a minute.” With that I turned to face the targets and fired off a shot for each of the targets there hitting each one dead in the center. “Your argument is invalid anyway, I’m not like the other versions of us that came to this world, not only is my suit modular, but at the same time, everything I have still works.” I told him.

I could see that he was getting extremely pissed off, but instead of attacking me, he handed his bow off to a servant and walked over to another table and picked up a sword. “It seems that I should be going back to basics with you.” He stated as he picked up the sword that I had held before and tossed it to me. “And since this only seems to want to work for you, maybe you should fully check it over and see what you can see from it.” He said to me.

Personally I couldn’t understand anything else that there might be to see from the sword, again once I took it out the of the sheath, it started to glow a pure light of the type I’ve never seen before. However as I looked it over, I noticed that there was minor things that someone like Alexander might’ve glossed over thinking that there was nothing different about it. What I saw was a trigger, one that actually worked by way of something that shouldn’t even be possible in this world, a bio-lock trigger. I held the sword with the blade tip pointing towards the ground, and then pressed the button. Considering that I didn’t expect anything to work on it at all, I was actually a bit surprised when the blade and cross guard dropped and lodged right into the ground, the glow had left once the handle and the upper half parted ways. I turned the handle over and looked at it and then realized what I was looking at and then pointed it away from me before pressing the button yet again. This time a blade of a different sort came out of the handle, one that shouldn’t even be possible in this world at all. A laser blade.

“That’s not possible; no technology should be possible on this world at all. What is allowing this to be possible?” Alexander asked that I couldn’t begin to answer.

Suddenly things came into my mind that I have never thought would ever happen. Images of not only how to work both swords, but at the same time, an entire history that was hard to believe, but was entirely true. I flipped the energy blade over and brought it down on the upper half at the same time that I deactivated the blade. The way the entire thing worked out, it was like I was sheathing the energy into the crystal blade, and it honestly could’ve been like that considering that the blade glowed again. However this time instead of resheathing the blade, I held the sword over my head and the energy in the blade glowed even brighter, it continued to get brighter and then all at once then energy flew back to the blade, or where the blade had been and vanished. I knew exactly what happened to the sword, I had sent it back to where it had been taken from ages ago, back when the first person to take it didn’t know what he had taken in the first place. I knew that I would be the only one to call forth the sword or to operate it, and I could be able to call it forth literally from any dimensional world that I traveled to, no matter where in the world I traveled.

As my mind cleared, yet held everything that had been placed into my mind remained, it was all like nothing that I had ever experienced before. At the same time, I knew that I had to keep everything hidden from Alexander here, whom at this point once my mind returned to the world that I was currently on, and he was yelling right into my face. Instinct kicked in at that point and I punched him in the gut and then started in on a series of punches that just about laid him out on the ground. Once he was on the ground several feet away from me and groaning, I knew that something bad was going to happen.

“Take him away, he stays confined to his room, and take his armor, strip him bare. Everything that he has take it from him, I want him left only with his shorts and nothing else.” Alexander stated as he was helped up off the ground by one of the servants. “You will see the folly of trying to oppose me, trust me on this, they all do, and in the end they all either ended up dead or just staying out in the outer lands. Take him away.”

I was taken away back to the room that I had been given, however when they tried to remove the suit, they discovered that unlike past times where they knew the armor that they were pulling off of someone, this was one time that they didn’t have a clue. “Ah guys, I arrived on this world with this suit on and even though it changed to this look, it’s still the same suit which means that it’s not coming off any time soon.” I told them.

They both back up and then after they were through the door and it was closed, they locked it and walked over. Right off I knew these guys weren’t the smartest bunch in the least. I walked over to the window that looked out over the lands and scanned out, I could only see to the south over the area of the castle that I had been around earlier today, but this was something else. I could see whole villages out there, and I could see that things weren’t as great as he was leaving me to believe. Somehow, I needed to get out there and get a better look around, but at the same time I needed to take this guy down and hard.

Considering that I didn’t know how long I was going to be there for, I figured that I might as well get something started here, and for the rest of the world looked like I was staring right out the window that I realized I could actually slip right out of. Right as I started working on checking everything fully out and getting the details that I needed, there was a knocking at the door, and then the lock clicked and it opened up to reveal a servant coming in. “Your meal master, with special drink.” He stated. As he looked down at the floor the entire time and backed out of the place.

After the door was closed and locked, I walked over to the food and checked it over and noticed that there was something in the drink, just as the servant has said. It was a message, ‘I know who you are, and I know what’s going to happen, when the time comes you will have no choice but to kill him and take the power that you’re going to use to free this world from what he’s done.’ Great something else that was placed into my hands that I was going to have to take care of, but it was the whole killing thing that I didn’t like too much.

I walked over to the window and held up the note to the light to see if there was anything else that I needed to know, and sadly, there was nothing. “Great, how in the world do I find myself in these places?” I asked myself. Again sadly no one answered. “Looks like I’m going to have no choice in the matter. Alexander is going to have to die.” I whispered to myself.

--

Felix Sanchez

Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA

Alhambra High School

Class of '97

Ninja Chronicles Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesstories.blogspot.com/

Ninja Chronicles eBook Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ninjachroniclesnook

Ninja Chronicles eBook Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Chronicleskindle

Ninja Chronicles: The Return Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesthereturn.blogspot.com/

Worldly Magic Pt. 1

Out of all of the worlds that I’d traveled to, during the entire time that I’d been traveling to different worlds, none of them were like this one. I honestly don’t know if it was a natural part of the world in terms of the genetics of the place, or if it was something that was laced into literally everything around me, but the one thing that I did know, there was love all over this world.

From what I had found out, because of all of the love that I saw on this world, I quickly found out that not once in all of the history of this world had there been any wars at all, not one of them. That right there was surprising considering that on my world, one of the main reasons that wars had taken place was because of the love that someone had for a woman, didn’t matter if it had been a vow to take over an entire country or an entire world, more often than not it was done for love.

However on this world, that wasn’t the case at all. Nope, on this world if someone wanted to do something because of love, then everyone else would get behind them and help them in any way that they needed.

The extent of my stay on that world lasted for about as long as it took to help someone when it came to a girl he knew that he wanted to pop the question to, and believe me, he wanted this to be larger than life, something I greatly excelled at now. Plus since I came from a different world, the guy wanted to know what would be something on my world that would get a woman’s attention and fast. I suggested to him something that it seemed had never been done before, and that was a flash mob with a wedding marriage included.

Since the guy and his girl had been dating for the past couple of years he was all for it, I got everything worked out, and got people working out the dancing and he picked out the songs and everything and got it all worked out. The entire production took at least a week for a grand total of an hour and a half to fully and completely pull off, and surprisingly everything on this went off without a hitch.

Once that had been done and the two were off on their honeymoon, I decided to check out and head to a different world.

The world that leapt too was one that took me completely off guard since it also affected my suit in a way that I didn’t think that it would at all. I landed on a world were myths, legends and magic were real, as a result the whole of the world changed to make sure that everything here fit completely. However, even though I could still fully see mu HUD, people could also see my face as well. The first chance that I got I checked out the armor that I had on, and it was nothing like I had seen before, the very being of the armor had changed to something else for this world. “I don’t seriously believe this; I’ve gone into dungeons and dragons here.” I stated as I looked around me.

I was sitting at a clear classy like lake where I had gotten a chance to see my reflection in the water. I tested everything out to make sure that it all still worked, and low and behold it all still did work and that was the most surprising of all. The computer systems were still there and working, but the look of the outer shell had completely changed to fit the world that I was now in.

My glider however didn’t change, it had stayed the same as it always had, but then considering the look that I realized it was now sporting, something told me that it actually had changed. It looked more bat like than it had before, considering that I had it more stream lined and sleeker, but this here now wasn’t stream lined or sleek, nope it looked like a big metal bat.

I had decided to travel around after sending the glider off to the high skies out of sight to make sure that no one here had a panic attack because seeing it. After all, I had no idea about the level of the people’s minds on this world, and that was something that I did want to find out.

I had been traveling for a while just walking, and since it was only the outer look that had changed it meant that I still had all of the protections that I had before here within the suit, not just the tech. Before long I came to a village that was surrounding a castle of sorts, one that on my world looked like it came right out of a video game, it was that big and that elaborate. As I walked through the village, I kept getting a lot of looks, and that was another thing that I knew I was going to have to find out about.

I walked into an inn and tavern and after first looking the place over, I sat down at the bar and continued to look the place over, and saw what there was to see there for the people of this place.

The bar tender came over to me, and I noticed that instead of being that of a typical one that I had known that were usually large and round thanks to all of the eating that they had done over time, that this one was actually rather thin. “So my Lord Sir, what shall I do you for?” He asked.

I looked him right in the eyes. “Just what do you mean by that?” I asked him.

He looked me equally back in the eyes. “Well you are dressed as a lord, considering the armor and the cape and all; I figured that you are one.”

It was at that point that I decided that I would go with this, at least it might actually open doors for me that I had a feeling might not otherwise open up for me. After all there were those out there that would do literally anything for a Lord, besides no one could actually see my face here anyway, and that really did actually help things out. “Fine I am, now tell me since I’m not exactly from around these parts here, who exactly is living up in that big castle?” I asked him.

He looked me right in the eye again, and I could tell that he was looking for something that could tell him if I was to be trusted or not. Whoever was living in that castle must have inspired the deepest of loyalty, and that was something that I almost respected, however the one thing that I didn’t respect was loyalty from the end of a blade pointing at someone. “The Lord Alexander the Mightiest lives there, ruler of this entire realm. The only way that you might not know about him is if you’re not from this realm, and from what I can tell you are not at all from this realm.

Now that I knew who was up in the castle, something from the back of my mine mind was telling me that I needed to go see this Lord, and I needed to do it now. I left the place and traveled up to the front gate, after all if one wants to make the greatest of impacts, they travel through the front and makes sure that the one in charge takes full notice.

Walking up to the front gate, the guards took notice of me and moved to intercept, and that was when I did the one thing that I had a feeling might work, I pulled my helmet clean off my head, and showed them my face.

Suddenly they were down on their knees with their faces planted towards the ground, along with everyone around me as well, that right there alone confirmed what I had been thinking. The Lord of this town and on this world was a double, that hadn’t been something that I thought would happen considering that it would now be two worlds in a row that I had met my double, this world and the last one that I had been on, when I help him propose to the love of his life.

Once everyone had recovered from sucking the ground, the guards led me in and brought me directly to what they called the Great Hall, which was here, I met my double. “Well I never thought that I would ever meet another one of you, or should I say us.” Alexander said as he got up and came over to me.

I looked at him. “So you’ve met other doubles before I take it?”

He smiled as he walked over to a nearby balcony and waving for me to join him. “Yes I have met others before you, some of them good some of them not so good, but then when you’re living in this world, you’re going to want to make sure that you happen to have an advantage over others.” He said as he looked out over the town. “This entire world is of my own making, everything that you see here is because of what I’ve done. Not one single thing here has not been affected by me in the tiniest way. Even when you arrived here, your suit changed to become part of the world around you. Believe me; even I doubt that your suit looked like that before you came here. Understand that if you leave, your suit will revert back to the way it was before you had arrived.”

That right there caught me off guard. “What do you mean if I leave? I will be leaving here.” I told him.

“Many have said that before, and if they don’t die by my hand, then they just as often end up staying here instead. Plus the only reason why they would die by my hand in the first place is if they’re meant to. Understand this, even though you think that you came here as a random choice, you actually did not, for you were actually brought to this work to take the challenge that all of our other doubles end up taking. A fight to the death with me, and the winner takes this world for their own and everyone inside of it. The magic of this world is transferred to the winner, just as it was transferred to me, and has stayed with me for the past several years.” He finished telling me.

This right here wasn’t something that I liked in the least, however the one thing that I did know was that the suit still retained everything even though he said in his own words that it didn’t any more, it meant that I could leave any time that I wanted, at least as long as I wasn’t in the castle at all. There was some kind of field surrounding the whole of the castle and it wouldn’t allow my leap tech to send me to another world, and unlike the last time, this was something that was far different from before.

I stood right beside him and looked him right in the eyes. “OK so what do I have to do here in order to get to be on my way here?” I asked him.

He looked at me for a second before gesturing over to a servant that was standing nearby. “First off, there’s something that you’re going to be getting here, and understand that it’s a special something. Mind you I’ve tried this with others that have come and so far none of them have been able to do anything with it.” He told me as the servant brought over what I could clearly see was a sheathed sword.

I took the sword and held it covered before me. I could already tell that there was something about the sword that as going to make it extremely special, something that would changed up literally everything on this world, however what that something was I had no idea. I took the sheath and pulled it clean off, the sword started out as just plain metal, but then it started to glow in a way that I had never seen before, suddenly the blade turned crystalline on me and continued to glow brightly.

Alexander looked at both me and the blade, and I could tell that he couldn’t believe what he was seeing here. “I heard the legends, but never got to see till now, yes you are the one. The magic that’s in the sword only will respond to one, and that one is you.” He told me.

I held the sword for a minute more before putting it back in the sheath. “Great, so I get a magic sword, not like I haven’t gotten something before that might not help me on the next world.” I stated.

He smiled as he walked away from me. “Ah no, the sword cannot leave this world, at least not that I know of, but all things considered, everything that I’ve heard about is now up for debate. Ah no, a room shall be provided for you, and tomorrow our little contest shall begin. Get yourself ready.” He told me before leaving completely.

Great, here I was on a world that I had never been on before, and I was about to be fighting for my life, and oh yeah I got a brand new magic sword that I couldn’t even take with me, or at least I was told that I couldn’t take it with me. How true that was, even I didn’t know. “Perfect, just perfect.”

--

Felix Sanchez

Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA

Alhambra High School

Class of '97

Ninja Chronicles Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesstories.blogspot.com/

Ninja Chronicles eBook Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ninjachroniclesnook

Ninja Chronicles eBook Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Chronicleskindle

Ninja Chronicles: The Return Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesthereturn.blogspot.com/

Worldly Doubles Pt. 3

It’s dark and restrictive, I have no idea where I am or how much time has passed, and the last thing that I remember is getting shot by a high intensity energy weapon. That is honestly something that I never thought they would have on this world that is if I’m still on that world.

 

I knew that I was still in the suit, but nothing was working, and I knew that I was able to move around still. I activated the emergency power and my suit slowly started rebooting and coming back to life. Whatever it was that hit me, the energy shorted me out to the point that my system fully shut down. Once everything was back up and the HUD was back to normal, I looked around and noticed that people were slowly getting up, and the truck was gone, but Alexis was still here, and she was helping the people out.

 

I slowly got up as the emergency power switched over to the main power and the suit started to normalize out. “OK, what did I miss?” I asked as I made my way over to Alexis.

 

She stood up and looked at me. “Surprisingly, once they shot you, they took off. I have a feeling that it might’ve been all that flying around over us that actually did it all.”

 

First I looked at her, and then I looked around to see everyone else, I still couldn’t believe everything that had happened here. One shot and they ran, but for some reason it was that shot that troubled me the most right there. “Do you know where they might’ve gotten that energy weapon from, last I knew your planet is on the same tech level as my own which means that one shouldn’t be able to get one of those.” I told her.

 

Alexis got up and looked around as well. “That right there is a good question, might be the same ones that fired that EM pulse at you. So we’re going to need to find out who they were and where they came from. I don’t suppose that you happen to have a blood hound in that belt of yours?”

 

I summoned the glider down to me. “Actually no, but I’ve got two things far better. One a glider that can make travel here far faster, in spite of getting almost shot out of the sky here, and two a residual heat source locater.” I told her.

 

We both got onto the glider and then flew off into the air. I changed over to the heat scope and then picked up the heat signature and started following the trial that the tires leaving in a hurry left behind. However the one thing that I made sure of was that I would lose them even after their heat started to die down. We followed them off into the hills where there was next to no one out there. “I have a feeling that they’re living in what would be on my world as a park.” I told her through comms.

 

“I’ve been meaning to ask, actually I did once before but the reporters wouldn’t let me ask, how in the world did you get access to my comm systems?” Alexis asked me.

 

“I had the suit look for your suits comm RF and then jumped on, it’s not like I hacked your suit, believe me you have just under my level of tech, plus your suit isn’t like mine, it’s not modular.” I told her.

 

“What the hell has that got to do with my suit?” She asked.

 

I kept looking ahead as I flew, but I knew that she wasn’t going to like what I was going to say next. “Your suit is static, meaning that you would have to create an entirely new suit in order to be able to have any changes or adapt to something new, my suit being modular means that I can adapt and adjust on the fly to be able to make sure that I don’t have to create something completely new in order to be able to adapt to the world around me. That’s what I meant.”

 

“Damn, I hadn’t thought of that, but considering I was just using the suit for transit between worlds, I really hadn’t thought beyond that in the least. Shoot I’m just grateful that I was able to make a suit that didn’t blow up on me, I had three prior suits that were bigger than this that actually did, but thanks to figuring out the tech that I needed to, this right here actually worked, and that’s how I met you.” Alexis explained to me.

 

At this point we had reached the location for where the truck was parked at, and it turned out to be a small single floor house with a barn located just outside the place. I registered several heat signatures inside the house, but it was the barn like place that I was more interested it. I switched to a type of x-ray that gave me a color version of everything that I could see beyond the walls and the floors of the place. What I saw I didn’t like at all. I knew that something was up, and this here was the proof that I had been looking for in the first place.

 

“Damn, I knew that your world couldn’t have created those weapons, nope, the tech is alien, and I’m not talking like me, I’m human just from a different dimension, no, what I’m talking about is more here, we’re talking from an entirely different planet other than Earth, from out beyond the stars here, and they’re right below the barn, however I don’t think that anyone right now is there, because the barn isn’t giving off any heat or cold signatures at all, nope everyone is inside the house.” I fully explained to Alexis.

 

I knew that the barn was going to take something other than a mini-missile to take it out, nope, it was going to need something far stronger in order to be able to wipe it completely out, and I knew of just the thing. I flew down and into the barn, and that’s when the aliens came out of the house and came after us. They started talking and it took a little bit for my translator to catch up, given that I didn’t think that I would be meeting up with aliens from off Earth.

 

“You will stop. I SAID STOP!” One of their voices cried out.

 

I stopped alright, right in the middle of the barn; I had already lowered the Earth Warp nacelles down into place and had primed the engine. “And why in the world should I.” I called out. “You’re not even supposed to be on Earth, let alone arming the humans that are here, and I don’t buy the whole we crashed and were repairing out ship crap. I scanned your ship, it’s perfectly fine. Besides, do you know what’s on the bottom of my glider?” I asked it.

 

“I know what you’re planning on doing and you’ll do more harm than good.” It told me.

 

At that point I really wish I knew the sex of the creature that I was talking to, but even I knew that what it was talking about was pure crap. “No actually I do know what will happen.” I said as I turned the glider around to face the other exit. “The moment that I kick in the Earth warp here, the bubble that’s created around us, will pull this entire barn and everyone in it with us. To the outside world, this entire place will vanish, leaving literally nothing in its place, and even taking everything that includes what’s under this place included. After all instead of being up in the air where the bubble would be smaller, it’s going to become as big as it can safely become to take in as much as it can before launching, and we both know that it’s only going to last mere seconds.” I told it.

 

I knew that it would spend the time that I needed in order to think about what I had just said, and at the moment that it raised its weapon up, or at least started to, that was when I kicked in the Earth warp and everything around us pulled into the tunnel effect stretching right out. I waited at least five heartbeats while keeping an eye out on real world traveling, which was only starting to slowly bleed into the warp tunnel. Once those five heartbeats were over, I pulled out of Earth warp and shot down and then up. I was deep over the Pacific Ocean, or at least whatever they called it on this world, and I could see that the barn and everything that had come with it, and that included the aliens as well, were falling to the water. The warp bubble had both contained and dispersed the explosion that even I knew was going to happen, but because the tunnel was controlled, there was no chance in the world for the explosion to have any effect at all.

 

I turned us around and just back into Earth warp again and headed back. Once back there, Alexis and I confronted the ones that had shot me earlier. “Now I want to know why in the world you had tried to kill me twice.” I said confronting them. One of the guys pulled a gun and got really close to my head before I grabbed his hand and flipped it and the guy over again. “I’m not going to ask the question again.” I said before making him drop the gun and then kicking him back.

 

“Look it wasn’t us that tried to kill you, well maybe the second time, but not the first. It was them aliens that did it; they fired off something when they saw you flying over the city at the time, something that didn’t make sense since this one here.” The mother said pointing at Alexis. “She don’t have no glider like you’ve got, that’s why they did it in the first place, but when you did what you did here, that’s when we had to go take care of you that way.” She explained.

 

I went and picked up the gun and pointed it at the truck and fired a shot, what came out was an energy blast that dispersed on the truck. I went over and grabbed the same gun which was a rile and fired it too and it turned out to be the same. I took out my stun gun and shot the one that shot me. “That was for shooting me. Don’t worry he’ll wake up in a couple of hours.” I told them when they had that look of what in the world I just did.

 

Alexis took their guns and even went through the entire house, being directed by me looking through the place getting all the rest of the weapons, I wanted to make sure that there was nothing left behind that these clowns could be able to use against me, or anyone on this world.

 

After that, Alexis and I took the guns out over the bay and dropped them in the water; there was no chance at where we placed them that they would ever be recovered on this world, and that was a fact, considering that we were dropping them into a major shipping lane.

 

From there, we went back to her place where I was going to drop her off. And then head off myself. “Am I ever going to see you again?” She asked after both of our helmets had folded down.

 

I looked her right in the eyes. “To be honest, I really don’t know, I mean I wouldn’t doubt it at some point in the future, but right now, I doubt it. Maybe at some point, but for now, I’m just going to be traveling alone. It’s going to be interesting to see if there’s anyone else out there that might be a double as well.” I said as I folded the helmet back down and lifted the glider back up into the air.

 

I waved my good bye and flew up to what I thought would be high enough, and then made the leap. When I arrived, it turned out to be right in the middle of rush hour air traffic. “Oh you have got to be kidding me here.” I said as I flew down and over to try and get out of the traffic. What I saw after clearing that however, made me realize that this world was far ahead of some of the worlds that I had seen before. “Great, here we go again.”

--

Felix Sanchez

Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA

Alhambra High School

Class of '97

Ninja Chronicles Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesstories.blogspot.com/

Ninja Chronicles eBook Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ninjachroniclesnook

Ninja Chronicles eBook Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Chronicleskindle

Ninja Chronicles: The Return Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesthereturn.blogspot.com/

Worldly Doubles Pt. 2

When we arrived on her world, the place looked exactly like mine to that point that I was a little hesitant on seeing everything, I mean I knew that world would look the same, but the point of being a photo copy, that right there was getting a little nuts. I was almost thinking that someone might come out and shoot me, but I knew that this Earth didn’t have that, after all Alexis was me or at least a female version of me. Still I was going to keep my guard up either way.

 

Alexis took me to where she had been living before and met her parents for the first time, which was when I realized that things here were completely different from my world. Not only were Alexis’s parents still together, but they didn’t look like mine at all, they were the complete opposite of what my parents looked like if my mother had been born a guy and my father a girl. I really didn’t have words for this at all.

 

Alexis nodded to me. “Mom, dad, I’d like to introduce you to someone. He’s not only not from this world, he’s a bit special.” She told them. They couldn’t see me just yet since I was directly behind her and the fact that my helmet was still on. “This is Alex, and he’s from a world that is the direct opposite from ours in every way.” She told them as she stepped out of the way so that she could give them a full view of me.

 

I was looking elsewhere when I heard the audible gasp. I turned my head to face them, and folded my helmet down to show them my face, and that’s when the mother fainted. I knew that they were looking at the boy version of their only daughter. “That’s not possible.” The father stated.

 

I looked to him and knew that he didn’t understand. “Actually yes it is. Considering that your daughter and I travel to different dimensional worlds we were bound to meet up sooner or later, it was only a matter of time.” I told him.

 

I left Alexis to tend to them, since her father had become a babbling fool at that point. I moved over to the window to check out the area around the home, the white building that was exactly the same as the one that used to be across from the home that I had lived in for the longest time. I knew that I was going to have to check out more of this world, considering that so far I had only seen what Alexis had shown me. “Ah, Alexis, I’m going to go fly around and see what I can see.” I told her as I head for the door next to me.

 

The father looked at me, and then to his daughter. “And just how in the world is he supposed to do that, he can’t get down to the street from there?” He asked her.

 

However before he had the chance to even say anything, my ride in the form of my glider showed up right in front of the door. “This is how.” I told him as I got on and left them behind.

 

I flew out over the town and the city to see what I could make of this world, and it looked very interesting to say the least. Everything here was exactly the way it looked on my world, only with one major difference it seemed, no one was shooting at me, which means that they didn’t have the same dislike of me that those on my world did. I also figured that if I tried to look anyone up here that I knew on my own world, they not only would look male, they may not look anything like how I figured that they should look in the first place. So instead I just flew over everything to get a better look at it all, besides it also gave me time to the one thing that I haven’t been able to do for a while, and that’s think. I know that I’ve had a bit of time to do that just visiting worlds and exploring, but some of the time I just didn’t want to consider everything that I had been through since leaving the Minute World as I had come to call it behind. I knew that traveling between dimensional worlds makes sure that your internal clock gets a bit screwed up, but that was why I kept my home time, I had to make sure that I knew how much time I had spent traveling. Besides the one thing that I didn’t tell Alexis, was that besides the clock that gave him the current time, he also had a stop watch timer going that gave him the current time totals for how long I had been gone for.

 

As I continued to fly over everything, I noticed that there was something different up there with me; I couldn’t see it per say, but the air around me had changed a bit. My suit’s computer system started to detect something that wasn’t right with the air around me, there seemed to be like an electrical charge, and with the signature that I realized what in the world it was. I was moments away from getting hit with the blast of an EMP blast, and that was the one thing that I wanted to avoid. My suit was insulated from it, but the glider however I couldn’t get that insulated. I tried flying away from it and headed off towards the water to see if I could fly of the blast range, but the charge seemed to be following me.

 

“Now that’s not possible.” I said; that was when I decided to head for the ground. I figured that I might be able to use something to get between that blast and me. I also increased speed after I got low enough flying around cars and buildings trying to get out of the way, but I discovered at that point that it was going right through everything and that the path was going to also knock out anything that I put between us, and it didn’t look like there was anything that I could do. “I need to get away from this thing.” I stated as I decided to head right out for the water.

 

Once I was out over the bay, I headed at first in a straight line and just jetted over the water and close to it as low as the glider could go without going under. However the faster that I traveled over the water, there was a wall of water forming up behind me, and that’s when I noticed the reason why it wasn’t leaving me. The blast had already been fired, but considering that it hadn’t hit me made me start to wonder who had wanted to shot me in the first place. The only reason I knew it was there behind me at all, was because of the electrical charge that it was sending through the water and pulling from it, which meant that it was staying right as it had been fired. Then I checked the energy signature and noticed that it was a little lower in energy than when it had started off the first time, but once I had gotten over the water, the walls that I was forming up has suspended it at the current level that it was at. I knew I once again had to change the game up in order to defeat this.

 

I flew back into the air again and out over the city and this time I lowered the Earth Warp nacelles from the underside of the glider, however I didn’t engage them since I had a feeling that if I did, then the pulse would go right into it and then get ramped up again and be worse off than when I had started this little fight in the first place. I pushed the engines into the red just to pull away, and it actually worked slightly, considering that I was breaking the sound barrier on this world a couple of times, and even that got me a little worried.

 

By now I figured that I was far enough away and set off a missile that would go off the moment that it came in touch with the EM energy from the pulse, and that right there would be my cue. Once the blast went off and I knew that more of the EM energy had been shunted from the pulse, I kicked in the Earth Warp engines and took off. Once again the world around me bent and stretched and I knew that I was moving extremely fast, but about a second after I kicked in the engine, I cut it off and came out and the pulse was gone when I looked back. I turned the glider around and kicked the engines back in and went back to where I had come from. When I arrived, all traces of the EM signature were gone, and I knew right then that the trick had worked.

 

I went back to Alexis’s house and landed right in front of the open door. “You would not believe the day that I’ve just had here.” I stated as I walked in and glanced at the television that was playing a news broadcast.

 

“We know; we were watching the entire flight. What in the world were you flying from and so fast for?” Alexis asked.

 

I folded the helmet back down and sat on their couch. “I was trying to get away from an EM pulse that someone had fired at me as I flew over the city just checking everything out. My suits computer had detected it, but I couldn’t see it either, and I thought that it was something that was about to be fired at me, but I didn’t know that it had already been fired till after I had gotten out over the water, the wall of water that I was making out there had shown me a few things about it. So that was when I figured that there was only one way to get away from it and make sure that it also wouldn’t harm anyone else. I took off fast.” I told them.

 

“Well if you didn’t want them to know you were here before, then you can forget that idea.” Alexis told me.

 

Considering that I was all over the news, I knew this to be true for that, there was no getting around that at all, and from what I could see there were cameras out front starting to gather. “Great, this is the last thing that I wanted on any world. Of course there are times that it can’t be avoided, and I really hate those times.” I stated. I got up and headed out and got on the glider. “Looks like I’m going to have to go meet the masses.” I stated as I lifted the glider up and flew down to meet them.

 

The crowd came in closer, but I noticed not too close all things considered. I hacked into Alexis’s suit and asked her a simple question. “Alexis, do they know about you here outside the suit?” I asked her.

 

“What…how in the world did you, ugh…no they don’t and I’ll be down there shortly.” She told me.

 

After I was close enough to the ground, I jumped off and just stood there as I had the glider move off and up into the air, then Alexis joined me by dropping in from above. It was then that we got swarmed. This was actually something that I had dealt with before and knew how to deal with it. First off I took out a sonic blaster disk that I had been given on another world, I pressed a button on it and a sonic pulse came out and sent everyone to their knees, and blew out a few windows at the same time. That couldn’t be helped, but it shut everyone around us up.

 

“Now that I’ve got your attention, can everyone here please step back?” I asked them all. Slowly they all got up and moved back away from me and Alexis. “Good now that that’s done, we can all be able to do this without anyone getting hurt, and if anyone here gets out of line, I’ll do the sonic sound again, got it.” I told them pointing at them. I wasn’t about to take any chances with anyone.

 

Alexis and I were the only ones that hadn’t gone down since we were both wearing our helmets. However before we got the chance to start anything that was when someone from the back in a truck that I hadn’t noticed was there in the first place spoke up. “I don’t care if there’s one or two of you, I’ll kill you both. We don’t need heroes in this world, and that’s coming from the boss himself.” A very large guy said from the back of the truck.

 

All of us turned to look at him, and then as one the crowd parted before them clearing the way to Alexis and I. “OK that right there is one very big gun.” I said.

 

Before I had a chance to say anything else, he leveled it at me and fired, and it was then that I found out that the gun was an energy weapon, namely since I was only able to say one word before getting hit and blacking out from it. “Crap!”

--

Felix Sanchez

Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA

Alhambra High School

Class of '97

Ninja Chronicles Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesstories.blogspot.com/

Ninja Chronicles eBook Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ninjachroniclesnook

Ninja Chronicles eBook Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Chronicleskindle

Ninja Chronicles: The Return Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesthereturn.blogspot.com/

Worldly Doubles Pt. 1

Running, that’s all I can remember doing for a while now is just nothing but running, well that and leaping between different worlds. Why do I remember only this, that’s because of the one that’s currently running after me right now, and believe me I never thought that this would actually happen in the first place.

 

Alright why don’t I take you back to the start of all this, after all one really can’t make sense of the story if you happen to start off in the middle of things, yes it works for some, but not really for others. You see this entire run had actually started several worlds before, I had been walking through a city’s farmers market minding my own, after all there was nothing going on with this world and I was actually about ready to leap off to the next one. However for the past three worlds, I had noticed that there had been someone following me. Now this in itself is normal, after all I get people looking at me all the time on different worlds considering that I’m not actually from around there in the first place. This person however looked exactly as they had for the past couple of worlds and had been trying as hard as hell not to be noticed by me in the least. Which is understandable all things considered, but this was entirely different, it was almost like they were staying out of a certain radius of sorts. Now that to me was different since last I knew I didn’t have a radius, but it seems that this person thought that I had something that had a radius to me.

 

I decided that it was time to confront this person, didn’t matter who in the world they were, however given that they were trying to keep their distance I need to make sure that this meeting happened on my terms. Since I had the helmet off, or at least folded down, I ducked into an alley between a couple of the stalls and folded it back on. From there I shot my right hand up into the air and fired off the grapple line and got pulled up to the roof, I was over the ledge before my mystery person rounded the corner to see that I wasn’t there anymore.

 

I was looking over the top of the city when I heard my follower show up; I checked and figured that since it had taken about twenty minutes for them to get up here, which meant that they really were looking for me. “Took you long enough to figure out that I was up here.” I said as I turned around and saw who it was for the first time fully.

 

What I saw floored me. With the exception of one thing, the person that I was looking at looked exactly like me, with the exception that this person was a female version of me. She started coming towards me, and that was when I whipped out my stun gun and pointed to towards her. She stopped dead in her tracks and then jumped up in the air flipping back to what I think she thought was a safe distance. For the time being I wasn’t going to tell her otherwise.

 

“OK I don’t know who in the world you happen to be here, but I would like some answers please.” I said.

 

Her hand lashed out and my system registered something hitting it but not going through the shield. I took a second to look down as I know that she wanted to see that there was nothing there; however I noticed that she had taken that moment to charge in and attack. I flicked up the stun gun and fired off a few shots that missed her cleanly. I dodged to the right and she missed me as she landed, it was then that we were in hand to hand combat, flicking moves left and right, different punches and kicks that were getting blocked by both sides. I knew that if this kept up then something was going to go wrong and that one of us was going to go in for a killing move. That was when I made my decision.

 

When I saw an opening that was closing fast, I took it and kicked her away and ran for the ledge and took a dive towards the street, I wasn’t looking back either, no I put my rear view on a lower right corner display of my H.U.D. and just kept pointed towards the ground. Considering that I knew I could move at the same time that I could leap between worlds, it was time to take this fight elsewhere.

 

I leaped and the world around me changed, only thing time I realized that I was over a more advanced city and I was, or should I say we as I saw that she had followed me through, only it had been with her own leaping system. It was then that I realized that I was going to see how well her system reacted to sudden world changes if she really could follow me. I started random leaping and saw each world from above both close up and far away. It seemed that each world wasn’t locked when it came to being in the exact location as the other at the time of each leap. Even at one point I saw the street coming flying at me before I had leapt to another world and had gone back up high into the sky yet again. I honestly didn’t know how long I was going to be able to keep this up, and I knew that for some reason till she got me, she wasn’t going to give up either.

 

In had decided at that point to switch things up, that instead of being in a dive for any number of untold worlds that I had traveled through, that I needed to change up directions. So for the time being I stopped leaping and just dropped. I was heading right for the ground in a city that I had just appeared over, and a building was coming up fast on my right, that was where I was going to be changing things up. Only I wasn’t going to head towards that building, I reached my arm out and fired off the grappler and once it caught and held I swung down in an arch and changed directions. I figured let’s see if she happens to have the same thing as I did.

 

All during this running, I knew that I still had one ace up my sleeve, and that was my glider that had also been leaping whenever I had leapt between the worlds. In some of those worlds it would just appear as a blast of blue with leaving nothing behind at all, and that would’ve been has I had just been dropping between the worlds at that fast rate, leaving the glider in a inter-dimensional bubble as it traveled between. However now that I was done leaping, I summoned it to me, and as the glider got closer I noticed that she had also changed up directions as well, but she wasn’t swinging like I was. No, she was leaping from building to building. OK that wasn’t going to help my next idea, so I dropped down and started swinging closer to her level. Then before I knew it, she was actually getting closer to me, and that was when I kicked my plan in. I brought my glider in remotely and right behind her that before she knew it, and I had to time this correctly, I had the glider slam into her back and push her uncontrolled towards me. Right before she got to me, I used both the grapple line and the air and flipped back in mid air.

 

I landed right on the glider and flew it towards the roof of the nearest building and after dropping her down, landed the glider and activated the bio-key signature in order to activate the gilder at all. I propped her up against the nearest wall sitting down, and just stood back. I took a scan of her body to see if smacking the glider into her had done any damage, but it looked like nothing had been done.

 

She started moaning and that’s when I got my stun gun out again and just kept it trained on her. Once I noticed that her heartbeat had changed and that she was awake, that’s when I knew that it was time to get some answers. “Alright who are you and why have you been following me?” I asked.

 

The eyes looked up at me and then looked towards the gun. “Why should I answer anything if you’re going to keep that gun pointed at me?” She asked.

 

“Are you serious, this is a stun gun, the most it’s going to do is knock you out for a few hours at most, never kill you.” I told her

 

She looked around the place, and I could tell that she was getting her bearings. “What world are we on?” She asked me.

 

I didn’t take my eyes off her this time. “The same one that I knocked you out on after we got her. Now again, who are you?” I asked her again.

 

She looked at me again before trying to get up. I backed up so that she might be able to do that. “I could ask the same of you, I know that when I took my first leap that I wasn’t expecting to see someone like you, someone that could do the exact same things that I could be able to do. Same suit, and same tech.” She said.

 

I chuckled a little at that. “No not the same tech, if you had the same tech, then you would’ve been swinging instead of leaping. So no I would say that you happen to have near the same gear the I’ve got, but at the same time you were lead to believe something different about me. What was it?” I asked her.

 

She looked off for a second before turning back. “Doesn’t matter, I had been told that if you had the chance that you would kill me without a second thought, I’ve been told wrong. I think that you might want to scan me to see who I happen to be.” She said as she slowly folded down her helmet.

 

I kept my helmet up and switched to scanning mode. “So what’s your name?” I asked her as I started scanning.

 

Her eyes went to the ground, but kept her face pointing towards me. “My name is Alexis, and I come from a world that’s near same as yours, however yours seems to be very different from mine and I can’t place it for some reason.” She said with wonder.

 

The results that I was getting from the scan were showing something that I had never thought that I would ever encounter, I mean I knew that at some point I would, but I thought that would be a long ways off. Ending the scan I walked over to a nearby wall away from Alexis and sat down on the roof, I just couldn’t believe what it was telling me.

 

Alexis came over and sat next to me, and then floored me if I hadn’t already been sitting. “Yeah you’re my double, I am you and you are me, only you’re the male version of me, and I’m the female version of you. Nailed me the first time that I took a scan of you when I first saw you with your helmet off. The only thing was, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me as to why in the world you left your world, and how in the world did you come up with everything that you did?” She asked me.

 

I went on to tell her about the hatred that my world had against me, and the lightening blast that gave me the mind that I had in the first place, this wasn’t something that I told everyone, and then down to my many leaps from world to world. When I was finished, I just stared off into the distance.

 

“So you have no home world any more. I mean you do, but you can never return there ever again.” Alexis pointed out.

 

I looked at a clock that I kept on my H.U.D. screen at all times, and that time was the non changing time that I had for my home world, the actually time and date from the world that I had been living on, and in truth when I looked at it, despite all of the time that I had been gone, it felt like it had been longer, but in truth the time I had spent gone had only been half a year, about six months since I had left. I told Alexis this.

 

She looked at me. “Wait you actually keep your worlds time on your visor?” She asked me.

 

I sighed and got up. “Yes I do, so that way I know in real time exactly how long I’ve been gone from my own world. Honestly I don’t know if I can ever return back there, but I would like to know what their time is either way.” I told her as I walked over to the end of the roof. “Anyway, it’s time to get going anyway, and I guess that the next world I’m going to be visiting has already been decided for me.” I said as I just stood there waiting.

 

Alexis got up and came over to me, and I could tell from her face that she didn’t understand what I said. “What do you mean that it’s been decided for you?” She asked.

 

I had gotten her home world through the scan that I had done of her and had set my next leap for her world. “We’re going home, your home. Time to see what a world of doubles looks like.” I told her.

 

I saw the look of shock on her face, and her say one word right as we leapt. “Shit!”

--

Felix Sanchez

Carrier for Martinez News-Gazette, Martinez, CA

Alhambra High School

Class of '97

Ninja Chronicles Blog (fictional): http://ninjachroniclesstories.blogspot.com/

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