MY LIFE WAS PRETTY SIMPLE. I just had to be at the right place at the right time in the proper uniform. It's all Big Army expected. Well, that and to do jobs I was never trained for. When I was in the process of joining I wanted to be a technician on some form of communications equipment so I could build up some practical experience for what I wanted to do later in life after I went to college, because for some reason spending 90,000 dollars on a degree didn't seem to be enough to get a job these days. So I spent a year of my life in training, graduated, came to my unit and never again seen a lick of the equipment I trained for. And so begins the life of the salty soldier.

My stomach's growled echoed in its own emptiness. It was chow time. The Defac was open down the street. Even though I was forced to pay for it every month I just couldn't bring myself to eat at the underfunded, less than healthy dumpster. The amount of hairs and insects I've found in my hot chow over the past couple of years has made it revolting to even step in the door. So for most meals I stayed in. The nice thing about my barracks was that I had my own room. I only shared a common area with one other female, and that was a kitchen and a bathroom. The nicest barracks I've been in to date. Even considering the peeling paint and mold spots in the bathroom. And the even thinner walls.

Being a soldier wasn't that bad. It was less than glamorous, but it had opportunities if you were willing to work. The occupation also had no barriers on what you could do in your free time. I could still do all the things I did back before I left home. If anything I had more opportunities to do them because lots of bases were next to cities, and for me that meant more cosplays. Even though I wasn't much for fantasies these days there was just something about recreating the look of my favored characters and dressing up as them for a day that was just plain fun. Especially with the friends I met in my barracks who also do the same.

I curled up on my bed. My laptop resting on my lap as I leaned back against the giant stuffed bear at the head of my bed. I clicked through YouTube looking for some vine contemplation to watch, but most of them I'd already seen, so I settled for watching Dragons Mall Abridged. Even though it was 'fantasy' I still enjoyed it because it recognized how impossible it was sometimes. Well, that and because Megeta was just too funny in this version. Once in awhile though, I felt like it was getting too wrapped up in the actual setting for my taste. Most fight scenes were pretty light-hearted in the abridged, but one or two would get a little too serious and jerk me out of the fun. I suppose to the average viewer these scenes were supposed to seem heroic or awesome in some way, but to me it was like kids playing make-believe. It seemed stupid.

Was this growing up? Or was I just getting too salty at the things I couldn't have?

My phone buzzed. I glanced at it. One of my friends was inviting me out to a con that was tomorrow. I kinda wanted to go, but my new costume was still in the making. That, and the show kind of left me feeling bummed out. It was like that feeling in grade school when Christmas is almost there, but you're the first of your friends to get the feeling that Santa wasn't as real as you'd thought he was. I just didn't understand. I know it's reasonable to change tastes as you age, but I felt a huge sense of lose when I thought about how much I'm falling out of love with fantasy. When I was younger I loved going to cons and immersing myself in fairy tales. I even wrote an embarrassing amount of FanFiction. The realization of which made my stomach freeze.

The thought that my middle school FanFiction was still out there, maybe even being read by new people to this day, was a horrible, horrible thought. What if I forget to delete it and run for president? The entire country could find out what I did. Then they'd all read it. No one would vote for me if they read all of my prepubescent, sexualized, Mary-Sue FanFiction. What if ISIS found it and hacked my Space account and posted it in a strange cyber-bullying attack? Would I still be able to get married with that kind of baggage on my social media?

What if my mom found out.

My hands gripped my hair and let out a silent scream of terror. There was no time to waste. I tore through the pages of the internet and landed on the website, spending an excruciating amount of time trying to remember my user name and password. I flew through just about every email I had and mixed and matched every password I'd ever used but none of the combinations worked. Mentally I ran through a list of all my emails. Then I realized the one I was missing. It was my first email address I'd ever created. Mrs_Bieber69

I used the Forgot my password option and send a new one to my email, but woefully came to recognize that I didn't have the password for that one for that either. So now I had to delete the FanFiction and my old email address, which was tied to how many other cringe accounts? Before I could clean up my digital foot print, I had to first open the email. As it would happen, I knew someone with a password cracking software. He was a computer genius, graduated from college with a degree in Programming and a bachelors in computer science. He even had his Certified Ethical Hacker certificate. The only reason he was even in the military was because of his enormous college debt and his families rich military history.

The issue about asking him to open my email was that he would have to see what my email was actually called and...well...he was kind of cute. Not the person I'd want seeing something so catastrophic.

But it was either him or ISIS posting my FanFiction on my Space page.

I grabbed my laptop and walked down to his room, which was the floor beneath mine. When I knocked, it took a moment for him to crack open the door, just enough to let his head peak though. The florescent lights burned his eyes. He squinted at me, unintentionally sneering at the brightness, which flooded every crack in his Hispanic features.

"Can I help you?" He asked tiredly, rubbing his eyes.

I was put more at ease by his momentarily less than charming appearance, so when I asked, I didn't sound like a complete idiot. "Hey Guzman, I have an email that I can't get the password for. I really needed it open. Can you help?"

He made a low grumbling sound and opened the door. "Come in. It'll just be a minuet. Don't touch anything." We walked into his room and he jumped on my computer and grabbed a thumb drive from one of his drawers. I looked around, trying to think of something cool and smooth to say that would hopefully lighten the mood. His walls were bare, there was a mess in the closet. The only sign of personalizing was the small flag framed on his night stand.

As he was working, I crossed my arms, "Nice flag."

He smiled faintly, "Yeah, my parents sent it to me. They moved back home recently and wanted to remind me of my heritage."

I chuckled, "Where are you from?"

The beautiful shape of his face was brought out. "It's a Puerto rican flag. My family moved back to the Islands. It's where they were born. Me though, I've never been there. I was born in Florida." We chatted about the usual small talk until his program cracked my password. I was so relaxed talking to him about places we'd been that I didn't panic when he glanced at my inbox, and had no idea what he was laughing about. I looked over his shoulder and the top thing in my inbox was my password from FanFiction.

My face flushed. I thanked him and took my laptop away and vacated the area. I pushed it out of my mind and settled down in my room again. It didn't matter. At least now I could get rid of everything and spare myself the pain in the future. So I could log into my email in the future I changed it's password and then logged into my FanFiction account, which was dully named TeenageDramaGirl. Though instead of deleting it right away, I had another idea before it was gone forever. Why not reread what I wrote? If its causing me so much agony, why not at least know what it is? I don't even remember much of what I wrote and it wouldn't matter once I knew because I was deleting it.

I opened the My Stories tap and found that there was some in the My Light section, Harry Spotter, Misadventure Time, Lord of the Onion Rings, and about a quadrillion unfinished stories in The Iron Meg series. I remembered reading the Iron Meg series. It was a huge part of my life back then. With excitement I opened all the Iron Meg fan fiction, but what I found was exactly what I feared. All the stories were about me being perfect and awesome in every way and having just about every single male lead in the story conspiring to marry me. The rated M section was worse.

I flopped back onto my bed. Why was I so stupid? Both back then and now? I was so frustrated that I rolled over and took a nap.

I woke up feeling strange. Something was off. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I got out of bed and took a look around. Same room, same blue walls, same anime posters. Nothing really struck me as different, and yet at the same time everything was completely foreign. If I couldn't recognize a difference within my own home then whatever it was couldn't have been that important, could it? Waving it off, I took a step towards my dresser. My foot slammed into something, catching. My face hit the grainy carpet with enough force to give me a sizable imprint across my cheek. Irritably, I glared back to the culprit, to discover it was my overflowing book bag.

School. I had to go to school today.

Butterflies fluttered in my chest, erasing anything else. I was going to school today. And I just had this amazing feeling that anything was possible, that I could do anything I wanted and it would be an amazing adventure. There was just so many possibilities. I bounced up off the floor and got dressed, rushing downstairs for a quick breakfast before I took off for the bus. I was in such a good mood that I barely noticed the man at the table, who held a small kid in his lap as he tried to feed his stuffed animal a pop tart.

I grabbed whatever food was available and spun on my heels to take off, when a large german shepard barked and ran up to me with hopeful brown eyes, sitting at my feet and pawing at my knee. My heart leapt in my chest.

"Baeu!" I squealed and knelt down and scratched the space between his ears. "Who's a good boy?" I missed having a dog so much. Back home I had a few. They were so cute that I just spoiled them well into their age with food scraps and walks.

I broke off a chunk of bagel and held it out, spinning my hand in a circle. "Roll over," I chirped. Baeu dropped to the floor and twisted his furry body. As he was rolling over, there was a thought in the back of my mind that chipped at me. It was like there was a spot of dry, crackling paint at the forefront of my mind, and that something was scratching behind it, trying to chip away and peer through. It bothered me. But it wasn't enough to ruin my mood.

He sat politely, panting in my face. A small, steady stream of drool leaked out of his open mouth.

"Ew," I scrunched up my face and held out the treat. He took it, getting five pounds of warm spit on my hand in the process. The part of owning a pet I didn't miss.

A small hand tugged on my sleeve. The child that was trying to feed his toy stood next to me. His big brown eyes, framed by curls of soft chocolate hair, stared at me. A hint of a smile touched his chubby cheeks.

"Floppy wants me to tell you Happy Birthday."

I paused, them smiled. "Tell him I said thanks."

Ethan, I realized the boys name was, beamed and scampered past. The rugged, worn rabbit hung over his shoulder. It's sewn eyes, blank with expression, seemed to stair into my own, until Ethan opened the back door and ran out side.

Hello everyone! This is a rewrite of Iron King: When Worlds Collide. I recently came back to FanFiction for the memories and came to realize that I was really bad at telling stories when I was writing these. So I came back to do some of these a little more Justice. With this one I've deleted much of the original and instead tried for a new angle. I hope you like it, let me know what you think!