"Hey sis, I'm back." Max called as he opened the front door, taking off his shoes and coat in the hall. On his waist was a steel long sword, bland and simple.
"Welcome back." Angela poked her head around the corner of the living room, greetings her brother. "How did the lessons go?"
"Let's just say I have more respect for dad." He collapsed in his favorite chair, exhausted from dealing with all the kids who came to learn from him. "How did he deal with me three years ago? Kids are terrible."
"Well, he did raise us." Angela put down her book and went to the kitchen, coming back with a cup of coffee which she gave to her brother. Max accepted it gratefully, downing the drink quickly.
It has been three years since the attack, three years since their dad had left them. Max still hated the man, but after a few years of thinking, he felt sorry for the guy. He and his sister often got into fights over the topic, but he was just as stubborn as his father. Even if his sister always won.
Max had gotten a job in a combat school, teaching sword play to those willing to learn. He was now we'll know for being superior than most, his speed and dexterity far better than the other staff. He was one of the most popular private teacher, sometimes just having sparring matches with the students.
Angela, on the other hand, opted to stay in school. Aided by her semblance Mimic, she had an uncanny ability to remember absolutely everything thing, making her one of the worst people to disagree with, for she would make an absolute fool out of them. She said she wanted to be a teacher in the future.
Angela glanced at his sword, a look of disappointment on her face. "Why don't you use Midnight?" As if on cue, the black sword appeared on the coffee table. Max glared at the blade and waved his hand, making it disappeared. Both children had inherited their fathers semblance for some reason, making them able to use his powers. But the scary part was, it wasn't their only semblance. They just inherited their fathers semblance because they were children of two dimensions, the world of remnant and the world of earth. This was found out when Max set fire to himself when he tried to use shadow travel.
"You know just as well as I do that I will never use that man's sword." Max brought his cup into the kitchen and put it in the sink, ignoring the look he was receiving from his sister. He then proceeded to him room, were he sat down in the chair at his desk and began maintenance on his weapon. "Sometimes I wish I could challenge her to a fight. It's not my fault that she learned to win from my useless father." With a whetstone, he began to sharpen the edge of the blade, taking special care of the nicks and scratches.
Once he finished the necessary maintenance, he placed the blade in its sheath and leaned it against the wall. He leaned back in his chair, suddenly bored. He glanced around the room looking for something to do. The room was almost empty since most of his money went to keeping the house and putting food on the table. The only TV in the house was in the living room (shocking, I know) which his sister was currently residing in. A skateboard laid on the ground in the corner, but the wind outside would bring him to a dead stop going down hill. The tip of a magazine peaked out from under his bed and he quickly kicked it farther back.
Max walked out to the living room and picked up one of the gaming controllers, turning on his dad's old Xbox as he sat down on the couch. Angela shot a glance over at him and returned to her book. Max took that as permission to play halo. The game booted up and he dove right into the campaign, using well rehearsed tactics and owning the battlefield. His father would have shrugged it off and claimed he was only playing on hard mode, but Max still thought himself impressive.
"You hate your dad." Angela said, watching as he quickly dispatched an elite on halo 4. "But you use the money he left you, his semblance, and his gaming system?"
"So what?" Max said, not taking his eyes off of his targets.
Angela rolled her eyes and picked up another controller. "You're despicable. Let me in." Max obliged, leaving his match so she could join. Angela put her finger on the button, paused, and pulled a circle shaped devise out of the shadow and tossed it to him. Max cringed and handed her his controller, putting the device in his hand.
"Another punishment game?" He asked, taking deep breaths to try to slow his racing heart.
"No. Just training." Angela selected the first mission and set it to hard, turning on grunt birthday party for extra fun. The countdown started, and she looked him square in the eye and smiled. "I mean, he could do it with ease." The game started and the world went black.
Max woke up in a cryopod, watching his sister open her pod and collecting cortana. He then opened his and fell out with a clunk. (To the new comers here, the devise transfers the players mind into the game. Kind of like Sao without the fatal part.) he got to his feet and leveled his rifle, taking the lead.
The game progressed smoothly (apart from when he was forced to climb the elevator. "This is not easy!") Max had minimal difficulty with the enemies (he hid behind every corner and crate and poked his head out, hitting the weaker ones as Angela did most of the work.) and the level ended with him falling out of the sky to requiem. (Thank god that you don't feel the pain.)
"What is taking you so long?" Max asked over the com, waiting by the tunnel at the beginning of the level. Angela didn't respond, instead running up to him with a saw in hand and a fuel rod cannon on her back. "Where did you get those?"
"I bothered to pay attention to dad playing." Her voice came over the com. Max sighed and took point, running down the tunnel and getting the first sight of requiem. The other chief carried on, but Max had to stop and take in the view.
"I see why dad always stopped here." He said to himself, taking in the sight of the forerunner planet. He then took off running, catching up to his sister in the crashed ship as she jumped in the driver seat of the warthog. Max grabbed ammo and switched his pistol for the battle rifle quick and climbed into the gunner.
The warthog bounced down the slope, Angela faithfully driving like a professional. Cortana was doing her usual speech causing Max's visor to flicker, when suddenly the world went offaly quite. He clicked the coms, trying to get word to his sister that the game was malfunctioning, but all he got was static.
A faint whisper entered his head. "Your a good shot with that. You have learned well." The sleepy voice said. "You will do just fine." He felt a weak pull in the back of his mind, as if it were trying to pull him out of the game but failing badly.
"Hey sis, is everything alright on your end?" He tried the coms again, only getting static. Instead, they existed the path/ tunnel and started barreling towards the enemies. Max snapped out of his thoughts about the voice and engaged, blocking out the unfamiliar presence. Angela focused on running over what she could and he gunned down anyone that dodged out of the way. It wasn't until after they beat the level and he was released from the game that he remembered the voice.
Later that night, Max collapsed on his bed dreading the next day when he had to go to work. The thought of the slow, unchallenging matches zapped his energy in itself. Needless to say, he found sleep rather easily.
In his dream, Max was floating in a dark place awaiting for his brain to choose what he was going to dream about. He often came here, before a slip of the mind sent him elsewhere. It was comfortably warm, which probably made no sense because it was an infinite empty space but who sweats the details?
his thoughts drifted to the last time his mom had held him like this and the area around him began to change. He zoomed forward, Blake visible just farther ahead. Excitement flooded through Max's being, a deep longing pushing it. He drifted to a stop in front of her, her smile just as he remembered. He reached out and touched her face, word of love and sorrow on his tongue, when his mother shattered like glass.
Max looked around in a panic. He suddenly found himself in some kind of underground coliseum, blood smeared all over the ground. There were stone risers surrounding three fourths of the room, a large gate on the last wall. Max just about hurled at the stench.
"What's going on?" Max shouted, glancing around the room in search of a reason why he would come here.
"Because we need you." The voice from earlier said, a bit louder than a whisper this time. "When a child's parents need him, it would be best to head their call." The voice sounded old and tired, as if it could barely stay awake.
"Mom?" Max said hesitantly, looking around for the source of the voice. "Is that you?"
"Your mom can't call out telepathically. That's your father." The voice was getting fainter. "But we are together. Me, your father, and your mom." The stone began to turn to a light gray smoke, slowly disappearing from existence.
"Where are you? Where do I have to go?" Max called out turning in a circle, desperate to get a sight of the source of the voice (maybe just to punch him in the face).
The voice was now barely audible. "You must go to an island about forty miles off of the coast of Remnant. They call it dragons reach for its tendency of having storms as violent as a dragon." The world suddenly shattered, the pieces dissolving into gray wisps. "Hurry."
Max sat up at the speed of a bullet, throwing the covers off of himself as he got out of his bed. The clock on the wall read 3:32 in the morning. Time to wake up his sister.