I woke up in a room, with a large bed and a cover over me, without any kind of life support either. I sit up, a little woozy and spot a large dinner platter next to the bed. I quickly reach for it and started to chow down. Sometime during this, the door opens and Conrad walks in, looking a little pale, possibly from not getting enough sunlight, and sits down on the end of the bed.
"Zach, what did you do to them?" He asks me, unsure how to feel.
"I killed them all. They were going to kill most of the galaxy off soon anyway. Besides if one survived then they will all be back before long on a new planet. They replicate from almost anything." I tell him, now finishing off the last of the meal, feeling full.
"So they weren't human?" He asks his voice choking.
"No they were robots, or nanobots, not sure what to call them honestly. But they were far from human, I can promise you that." I tell him smiling.
"Okay, as long as you say they are." He flashes a half smile at me,"So do you want to go home yet?"
"Yes. I want to go home and sleep in my bed for a few weeks now." I say,"But I wonder if we can get rid of this tail there, it will make me a giant monkey of death if we don't." I say waving it around.
"I'll cut it off first thing, okay?" He says pulling his sword from thin air.
"Thanks, I'll call it." I say.

This time there is no darkness, just light. And now I can see others around me, closer than before, who appear as Alex, two girls, and a boy who looks familiar, but I can't place him.

-

I'm in the shower, and to be honest, it's close to Halloween. My tail grows and my hair turns black. But my eyes are normal, just a little darker around the rims. It is still bright outside and is October 30th. I call Conrad and tell him to hold off on the tail cutting, I will use it for a costume tomorrow, then he can hack it off.
Around 5:30 the next mourning I get up and prepare to make it look like I put a costume on, and even died my hair slightly red, then turned ghost, my hair now blue on white, and fix my mask to my face, then remove it without destroying it, to use for pictures.
I then o through my normal route in the mourning, and see the shock on my sisters face at the getup I'm in, laughing at her asking what happened to me. I shrug her off and wait for the bus.
When I get to school, not many people are dressed up and that disappoints me a little bit. However someone new was at my normal breakfast table, and it was the boy falling next to me and Conrad.
"Zach, look, Matts back." My friend Curtis tells me and I remember him.
Matthew Heffelfinger. My best friend from grade school, who moved away in middle school, and is now back. But why was he falling into the darkness with us? I had to find out.
Over the next few periods of school, I did not see him. Then break came along and they called everyone in costume to come get a picture taken, so I went down and saw him there, dressed as Bane. It fit him somehow, not in the 'I'll kill Batman' kinda way though. He saw me and smiled, I wen close to him and time slowed to a stop again. This one was slower, maybe from enhanced senses? The normal blue gateway was shining and I stepped through, reluctantly.
Trace was sitting at his desk, looking over some papers, what looked like a report.
"Zach, I have some bad news." He says looking up at me, his face seemed to of aged a lot since the last time I saw him, now looking almost in his mid twenties. "There are some traitors around you. And no it is not Conrad. Someone else is there that has the same copying abilities that you have who is working for Sirick. I want you to find them, without Conrad helping. He is very stressed as is, and I don't want him to snap with all the power he now has. But, I have limited him to where is now a normal human until he is stress free. So I need you to find them, and confront them. I am sending two people to help you after school, you should know both of them I think. When you find them, call out my name while raising your power, I'll open a portal and collect them." He says and then dismisses me.
I won't lie, this messes up my normal Halloween schedule, where I normally go and scare little kids and get some candy from the houses. But I guess it would have to wait. I step back into the school and time returns to normal, with Matt walking up to me, and us catching up on what had happened over six years.

-

With school over, I cancel some plans to hang out with friends and wait for whoever it is to show up. To waste time I get on youtube and qoutev. I spend almost an hour listening to NorthernLion and Bisnap, and talking to a few friends, before a finger taps me on the shoulder. I turn and see two girls, one has curly dark brown hair and glasses, and the other has wavy light brown hair. They are both short and in some odd Avatar like get up. They don't give out their names, and I do know them. The one in glasses is Tiffany, or Tiffy, and the other is Foxx. I smile and almost scream 'HI!' at them, but put my hand over my mouth. Thankfully my parents were out, so they wouldn't hear anyway, but my next door neighbor would, and she would get scared. I get up and hug them both and then in a gasp of happiness ask them.
"How did you two get this power?!"
"Weeeelllll," Tiffy starts," I kinda ran into a beggar on the street and gave him some change. He then offered me something and I took it. I haven't seen him since but he didn't look like he needed money at all. He said his name was Trace."
"I got mine by a contest I didn't enter, and saying that 'Trace thanks you for entering'."Foxx answers.
"Well, lets just go do our job and we can talk later, sound good?" I ask them. They nod and we head outside, both of them flying behind me, but much slower.
After it nearly hits midnight, I feel an energy spike and dive for it, sending a flare off, or a energy blast, to signal the others who had split up to cover more ground. I close in on it and see Matt there. At first I'm shocked, he really isn't the kind of guy to hurt anyone, then I remember he was gone for six years, and he could change a lot in those years. I go ahead and switch into ghost mode and charge him. It was a direct hit, and I didn't put much force behind it if I was wrong. He didn't even budge. I jump away and stare at him while he turns around. His expression was about as shocked as mine.
"Zach?" He looks at me with odd searching confused eyes, "You work for Sirick?"
Now I'm turned upside down with who I am supposed to fight when Alex steps out from a corner and shoots at something behind me with a heavy handgun. I turn to see he had shot at Tiffany and Foxx.
"Zach, step away from them." Alex orders, never taking his eyes off of them.
I don't feel motivated to do so, "Alex...why did you shoot at them?!" I scream at him getting a little angry at this scene.
"They are shape shifters and were siphoning power from you, we tried to get your attention multiple times, but you wouldn't look at us." He says as the girls begin to laugh and change form into what I imagine they must originally looked like. Both now looked like stepped from the Avatar world and didn't even try to hide it now. I was now both pissed and scared about how much power they stole from me. I start to power up to full with the mask appearing as well, they didn't stop laughing the entire time.
"So, Zach's on our side?" Matt asks Alex.
"Yes, and he is probably the strongest here." Alex answers now powering up himself, with the handgun changing his arm into a giant cannon topped by a arrangement of black feathers that looked like an angles wing.
Matt himself underwent several changes, first and foremost, his eyes went a pure white with arrows appearing on his limbs, then a giant key formed in his hands, his hair turning white accompanied by a red aura. I wondered how many worlds he had gone to, it looked like he had gone to more than I have.
The other two drew swords and one started to spit fire and raise the earth while the second charged a beam of energy. The three of us went at them full force, and I noticed that our power differences were huge. They must of taken almost all of my power. Alex is the first to drop. He goes down burning. Leaving just me and Matt there. I look at Matt, and he almost gets a knock out before the girl he's fighting raises a slab of earth to hit him in the stomach and he drops like a brick, leaving me alone with the two. I start to freak out before a voice pops into my head.
'Idiot, use your damn sword!' Its not Clay, so it must be Ichigos' hollow.
'I don't have one!' I scream back at it.
'DRAW YOUR DAMN BLADE OR I WILL FOR YOU!' He yells at me, and I start to feel him gain control, so I try and pull one from my back. It works and I'm holding the reverse of Zangetszu, the white one, and without thinking I yell "BANKIA!" Instantly I am holding Tensa Zangetszu and charge one of them.
They scatter so I pierce rock instead. I start to feel a giant energy source gather behind me, and I bolt into the air, watching as it was about to smash into the rock and instead chases me. Dodging and weaving across the sky, the other sends the same thing after me. Seeing no escape from it, I put my shield up and relax. Then I am hit by the energy and fall to the ground. My shield didn't even stop them. My mask shatters and I am used up. I start to cry, I couldn't win and now I am going to die to them. The girls walk toward me, press my face into the dirt with the heel of their shoes.
"Look at him, crying like a baby." One says.
"He was a good battery while he lasted." The other scoffs.
"Should we keep him to keep feeding us?"
"No, lets kill him and take his soul, that way we can just take raw power instead."
"You're right."
By this point I'm bawling. I had nothing left to attack them with, and with a shock, I notice even my ghost form is gone. My thoughts turn angry at this. I was left powerless and unable to stop them. I was going to die. They were going to use my soul as an energy source, that made me madder than anything. And then, to put it simply, I lost it.
A blind rage overcame me, the hollows that were nagging at me to die standing were pushed out. A power started to leak out of my body, and I was wrapped in a golden aura. I start to scream at it to go away. Then notice that I am already on my feet. The girls were on the ground in shock and fear.
The air around me shimmered a golden hue and was even changing colors. My sword had disappeared from sight, as had Matt and Alex. I focused in on the girls infront of me, and see they are running away. I overtake them without trying and grab one of them. I slam her into the ground and send a ki blast at her to finish her off, leaving a burnt corpse in her place. I then walk in front of the other who was running away, having her slam into me, and grab her arm. She slaps me with all the power she can muster and it manages to turn my head. I break her arm and then rip it off. Finally hitting her with a ki blast as well, and she dies like the other did.
I power down and see Alex and Matt supporting each other as they walk up to me. I rush over to them and tell them both to lay down. After healing them both and me calling Trace, he tells me to revive the girls. I do so and he takes them into what looks like a prison.
Then me and Matt sit down and actually catch up on each others lives.