Heeeey peeps, your friendly neighborhood author here coming in with another chapter for you all to enjoy. I'm just recovering from a nasty bug that decided that it was a great idea to make the past couple of days a living hell. Don't worry it isn't the Cronavirus, but even if it was I'm going to survive it.

"Yeah, he wasn't in the best of moods either."

Definitely now lets get on with the story everyone.


Chapter 21: Interpersonal Encounter

After watching May and Isabel go behind the corner, Isaac turns right back around and kicks the door shut before any more of the storm's wrath can come inside. After taking a quick look at the storm outside he looks down at the soaked and bloodied boy in his arms with a hint of worry in his mind. The kid shivers in his arms showing the man that he's still alive, it's a miracle that the boy is still alive after all he's been through, but he still needs help.

May comes around with towels in hand and without hesitation she puts them down and starts putting some across the couch. After doing so Isaac puts the boy down, grabs a towel alongside May, and start drying him off wiping the remaining blood and mud off the boy's body. But to his surprise there's no cuts or even bruises all across his body, he could've sworn that he saw some while carrying him and the blood certainly isn't his own. The only creature capable of healing this fast would be the Zerg as he learned from Dr. Hanson, but this child looks nothing like one, just one of many things that he finds odd about him like the clothing and his presence out in the forest.

But he'll have to worry about that later as he now sees Isabel coming inside with a lob of clothes in her arms.

"I found everything that might fit him." Isabel said as she lays them on the ground. Isaac looks through them and quickly picks out a grey shirt, black pants and underwear.

"This will do, thank you. Now please let us be." Isaac says to the girls who both immediately do as told and went into the hallway.

Deciding to start with the pants he takes off the tattered pair showing that the kid was wearing nothing else underneath. He puts the underwear and the pants on quickly then he puts the shirt on next giving the kid a more complete look.

"You can come in now." The two come back out and look at the sleeping boy.

"So, tell me, where did you find him?"

"I found him in a flooding river, if I hadn't caught him when I did he would've been swept away and probably die in the process. It's a miracle that he'd survive as long as he did." Isabel begins to inspect the boy while he continues. "But I think that's because of his regenerative abilities since there were absolutely no wounds on him that I know I saw when I found him. But another thing that I found odd is the tattered clothing he was wearing, they are unlike anything that I've seen."

"So, what happens now?" Isaac begins to think about this statement, what is he going to do with this kid? He brought him back out of impulse and obligation as a parent figure and never gave it much thought about it. But with everything that he saw up until now he's now curious about what this child is.

"Isabel, can you do something for me?"

"What is it dad?" Isabel asked.

"I need you to go into his mind."


"Wait, what?" Isabel was shocked at this request, almost downright confused. "But I thought you said that looking through other's mind is rude."

"I know I said that, but there's always exception even to my words. There's something off about this boy and we need to find out what it is." Isaac retorts.

"Now that you mentioned it, I am sensing something rather weird from him." She continues to look at him with an even more inquisitive gaze. "Perhaps I can give it a try, but I'm not sure how to do this." She suddenly feels her father's hand on her shoulder.

"It's just like reading our minds normally but with some more effort." She looks back at the kid, still apprehensive about the task. "Considering that he's asleep you shouldn't run into much trouble, but if you do then I'll be here to pull you out, so don't worry." The blonde gives a small smile to her father before she starts walking towards the unconscious kid.

She looms over his head and, after taking a deep breath, puts her hands on its side and closes her eyes. At first nothing happened, but then the sounds of the world around her started to fade, muffled out by her transition into the mental realm. Then her sense of a grounded reality disappears as she feels herself float in the air along with the ever-fading world. She remained calm through this as she knew panicking during this will cut her off, but still, it's a rather surreal thing for the girl.

Within seconds everything went quite and when she opens her eyes she found herself floating in a void with no sense of what is up and down which quickly disorients her. She tries moving forward but this just causes her to tumble aimlessly in the darkness which caused her to panic as she has no idea where to go. She closes her eyes in hopes to remedy the disorientation, but it does little to help her.

After floating after what felt like a few minutes, she crashes into and then slides across what she believes is a glass floor for a few seconds before stopping. She opens her eyes only to still see the black void in front of her, but this time she has something to stand on. Slowly she stands up, trying to get over her dizziness and gather her senses together in this strange realm.

After getting her bearings together, Isabel looks around the space around her but still sees absolutely nothing of note. She figures that staying silent isn't going to progress things so she decides to break it.

"Hello! Anyone here?" She yells into the blackness but there isn't any response. "I'm just here to talk, can you please show yourself?" She continues to yell but only a still silence still remains.

Then suddenly, as if in response to her calls, she started to hear something akin to heavy footsteps coming from her left and approaching fast. She looks over to see what it is only to lay eyes on a large blue figure in golden armor wielding equivalently large blades on its arms running right towards her with seemingly killing intent in its eyes. With so little time to react, she holds her arms up, closes her eyes, and braced herself for the incoming impact. But when it was suppose to come she felt nothing, instead she heard the footsteps go on behind her now, so she looks back and see that the figure is still running along as if she never existed.

Suddenly she starts seeing more of the same figures running past her and completely ignoring them as if they were chasing something else entirely. This came to show itself when she started to hear gunfire in the direction of where they're running and her investigation lead her to see a line of soldiers firing at the beings along with some sort of rifleman like her father providing support, tearing them down seconds after they met. Then comes bolts of light coming from the alien's side and she quickly sees that their source are big blue quadrupedal machines that are unlike anything she'd seen before, just what does all this have to do with the boy?

She continues to investigate the area to find out but as soon as she turned back to the firing line she spots a group of people running behind them, this must be what they are supposedly protecting against the aliens. She runs past the group to get a closer look and sees that the entire group is composed of just civilians in some sort of white coats, but it's what's among them that interests her: the kid, and he's being escorted by a short haired woman in attire like the rest. This only confirms that this is all a memory.

Now with something to follow, she runs towards the group hoping to find out as to where they're going. Suddenly a shadow formed over her which caused her to look up and observe a titanic structure looming over them all which makes her wonder as to how she didn't see this before. But she'll ponder that later as she needs to keep track of the group in her search for answers.

After tailing them for a few more seconds she feels herself jolt up causing her to stumble and look down to a rising ramp under her. She runs across and makes it to the interior of the ship, but not before something large made itself known through a loud thud. Her eyes catch the source of the noise which is a large blue monster making its way up the hanger, this caused her to start breathing heavily as fear starts taking root inside her.

"Calm down Isabel, it's just a memory, it's just a memory." She told herself as the monstrous apparition passes through and made its way deeper into the ship.

After slowing her breathing down she jolts back up to see that another creature, one that looks only vaguely like the aliens below, fighting the rifleman while the other continues on. She looks over to and spots the group ascending on a lift with the monster heading right towards them. It quickly scales the wall and reaches the lift where she can sense the fear from all of its passengers. The thing swiped the woman out of the way and took the kid before leaping back down and making its way out of the ship.

Her gaze was guided back to the other creature which is seemingly pushed back by the soldiers and quickly floating towards what looks like a dropship, and withing seconds the creature looked like it took control of the pilot inside as the ramp for it went down and the two creatures entered the ship. It was at this point where everything went black and silent for her again.

She looked around franticly in search for anything, but the void dominates the space again, then suddenly she started to hear something again.

"No need to be afraid anymore Ares. It is all over now, we're finally free from those wretched tarrens, we can do whatever we want now." A raspy voice echoes around her, but she doesn't know as to who or what it's coming from. At least she knows the boy's name now.

Speaking of him she catches a figure just sitting in the distance with their head tucked up against them and after moving a little closer she figures out that it is Ares, but there's something different about this, the aura she can see gives off a shared presence this time as if it's part of the mind. She starts to run towards him with the hope and excitement of making contact with him. She made it meters away from him when she rams into some invisible barrier sending her to the ground and sending a concussive pain through her head.

After recovering from the impact her eyes are suddenly met with his and they locked their gazes as she tries to think of something to do to greet herself to him. Eventually after a few seconds of awkward staring from her end, she waves her hand and gives the best impression of a smile that she can make.

"U-uh, hello there. My name's Isabel, I'm just here to say hello aaaand... have a chat." She stumbles in her introduction as she stands up. However, the boy doesn't respond and continues to stare at her with curious eyes. "Hey, can you hear me?" She knocks on the glass barrier hoping to get anything out of him. But the kid just retreats back into his coil with a now nervous expression. "I'm not here to hurt you, I would actually like to talk to you. Your name is Ares, right?" This got his attention as his head jolts back up to her with a now inquisitive face.

He soon got up and slowly walks towards her as if he still apprehensive about interacting with her, but she continues to give off the warmest smile that she can muster. When the boy eventually got in front of her, she can see that he's a few inches shorter than her and his sky blue eyes gave off a surprisingly pleasant glow as they inspect her. She did the same with him as they both stare at each other as if both of them were unsure as to what to say now, and this was true for Isabel as she never actually planed as to what to say to him after the greeting.

"Are you, real?" Ares asked, his voice muffled by the barrier but still audible to the blonde.

"Yes, I am. I'm Isabel and my father saved you from a storm and brought you to our house." She sees that his body is becoming less tense, so she continues. "You're currently in our care right now, you were pretty beat up when we found you but you're fine now. I'm just here to be the early greeter." She hopes the he would buy it since this is a half-truth on her part and she isn't sure that he'll be happy about someone just rummaging through his head like she's doing.

"So, you're like me?"

"What do you mean?" She wasn't expecting this response.

"You can read minds like me, can't you?" His question was full of innocence as his head tilts up to her.

"Y-yes, I can. You can also?"

"For as long as I can remember, but I never used it much." A ping of excitement forms in her mind as she realized that she's meeting a fellow telepath. She had never met one in person for her entire life but now she isn't alone anymore. For as much as she did appreciate the company of her family they couldn't have the same familiarity with her as she would have with a fellow mind reader.

Just as she was going to continue the conversation Ares suddenly panics as he looks up past her and her own nerves suddenly send a chill up her spine. She spins her head around to be met with shear dread as the familiar form of the monster from the memory looms over her, but this time she can feel its presence just as much as she could feel Ares. Her body refuse to move as fear overtakes her entire being while she watches the monster raised up one of its claws.

"Cronos no!" She heard the boy plea to the creature, but it was no use as within one swift motion its claw came down then everything went black for her.


"You seem rather mellow after everything that happened."

This is actually a normal state of mind for me as I lack the energy to be happy or angry, think of it as the middle ground of the two.

First off let's bring out the daily trivia:

While it may seem like studying and rehearsing information is the best way to ensure that you will remember it, researchers have found that being tested on information is actually one of the best ways to improve recall.

One experiment found that students who studied and were then tested had better long-term recall of the materials, even on information that was not covered by the tests.

Students who had extra time to study but were not tested had significantly lower recall of the materials. (Cherry, Kendra) (Very Well Mind . com)

I knew school wasn't doing something right in that department, it has so many kinks that it needs to iron out.

But now with something that I hadn't done in a while which are reader responses:

Hwang Manuel: I'm glad you took interest in this story my man. This little idea had been a thing since my early days of senior high school, though the premise of the story has certainly changed a lot before I started writing the definitive draft of the first chapter. To give you a taste Ares would've had a much more easygoing attitude at the beginning and Janusar and Cronos weren't going to be a thing. (Also sorry for not responding to you on the last chapter, I forgot to check the reviews for any new ones.)

Mr. treestar: I appreciate you enjoying this story fellow fanfict explorer. Also, thanks for the input regarding the whole name confusion. I've looked back to the earlier chapters and I realized that I may have introduced a lot of characters in such a relatively short time to the point where even I got turned around a bit. But if it's anything else specific then don't be afraid to point it out. I'll try my best to remedy this flaw in later chapters I can assure you that.

Now with all of that done and gone, I hope that you all have a great day or night.

"Wherever you guys may be."

See ya.