Disclaimer: same thing I said in the last chapter.
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Somewhere in the tower's hallways
Speedy was walking down the hall at a leisurely pace. He was also whistling a familiar tune as he walked. Where was he particularly going at the moment? He was on his way to the medical ward. On his way to check up on the Titans East's new guest.
They had all just finished breakfast a couple minutes ago and Bumble Bee decided that someone should check-up on Terra. Speedy volunteered, or should it be said that he was volunteered. He was in the process of chugging down his glass of orange juice when Bumble Bee made the request and everyone else at the table said: "Not it."
So here he was on his impromptu assignment. He didn't mind that much really. It just annoyed him how he is usually the guy everyone else keeps being conned into these kind of things. Oh well, he didn't have anything better to do this morning any way.
He reaches the door leading to the particular room that Bumble Bee said she used. He pressed the electronic switch on the side of the door and it slid open. He walked in and went all the way to the back behind the curtain. He slid the curtain aside to reveal the bed and…nobody was there.
He stood there looking dumbly at the empty bed for a few moments. Then he started to notice stuff. Like how the bed is unmade and the blanket was sprawled on the floor and the mattress's cover is a bit roughed up and the pillow was sunk in the middle.
Speedy reached for his communicator. He pushed the call button.
"Yo, Bee, can you read me?" he said into the communicator.
A few moments of static then came Bumble Bee's voice. "Yeah, I read you, Speedy. what's up?"
"Uh…can you say to me again what room you put Terra in?" asked Speedy while walking backwards towards the door.
"Room M-03 of the medical ward. Aren't you there yet?"
"Well…" Speedy exited the room and looked up at the plaque above the door. It was labeled 'M-03'. Somewhere in the back of Speedy's mind, a mental alert sounded off indicating to Speedy that something was not right.
"Is there a problem?"
"…Possibly…"
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In another area of the tower.
She decided to forget about everything else at the moment. The only thing that mattered top Terra at the moment, as she was running madly down the cold hallways of her unfamiliar prison, was to find a way out. The fear of being lost has finally consumed her at that moment. She had to get away from this place. She had to escape…somehow.
She just came down from the roof via the emergency stairs instead of the elevator. She opened the first unlocked door she could find while descending the stairs which was about three stories down. She opened it and ran into the hallway just trying to find a way out.
She made so much turns as it was that she didn't care to count or to remember if a she was actually going anywhere. She was in a panic at that moment trying but failing to keep control of her impulses. She was panting heavily, trying to catch her breath as soon as it left her.
She turned a corner, ran a distance, then skid to a halt. On the fork ahead of her, she heard the familiar pitter-patter of footsteps. She started to walk backwards, getting nervous. After a while a shadow finally creeps around the corner. Terra didn't stick around long enough to see who it was. She turned around and ran the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, Aqualad peeked out of the corner. As he was coming out of the turn, he barely got a glimpse of long blonde hair flying around the far corner ahead of him and the hurried pitter-patter of dashing feet. A thought came to mind.
"Hey!" he screamed towards the fleeting figure and began to give chase.
He pulled out his communicator in the middle of his run and spoke into it. "Titans, this Aqualad. I've spotted her on level fourteen. She on the move and I'm after her. Get here as soon as you guys can!"
He didn't bother to wait for a confirmation from the other if they got the message. He was in a hurry. He chased after the fleeing girl as best he can but despite his Atlantean physic he wasn't that much of a runner. He did spend most of his life kicking water after all.
Terra was ahead of him by about forty or so yards. She tried to loose him by turning every single corner she could find in the maze like hallways. Somewhere in her mind she wondered why someone would plan a building like this with so many confusing passages. She then thought it was probably a security measure of some kind to confuse people who weren't used to the building…like herself.
"Hey, stop!"
That came from behind her. Terra didn't dare look back and only did her best to run faster. She turned a corner again. This particular hallway, as she saw, had doors. Thinking quickly, she reached for the closest door she could get to and pressed the switch to open it. As soon as the door opened she slipped inside and closed it.
Just as that happened, Aqualad turned the corner to find nothing but an empty hallway. Imaginary exclamation points and question marks popped in and out over his head. The girl was gone.
"How the…where'd she get to?" he asked himself and ran ahead hoping to try and catch her again soon.
Meanwhile, inside whatever room she entered, Terra was listening beside the door. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she had evaded her pursuer for the moment. She got up from where she was crouched next to the door to get a clearer view of the room. It was a dimly lit room filled with shelves and racks holding a whole lot of boxes and cases containing assorted stuff. Terra concluded it was a storage closet of some kind.
Terra noticed that there was another door on the opposite side of the space she was in. She began walking towards it. She hoped the door would lead to another avenue of escape and maybe she could finally find a way out of her predicament.
She suddenly stopped as she suddenly heard a voice coming from the other end of the door. Slowly, the door she was heading for slowly opened to reveal Bumble Bee speaking into her communicator. Bumble Bee walked in without looking up at first.
"I'm here at level fourteen, Aqualad," said Bumble Bee into her communicator. She looked up and didn't see anything in front of her but stacks of boxes and cases on the shelves.
"She gave me the slip just now," replied Aqualad's voice from the communicator, "She could be anywhere. Keep an eye out, Bee."
"Roger that," said Bumble Bee then pockets away her communicator.
She hovers forward looking around the dimly lit room. She didn't see anyone in particular. All she saw was stacked box after box and a multitude of shelves with more boxes. They still had a lot of stuff left over from the tower's construction and they really didn't know what to do with all that extra junk. So everything was mostly cluttered inside this room. Bumble Bee made a mental note to find a way to get rid of all this clutter in the near future.
Bumble Bee floated all the way to the other door and made to exit. As she reached the door, she turned around and took one final look around the store room. Not a soul in sight. She then exited the room through the door and everything was quiet again.
Behind one of the many stacks of boxes and cases, Terra got up as soon as she was sure she was alone again. It was luck that she was able to duck behind one of the stacks just as that other girl came in. It seemed that Terra wasn't noticed so the other girl moved on. Terra sighed again and went for the door opposite where she came in from and exited the store room.
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In the elevator.
There was Speedy, Más and Menos. They were currently on there way up to meet with Bumble Bee and Aqualad. Speedy was on the communicator and the twins were simply looking up at him waiting for something to do.
"Do you guys have a fix on her yet?" inquired Speedy into his communicator.
"Not yet," came Aqualad's response.
"She managed to give us the slip up here," concurred Bumble Bee.
Speedy let out a frustrated sigh. "Look here guys, I don't think were gonna get anywhere like this. I say we should split up."
"Sounds good to me," replied Bumble Bee.
"Works for me too," said Aqualad, "Let's all look in different floors. Anyone spot her call to confirm with the rest."
"Got it, over and out." Said Speedy closing his communicator. He then went to the elevator controls and pressed the 'Stop' button. Elevator stopped and the doors opened into the eight floor. Speedy then looked down on the twins.
"Alright you guys," he said to them, "We should split up here. You guys search this floor and work you way down. I'll go ahead upstairs and work my way up. You got that?"
"¡Tú puedes contar con nosotros!" the twins said in unison. Más then hopped on top of Menos's shoulders and the two sped off out of the elevator.
Speedy watched the two disappear in a blur of red and white before pushing the 'close doors' button on the elevator. After the doors closed he pushed the button for the ninth floor and waited paitiently for the elvator to reach there. While alone he said to himself: "And here I thought this morning couldn't get more interesting…"
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On the ninth floor, there was a large indoor Zen garden.
It was a huge space occupying about half the whole space of the ninth floor. It was suppose to be another gym area during the conceptualization of the tower but during its final periods to completion the plans were spontaneously redrawn.
It was Cyborg's suggestion actually. Everyone seemed to be into it and offered no objections. Titans' Tower in the west coast had plenty of space for gardens outside on the island. However Titans' Tower East had little to support a large garden on the rocky crags of the island that supported the tower.
So they decided to use up the extra space in this floor to create a Zen Garden, Japanese style. It had everything. White sand with patterns, stone pathways, large towering stones, a small wooden Japanese style house for meditation, a cherry blossom tree in each corner, a couple of Buddha sculptures here and there, and even a little pond and stream that surrounded (like a moat) and went through the middle of the space where there are a few Japanese coy fish swimming around. There was also an arcing wooded bridge rising over the stream. The walls and ceiling even have corresponding paintjobs and lighting
Though none of the Titans East was Japanese by nature or origin, the indoor Zen Garden still provided for some good relaxation and meditation. Plus it provided a sense of style to the tower.
The double doors the lead into the garden opened up. Terra hesitantly walked into the large indoor garden. Almost immediately she was in awe by the sight. She had only seen places like this in magazines and travel books. She has seen a few such gardens in real life but none this scale. She heard that this was a good place to relax but relaxation was the farthest thing from her mind right now.
She moved forward into the garden, following the stone pathways since the sand annoyed her bare feet. She was at least thankful it wasn't as cold here as it was in the air-conditioned hallways where she was practically shivering all the way. She took in as much of the warmth as she could.
She spent quite some time running around the garden looking for an alternate doorway. As beautiful as the garden was, Terra did find one thing that did not appeal to her about the garden: there wasn't a backdoor. The place had only one entrance and exit and that was the door she used to get in here.
This was bad, she told herself. Terra knew that coming in here was a mistake. It was a room with one door which meant that she would have no avenue of escape if worse came to worst. She had to get out and find another way around, and fast. She's trapped in here if she stays.
She rushed to the door she used to come in through and exited the room. She ran down the hallway to where there was a fork up ahead where she would try the other route to take since her last choice was not good. Just as she reached the end of the hallway, her eyes grew wide and she skidded to a stop. She actually slipped and fell on her butt.
By amazing coincidence, Speedy had come from the adjacent hallway and showed up right in front of Terra just as she was about to reach the end of the hall. Speedy stopped in his tracks to acknowledge the girl. Terra, on the other hand, got up and ran down the opposite direction and back into the garden.
"Hey, wait up!" called out Speedy to the fleeing girl and soon gave chase. He also pulled out his communicator and practically yelled into it. "Guys, I found her. We're in the Zen Garden. Get over here, pronto!"
Terra dashed back into the garden but then realized her mistake. As she had feared just earlier she was trapped. No other way to go. She was truly trapped and that was something that made her really nervous. Being trapped, above all else was her biggest fear.
"Hey!" she heard someone call out to her. She looked behind her and saw the masked archer in red and yellow. She gave in to the firs instinct that took over which was to run. She went even deeper into the garden.
"Wait!" called out Speedy, "I just wanna tal--!"
Speedy was interrupted by a blur of red and white that rushed pass him. The blur went into the garden and stopped in front of the fleeing Terra who gasped and fell on her back in surprise. The red and white blur materialized into Más and Menos standing on top of one another.
They pointed aggressively at Terra and barked orders at her. "¡Detente y se rendir a usted mismo, ahora! Somos el este de Titans y te ordenamos--"
Terra yelled out. "Leave me alone!" She lifted a golden glowing palm towards the twins. From behind her, several stepping stones that were on the pathway lifted into the air surrounded with a golden aura. The stones then rocketed towards the twins.
"¡Ten cuidado!" they both yelled out as they jumped in opposite directions to avoid the converging pieces of stone.
Terra quickly got back up. Both her hands and her eyes were now partially glowing in gold. She had reached her limit here in the garden. She knows she can't escape now. He only choice was to make a stand. They were not gonna take her easily.
Terra looked behind her and saw Speedy who was wide-eyed and looking a little nervous. She knew if she was going to get out of here, she was gonna have to push him and anybody else out of her way. She lifted a glowing palm towards him and several other stepping stones lifted off the ground and shot towards Speedy, one by one.
"Yikes!" gasped Speedy as he dodged the first volley by rolling onto the side. The second volley was coming at him soon after. Speedy quickly slung an arrow on his bow and shot it towards the volley of golden glowing rocks coming at him The arrow's tip exploded into three long steel cables that spun like a fan. As arrow met the flying stones, the spinning cables pulverized the stones into dust.
Terra was about to prepare another volley of rocks when Más and Menos finally recovered and ran around her in a blurry red and white ring. As they did the kicked up a lot of sand and gravel blinding Terra in a cloud of white.
Terra soon regains her composure and uses her powers to take control of the flying sand particles. Using the sand in the air and under their feet, Terra lifted the twins off of the ground into a sand tornado of her making. The twins were separated and helplessly flailing around, screaming.
"¡No nos gusta el esto!" they both yelled in mid air.
Terra then threw her arms out ward and the two speedsters went flying in separate directions. The both landed in the sand on their backs with resounding 'oofs'.
Terra dropped her hands down and they stopped glowing along with her eyes. She was getting tired. Aside from all the running, the fact that she hasn't had any nutritional fill for who knows how long was getting to her. She could hear her stomach rumbling and she could feel the strain on her muscles, her head getting dizzy, and her legs caving in. She can't take much more of this.
"Hey, you can't do that to us!"
Terra turned to the side and saw Aqualad a distance away readying to spheres of water he took from the pond. Terra pushed the fatigue aside for the moment and readied herself as best she can.
"I'm trying to be nice here," said Aqualad, "Just give up and we'll just calmly--"
Her hands started glowing and stepping stone started to lift off the ground. Aqualad acted first by tossing both of his water bombs at her. Terra thought quickly and made the stones come together to create a shield of stone. The water bombs made a strong impact but wasn't enough to break her defense. Terra countered by shooting her floating stones at Aqualad.
Aqualad tried to counter the volley of stones by summoning a whip of water from the nearby artificial stream. The whip was affective in destroying some of the stones but three particularly large ones were still heading his way. Aqualad's dark eyes went wide.
Fortunately for the Atlantean, three explosive arrows, care of Speedy, impacted the flying pieces of earth and disintegrated them all on impact. Speedy stepped up next to Aqualad and took a ready position.
Terra went down on one knee. The fatigue was setting in again only much worse this time. The hunger and thirst was getting to her and she couldn't cope with it for much longer. She was running on nothing else except adrenalin and sheer determination but still, she was reaching her limit and things were not looking good for her at all.
She composed herself and stood back up. She raised a glowing hand into the air summoning more stepping stones off of the ground. Speedy and Aqualad on the far end prepared their own arsenal. Speedy wasn't as keen on it as Aqualad was and hesitated to think for a moment. Terra was about to launch an attack on the two boys when something to the side drew her attention.
"Hey, lay off 'em!"
Terra turned her gaze to the side and saw Bumble Bee charging at her. Bumble Bee un-holstered her twin stingers and aimed at Terra. Terra reacted by calling on the floating stones at her disposal to form a stone shield between her and Bumble Bee. Bumble bee let out a couple of blast from her twin stingers towards Terra.
The shield of stone Terra created between them blocked all of blasts from Bumble Bee's stingers. Terra counter-attacked. She broke apart her shield and shot individual stones towards Bumble Bee in rapid succession.
Bumble Bee went wide eyed. She thought quickly and shrunk her self down to the size of a golf ball and flew back wards swerving in and out avoiding the comparatively massive stones that were heading her way. She managed to dodge all of the incoming stones then returned to normal size after the stones crashed into the sand behind her. She flew towards Terra like a missile.
Terra saw her first attack fail and tried it again with the remaining stones she still had in the air. Her hands and Eyes started to glow bright gold and she threw her hands forward towards Bumble Bee. All the stones that were still in the air shot towards Bumble Bee all at the same time.
Bumble Bee narrowed her eyes and thought up quickly of what she was going to do to evade. Se found an opening in the stones. She spontaneously shrunk herself down to the size of an actual bumble bee. She flew through the opening with ease and emerged on the other side full-sized again.
Bumble Bee narrowed her distance between Terra to a mere ten feet and less than a second of reaching her. In that critical fraction of a second, Terra reacted in instinct by suddenly lifting her hands up, glowing extra bright. In that same instance, a pillar of white sand shot up from directly bellow Bumble Bee and shoved her high into the air and back away from Terra.
"Who-o-o-oa!"
Bumble Bee flailed around in the air out of control and with no orientation. As she fell back down to earth, Más and Menos suddenly appeared from below her and tried to catch her falling figure. She fell right on top of them and kicked up a bid cloud of white sand and dust. When the sand cleared, Más and Menos were pinned down on their bellies by Bumble Bee's groaning figure.
Terra dropped her hands and they stopped glowing along with her eyes. Her vision suddenly got blurry for a minute there and her head was aching. She could feel her sugar reserves burning away. She shook it off and did her best to regain her composure. She stood as ready as she could though not ready enough.
She was caught off-guard as a sphere of water impacted right next to her feet. The resulting blast from the water bomb was powerful enough to launch her off her feet and on her butt in the white sand.
"Ugh!"
Aqualad, Bumble Bee, Más and Menos converged around her but kept their distance. Terra was trying desperately to get up once again but was noticeably struggling. Speedy seemed to be the only one who noticed this as he gradually lowered his bow and arrow.
Miraculously, Terra managed to stand up on two feet again, albeit a little shaky. Terra willed more of the remaining stepping stones into the air along with the larger towering stones. The Titans readied their mitts.
It looked like the apocalypse was about to come down right on the spot. Everyone was about to come down on everyone else when…
Speedy yelled out. "Enough!"
Everyone froze in their tracks. They all stared at Speedy.
"That's enough, all of you!" he continued, "We're not enemies here!"
The Titans East heard the massage clearly and responded correspondingly. Bumble Bee slowly lowered her twin stingers. Aqualad regressed the water bombs he was holding up back into the stream. Más and Menos stepped away from each other. Terra, however remained tense and kept her pose though the change in her expression was evident. Speedy addressed the blonde girl directly.
"Look, Terra…" he said towards her, "You don't have to be afraid of us. Were not your enemies, girl. We want to help you the best we can…" Speedy tossed his bow to the side and dropped his pack of arrows.
"…who… are you guys?" asked Terra, "and…where am I? How did I…?"
"We can't tell you everything, to be honest. But don't worry about us. We are the Titans East and you're in our towe--"
"Titans?" Terra, upon hearing that word, stumbled backwards in a sudden panic.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy there!" Speedy walked up to Terra who almost went into a fetal position on the sand as if trying to protect herself then went into a mad ramble.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean anything I did, I never wanted to do those things, I swear! I---!"
Speedy knelt down next to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Don't worry about it! Everything's gonna be fine, okay? We know the story. We know your not a bad guy—er girl."
Terra looked up at Speedy with tear stricken eyes. Somewhere in her subconscious mind, she wanted to believe everything the he just said.
"He's right, we know your not really evil," said Aqualad, "And I guess we should really be the ones apologizing here, giving you such a scare like that. This was totally our fault, seriously."
"Yeah, that's true," concurred Bumble Bee, "Believe me when I say that we never wanted things to turn out like this. But we can't really blame you for acting the way you did, considering what you may be going through. Completely our bad."
"Nuestras disculpas más sinceras, señora," said the Más and Menos.
Terra looked around as everyone said their piece. The fear in her eyes gradually receeded as she looked back up at Speedy.
"See? I told you everything will be fine," said Speedy, "We're all friends here…"
We're all friends here. Friends. Something in that last statement triggered a flood of memories to overcome Terra. She could remember everything that happened to her, everything she did, and she also remembered the last time she heard that phrase. The last person to tell her that phrase. She broke into tears.
Terra's head dropped onto Speedy's chest and her arms wrapped around his back. She began to sob uncontrollably. Speedy, was caught in an awkward situation. He never really experienced having to cater to a sobbing girl before. None of the other Titans were able to help him either. This circumstances that lead to this point was awkward enough as it was.
Speedy started to gently rub Terra's shoulders in order to comfort her a bit. He also gave the most reassuring words he could think of at that moment.
"Don't worry, okay? Your gonna be fine…"
Terra rambled uncontrollably. "I'm sorry… I never wanted things… to end like that… I wanted to…"
"Calm down, were gonna keep you safe now, alright?
"…"
"…Hey, are you okay?"
Terra couldn't answer him. She already fainted from exhaustion.
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In some secrete facility.
Professor Chang walks along a dimly lit hallway. The walls were rusty, the floor constantly creaked with his every step, and half the bulbs were either unlit or blinking. Wherever he was the place was falling apart. He didn't particularly mind though. His last hideout was not any shabbier. That wasn't the point of him staying here anyway.
The place he was currently staying in, along with his crew, was and old, old factory located somewhere near the borders of the city. It was so old, nobody what the factory made when it was in operations. It wasn't pretty but it did just fine for the mad scientist. Chang picked the place for his hideout in Steel City because of two major reasons: it was inconspicuous and it had ample space for all his stuff.
He was deep in thought as he walked the lonely hallway. Things hadn't gone the way they were supposed to go for the last few days. The key part oh the master plan just fell out of their hands and they have now way of getting it back, at least at the moment. He was stuck waiting. Though he personally suggested they needed patience doesn't mean he liked it.
He reached the end of the hallway he was walking down on. It ended in a large steel door. He pushed the door open with moderate ease. Behind the door was a pretty large room. The room was lined with computer terminals and video screens. Wires and cables snaked along the floor being in no particular order. The main feature of the room was on the far wall.
Ten metal cylinders stood up against the wall in a semi circle. The had wires and cables connecting to the base of each cylinder. On top of each cylinder was a light bulb. Nine of the cylinders had the bulbs shining a bright green while one in the middle was shining a bright red. Next to the large metal cylinders sitting in front of a computer terminal was a solitary henchman dressed in the usual white jumpsuit and face mask.
The henchman noticed Professor Chang behind him and stood to greet him. "Good afternoon, sir. What brings you here?"
"A new assignment for our friend here," said Chang, "Raise them."
The henchman turned to his computer terminal. He entered some kind of command with the keyboard. After which, a loud clicking sound was heard from all ten cylinders. The bulbs on top of each cylinder suddenly turned red. Slowly, the outer wall of the metal cylinders started to rotate. A few seconds later all cylinders were open and showing their content.
One cylinder was empty, the one that had the red bulb while the others were green. Inside the other nine, There was an identical looking bald man dressed in black and a sword on his back. They stood motionless in the middle of the metal cylinder with eyes closed.
Chang stared at them for a while. Chang called them mech-rangers. They were advanced cybernetic soldiers that were disguised as humans. These particular models seemed to specialize in sword combat.
Chang originally planned to market these things as specialized assassins. He's one problem was to make them more human-like. At the moment, the mech-rangers can't talk, blink their eyes, or exhibit any kind of emotion. In this state Chang couldn't really market them as assassins. For the moment though, they made excellent foot soldiers. Too bad he lost one, but he supposed that strong as these things were they can still be overwhelmed. Plus it was the Titans East after all.
Chang turned to his henchman. "Which of them was the one we equipped with the advanced surveillance systems?"
"That would be unit four, sir," answered the henchman.
"Call him out here. he has a new assignment for today."
"Yes sir." The henchman entered another command on his computer terminal.
The fourth mech-ranger from the left suddenly opened its eyes. It slowly stepped out of the cylinder. He stood in the middle of the room waiting for something. Chang stepped up to it. He pulled from one of his pockets a small computer chip. He moved behind the mech-ranger. From that angle, an insertion slot was obvious from the back of the android's neck.
Professor Chang took the small computer chip and inserted it into the slot in the back of the mech-rangers neck. The chip slipped in automatically. A few moments pass by as the androids eyes blink a couple of times. After it was done blinking, Chang moved in front of it.
"Listen here," he said to it, "confirm new objectives: you are to survey the city for signs of the designated target 'Terra' while remaining undetected as best as possible and upon locating the target, you are to report your findings directly to me."
The mech-ranger nodded.
"Good. Now proceed."
The mech-ranger slowly walked out of the room. Chang turned to give a nod to his henchman. The henchman took it as a silent command and turned back to his computer terminal where he entered a few more commands.
The ten cylinders started to rotate back into place, closing the remaining androids inside. The lights of eight turned back to green while the two empty ones remained red.
Chang eventually followed the mech-soldier out of the room, leaving the henchman to his work. He again walked that long and rusted hallway. As he walked his mind wandered. He thought about Brother Blood and their new weapon in the making. He thought about the key ingredient in all of this. Her.
He smirked at the thought. Yes, her. He wondered about her. He wondered what could she be up to right now or if she's even awake. And he especially wondered about he she would react when she knew the truth about herself. The painful truth that he was keeping from her. He grinned even more at the thought.
But he abandoned that train of thought and thought about more serious matters at the moment. He did not need to dwell in such thoughts for now. In time, the truth will be revealed soon enough.
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Author's note: Hoped you liked this next installment. My next update will come in a few days. In the meantime, pls. Read & Review. They're a really big help to me.