Chapter 2: The boy with the scar

I awoke to the smell of fresh chicken soup. When my eyes finally opened, I was in a room that looked sort of like a room in Gummi Glen. The furniture was carved by hand and kind of rustic. The walls were made of wood, like a log cabin in the woods. I slowly made an effort to sit up, but my strength continued to fail me. Even if I was in the lair of a horrible monster, I could do little to stop it from doing anything. Then, from around the right side corner, a human boy about the age of eighteen emerged carrying with him a hot bowl of soup. The boy was slightly gruff looking, but underneath that hard exterior the look of genuine kindness circled in his baby blue eyes. His shirt was white with strange patterns on it that resembled a kind of paint splatter along with some nearly hidden images. His trousers were blue and were made out of a kind of coarse material that was new to me. It was also hard to see his shoes as they were partially hidden by the long legs of his trousers. In all, he stood about five feet tall, give or take two inches. His dusty blond hair had grown long enough to cover his ears and fall just above his eye lids.

"So, you're finally awake." The boy said to me in his smooth, melodic voice. It was only when he approached me and sat down next to the rustic, hand carved bed he had tucked me into did I notice a long scar that traveled from centimeters below his right eye to an inch from the corner of his mouth. "My name is Eric. Eric Lohengrin. What's yours?" I opened my mouth to introduce myself but my voice cracked from the strain before my arrival. "Suh...Sunni." I tried clearing my throat, but that simply made it hurt more. "Sunni Gummi" I was finally able to get out. "Good, that's a start. This soup might make you feel better." He said as he set the bowl down, placed his right hand under my head and gently lifted me up to a sitting position. He then scooted me back so I was resting against the bed's headboard and holding onto the bowl, he dipped a metal spoon into it. After lifting the spoon and some soup out of the bowl, he placed the spoon into my mouth and tipped it upward to allow the broth to drain into my mouth. He then gently pulled the spoon out of my mouth and went to repeat the process. After a couple of spoonfuls of soup, my throat began feeling soothed enough for me to talk. "So, is this your place?" I asked softly, my voice still groggy. "Yah, it is. I prefer it out of the cities." He responded, as he fed me some more soup. The broth flowed smoothly down my throat, warming me up as it fell down and into my stomach. "Why are you helping me?" I asked him. "Because, you were sick, and you were traded to me for upgrade services." He responded. "Traded?" I asked extremely confused. "My profession." He informed me. "Build things for people in return for tradable items. Some dude off of the street thought you were dead and traded the responsibility of burring you in return for some upgrades to his car. You've probably traded more hands than you think." Suddenly I felt even sicker than before. "How did I become a piece of gold?" I blurted out in pure disgust. My head spinning from the mere thought of it. "Gummi Bear relics are worth thousands of gold pieces. How much do you think the desperate and poor would think an actual Gummi Bear would be worth, dead or alive?" Still shocked at his explanation I asked him, "And you? What am I worth to you?" He just fed me some more soup and answered, "Depends on how much you can help me around the shop."

Over the next three weeks, he started teaching me how to "turn wrench". Eventually he put together my own shop coat and I began helping him with his repairs and tune-ups. When customers were around he had me hide in fear that it might start something bad. And rightfully so. Eventually I was able to put together a rough estimate of one hundred thousand gold pieces for the value on my pelt alone. I was surprised at the fact that this day and age still used gold pieces. I forced myself to learn more in three weeks than I could in three months back in my own time. One day, I decided to take a break and climb on the roof to watch the stars. I stared deep into the black abyss, nearly dozing off until a loud siren could be heard off in the great distance. It was soon accompanied by the tall light beams of search lights and the glittering of lights being turned on almost all at once in a tall tower that stretched past the clouds, and came back down in a wide base about the size of a city. Eric dashed out of the shop frantically looking for me and calling my name. "Sunni? Sunni, where are you?" He called. "Up here." I answered. He quickly turned to look at where my voice came from and gave me a sign of relief by resting his left hand on his chest and exhaling silently.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Apparently someone broke into the castle and stole some Gummi Berry Juice." He answered me. "What do you mean stole some..." Suddenly it hit me. He said they stole "Gummi Berry Juice". "How can there be Gummi Berry Juice if the only ones who knew how to make it were..." "Gummi Bears?" Eric interrupted me, "Apparently, 'Lord Igthorn' found multiple versions of it long ago. Different combinations of berries made different juices that gave his ogre troops different abilities. Longevity, lightning speed, super strength, invulnerability, etc." Shocked at the turn of events, there was only one person that survived the onslaught that had even the slightest clue of the existence of Gummi Bears and the fact that Gummi Berry Juice was made with Gummi Berries. "'Lord Igthorn'?" I gasped. "The man who took over the world." Eric added to my shock. "They say, he discovered an item that allowed him to be in several places at the same time and even avoid injury in battles. Others say that he discovered a method of pure immortality." "No." I gasped. "However, I know exactly how he did it." Eric said. Now more confused than ever, I just had to know what he knew. "So, how has Igthorn lived from the medieval times till the twentieth century?" I asked. Eric never answered my question. Instead he simply turned back into the workshop and walked inside.

I made my way off of the roof to follow and confront him. "Eric, tell me what happened. How has Igthorn lived this long?" I called after him. I found Eric resting both his hands against his front desk. He was standing and looked like he was in pain or ashamed of something. "What?" I asked solemnly walking up to him to comfort him. "What is it?" "It was my ancestor." He told me with shame in his voice. I stopped advancing toward him and froze where I was, just staring at him still slightly confused. "What about your ancestor?" I asked him. "My ancestor was a traveling merchant that collected many secrets back in the medieval times. He...he traded Igthorn the location of a powerful relic known as the time stone for a bottle of Gummi Berry juice." Eric explained.

The images of my fellow Gummi Bears being slain in front of me began returning to the forefront of my mind and flashed before my eyes. "Duke Igthorn then used the time stone to travel to the future, acquire his indestructible army and return to his own time and attack in two places simultaneously." Eric admitted to me nearly breaking out into tears. "Gummi Glen and Castle Dunwyn." I said in my state of shock. Eric opened his eyes and turned to look at me. "You act like you were there." He said. The news was still shocking to me and was much to take in. The whole thing began making my head spin and I collapsed to the ground.

I awoke a few hours later to find myself in my bed with Eric sitting next to me. With all of my newly acquired knowledge of how the events of the past had come to be, the sight of him almost made me sick. However, I actually couldn't blame Eric for what his ancestor had done. Plus, there was no way his ancestor could have known what Igthorn was planning in the first place. I sat up in my bed and simply hugged my knees at the memory of my friends and family. "You were there. Weren't you?" Eric solemnly asked me with slight shock in his eyes. I simply nodded, tears running down my cheeks from the corners of my eyes. "That means you must have had the time stone when you arrived here." He thought to himself, and then he noticed me crying to myself. "Look, I'm sorry about everything that has happened to you. You must have experienced some horrible things because of my ancestor." He said to me solemnly to try to cheer me up. "You think so?" I sniffed. "I saw all of my fellow gummi bears being slaughtered in front of my eyes, I was pursued by his metal drones and I was tossed into a futuristic nightmare in which I am considered as nothing more than a few thousand gold coins. I think your ancestor needed to be hanged for what he had set in motion."

A whole twenty minutes of silence passed by before there was a loud, forceful knock on the door. Instinctively, I jumped out of bed and dove under it to try and hide from any guests while Eric made his way to the front door. I'd gotten so use to hiding from his visitors that I didn't think much of it. The only things running through my head were, "I still don't know how Igthorn lived so long", and "I wonder where Eric got that scar". I actually should have paid attention to my gut, which was saying to me that something was different about this visitor, but instead I pushed the feeling aside and just watched. Eric had barely made it to the door when two men in black suits and sunglasses kicked it open and stormed in, followed by six other men in black suits and finally an older man wearing a long white coat. The older man looked like he was from an Asian country and kept a thin white moustache just above his lips. His hair was also white and cut so that it dangled no farther than the middle of the back of his neck. He was slowly balding and wore thin glasses. He stood five feet and three inches tall and entered in with a cocky smile painted on his face. "I heard tale of you keeping an actual gummi bear here, Eric Lohengrin." The older man in the white coat said to him. "Doctor Lavender?" Eric gasped. "Could this be true?" The doctor then added. Before Eric could answer, a gruff voice from behind me said, "I've found something, Doctor." I had just turned around to see the face of the voices owner when he reached under the bed and grabbed my right arm with his left hand. I began to struggle to try to get him to release my arm with no luck. With a forceful heave he yanked me out from under the bed and lifted me up to his full height like he was getting his picture taken while holding up a salmon. "Sunni!" Eric gasped. "Let her go!" He then demanded, turning back to Lavender. "An interesting species, aren't they." Doctor Lavender said ignoring Eric's demand, and watching me struggle to get free from the brute's grip around my arm. Lavender slowly walked up to me and I stopped squirming when he got close enough to stair right into my eyes. "I've spent decades researching their culture, but I've never had an actual living gummi bear to study and any remaining gummi bears there have been had already decomposed by now. You, my dear will make an excellent specimen." His eyes showed true curiosity in an evil fashion. "Take her to the lab." He then ordered his thug. "It's time we found out what makes her 'tick'."

Before any of the goons could exit the room however, Eric placed himself in front of the door and spread his arms out wide, blocking their path. It was quickly rectified, though, when one of the men in black suits buried his fist into Eric's stomach, driving the wind out of his lungs. "Eric!" I called out in shock at seeing him get punched. Eric then collapsed into the man's arms and fainted. The man then moved Eric into a nearby chair and they all simply exited the premises. "Eric?" I called out to him hoping to see him at least stir, to know whether or not he was alive. "Eric?" I called out to him again as the entourage marched farther and farther away and closer to their transportation vehicle. I reached out to him, hoping that this all was a dream and that I was simply going to awaken at any moment. No such luck. I was thrown into a limousine where another goon caught me and quickly placed cuffs around my tiny wrists, forced me into the seatbelt. The vehicle then was started and I was hauled away to who-knows-where.