Ryan was with Violet, on a date. It seemed to be going well. As they were leaving the restaurant they were at, Violet was impaled by a stick. Ryan looked at her, seeing her bloody and lifeless. Then he met the same fate, only to wake up, groggy, uncomfortable. There was a somewhat familiar warmth on his left arm. Ryan looked, to see Violet, sleeping on it like a pillow. Her back was facing him. Ryan could tell that she was hugging something or someone.

It took a moment to remember what had happened last night. Then it all came flooding into his mind. The plane, almost drowning, their mother leaving, and the encounter with his father. Ryan felt his chest. There was obviously burnt flesh there.

"That must be how they stopped the bleeding"Ryan thought

That's when dash seemed to wake up. Once he realized how close he was to his sister, he quickly scrambled away from her.

Ryan, still on the floor laughed a bit as he watched Dash.

"Hey! What're you laughing at?"Dash asked kinda angry and embarrassed

"Oh, nothing, just the fact that you want to be close to Vi, but you're always so openly disgusted by it"Ryan spoke with obvious knowing

"Well, that's kinda hard with you two always being together" Dash's voice had a hint of jealousy

"I'm sorry for that Dash. Maybe we could work something out when we get home. For now, we should probably try to find mom."

"I guess"

Dash then began to look around, noticing a bird.

"Hey, Vi, Ryan, look!" He nudged Violet awake

Violet, noticing she was one Ryan's arm, quickly sat up with a slight blush. Ryan sat up as well, reclaiming feeling in his arm.

"AUTHORIZATION CODE REQUIRED" its mechanical voice said

"I don't think that's a normal bird" Ryan said with caution as he eyed the strange thing curiously

"INCORRECT CODE" it then let out a shrill alarm that rang throughout the forest. Violet and Ryan quickly jumped to their feet as Dash began to run a bit ahead of them. Within seconds, there were four men in flying saucer buzz saws chasing them. The three kids ran for their lives. There was a clearing up ahead, and another floated down into it, prompting the kids to split up.

Dash went one way, taking three of them with him. Ryan and Violet went what seemed to be the opposite way, with the one from the clearing and another following them. They were then prompted to split up once again, leaving them each alone.

Ryan ran with all his might. He was glad he was on the football and track teams at school, because that made all the running easy for him. He was more worried about how Violet was doing. She didn't do more than what she had to do to pass gym, and Ryan knew this.

It occurred to Ryan that this guy chasing him wasn't going to stop. Ryan stopped running, turning around. He lifted his arms as high as his shoulders with his hands in front of him, conjuring the shadows of the trees to form into spikes that impaled the man's machine. Ryan then saw how many shadows there were here, and decided to use those to his advantage, as he shot himself up over the trees for a seconds using a type of shadow slingshot, before landing on more shadows that cushioned his fall. He had seen a decent clearing ahead, and decided that that's where he would head towards affecting seeing trees falling towards that direction.

It rooms a few minutes to make it there at Ryan's full speed, but he wasn't disappointed. He found their mother and father fighting off the same guys that has been chasing them. Dash and Violet were there too. Just before Violet was being ambushed, Ryan ran in, hands coated in his own shadow, as he punched the man that was about to shoot at her. Violet looked back to see that he's got her back, and she gave him a smile before returning the favor and making a forcefield behind him that a man ran into. The forcefield dissipated and Ryan punched the man in the face. This continued on for a few minutes, before beams were shot at the family, immobilizing each of them.

Then came a foreign laugh. He seemed to know their father.

"I am Syndrome!"

"Matching outfits? Wait. Why is yours different?"he asked as he addressed Ryan's black and silver costume.

"He's adopted. But he's still my son" a familiar voice spoke as another man floated down. It was Ryan's father.

"So, that one is your kid?"the guy with orange hair asked the other

"Precisely. But, he has rejected me, so I will leave him in your custody. Be sure to torture him. Just don't kill him"

Ryan wanted to say something. He wanted to ask questions. But the beams from Syndrome kept him immobile and speechless. The whole family then received a shock till they were rendered unconscious.

That's the chapter end for now. A new chapter will come soon. I've been distracted with things irl, so I'd previously been able to update this, but I'll try to throw out a chapter for this maybe every other week along with my SAO story. So, until then, I'll leave it at this.