I think we broke the game… Well, she broke the game. In a way, I knew it would have been like that if she were to be here, but now that I see it with my own eyes…

“Sam! I found their weak point!”

“Punching through their skull is not a weak point Alice! And stop playing around! They’re not cats!”

“They kinda look like cats…”

Sigh…

We were in a ghost town, surrounded by what appeared to be robotic sabre-tooth tigers. They had an external armour, letting some inside fuselage visible. Plus, from some part of their body was a blue light emitted. We quickly discovered that it was from their core, after Alice… cut one in half.

She was already amazing and scary back home, but know it's like she has superpowers.

Apparently, she had a blade training or something, but it didn’t sound as traumatizing as mine. As I wasn’t using it I let her borrow my silver dagger -I kept it as a reminder of Laura. She was pretty happy to have it.

The ground was filled with mechanical pieces and trashed tiger robots. However, there are still a lot surrounding us, and the problem is that I’m not really useful.

I can't really use my foresight ability here, it would just backlash after a few seconds when I’ll get forced out with brain damage, so I'm just dodging and deviating their attacks. Their specs seem close to the one I fought back then in the jungle -sweat nostalgia- but this time I can react fine, if only it was not 50 vs 2.

“Muahahaha”

I guess I’m the only one struggling… Alice is completely in her element, slashing left and right at there “weak point”. She seems to have a lot of fun.

“Okay, I’m bored.”

Or not…

“Come close.”

Without any hesitation, I executed the order and jumped back near her.

Both of her hands ignited and with a swift rotation, she created a circle of flame around us -I want to say I was surprised, but at this point, she could explode them with her mind it wouldn't phase me. She increased the power of the flame and quickly overwhelmed the whole city, leaving only melted corpses and ashes in the street.

"… Why didn’t you start with that?”

“Hey! That’s the first time I have a weapon to test my new techniques, and it’s not fun to finish a fight in one move.”

“I guess that’s one way of seeing it. Let me check the Questbook, I didn’t read the Objective yet.”

“Oh yeah, the book…”

“I still wonder how you managed without it.”

Struggle#11

Objective: Survive the Cybertooth Tiger pack attack

Sub-Objective: Destroy all of them

Hum… only one sub-objective, that’s a first.

I looked at the back cover.

S: Hey! I was wondering… Have you ever seen a purple haired woman?

S: It’s important, probably.

She hasn't answered yet. It's been only a day, but usually, she's pretty fast, even if it's totally off topic…

"So? What does your magic book say?"

“We finished the struggle, the door should be in that direction.”

"This thing looks really convenient."

“Yeah… but half the time all it does is confusing you about what you have to do, like, in my 9th struggle I had to… never mind.”

“Your 9th struggle? What happened?”

“Well…”

I felt my book vibrating inside my pocket, thank god!

“Hey, she responded!”

“Who?”

“Val, you know… about the vision and stuff.”

"Oh yeah… "

"Arf, it was to be expected."

“What?”

I showed her the discussion.

S: Hey! I was wondering… Have you ever seen a purple haired woman?

S: It’s important, probably.

V: VVhy? You have a fetish? (O.o)

V: Maybe I should taint my hair. (^-^)

“What the heck?”

“Sigh… at least she’s responding now.”

S: I said it’s important —’

S: I had a vision of my own death, and it was a purple haired woman that killed me.

V: Poor little boy had a nightmare :p

V: You shouldn’t take your visions that seriously.

S: You’re telling me that my ability might lie to me?

V: Nah, I’m telling you that it vvouldn’t be the first time a Seer got a fake vision.

V: Our theory is that you, and the other Seer, don’t really “see” a definitive future, but the most probable one.

V: The further away you see in the timeline, the more opportunities you have to do something crazy and disturb the future.

S: It happened before?

V: Yep, several times. It’s kinda funny to see nevvcomers bet everything on someone’s dream, and then stupidly die.

S: Sometimes you scare me, Val.

V: Avvvv… thanks (^-^)

S: …

S: I’m out.

S: Thanks for the advice, I’ll look for something crazy to do in order to avoid… well, dying.

V: Bye :p

V: Oh! And by the way, Hi Alice!

“She can see me?”

“Yeah… they don’t want to talk about it, and we can’t really do anything about it.”

“That’s creepy! Even when we go… you know, to the bathroom. That’s so embarrassing!”

“Yeah… the bathroom… that would be the worst.”

Now that I think about it, if she was always watching me… Okay, let's not think about it.

Forever.

“Anyway! At least I learned a bit about my power. I think I’ll tell the other about the vision too.”

"Oh yeah, I forgot the others are here too…"

Still chatting, we started moving toward the door coordinate.

"I know you don't get along with them, but the circumstances have changed."

"Hey! I'm not the problem, they are the ones not getting along with me."

"Sigh… at least there are only a few chances we meet them before the 20th stage."

“By the way, do you think it’s “allowed” that we travel together? You said that all the others are by themselves so…”

“I don’t really care about what is allowed or not. You went through the door perfectly fine so I don’t see why it’s against the rules, if there are any. Plus, you don’t have a book, I can’t let you by yourself like that.”

“Awwww…”

“You're my precious little…”

“Finish this sentence and you’ll never be able to say that word again.”

“…companion?”

“Awwww…”

This is getting weird, 5 minutes ago she was cutting killing machine beasts in half and now she's smiling innocently. This quest might have taken a toll on her. Well, she was a bit like that to begin with anyway, so maybe it's just me.

I just I'll be able to fix her relationship with the rest of the group.

“Do you plan to keep your hair that way?”

Alice touched them lightly, spacing out with a melancholic face.

"I think this type of colour suits me better now."

“Alice… it wasn’t your fault. Neither it was during the purge.”

“I know… I think I just need time to reflect on myself, I’ll change them back eventually.”

I have to say, compared to her previous totally white hair, this new blood red colour gives her some kind of wild atmosphere. Also, is this just me or she adopted the same long hairstyle than Nami?

Shit, I stared at her way too long, and now she’s giving back a sly smile.

Quick, I need something to divert the conversation…

“Hey! Over there! The door!”

At the top of the next hills was the familiar old door standing. Hurray for my i-talent.

“Your book was right after all. I would have loved to have this in the snowfield.”

"Oh yeah, glad you managed to use my talent, even if "use" is a bit of a stretch. I still wonder how you managed to get this far without a book. Like… how did you know what to do?"

“I didn’t… I pretty much went with the flow.”

"Well, I'm not that much worry about your ability to face whatever's coming at you."

“The thing is, even though my main talent works just fine. I came across people I couldn’t copy.”

"… The Kunans? It wouldn't be surprising, those guys seem to be at the top of the food chain, at least here. It's not the first time that happened to you, and in the end you still managed to humiliate Nami."

"Come on… I didn't really humiliate her… it was a joke."

“A bad one. She still remembers it.”

“Saying that is not fair and you know it.”

“I know, I know… But you should still apologize one day.”

“Hey! We arrived in front of the door!”

Damn, she's using my trick!

After a long sigh, we went through the teleportation device.

We arrived in the middle of a huge modern city, and when I say modern, I mean skyscrapers, flying cars and holographic ads. The air was pure, many trees were planted along the roads, everyone seemed happy and most of them were using some kind of transparent screen. The way things were working reminded me a bit of the blue crystal inside the tigers we just fought.

The street was lively, but nobody remarked our odd arrival. Instead, they stared at our odd clothes. I realized I was still in my martial art suit, and Alice was wearing some kind of medieval leather male clothes -apparently, she borrowed it on her 9th struggle.

We might need to chang… something flashed in my head. 3 images, a hotel name, a room number, and… no way.

“Is something wrong? You spaced out a bit…”

“There! The Justin Hostel!”

I pointed at a tremendous building at the end of the street, with the giant gold letters JUSTIN written above five stars and the entrance of the said hostel. The building had at least 50 floors, and was releasing an atmosphere of overwhelming wealth.

I rushed toward it, and Alice followed me in confusion.

People looked at us weirdly when we entered, but I was too much in a rush to care. I went straight to the reception desk and the receptionist asked me

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Yes, I would like to contact my friend. She's in the room 549."

"That's a VIP room… I can call her, but generally, people using the last floor don't answer."

She dialled some number on a holographic screen and placed some kind of little disk on her temple.

“Yes? Sorry to disturb you, I have a gentleman and her friend asking if… understood… sorry for the…”

Apparently, the other person at the receiving side of the call hanged up at the receptionist's nose… classic of her I suppose.

We were then lead to an elevator, Alice didn't ask me anything, well, she didn't really had time, as we went up the fifty plus floor in less than a minute.

I then went to the room at the end of an ostentatious corridor with golden walls filled huge painting, a red carpet and, of course, a few doors.

I knocked, but it was already opened.

I entered.

She was here.

On the floor.

Plunging a sort of screwdriver into her right arm.

Using her legs to stabilize her limb.

“You’re late, Sam!”

“Marie? Why the fuck are you here?!”