I feel groggy.

I begin seeing rather unpleasant memories I would rather have forgotten entirely. Subconscious is a powerful place, hiding that which you want to forget. Eventually, you actually end up forgetting some memories, but forgotten does not mean gone.

I saw them all: my past teacher, my mom, dad, sister, Tim, Kim, Sasha – all the faces of those I have hurt or killed. Why am I seeing these faces? Do I have guilt? But I don't feel anything.

The faces flash past faster and faster and I lose count. I know what I have done in the past, even if the majority of my memories are sealed in the Forbidden Cube.

Your sins are engraved onto your soul – in my case, it ferments around my soul thanks to the chains of the Cosmic Entity.

Suddenly, my body catches fire. Everyone I have ever seen gathers around me and begins to pour water on the fire. At least, I thought it was water at the time, but it turned out to be fuel.

The faces confused me, some I have met, and others I have not. Well, maybe not yet. Does this mean I'll have to kill them if and when I meet them?

I can feel something deep inside me wanting to emerge, the little emotions I have wanting to run amok. I felt something new seeding at the back of my mind. I felt slightly cheated, wasn't it them who made me who I am? You can't blame me for being a little more than what you expected.

All of sudden, I was in an ancient structure with many runes carved on the nearby pillars, I could read the language – it was ancient Latvian. The runes engraved themselves into my brain as I glanced at them.

Latvian was a dead, ancient language believed to be the basis of Homo-Superior Runic Technology. However, we abandoned runes decades before extinction.

The Latvian runes also had a similar stricture to Loric Runes, only a bit more complex and detailed.

My mother liked studying the ancient languages, I picked up some knowledge here and there.

It said 'Ievadiet to, kas sadedzina pasauli - un pēc tam sadedzina pats' which can be roughly translated to 'Enter he who burns the world – and then burns himself'.

I don't want to burn myself but I know I can never be a righteous person; some paths are not recoverable. I have done so much wrong; the moment I do something kind; it will backfire – I know it but like a moth drawn to a flame.

I feel myself wanting more and more to care for those who stand beside me. Alice and Elizabeth are my anchors and I want to be good for them, but is it still good if I do it for the wrong reasons?

I began to stir awake and fuck, did I feel sore; I am glad I no longer felt the moral dilemma when I woke up but I did find what triggered these weird feelings – 4th Dimensional Reversion.

This meant that I temporarily saw Setrakus Ra's life as a random influx of time spasms instead of linear. Basically, I saw every moment of Setrakus Ra's life since his birth.

"Where am I?" I choke out in a dry voice after waking up.

"He's awake" John yelled into the corridors, but I notice the small smirk that graced his lips.

"We are currently in the central hub, Alice is gonna explain," John said looking at me with both respect and like I was a stupid, suicide-attempting, son of a bitch – wait how can I know what a look like that says?

Well, let's just say this isn't the first time I have seen that look from someone. I could probably already guess what happened.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked to which he turns his head away, stifling a giggle while dismissing my question.

Then Alice, Elizabeth, Ella, and Marina enter the room, giving me strange looks as well, but I don't mind, I was quite a bit handsome so girls would often look at me and get lost in my charming looks.

This was not me being shameless, but my genuine thoughts at the moment.

"We are at the base in New York. You've been asleep for two days. We won. I was gonna put you in a stasis pod, but you have quite a high healing factor. Everything considered and with Marina's recupero as well, there was essentially no need," Alice said as she gave me the rundown.

"Setrakus Ra?" I asked to which everyone except Alice began stifling a laugh. Alice gestured for everyone to keep quiet.

"Escaped basically," Alice replied with no hesitation.

Even if she knew that I never let an enemy escape, she was eager to see how I would respond to this failure.

"The last attack you did was awesome, it caused so much destruction. Even we barely made it, but the thing is, your hand exploded before you got to Setrakus Ra. The lightning ball exploded in front of him.

When the smoke cleared, we could see you smashing his face with one hand while biting his neck, then he kicked you off and escaped seriously injured," John said, still amused by the fact I missed.

Hell! I'd be laughing with him if it wasn't about myself.

"So that explains where these memories come from," I said out loud to which the group gives me a questioning stare.

"The reason planet Lorien fell so easily was that the Mogadorian leader who led the charge was once a Lorien citizen. Someone close to an elder until they had a falling out. Setrakus Ra was trying to transfer legacies so to make his wife a Garde as well, that was his dream but all others opposed it.

The Garde were given gifts by Lorien itself, and they could not question the planet that provided all their blessings. His wife died in a tragic incident involving some elders and he vowed revenge; becoming a Mogadorian through augmentation,"

"That's impossible, how could he had been Lorien?" Marina said in surprise, feeling as if her entire world had collapsed in front of her.

"Oh, come on! Even your Cêpan, Adeline, betrayed you all those years just for an illusionary belief, imagine a mad scientist who lost his only love at the hands of the elders?" Alice said languidly.

"Then is there any good news sweet cheeks? Because I kinda wanna drag you into the bed right now while your hand isn't fully recovered, show you how it feels to be bullied all the time," Elizabeth said laughing grimly as Alice joins her.

Both girls were tired of being bullied by my ever-growing libido that required all their holes to please. Elizabeth and Alice never thought that they 'Badass Women' would be drilled from behind in their asses, begging for mercy in a subservient way.

If details of our sex life ever got out, the girls planned to kill me and then themselves.

"I had previously taken amulets from a Mogadorian leader when we first arrived. Turns out those things are called 'Phoenix stones'. Legend has it that the first elders found them after the war finished as a gift from Lorien.

They have massive energy readings and I am still trying to track their signature, but it can be easily confused with nuclear reactors so it will take more time. But these things can restore Lorien, hence a phoenix rising from the ashes to come back to life," I stated the good news in a nonchalant manner.

Truly, I was thinking about stealing power from the Phoenix stones and using it for my own gains, but my intuition would blare up the moment I thought of selfishly using the stones.

"So we have Number 1's, Number 2's, Number 3's, mine, Number 6's was just recovered along with the chimeras, and Number 7's. We also discovered a pendant around the neck of the guy I knocked out, should be the phoenix stones you mentioned. Is that right?" John asked for confirmation.

However, to me, he just seemed like a little dog that required a head pat.

"Wow so much?" Marina said.

"Since that guy had 9 on his body, he should be Number 9. So we currently lack two: Number 5's and Number 8's?" Ella asked.

"Yeah, and we already have a rundown on where one of them could be," Alice stated, waving her hand as a projection appeared from on the nearby table.

"Someone just called for us," I said as the group watched the satellite narrow the location down to a camp in Canada.

I had a vague suspicion about who it was, but I liked guessing a little longer. As a Homo-Superior, I didn't get the opportunity to guess a lot.

"Five minutes' recess time and then we head out, don't worry there are not Mogadorians near the location, but be prepared for everything. Alice, you take the point, everyone follows orders. I will remain here; full recovery should be in an hour or two," I state as everyone eyed me suspiciously.

I could not help it; however, I did not want to take up another mission after failing spectacularly to hit Setrakus Ra with my lightning sphere.