Helios Fighter

Chapter Twelve

The Dream

For a moment, all I saw was darkness; just the back of my eyelids. Then, I opened them to find that I was in space. I looked all around me. Nothing. I looked below me, and I saw a planet that I took to be Earth. Something was hurtling towards me. Before I could react, it slammed into me, and I went on a ride that ended very abruptly. I looked over and saw... myself! Except... not me. My likeness's hair was spikier. He started crawling over the vessel. When he reached a particular spot, he ripped it open with a blue energy blade similar to my orange one. He seemed to be talking to someone. I couldn't hear them in the vacuum, but I could tell it was a serious conversation. My likeness had a pained look on his face, and it was a pain I recognized: pain of loss. A hand from inside the vessel touched his face and calmed the pain, but didn't quite make it disappear. The hand retracted, and he closed the vessel. There was a bright flash, and the vessel, along with me, blasted through space. Closing my eyes, I clung to it the entire ride. Before I knew it, I hit the ground. The force of the impact threw me a great distance away from the piece of the ship to which I clung. Standing up, I scanned my surroundings. I immediately knew something was wrong, because the entirety my current setting was... metallic. I started walking​ forward and tried to get a grasp on reality.

KLINK!​ Something landed next to my foot. I looked up and I broke into a run. I was right under the burning wreckage of, what I thought to be, a spaceship. I heard myself panting, independently from my own breath. I looked to my left, and I saw my doppelganger, spiky hair and all, running next to me. He looked focused on something. I looked ahead and saw a girl, who looked like she was just coming to, lying on the metallic ground. I looked up and saw the wreckage gaining on us. My doppelganger didn't seem worried about that however. He clearly sensed the danger, but that's not what he was concerned with. He started to glow blue, and then he disappeared. An instant later, he reappeared next to the girl, and continued to run with her. Was ​that​ who he was talking to earlier? I wouldn't know, as the wreckage overtook me, and I was buried.

Somehow, I was still alive. I dug myself out, and found my doppelganger, the girl who, now that I had a better look at her, was dressed in a blue sort of captain's outfit, and... Ladasha. I gasped, feeling stupid that I didn't realize sooner that my doppelganger was actually Ladasha's partner! They were looking at a map of some sort. Suddenly, he donned a face of anger so intense, I had to resist the urge to cringe. I don't know where it came from, but out of nowhere, I heard a very distinct cry. ​HEEEELLLLPP!!!​ There was a red flash, and when it faded, I was in... some kind of... monastery? Some kind of dojo-looking building of sorts.

I looked around, and what I saw confirmed that I was in a training facility of sorts.

"Hey!" someone yelled. I turned, and, again, I saw myself. It was a different doppelganger than before. I –he wore a white gi tied together at the waist with a red band. He wore another one in around his forehead. He charged me. I would've tried to defend myself, but found that I couldn't because this guy was insanely fast. He hit me with a flurry of punches that left me breathless, and seemed​ way​ too strong for someone of his (and/or my) build to deliver. He gave me a final blow that sent my flying backwards and left me coughing up blood. I began to black out, but when I hit the back wall, I shuddered, opened my eyes, and found myself back in my room, panting.

A knocking at my door startled me.

"Helios?" It was Baros. Very shakily, I went to the door and opened it.

"Hey, Baros," I said at an attempt at nonchalance, which failed.

"Good God, what happened?!"

"Had a bad dream. I'm fine." I internally winced at the juvenility of how that sounded.

"'Bad' is an understatement. '​Fitful​' is the word I'd use, I mean, you look like you got rained on!" I wiped my forehead. She was right. My shirt was drenched. "And you're certain, you're alright?" I honestly did not know. All I knew was that getting Ladasha home was thrice as important.

"I'm fine," I promised. "We all have fitful nights once in a while, right?" She looked at me with that doctor's intuition. I think she knew that she could've pushed me and I still wouldn't have answered. She gave in.

"Okay," Baros sighed. "But you let me know when that changes. Project Di-At or not, I'm still your medic."

"Got it," I nodded. Baros started to walk off, but then I remembered something. "Wait." Baros turned. "I need a favor."

"Yes?"

"There's a book I told Ladasha to read that I need to ​finish​ reading. '313' is the title."

"Say no more." She smiled and walked away. I went back inside. I was still shaking, but I managed not to have a heart attack. I sat on my bed and started thinking.

"​Is everything alright, Helios?​" Never had I been so happy to hear that computerized voice. A box sat on the desk in the room. I went over, opened it, and pulled out my laptop. I opened it.

"Hey, Vaio."