The Beginning

As John turned back to face Henrietta and Ashthyn he also noticed that Victoria must have had joined the Hero Maker's barrier to leave. John smiled even brighter as he thought about Layklé being captured by these over powered monsters of humans, just to be kept safe and protected. And most likely far away from any humans she could fuck. Heh, served her right for tricking him.

"Sooo, Henrietta... btw, do you have a nickname? You know I hate long names, I turned draldover into dral, so should I just call you Henri? That sounds a bit too male for my taste, so what shall it be?" She sighed.

"How about you spend half the second it takes to say my name, jerk. I'm not calling you Jo either, am I?" Both of them looked at each other and then Henrietta just started giggling, as they remembered that just until two days ago, she had been calling him Jo, due to his online nickname. "Fine, you win this round, Gamer! But we stick with Henrietta anyway. Now come on, we are leaving this place." She turned around and walked towards an exit and plopped away. Okay, another challenge it seemed.

John closed his eyes and felt her barrier. It was a weak one, easy to pierce, but that wasn't the task now. He was supposed to follow her, so all he did was open a way inside it. As he opened his eyes again, she looked at him with a smug grin.

"Took ya long enough. Your elven pussy was here first." John spun around and looked at Ashthyn, who shyly looked at the ground, ashamed at being better than him. What a weird creature 'he' was. "Then again, it's an unfair fight. If he is anything like our world's elves, then they naturally enter any barrier they step into, without doing anything. The hard part for them is to stay out of them." John nodded. This made him feel better, being inferiour to a natural reflex, rather than the abilities of a fellow student. Yeah. He was still the best student, if it came to talent!

"So where do we go? How do we travel? I assume we go out of town, if you want to hide me and my friends? Then I am hereby putting my big veto down on going by foot." She chuckled again.

"No you idiot, we are flying of course. Have you forgotten what I told you? Illusion barriers contain what we tell them to contain. So I created one with jetpacks lying around. Pick one up and lets go." She couldn't be serious, right? Jetpacks? Wouldn't it be easier to summon a plane or anything? Well, if she knew how to fly them at least, but couldn't she summon an automatic flying one? Because jetpacks were dangerous?

Half a minute later John had forgotten all of his worries. This was awesome. Not only had Henrietta taken care of the dangers of the jetpack-crashes by turning the floor in her barrier into a jelly like soft mess you could push your face in, but the speed those things were going at were making John seriously excited. On top of that was it now her, who had control over the barrier again, so there was no need for him to waste mana on the travel.

Mile after mile was falling behind him and with every second John was becoming more certain of his decision to leave his old life behind. He was taking along with him whatever he felt worthy. So what was he really losing? A school he hated? Bullies that punched him? No friends to miss him? No, he had chosen right.

"Hey, Henrietta!" He shouted out to her. No matter how much fun travelling like this was, it made it almost impossible to talk during the flight, so both of them stopped on the ground, which made noone happier than Ashthyn.

"Elves are not made to fly through the air with weird magic backpacks!" He proclaimed.

"Well, be that as it is, Henrietta, you are still owing me some answers. Who is the Hero Maker? And what are his powers? I heard him telling you that you can tell me everything, and I expect you to do so." Now it was her time to shrug at him.

"Sure, I was gonna do it once we arrived at the meeting point, but since you obviously can't sit or in our case fly still for a minute, let me tell you now. First let me emphasize on what I don't know. You have to ask others about this, we are all allowed to talk about most of this with each other at will, so just ask them. I don't know how he creates new heroes and if that weakens him or takes something out of them, or him for that matter. I was **** as he turned me, but I heard of others who weren't, but frankly, I never cared to ask them for more.

Now what I do know is his power. As I already hinted, he creates heroes, as he calls them. Me for example. You remember how I told you I do time stuff? He taught me that. Before he gave me my powers, I was only a normal human. He can give powers to anybody, I think. Maybe there are restrictions, but I don't know for sure. However, everytime he gives someone his power, he gets the same power for himself. So he is just a collective of all the heroes he created. I don't know who is stronger, he or the created hero. Well, he is surely stronger, but I mean if the two compare the powers only. However, there is a little downside to it." She paused at that point. It seemed to be a topic she didn't like to speak about.

"Once he gives out the power, it takes away something from the hero. We don't know what it is in advance, or how it is taken. It is not taken by him, so he gains nothing from that. It is simply gone. Some lose limbs, or feelings... or memories. Everything can be taken. And it can never be regained. If you manage to get it back somehow, you will lose it through the magic of your powers again. What is gone is gone, and there is nothing you can do." Awkward. John was uncertain if this silence was her waiting for him to ask what she had to pay, or if she was contemplating something else and would consider it rude if he asked. Why couldn't girls just say what they wanted to say without these mind games. Either she should keep talking about him or go in detail about herself! But not this... god damn woman.

"The other thing would be the price we pay every time. Whenever one of us heroes uses our power, we have to pay the price. It isn't energy, like you do. Well, not for most of us. The price is different for each as well. Some have to do something to pay for it, others have to give something away. We will always know instinctively what we have to do to pay for our usage. We may pay in advance or after using it. But not more than 24 hours away from the usage. So if we pay up front and then don't use it, the payment just became a gift to the void." Another pause. This time John was almost certain she wanted him to ask what she paid, but before he could do that, she continued. Apparently she didn't expect him to do so anyway, after he had missed his chance at the first pause. Shit.

"That's all there is to know. Now, let's hurry and get to the meeting point. There will be people waiting already!" And with those words she jumped up from the ground and reactivated her jetpack. She flew high up, before John even managed to get his own jetpack going again.

A few minutes later they were nearing in on the location, or at least Henrietta landed on the ground again, once more doing so face first. These jetpacks were really uncontrollable, so having a jelly ground was a necessity for them. Once all of them had more or less safely landed she explained.

"We almost reached the barrier. The meeting point is on top of the hill." She broke her barrier apart and John saw what hill she was referring to. They were in the middle of a forest, and on top of a hill, overgrown with trees, was an old castle. "Once we get closer to it than here, we won't be able to go inside the illusion barrier surrounding the location, so don't try to leave the barrier once we are inside. The only place we can get in is here at the border of it." And as Henrietta opened the barrier anew to John, the castle changed. The towers grew higher, the fallen walls became repaired. This was a kings palace. And as he followed Henrietta towards it, he truly knew that he had left everything behind himself now. A new life and a new world awaited him. And he was ready to embrace it.