21 Chapter 21: Reunion
Kane grimaced, pushing himself off the windshield. The crash had nearly rattled him to the bones. If not for his recent upgrade after merging with his alternate selves, that would have definitely been fatally dangerous. He spun around in anger to berate Zephyr, when he noticed that his friend was missing.
Instead, it was Jay's cheeky grin that greeted him.
"You bastard!" Kane roared. "You nearly killed me!" He lunged at him, ready to throw arms. But before he could reach him, he tumbled down, losing balance.
Jay's expression changed as he rushed forward to help him from falling. He managed to react in time to hold him, but then he noticed something that turned his expression worse.
"Everyone come here. We need help quick." His voice was panicking as he gently tried to lower his friend, who did not look good. His face was becoming pale, skin turning loose and saggy. But the worst thing was that Jay did not feel any bones under his loose skin. As if the impact had crushed all the bones in his body.
The world seemed to go bleak and his anxiety overtook his senses as he did not realize when Asche, Eli, and Zephyr appeared beside him. They all converged at Jay to look at the miserable condition of their friend.
Kane looked like a crumpled sack of flesh. A deflated balloon that was on its last breath. Zephyr knelt beside him, lost in thoughts and unable to string together any words. He tried to speak up, but was interrupted.
"Got ya all"
Then, like a magical transformation, Kane's body started to change. Within seconds, he was back to how he had been moments ago, grinning in their faces.
"And that is how you get sweet revenge. Will teach you not to prank me again next time." He jumped up from the floor, bowed at them with his arms stretched.
The four of them were rooted to their spots, wondering about what had just happened.
"F**k you too." Asche was the first one to laugh up, as he punched him on the shoulder, before pulling him in for a hug.
Kane laughed and hugged back. He then turned to Jay, who still looked to be in shock.
"Don't try to pull off anything else now. It was your loss this time." He patted him on the shoulder.
"I thought Zephyr was the GUIDE's favored son, but you seemed to have gained even more benefits after clearing just one dream scenario. When will it be my turn to be the protagonist? ," He grumbled, before hugging him.
Zephyr and Eli just stood by, not commenting. Their thoughts were probably too jumbled to make sense of what had just happened.
"Alright, I know that you all are confused and want to know everything, and so do I. So let's first get settled, and then we can gather to discuss everything that has occurred in our lives for the past few days." Kane announced, noticing that they all were speechless.
They were practically meeting after a long time, and the circumstance could not have been more chaotic.
So, when he made the suggestion, they all immediately agreed.
....
Laboratory beneath the desert:
After clearing his first dream stage, GUIDE had awarded Zephyr with a key and a set of coordinates. After he had woken up from his dream stage, he had immediately teleported to the coordinates, where he ended up discovering a laboratory hidden beneath sand dunes in the middle of a desert. After asking the GUIDE for more details and touring the big structure that was built underground, he had decided to make use of this place as a base.
Later after he got the Jet he had brought the other members here. This place, which was equipped with a lot of instruments and machinery, was actually a displaced structure from another reality. Not only was it hidden from the world, but it was filled with gadgets and devices from an alternate realitiy for Zephyr to explore and experiment with. This is why Jay said he was the GUIDE's favored son. This place was basically a haven for him.
The lab was a large underground structure, with three floors and countless rooms on each floor. It was shaped like a pentagon, with the top floor assigned for living, as all the rooms here were almost empty. The middle and bottom floors were currently not in use, since many of the rooms on these floors actually had instruments and devices that none of them could make sense of. Zephyr had gone around the place to make sure there was nothing dangerous being kept.
And now, he was showing Kane around the facilitiy.
"There are five sections on this floor. There is the living section, recreational section, lab section, control section and the training section. You can choose a room from the living section, there is enough. Recreational section has a large variety of entertainment activities, but only Jay has tried some of them. Lab section is something I usually stay in, while you can find Eli in the training section with either Asche or Jay. A pretty simple layout."
"How did you all manage to modify this place so much in so little time? I thought you were all spending your time grinding through stages?" Kane was confused. The place looked nothing like what a laboratory would. It was fitted with everything that made it a bunker instead. A perfect place to hide from the world. His friends had made this place perfect in a few days.
"Oh, we didn't change much around here. Most of the stuff was here already like the recreational section. We just moved most of our stuff from our houses. Eli wanted her entire gym to be moved and so we got the training section. Also with teleportation, a lot of things are done easily. Since there seems to be no limit on how many times I can teleport, I have been abusing this ability ever since."
Every time he mentioned teleportation, Kane couldn't help but want to punch his friend. But it is what it is. He was just one lucky bastard.
They entered a large area covered in pristine white walls and state-of-the-art technology that gave away which section this was.
"This is where I spend my time tinkering. I have so far finished four scenarios. Other than the jet and this lab, the rewards I received were actually knowledge related to technology from the future. Using the equipment here, I have been tinkering around to create some stuff with the help of the GUIDE."
Next, they walked to a large room that had so many couches that it looked like one of those amusement park areas with inflatable bouncing castles. Everyone else was here. Asche was lying on one couch, while Eli and Jay were arm wrestling on another couch.
"Most of the time, we all just stay here in the living section, lying or meditating or doing whatever you want to. We have a lot of free time honestly. Since time flows differently in world and memory stages, those scenarios often pass by in a blink. I could have spent an entire month in another world ending a war and only an instant would have passed here. You should ask Eli later about the stages, as she is the one who has completed the most."
Kane nodded in response and found a couch to sit on. This place, their reunion. It all started to feel a little surreal in that moment when he fully digested the change that had transformed their lives.
The merger.
Just a few days ago, Asche had been on his way to New Jersey port and Kane had finished his fresher training with his company. Eli was all set to take part in a amateur MMA competition while Jay and Zephyr were planning their own startup. But now they were all together once again, in a world that was basically on shuffle. Everything just felt like a dream. But it wasn't. The memories of a thousand of his alternate versions inside of him reminded him that this was all real. And it was never going to go back to how it was.
Coming back from his thoughts, Kane cleared his thoughts to get his friend's attention.
"Uhm, so let's get the discussion started now. I'll go first this time."
