School lets out and I head home towards the park on Mission. I get to the park and sure enough Michael has beaten me here. “Hello Magenta”, “Hello Michael” I say in return. He continues, “so, you wanted to talk?”

“Yes, I saw you earlier today running down the hallway; what was that about?” I pretend like I saw nothing. I fold my arms across my body and prepare for what he has to say. A little surprised he says, “Oh, mum… hmmmmm. Well. Ahhhh…” I cut him off, “Spill it already, goodness gracious!”

“Ah, sorry. It’s just I thought I saw you help me earlier and now I’m not sure… But, anyways, one of my traps was set off and I assumed it would be Bullfrog; so, when I got the notice, I ran quickly to see.” He pauses and I say, “Nice name by the way, kudos on being clever” I giggle.

He responds bewildered, “I didn’t name him that; those are the animals combined to create the demon soul that possesses that very huuuman body.” He looks down and continues, “The fact that he can only be seen as a monster;” he takes a heavy breath in pain and groans as his body is still aching from the battle, and begins to take a seat, “means that we are way more behind than I originally realized. They are getting stronger and we still…” he pauses and thinks and continues, “we only have just you.” He points to me as he says that, “We are going to have to begin your training”, he sighs and starts to sound frustrated and groans, “an…and your list of boundaries as of now is annulled.” He waves his hand flat to create a horizontal line, meaning severed or cut. Surprised all I could muster was the sound ofa surprised soft “Huh…” and he says the words I wish he didn’t have to say, “Today you should have transformed and helped me…”

“…Or should have been able to; every time we encounter them it is imperative that we show that we have the upper hand; else that fear grows in the community and they get stronger and are able to increase their army. We need to show them that we are also making moves, but instead our weakness feeds their arrogance and it makes them stronger. It’s not your fault that you didn’t know what to do this time, BUT I need you to know what to do next time, I need you to know what we are up against and why all this other stuff is nonsense in comparison.” He waves his forearms around and looks to the direction of the school.

“Ok” is all I could say as the guilt ridden memory of when I saw the man beat Bullfrog, like not even 6 weeks ago in actual time; and in this short amount of time Bullfrog… has gotten strong enough to hurt him. I tune back in and he seemingly continues as if he was in his own head… and mutters “I lost something I should not have even had on my person; now who knows how strng they will be.” He drops his head to his hand as the other rests on the table.

I ask, “What did he take from you?” He responds, “I can’t say yet, but it was bad. Really bad.” I can feel his intense remorsefulness, sadness, and guilt. I don’t know why he feels that way or how badly he dropped the ball; but he reassured me when I was feeling down about Saul, the least I could do is the same. “Hey…” I sit down across from him on the park table and reach out to his hand out of instinct. The words flow through me as if in harmony with the universe and I say, “Don’t worry Michael, I got your back; so long as you got mine.”

A glistening tear forms in his eye, and he takes a breath. Rejuvenated he stands up, throws his arms in the air and exclaims, “Your RIGHT! You are always right…. thank you” he ends softly; he takes a breath and rests his hands on the back of his head and he starts to glow.

I look around to see if anyone is nearby and an entire family with a dog and cat look at our direction. I panic and jump across the table to take him down and out of sight; he catches me and the family shocked at my display of affection leave speedily out of the park. Having crashed into him, I get on my knees and I am sitting on his stomach, arms holding myself up from the ground, face to face with Michael. I realize the situation I put ourselves in and turn beat red; I look towards the family and see that they are gone.

I quickly turn to Michael and blushingly embarrassingly and stutteringly I say squeal at Michael, “Why would you start to glow in the middle of the park in front of a family?!” as I get off of him but stay on the ground so he doesn’t see up my skirt and scoot away from him with every squealed word. He confusingly turns to me and says “Glow?”

“You saw me glow?”
“Well, it’s pretty hard to miss when it is so bright” I say. He smiles a sweet and gentle smile and says, “Well then, that right there settles everything.” I looked at him confused and before I can ask any questions he gets up and gestures for me to follow him.

We walk out of the park and towards the center of town, I recognize the area as it is near Safehouse #7. After a few neighborhoods, I finally ask “where are we going?” He says, “I need to show you something, but going back to what you said earlier. About me glowing… there are only a few people on this planet who can see that glow…” My heart sinks and I say “Uh-huh.”

He continues, “you see, there’s this lore; and scientists have actually started to scratch the surface to this truth as well, but the jest is this, I believe that this era isn’t the first-time humanity has… let’s say ‘existed’. Each time this species has been in danger they were able to rely on the saviors, a group of warriors that converged into this one dimension from other destroyed inner dimensions to protect the last remains of life from those different dimensions that were safeguarded and found on the arc. This place called earth is what the result of the last time the warriors sacrificed themselves after being attacked; this allowed the arc to create a unique place that is on the ‘other side of the arc’; a place where those souls could be made to be sent to earth causing different souls to come together here.”

“So, if this lore is true, then you are saying it’s like aliens are already here they are just more incognito than we even realized??” I interrupt.

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it, but they are all human souls just different dimensional humans so they differ, the souls here all have had different journeys and have been reborn countless of times, some are newer than others and some are ancient survivors of those calamities.” He pauses as we stop, seems like we have arrived, “And then there are the souls like yours, divinely protected, guided, and true; fighters of justice, fighters of truth, fighters of love and kindness, fighters of darkness into the light. This is my place of operations for now; the very few people who can see my glow or any remnant of my powers are those meant to guide us with downloads from the other side. Which for some reason have been corrupted, so I am not getting everything I should be. Once I meet with the person who is to provide me the next download, I will move my operations elsewhere.”

I look around at the sad and cold place he calls his base. I’ve seen and prepared a better base than this before is my immediate thought. “My main role in this team is to provide the information on how to proceed and progress so that we are ready for when they show up to fight. In this team we will have a leader, a planner, an organizer, a sergeant, and our sacred weapon; however, for now you must learn every role so that when we find your partners you can help and train them to reach your level of experience.”

I hear what he says and think to myself planner huh? Maybe I do belong on this team, if my life has taught me anything is that I know how to plan many different things from escapes to parties. Looking around I can see that he ate food from the school, no bed, no desk, barely a bathroom to access. I look to him and think how could you be ok with living like this?

I slowly ask him, “How can you live like this? Don’t you have a family or home?”

Michael turns to me, takes a seat crisscross applesauce and blushes as if embarrassed by the question. “I have a higher calling Magenta, and this body I love it. It has given me so many experiences this time around;” ‘this time around’ I think to myself. “But this is a soulless body, what we call a vessel.”
“What do you mean soulless and vessel??” I ask a little freaked out thinking to myself ‘like possession?’
“We can send soulless bodies through one side of the arc to the other. We tend to manage the souls, however whenever evil is involved the controls get corrupted like a virus, and its like its able to corrupt them. So, we send blank vessels so that when we need to interfere, the few and rare times wave had to, we can. This body named Michael, was born to lead a life with no one there to support him. No one there, so that when we needed him, we could come in and out.

So no, I have no home, no family, and up until I came into this body; this young man was trying to rent an apartment but no one would rent him one, so now I’m stuck having to use my powers constantly to fit in.”
I understood what he had said but it still broke me, to have someone purposefully live a meaningless and difficult life really forced me to question how I could help what ever this was, especially if they could be so heartless. I knew things didn’t have to be this way, I had everything necessary to help him, to help not make this harder on him.
“Hey michael I want to thank you for opening up to me I know its hard to say what needs to be said without being seen as crazy or demented. Hell I’d be one of those people if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The truth slapped me in the face and seems like the more I resist the more it’s going to show my ineptitude and unpreparedness. I agree to fight with you. As of today November 3rd, I will fight, train, and be right there with you. But I still need to do some things on my end before this goes down.”

“Like what?” He asks. I say “it’s personal. But I will talk to you tomorrow” if we are going to fight we are going to win and get this done and over with. I think to myself while walking away. I turn around to say good bye but he is already asleep in a box bed slightly glowing as he healed. I close the door and walk out.