Chapter 26: The Storm family

Derrick was back at his cell and he could see Lucia was still there slouching except she was unrestrained. For some reason her cuffs were undone.

Derrick was sure, it was Edmunds doing and unlike his scary features he was more like an ally than an enemy. And, there was still mentions of his father by Edmund. He only knew his father was a human and a great lifeguard but he wasn't unaware to what degree his father's reputation soared.

All he could remember of his parents was them saying goodbye in haste as if they had to make a fast escape due to bad stomach. And the most notable of their goodbye was their smiles that were wide enough to reveal all of their teeth's. It wasn't sentimental nor was it sad, to Derrick he could feel the strange atmosphere within those last image of his parents he had. It was almost like 'thank god! I can finally leave this rascal behind and enjoy adventuring' and those shiny white teeth represented something similar that Derrick couldn't describe in detail.

His eyes were roaming all over the walls in the cell trying to find the door to the training room. If he couldn't find keyhole or the door then the key in the form a card he just received from Edmund was practically useless.

Finally, he had just finished examining each part of the walls. He didn't find anything peculiar and all that was left was the ceiling and the ground. And, to him the ceiling was out of question as it was out of his reach since it was situated fairly high. Furthermore, he didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to make a secret door at an inconvenient place which happen to lead to a training room and a door in a ceiling just lacked common sense even to Derrick.

His attention was now on the ground and just as he predicted, there was the ice filled cavities he saw when he just woke up in the cell and previously due to his weakened state of a mess he was in he couldn't analyse the cell properly. All the cavities formed a shape similar to a door and in the centre of it was a slight depression which was in the shape of a card.

Without any hesitation he inserted the card flat at the place which appeared to be its rightful place. As soon as he placed the card where it was meant to be the ice cavities lit up for an instant before revealing the stairs underneath.

"It seems that you aren't just some young master of a plasma world. Who are you exactly to be able to get this many benefits in ice hell and even have the ability to extend some of it to me too?"

Derrick didn't find Lucia's question surprising but instead it was the same question he was asking himself a while ago. But now the one in question wasn't him but was his father. Who was his Father?

"I am Derrick Burningstorm?"

He knew he was still him. He didn't have any secret identity and none that he knew of besides his ridiculous facades. So, all he could say was his name with some lingering doubts of his identity.

Was there some personality dormant inside him? Even though his idea was ridiculous, this though did hit his mind at some point but soon came to end when his fathers though came to his mind. All of this unnatural experience in the prison was all attributed to his father.

It seemed Derrick's simple reply wasn't so simple to Lucia as she went into deep contemplation. His name had aroused some interest in some part of her mind.

But Derrick was not patient enough to wait for Lucia. He was itching to explore what was underneath, although it was only a simple training arena.

The passage was dimly lit but brightened up at the end. It took no more than a minute to reach a large hall that didn't seem like the usual space found underground. It was no different from a normal gym except this one was large and only a corner was filled with enough gym equipments fro every kind of training.

"Aaaaaaaaaah"

Derrick was about to check out the equipments but suddenly he could hear Lucia screaming and he knew it wasn't a scream of help or panic. The scream was short and after a while in the direction of the stairs Lucia had reached the hall.

"Derrick Burningstorm. You are one of the storm families. Then that answers a lot questions."

Derrick was not alien to the knowledge of families but it was only superficial as he was always preoccupied with something of his own interest and never grew curious of anything political that happened between the families. He had always lacked profound knowledge of them and his parents.

"Yes I am from the Burningstorm family. It's not like the Storms families are gods.....So no need to overthink..... " Derrick stared at Lucia trying to justify his statements but Lucia's shocked expression made him think twice before he spouted further nonsense.

"Or are they Gods?"

"Of course,they are not gods but they are powerful enough to be called gods amongst the humans. They are the only few families that could stand against the strongest of race. Sigh....I can't believe I am actually explaining this to a Storm family member."

"You must already know that there are four storm families. The Burningstorms, the Freezingstorm, the Thunderstorms and the ForestStorms."

All Derrick could do was nod to Lucia confirming what he knew and digested what he didn't know. His thought of the new training hall in prison had already disappeared. He was immersed in the new information Lucia was explaining to him. He kew what the four storms were but he wasn't aware of the hierarchy and relationship between them. And he knew these families and their headquarters weren't located on Earth but somewhere unknown.

"And out of the four Burningstorm is said to be the most powerful but it seems the power difference between the families are minuscule making it impossible to know who is in control of the whole storm family.