Chapter Twenty One: The Truth

Penny knew she needed to confront Lysette but she wasn't sure that now we would be the time to do so. Lysette, had explained in the past that she was gifted with the knowledge of things to come. That she had known the Undeworld would collapse and there would be nothing left. And Lysette had also said that she would have never been able to prevent things from happening the way they did? Could this mean that she would not have been able to convince her parents to leave? There was so much about her homeland that did not make sense to Penny. The lies, the greed, the seeking of power and control that led most kingdoms to ruin. She would need the truth, and not just some of it if she was going to be able to prepare for the things to come. She needed to understand than the deeper issues within the minds of everyone there so that she could at leave have a chance of changing things if the time should come for her to return. Though, what would she be coming back to? What would she find if they were to return? The wreckage of a once great world? The absence of any chaos whatsoever because perhaps Lysette's vision had been wrong. And even if it wasn't, who gave her this gift of foresight? This was something that Lysette had never elaborated on and any answer that Penny was ever given, had always proven to be lacking in substance and satisfying answers.

" I think that it would be smart to go there yourself. To find out the answers yourself if you want to find out the truth. Perhaps, seeing with your own eyes would help you to better understand things" Ember suggested as Penny stood up from the couch and began pacing around the room.

" I'm not sure how I could get back there though.." Penny thought long and hard of anything that Lysette had ever said that would have suggested a way to return. Obviously, Lysette had a way of traveling back and forth but means of traversing the world's was never made clear to young Penny.

" Well then you should talk with Lysette and get the answers or ideas on how to do it" Ember stood up and motioned for Penny to follow her up the stairs and to Lysette's room. Once there, Ember knocked upon the door again and was welcomed in this time by Lysette was laying on the bed, dried tears on her face, eyes puffy and red but moderately more composed than before.

" What do you need? " Lysette asked, as she wiped her nose and sat up on the bed.

Penny stepped forward, slightly timid but doing her best to summon the courage to ask Lysette the questions on her mind.

" I was wondering..how can you be sure that the Underworld was...well..is no longer there? When everything collapsed there, how do we know that people did not survive?" Penny asked, which made Lysette take notice of the timid demeanor of Penny and move to the edge of the bed.

" Because the world had to reset. When the world resets, everything has to go within that world. That way, it can start over. If anything were to survive that remained in the world, it cause even bigger issues. But in order for the world to rebuild, it could take a long time. Hundreds of years even" Lysette explained, which raised more questions.

" But the plan is..to have me return? If I'm suppose to return..how could I possibly still be alive in the next hundred years?" Penny knew she was not immortal even though Lysette could live for hundreds of years and still be in her prime.

" Well, Witches can live for hundreds of years, and your father...could live for thousands. Considering you are a hybrid of two..I would expect that you will be fine" Lysette explained, which shocked Penny as this was new knowledge to her.

" Okay..well what the hell" Penny walked over to the bed and sat down, trying to process this new information.

" And before you ask, I don't know what the state of the Underworld is..I obviously haven't been there..so I would not know. But I imagine that it is rebuilding itself on some level" Lysette further explained.

" I want to go there and I want to see it for myself. I want to see what it looks like" Penny explains, which Lysette seems to disregard rather quickly. " I know, but most of the portals that take you back to it, are gone now. There will be a way to return when the time comes though, I know this to be true" the guardian answered calmly.

" If there is a way we return in the future then there has to be a way to return now. I am not sure how but I will find a way. I need to see for myself this entire world that I meant to save. That I am meant to change for the better" Penny asserts, much to the dismay of Lysette.

" Penny..you are not ready. If you were to go there now, you would not be able to contribute anything. You must wait..you must learn and grow before you return. The Underworld will be a harsh place when we come home. And that is the world I'm preparing you for" Lysette did her best to reason with Penny who was beginning to tune out the wise Lycan.

" If what you are saying is true..then it might be better to wait. At least until you have a better understanding of your abilities Penny" Ember stepped in, offering reasoning and balance which dragged Penny away from her racing thoughts.

" I will stay a little while longer but I am still going to work on finding a way to return. Because I need to see with my own eyes this world that is not only the place of my birth, but the home I must save in the future. Even if, I know very little about its people and even less about myself" Penny Knew that the words that Ember spoke were true. If the world was truly going to be coming into chaos, or was already chaos, she would need to be prepared. This was something that Lysette had spent her entire life trying to prepare her for. This was something that she was destined to do. Penny turned back to Lysette and asked " How we can be sure that my parents are dead though. Is there no possibility whatsoever they they could have lived".

Lysette paused at this question, trying to mask the time away that she used to think of an answer by falling back on the bed and sighing.

" If they were alive, they knew where you would be and they haven't come for you" Lysette explained.

" If they had made it out, they would have come and found us. But they haven't, and that is how I know their fate. Your father, is a being of immense power, beyond anything you or I could even begin to comprehend. And if he was vanquished during the reset..then Noone else would have survived it" She continued but was interupted by Ember. " So wait..if everything to do with the Underworld had to be reset. Would that not also affect you and Penny? I mean, you both were born in the Underworld. So how are yall still here?" Ember posed a good question and one that Penny now wanted an answer to.

"Well, I came to Earth to get away. Which at first, it thought was the reason. But when I thought deeper on it, I realized it must have been because we were meant to survive. Just me and Penny, which would mean that we are on the right path. Something that we do, changes things for the better thus we were needed to remain past the reset" Lysette's answer confused both Penny and Ember greatly, and neither one could quite understand how the reset worked in the first place.

" So who is in charge of the reset? Who makes that happen? Is it God? " Ember asked, half joking and expecting the answer to be some mystical and undefined answer that she wouldn't understand. " The reset is done by the world itself. The world is much more alive than you probably realize. It knows when things have gone to far, when boundaries have been crossed and can not be forgiven..and the world acts appropriately " The guardian explained which made Ember honk with laughter.

" You are telling us that the world is sentient and knows what it wants to happen. It basically sits there and says. ' Hey, I don't like this outcome. Time to blowup' "?

And much to her surprise, Lysette nodded in agreement. " Yeah" Lysette agreed which made Ember raise her hands up and walk out of the room. " World's knowing when and when not to blow up means I need to just step my happy ass out of this conversation" She announced as she left the room, leaving Penny and her Guardian.

" You will return one day, I promise" Lysette smiles. Though Penny was beginning to not be so sure of this.