Car Ride.

Vito waited for his answer, while waiting they hit a few bumps down the road and he could feel the car vibrating a little, didn't know whether Alex was doing this on purpose or not but he thought that he was surely a better driver than this.

"You were chosen, Vito. Why do you think you were invited in the first place?" Alex answered.

"No Alex I wasn't," Vito denied, "Terra is the one who went up to space not me. I wasn't chosen at all."

Alex lets out a sigh as he takes a left turn past some redwood trees. "Vito, the representative of our planet was chosen at random, but those who were qualified enough for that position were the ones brought forth into that building. Any of you could have been chosen again."

Looking down in the car, Vito was not satisfied with his answer, 'Qualified for that position and what is it that made me, Cyrus, and even Edith qualified?'

"Why was I qualified? What's so special about me and everyone else who was there?"

Alex pauses before answering this question, for a moment it felt as if he was considering the best way to go about this without having to argue about his answer.

They were in silence for a few seconds before Alex spoke again, "You are all survivors."

"This tournament is going to be brutal. Planets will die, not just ours or those in our solar system but those that even go beyond it. The planet had to choose someone with a strong will."

"That's why you, Cyrus, Edith, and even Terra were all chosen as candidates. Although some of you have survived through a lot more than others, so you felt the need to be the ones fighting instead of him."

"You are right, I did feel the need to be the representative but now, I don't even believe I deserve to be," Vito looking out the window with a hand on his face.

Alex snickers as he fixes the mirror looking at me.

"A lot more than you were unhappy. Many thought to themselves, 'What was the point of even coming if we weren't chosen.' Trying to calm down that many people at a time was not easy."

"Especially for... You know what, I won't say his name, it's already rude to talk behind people's backs. But you remember how I said that you were the second to attempt killing Terra?"

Vito nodded his head in response. He was curious about the person so dangerous that Alex had to personally intervene to stop him.

"There was this guy, with a pale face with baggy eyes, a drooping mouth, and unkempt black facial hair. He even had a slouched back to boot. I don't truly know what he has been through, but he felt dead and anyone who paid attention would know that he cared for nothing."

"He didn't have dreams. His dreams died long ago, yet he never wanted to die. On the contrary, he wanted to live more than ever."

"When he saw that he had been chosen, it was like a miracle, he thought that he could finally live a life without consequences. That he could finally have a girlfriend, gain recognition from the world, be as popular as TV celebrities, and even live life as a superhero."

"But when he wasn't chosen...."

Alex stopped for a moment and Vito noticed a small flash of anger in his eyes that disappeared as he closed them again to regain his composure.

"He thought to himself that this world was too unfair even to the people who truly deserve recognition. So he made up his mind if this world wasn't going to give him what he deserved, then he would take out his pain on it."

"He wanted to kill Terra and then become the representative. It wouldn't have worked but he thought that only the stronger one would become the representative after the weaker one dies."

"And then he would go off into the tournament and kill himself instantly, all for the sake of taking his revenge on this world."

"What do you think about that Vito? A billion lives to be lost, Men, Women, Children, unborn Babies, and even Animals. A million years of evolution, gone in an instant. Because one guy was unhappy in life."

Vito was stunned to hear these words. 'Kill himself off? And us with him? Is there anyone who is crazy enough to do that? I mean I know some suicidal people are willing to lose their lives for nothing, but to take away the lives of others with them goes beyond even what they are capable of doing.'

'To destroy an entire civilization just because you felt like you could is a different level of being petty and insane.'

'He wouldn't even live long enough to see us die.'

"Alex that guy was a madman and someone like him was chosen? What would have happened if he was the one chosen and not Terra? He might have given up the moment he realized that life wasn't going his way," Vito complained.

Alex decelerated the car and for once it felt like he was driving properly, "Vito, that guy needed help. He was brought to us for a reason. I don't believe that everyone that was chosen was simply brought to marvel at Terra and then go home like nothing happened."

"Humans are empathetic beings, we need to rely on others to survive, but when someone tries to do everything all by himself, he ends up breaking. And he might not be able to put all the pieces back together."

"Even you are an example of that. Which is why I'm worried Vito, worried about you."

Hearing those words, Vito realized that he wasn't as much of a good person as he thought he was but he also wasn't as evil as he imagined. Neither side was greater than the other for him.

"Alex, why do you care so much? We don't know each other. You don't have a reason to look out for me and I wasn't the one chosen to represent the planet. I don't understand you are trying to make me feel better."

Alex doesn't even turn around to look at him, but he does twirl his head sideways a little bit before he speaks.

"Most people always focus on what they can see and benefit from the moment, but I don't see it that way. I believe kindness should be a gift, one that someone shouldn't expect to receive anything after the end, not even praise. Which is part of the reason we work in secret."

"I have lived on Earth for a long time and noticed that people tend to be crueler to themselves more so than they are to others. They love other people's lives and hate their own, wishing that things were different. Which is why I correct them."

"I help those I can and I help myself in the process to never lose sight of who I am, we only have one life to live, so we should cherish that one instead of focusing on another one we could have lived. When you love your life enough, you end up making it the best one you can live."

"So I am not doing this to benefit anything from you, I just don't want you to regret your life choices and end up hating yourself."

As Alex finished saying those words, the car jumped around a little and it gave Vito a small heart attack. When he looked out the window he saw that we were back in a city and that we were actually on a street that connected to his boarding school.

"H-how did we get here?" Vito asked.

Alex can't help but have a small laugh at the reaction, "My apologies, I should have informed you that we were teleporting here. I got caught up in the moment."

As he was driving Vito recognized that we were not so far off from where the school was.

"Alex, I want to apologize again for being a bad guest. I believe that I gave you quite a headache to deal with. And I caused a lot of trouble for myself as well and a few people that I am not sure I could call friends anymore," Vito said with his head hanging low.

 Alex pulls the car over and turns around to give him a reassuring smile, "Vito, I know you made a mistake, we all do but one day you'll get the chance to fix that mistake. And when you do, you might even find that it made you a better person than you were before."

Vito looked up at Alex a little hopeful. "Do you believe that I'll see them again? Before the world ends?"

Alex places a hand on my shoulder and while still smiling he says, "Don't worry, the world is not ending soon so you can put aside that concern. As for your friends, you all live in California so you may meet again sooner than you expected."

Hearing this, he got excited, "Wait you know where everybody is? Could you tell me how I could maybe... possibly find them one day? Their favorite coffee shop maybe their schools..?" he asked as he bounced his eyes from side to side while articulating hand gestures.

Alex shook his head at the suggestion. "What type of host would I be to give that information away? You'll have to depend on your luck for that one."

"What? Boo, how could he get my hopes that high and not give me anything to go off of?" Vito protested.

"Alright Vito, you may go back to your school now, I wish you all the best," Alex cheered.

*Sigh* Vito walked out the door and said his last words to Alex, "Thank you, Alex. You give great service to your guests. Do you treat all your guests with such a high satisfactory rate?"

"Only the ones worth serving for," Alex smirked.

Alex then pulls away and drives off the way he came and in the next moment, his car vanished into thin air. "Who or what exactly is he?" Vito wondered as he stood still.

Now turning around to look at the school, Vito couldn't help but say, "Of all the magical things I've experienced so far and the servings and the servants, coming back to this place feels like a dream."

"At this point, I would prefer if the other part of it all was reality and not this, which it kind of is."

Usually, you would have to go through a gate to enter the school and even then there would be guards to check you and confirm your identity. They had a list with everyone's name and if you weren't on the list then they would call in with the school to see if they should allow you in or not.

Obviously, he was still carrying my gun so ain't no way he was going through the gate, luckily his dorm patron and him were quite close and there was a secret hole in the wall by the gate that goes through to his house that he could use.

He never patched the hole in the wall because he knew that Vito sneaked out a lot and he would always come up with excuses for him when he wasn't in school.

Vito has sneaked through and entered his house so many times that the man's only daughter sees him as her little brother now and would say things like, "Oh Dad, the rat came back, I think it's hungry," whenever she spotted him crawling through.

She would then force him to eat something she made and punch him if I didn't like it. He essentially became family to her because she would vent to him about boy drama and any other problems she had but he wasn't supposed to solve the problems, just listen.

Vito asked himself each day, "Is this what having an older sibling is like? Abuse?"

So now sneaking inside he had to make sure she would hear him or she would wake up and then he wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

As he walked through the house he tip-toed around to get to the front door which would connect him with the dormitories. As he walked past her room, he saw the door slightly open and when he peeked inside, he noticed an array of different snacks lying open on the floor.

Yeah, she would have definitely made me clean that up if she had been awake. He also noticed that she was holding the family photo he had taken together with him because he happened to be sneaking around on her birthday that one time.

"Ah yes, painful painful memories," he cried shaking his fist in the air. "The things she made me do," he whispered.

'Wait? Speaking of memories, my arm! The aum symbol, that mysterious glowing it had last night, the warm surge of green energy inside of me,' he thought.

'Damnit! I forgot. I forgot to ask Alex about the most important thing that had happened to me since I got there yesterday.'

He wanted to hit something, maybe even break something, but he couldn't because he was in her house and she would hear the sound.

He softly pounded his fist against the wall and silently screamed, 'No!' with tears in his eyes.

Slowly he slides off the wall and onto the floor of the building, in tears. He was there a while but finally got back up as he needed to hurry out as quickly as he could.

'I need sleep. More sleep. I am mentally exhausted,' he groaned lowly as he got back up.

Hurrying up towards his dorm he didn't want to be seen by anyone, he just wanted to lay there for a while and rest.

He got in the bed and covered himself with the sheets.

Had this been before he slept at the hotel, he would have been sleeping instantly once he reached the bed, but the one he was on just couldn't compare to how soft the one at the hotel was.

In the end, he realized that his bed sucked.

"Compared to the luxury I was shown just earlier, everything else seems to be like a bad product. How I envy the rich, they've probably never felt my circumstance before. "

"My morning hasn't been the best but if I sleep and dream of the good things, then maybe good things will come. After all, Alex said we were all living in California. Maybe I will meet them soon," Vito muffled into his pillow as he closed his eyes.

****

Alex had just let Vito alone and was now making his way back to the hidden base. With Vito gone, he felt more free to teleport as much as he could. He felt no joy in causing discomfort to others, though the surprise they had when he teleported them was amusing to see.

As he approached the building it began to shift from a hotel to something akin to an expensively modeled military base, with multiple rooms and buildings surrounding it.

He parked his car inside a garage and the door began closing on its own as he walked out of the room. Walking through the hallway he was greeted by all the hundreds of servants that had been called by the earth. All waiting for his arrival and instructions on what to do next.

They were all lined up and bowing down to him as he passed them by and took off his tie around his neck as he was feeling more stressed than usual.

The corridor kept on shifting and turning once it was only him walking, in order for him to reach his main office as soon as possible. Inside his office were his three most trusted servants waiting for him.

Minty, Sasha, and **** were all lined up in his room. Minty and **** to the right side of his desk and Sasha to the left side of the desk. And then Alex proceeded to take his seat in the middle.

Alex then proceeded to ask, "Has everyone reached their safe destinations? Everyone including the one who tried to end it all?"

Minty spoke up first. "Yes, everyone is safe. The main issue we should worry about is Terra and ourselves. We all know what will happen if he fails, Alex you were the one chosen before him and you never had to deal with something on this scale. Don't you think this is too much for someone his age? He's not even 18 years old."

Alex takes this into consideration before turning to Sasha. "And what are your thoughts on this?"

Sasha smiled cutely as she recalled the moments she had with them. "They are cute and silly little kids, what do you expect? Though I'm quite surprised, I thought for sure Cyrus would be chosen, he seems the most capable. Nonetheless, I wouldn't underestimate the tenacity of that boy, I saw it in his eyes. He might just be the most dangerous one in the group."

Minty then rolls her eyes, "Of course, you would say something like that. You always get too involved in other people's drama."

Sasha defensively shouts, "Hey! The problem is that you don't get involved at all. Always miss, leave them to solve their own problems, well obviously they can't and need help."

"That's enough! Girls," Alex says as he raises his hand help high to signal them to be silent. "And what do you think about all of this?"

The last remaining figure in the room who had been quiet the whole time says, "It was quite strange how he was chosen. The light chose to move around in a circle before stopping on Terra. Normally it's supposed to be instant but this time it wasn't. Maybe there's more than we're seeing here."

Alex lets out a soft grunt.

"You are right. You all are, in your points, but the one thing to focus on is that Terra can't lose no matter what. To lose would mean the death of the world."

As the silence encompassed the group Alex was left with one last thought.

'Kids these days really can't solve their own problems easily, huh? I guess we have to intervene.'