"Wait, what?" I asked, completely confused.
A man —a ghost man— in a green mask came out of nowhere and claims to be my father? I was more than confused, I was spooked.
"I'm definitely going crazy," I said with my head down and my hands ruffling my hair. "A ghost wearing a mask and some ridiculous outfit is calling himself my dad, how am I not crazy?"
"You're not crazy, and I'm not a ghost," he replied. "I'm real. As real as you, son."
He tried to touch me but I dodged immediately, creating a six feet distance between him and I.
"I might not know who my father is, but I'm definitely sure he's not a ghost in a ridiculous outfit."
"Hey, this is a premium scout uniform from the attack on titans universe, the exact copy of Captain Levi's outfit…you do not disrespect a cool outfit like this!"
"Attack On Titan?" I asked, "you mean that manga back at the store that made me go berserk?"
"Exactly. Eren Yeager? Mikasa? Armin? Ring any bells?"
I shrugged. "What's all that gotta do with anything? Is that why you came to haunt me, to show me your cosplay outfit?"
"Dude, you used to like this outfit," he replied, then he exhaled. "This conversation isn't going anywhere. Look, when you went berserk and sent that shockwave through the city, it was practically a signal showing your location."
"So you were tracking me?"
"Yes, and also your mother."
My mother? Fourteen years of trying to figure out my origins and find my family, fourteen years of barely remembering anything except my name and out of nowhere this guy with a mask comes with answers? I didn't know why, but I couldn't trust him.
"If you really are my father, why not show me your face?" I asked. "What's with the mask?"
"The mask is for your own safety, kid," he replied. "Your current power level feeds off of your emotions, all of them. The moment you see my face and all those lost memories come flooding back, you'd go berserk and wipe out every single square inch of this stupid prison."
I chuckled, pushing my hands in my pockets. "You really think I'm that stupid? What do you think these inhibitor walls are for? My powers can't work here."
He chuckled a little, then he began laughing a lot and then he sat on the bed, giving a satisfying exhale.
"Man, I needed that laugh," he said, then he looked at me. "You and I are the same Ezra, our powers are linked. You know little to nothing about your powers."
"Hmm," I replied pacing. "I have no reason to believe or trust you, you don't know anything about me."
He exhaled, standing up. "You've been having nightmares, haven't you?"
I stopped, looking at him with my facial expression drenched in shock.
"Nightmares about someone shielding you from a light, saying it's gonna be alright…right? About the face of a woman smiling at you, isn't that right?"
That was too detailed. There were only three ways he could have known about the nightmares and two of them involved him asking the chief or Lemon about it, but Lemon didn't know the details of the nightmares and the chief did not know the part about the smiling lady. So it was down to the last way—his ghost powers.
"Maybe," I shrugged in reply, "probably used your ghost powers to figure that out, doesn't mean anything."
"Jesus," he said, rubbing his nose bridge. "You're as stubborn minded as your mother! Hmm, you might not like what I'm about to do Ezra, but it's for your own good."
He approached me with his hand stretched out, I did my best to evade him but failed. He caught me close to the bed and held me against the wall with one hand and placed his index finger and thumb on my forehead and below my eyes respectively, as if giving me a mind meld.
Nothing happened for the first sixty seconds, just two guys staring awkwardly at each other while the security camera caught only one guy against the wall looking like he'd gone insane. Suddenly a sharp electrical spark passed up through my spine and spread throughout my brain, and like a broken dam, a flood of memories gushed out of my memory bank.
Memories of when I was a kid, spending time with my mom, my dad, our dog Chase. In the park throwing frisbees and riding bikes, doing cosplays and having dinners. I could see their faces clearly, and that voice of my dad saying 'it's gonna be okay' while his hand was on my shoulder and he and mom had a big smile on.
The flashbacks stopped and my eyes teared up, and then began glowing blue, with sparks slowly coming off my skin.
"Restart," the man said immediately.
The moment that came out of his mouth, I passed out. When I woke up, I found myself on the ground and he was lying on the bed, whistling.
"Oh you're awake," he said when he noticed me sitting up.
"Yeah, no thanks to you," I replied standing on my feet. I felt a sharp headache the moment my head was high enough and I was also dizzy. "What did you do to me?"
"Got your memories back," he replied, directing me to take a seat on the bed. "Now I can take this off."
He pulled off his mask and revealed the face of a man with a face exactly like mine, same jawline, same nose size, same eyes, same brown skin, same everything!
"Hello son," he smiled. "It's been minute, hasn't it?"
I was speechless. Honestly I didn't know how to react, but apparently my body did. Drops of tears rolled down my eyes as I stared at the man speechless. He was the one in my dreams, the man shielding me from the light, saying 'it's gonna be alright'.
"Dad," I smiled, cleaning my tears. "You've grown old."
He burst out into laughter the moment he heard that, sitting next to me with his arm on my shoulders.
"You little rascal," he replied, ruffling my hair.
I sniffed, smiling. "But why do you look like this, like a dead holographic jedi? What happened to you? Do you know where mom is?"
"One question at a time kid," he replied standing back up. "About the look, it's irreversible. Five years ago I appeared out of thin air in the Alaskan snow desert."
"Alaska?" I asked.
"Yeah. Didn't know where I was, didn't know who I was. Tried getting help but nobody seemed to be responding to me. I thought they were all being rude or didn't just understand my language, cause see, most of them were aliens, which was weird to me at the time. Until one day I noticed I couldn't see myself in the mirror, it was then I realised I was screwed."
"But then, how can I see you?" I asked.
"Yeah I'm getting there," he replied. "I spent a year wandering around Alaska, learning things I needed to know and things I didn't need to know, you'd be surprised at the nasty things people do behind closed doors."
"Eww. Too much information," I replied.
He chucked. "Anyway, at the end of the first year I unintentionally stumbled across something, a game changer, it practically helped me regain most of my memories back and get a proper understanding of what the hell was going on."
He looked over his shoulder, then turned back as if sensing something was watching him.
"Well?" I asked, "what did you stumble across?"
He turned back looking at me. "Oh right! You're not going to believe it, but I discovered that I had a system."
"A what?"
"A system!" He replied. "You know, like those anime and webnovels we used to watch and read."
I looked at him with an eyebrow up. "Are you messing with me?"
"I think it'll better if I showed you," he replied after a chuckle. Then going back a few steps, he exclaimed; "System activate!"
The moment he said that, a holographic blue screen appeared before him, it was as large as a thirty inch television screen and it was broken on one end. He called it a status screen, supposedly something that shows you your power level status and ways you could upgrade, kind of like a video game of some sort. On the screen were the following stats;
[Name: Ezekiel Caster]
[Languages: English, French, German, Russian, Afrikan, Xhosha, Yoruba, Igbo, Zulu, Yolo, Jaspudent, Zoaran, Eclainite]
[Age; 42]
[Race; Guardian 2]
[Power Stones; 70000]
[Power Control Level; 99]
[Training Level; 90%]
There were two buttons below the stats, one labelled 'Training Arena' and the other button that was labelled 'Power Ranking'. When he clicked on the button, eighty five icons appeared, all of them labelled specifically. They were abilities; ice control, energy manipulation, fire control, telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, X-ray vision, fabric manipulation(which probably explains his outfit), levitation and seventy-six more. Each of the icons had a small padlock attached to it, and almost all of them were unlocked, only about ten of those abilities were still locked.
"What the hell?" I said walking around him.
"I know right?"
"It's like a freaking videogame!"
"Exactly!" He exclaimed.
"How is this possible?"
"I don't know," he replied. "But the moment I saw this screen, my memories came in like a hurricane. I went berserk, destroying everything within a five square metre radius in the far north of Alaska. Fortunately, no one was at that location."
"That's crazy," I replied. "You were the cause of the mysterious Alaskan crater four years ago."
"Yeah, whatever that means," he replied. "Not long after, I began my quest of finding you and your mother. My first thought was our house, but that place doesn't exist anymore. I spent three years wandering around the world, but I found nothing. Almost gave up hope until I saw the damage you caused a few weeks ago on the news."
"How'd you it was me?"
"I didn't, just followed a hunch."
I exhaled sitting down on the bed. "Do you remember what happened? How we got separated?"
"No," he sighed. "I have nightmares about the day every single night but still, the memory's foggy."
I lied down looking up at the ceiling, my mind trying to fully process every information that has been given to me, then I realised something.
"Earlier," I began. "You said we were connected, what did you mean by that?"
"Hmm. Besides our connection by blood and memories, I believe we share the same powers."
"What?" I chuckled.
He nodded with a serious look on his face.
"But I don't have a Status Screen like you," I replied.
"I'm definitely sure you do."
"Sorry to blow your bubble, but I do not."
"Say the words," he commanded.
"What, like Shazam?" I replied, "this ain't no old 2020s superhero skit old man."
"Boy just say the words!"
I exhaled, taking a long look at him. Then I stood up, sliding my hands into my pocket with my face showing scepticism at its finest.
"System activate!" I said unenthusiastically.
Instantly a huge holographic screen the size of a two hundred inch television screen appeared, much to both our surprise.
"I knew it!" The man laughed excitedly.
I can't lie, I was excited myself. There were options on the screen that were not on my dad's screen. The stats read;
[Name; Ezra Caster]
[Languages: Universal ]
[Age; 26]
[Race; Guardian 2]
[Power Stones; 100]
[Strength level; 100]
[Energy Flow; Unstable]
[Power Control Level; 5]
[Training Level; 0%]
[Universal Connection; Incomplete]
Then there was the Training arena button and the button labelled Power Ranking and an extra button titled 'Remerge,' it was locked. When I tapped on the Power Ranking button, over a thousand icons appeared, nearly all locked tight with the respective numbers next to the locks. This blew my mind, and my dad's mind, I mean there were abilities there that I didn't even know exist. Flight, Heat-ray vision, sound manipulation? Skin change? Transmigration? Just the tip of the giant iceberg. The only abilities unlocked were Energy manipulation and foresight.
"Holy skydust," he said looking up. "You're loaded son."
"This…is crazy," I said also looking up. "I'm guessing I have to train hard to get my training level and power control level up in order to get more power stones like you do and in turn increase my strength level and unlock my abilities. Isn't that right?"
"Every single word kid," he replied. "You're fast, that'll do wonders for your training."
"What do you think that Remerge button's for?"
"I don't know, don't care, our priority should be unlocking that."
He pointed at one of the locked icons. It had the words 'Hound Manipulation' tagged under it, with a number— fifty thousand ps.
"Fifty thou—is that supposed to be fifty thousand power stones?" I asked with popping out eyeballs. "That's gonna take billions of years to unlock!"
He laughed. "You don't even have a clue on how you gain power stones, do you?"
"As blind as a bat here," I replied, raising my hands.
"Don't worry, I've got you," he replied. "Hound manipulation is the ability to locate anyone in the whole world just by a smell of their belongings. I've seen it done once, by a guardian 4 human I met in the Training arena."
"Wait, there are other guardians, with different numbers?"
"Yeah," he replied looking over his shoulder again as if sensing someone was watching him. "We'll finish this discussion later, I've gotta go."
"Wait, what's up?!" I asked as I watched him gradually fade off.
"Nothing you should be concerned about!" His voice echoed, "deactivate your system, your friends will be here in two minutes to get you out. Don't worry about me, I'll find you."
He completely vanished. And just like he said, the elevator doors made that ding sound and the doors slid open letting in the Chief and Lemon arguing with the Cornell and the guard as they walked up to my cell. Lemon smiled when she saw me, and the chief smirked.
"You've been here for less than forty-eight hours and you already look thinner than a toothpick," he said.
"What's going on?" I asked, "what happened?"
"Well, two things," Lemon replied as we watched the gaurd swipe the key card and turn the suction key, just to get to the retinal scan of my prison door. "One, the mayor of Yolo central granted you amnesty. Now you're an untouchable free man."
I exhaled, walking out the opened door with my eyes fixed on the General's glare. I've gotta admit, it felt good seeing the look of defeat on the man's face.
"This isn't over Ezra," he grumbled with a low voice.
"What's the second thing," I asked as we followed the guard back to the elevator.
"There's been another murder," the Chief replied.
"What?" I exhaled.
"Two actually," Lemon added. "Bodies were found in 401 avenue."
I exhaled as we entered the elevator.
"What the hell is going on in Yolo?" I asked under my breath, watching the elevator doors close up.