Heroes United

《 Chapter 9: Calabash 》

"Where... am I?" Mk wondered.

He finds himself in a room full of fog for a moment as he looks around. Suddenly, it changes to a beautiful forest. He starts walking while looking everything around him in confusion and awe. For some reason, he feels like he's been walking for hours until he finds a waterfall. He quickly climbed down a huge rock and made it to the bottom. Mk cups some water with his hand and splashes it on his face, making him sigh in relief. He cupped his hands again when he noticed a blurry reflection of a mysterious figure in there. He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked around before splashing his face again.

The mysterious figure was watching them from above and slowly descended down. Once they got behind the cover of a bush, to their surprise, they noticed that he's gone. They carefully went forward to the place he was before then skipped from rock to rock over the waters. Behind the waterfall hid Mk with his Golden Staff pointed at them. He takes a deep breath and glares. He then jumped out of the waterfall and landed on a rock and aimed his staff at them. The figure stood up to their full height and stared back at them.

Mk lowered his staff as he took a good look at the stranger in realization. The fog disappeared to reveal the same purple hair horned girl from the spider's nest that saved his life and healed him. Li Jing had her gaze intently, but not frightening, at him. They stared at each other for a moment. Li Jing's hair sways beautifully from the wind as her red eyes sparkles. Mk, while holding his gaze, makes his staff disappear and slowly walks into the water as it reached to his knees. He went over to her as close as he can as he stares at her up close. But before he got to her, she immediately ran away and then their moments had been broken.

"No! Wait! Please! Hold on!"

Li Jing ran through the forest as Mk catches up to her. Every time he gets close to her, she would take another direction to slow him down.

"Geez! How fast are you?!" he panted out.

She eventually made it to the boat and jumped onto it. Mk finally caught up to her before she could row away.

"Please! Don't run off!"

She stared at him suspiciously. Mk went forward.

"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to talk."

He reaches out his hand.

"Here. Let me help you out of there. It's alright."

Li Jing move her hair out of her face as a wind comes by. Mk smiled at her. She then slowly takes his hand let him pull her out of the boat, the leaves of the wind circled around their joined hands. The different colors of the leaves flies around the two as they stare into each other's eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked her.

She gives him a closed eye smile, breathing in the wind. Li Jing goes to open her mouth when...

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Mk wakes up at the sound of the sudden earthquake.

"Huh?! What the?!"

He looks around to find himself in his room.

"What? It was just a dream?"

Mk recalls that girl from earlier and gets disappointed.

"Dang it! And I was so close to knowing her name! Wait, what time is it?"

Meanwhile, Nuo finds herself outside in the city. She has no idea what just happened. One time she was busy delivering noodles with Mk, then the next she was in front of Pigsy's Noodles restaurant in the blink of an eye.