He was Almost Absorbed by the System

Chapter Forty Three - Let's Play A Quick Game of Chess

"Indeed," the being agreed, sometime later, as if there hadn't been a pause in communication. "Do not worry, Yang will monitor the situation. I do not know how long you will need to wait, but time differs here." As he spoke these words, the little sphere floated over to the white screen and script began to flow over it.

"How so," Aidan asked curiously.

"Time passes at the pace I choose, of course," he replied, but he did not elaborate.

Another silence fell over them for a while, though how long, Aidan could not say. "How comes I only received one mission this time? In my past lives, I needed to complete several."

"Your Warren was only in danger once this life from that which you needed to protect him from," the being mentioned.

Aidan thought back, his memories were always very clear in this dimension. "From Honor then? She attacked him that time," Aidan said, aloud.

"No, not from her," the being said. "Think harder. She was not the only one present then."

"Well it can't have been Xavier or North," Aidan muttered to himself, "they were around us often. Damn it's horrible to even imagine that! That only leaves the receptionists and Dante Night?" Aidan rose the volume of his voice on this last sentence. The odd man looked amused and simply hummed an unhelpful affirmative. "Is some guy reincarnating with us? And that's who I am protecting Kez... I mean Warren from?"

"You could phrase it that way," the being agreed. "It's a particularly selfish little thing that wants your Warren for its own purposes." A flurry of emotions flooded over Aidan's face, causing the Master to chuckle. "Oh it doesn't want your Warren the same way you do, it has other... plans in mind."

"What sort of plans?" Aidan asked, slowly, trying to restrain his strong feelings.

"Hmmm, simply ones that you have been assigned to protect him from," clearly he didn't wish to say more. Aidan recalled that this man often evaded his questions with vague or simply no answers. So he altered his question.

"Why do you want me to protect Warren?" He asked. "I mean I'm more than happy to do so, I love him. I never want to see him hurt, but why did you choose to involve yourself."

The Master gave a half smile as if he appreciated Aidan's quick train of thought and so he answered him as he relaxed into his throne; "It suits my purposes as well. By protecting your Warren, you also are protecting the worlds I help watch over."

"So the thing that's chasing Warren is also causing problems in the worlds?" The being simply smiled and said no more, leaving Aidan to draw his own conclusion.

As the long silence stretched onward, Aidan managed to fall asleep. He woke up for the second time in the white space on a formation that had risen from the white floor to form a sort of day bed. Somehow the white mattress did seem softer, despite being made up of the same stuff as the white floor, and the white sheet over him felt clean and crisp. He rose from the day bed, which proceeded to sink back into the floor and wandered over to Yang, who had advised him that Kez was still much alive at the present time.

"How about you learn something new?" The being suggested, having not appeared to have moved from it's throne while Aidan slept. "Or you can accompany me to a game of chess. I've not played it before, but I am most curious about it." A small white table appeared with a board and small figures. Aidan wasn't one hundred percent sure, but chess boards and pieces weren't meant to be all white... were they?

"I can't play either," Aidan replied.

"What a pity," the man sighed. He waved a hand, still lined in the strange linear pattern common throughout the white room, and a new screen appeared set a little apart. This one had a small seat form in front of it. "Feel free to peruse my files. If you require physical practice for whatever you choose, I will attempt to arrange something."

"Physical practice...?" Aidan rolled the words inside his mind before saying aloud, "you mean for something like a martial art?"

"Yes or a game of soccer," the man said dismissively, as he stared at his nearly formed chess set.

Aidan thought about it for a while and went to check out some of the skills he could learn. He wasn't a physical sort of person and he hadn't needed to be so far, so he sort of pushed the idea of a martial art or fighting skills to one side. He then learnt the rules of chess for the sake of it, before learning about Othello.

While failing miserably to win a round of chess against the being (he couldn't figure out which white pieces were his and which were the Master's)some time later, Yang made an announcement; it was time to move to the next world.

Author's note; fun fact - Dante Night was the male protagonist this time and Savannah was the female protagonist. Funnily enough, it was originally going to be Leilei, but Savannah popped into my head and insisted she would be a better choice. I was too lazy to write them a plot line though as Rush's presence pretty much disrupted any potential plot line from the start.

Author's notes; another fun fact - this world was created in my head while I was driving to work. The next world I developed completely while cooking dinner!