The headmaster grinned. "I did tell you how we altered history, didn''t I? but that''s not all. We had powers, we had tech from Neil and even their support. And that''s when the Aliens arrived. It was their goal you see, they were aiming for this revolution, almost like some gods trying to create new life." Heughed loudly. "But instead of creators, they were destroyers…Hypocrites at their finest."


    Some loud noises came from behind the door. People were yelling. Awfully, distracting.


    "You don''t say."


    "The ck ones are the soldiers, they are controlled. The purple ones however are actually the aliens." But the headmaster still continued despite all that.


    "You''ve said that before."


    But that''s where I lost him.


    "You see, the aliens-"


    "Do they have a name?"


    "I think the people of Neil called them Gens, Gents or something? Can''t remember."


    "Forget I asked. Go on."


    "They are like gods. Some of them go on conquering worlds and have fun. Those are themanders. The purple one you saw was just a remotely controlled body. Now, the pilots of themanders, or rather those purple bodies, are back on their- just doing stuff but they are responsible for quite a lot of soldiers: I''ve never met one myself but I heard they were fancy-looking or something. The purple bodies are basically the bodies of the strongest being they fought in previous battles. Once a race reaches their desirable standard, they attack and have fun- or destroy the race to be more specific."


    Yeah, very specific.


    "Basically, it''s like ying an MMO in the virtual world but just with a lot more at stake."


    And our opponents were maxed out and stuff.


    He almost burst outughing. "Kind of."


    "So, what are we going to do about that?"


    "There''s a chance if we beat the nextmander, they''d stop. But that''s just a chance. And the next time they''d send an even stronger one. Once those Aliens set their eyes on something- they don''t just give up so easily. Beating them will only dy the eventual full-scale invasion which we don''t have any chance of winning."


    So, basically, the best we could do was to buy time?


    "And? You have some other ns, right? Like blowing up their or something?" It was definitely an option, right?


    He looked at me, a bit dazed, tried his level best to control the twitches on his face as he was about to burst outughing. He couldn''t. "HA HA HA AHAKA AH AHAH!" Halfway through hisugh took a very weird turn. He almost cried, actually he wept two drops. He cleared the drops. The snot still threatened toe out though. "Julio also said the same. But sadly-" He controlled himself. "The is moving at a constant speed of 40% the speed of light. And even if we could somehow calcte its trajectory, we don''t have the tech to open the Interdimentinal Elevator. And though Neil had that too, they were unable to link up with that as the aliens had taken the portal as a consideration. So that''s a no."


    I wish he''d just clean that snot too…


    "That''s good and all, but did you try beating one of themanders and using his portal?"


    The headmaster again paused like before. This time however he didn''t burst outughing. Instead, he looked slightly funny. "We actually haven''t done that."


    Huh?


    "Why not?"


    "Because we beat like only three and that was with the help of all of us and by that time the body of the thing was too dismantled and-"


    ''Didn''t you say you beat one on your own?''


    Highly doubtable.


    "In the end, you never considered that did you?"


    He almost looked like a cat caught while stealing fish. "I wasn''t the only one who came back from the future you know!"


    Excuses.


    But really, people shouldn''t have been that dumb, and they probably weren''t. "So, what now? If we let''s say hypothetically beat one and can hypothetically go to their world-"


    "You''ll need special DNA to make that work. One of ourrades had tried but died instantly. What we didn''t try was to manipte our DNA and make it work. So yeah, in the end, we didn''t consider that route enough to make it work."


    Oh, so they had tried.


    "I guess we are back to square one then." That being, we didn''t have any ns.


    "For now, for now, focus on what''s important to you, and if another portal should open it''ll probably be near you so you''ll have to deal with that then. Normally it takes about a week at the very least toe here from Neil through the Interdimentinal Elevator. And three for the aliens."


    But since Neil was conquered, we couldn''t take three weeks for granted.


    "You sure know a lot about them."


    "Once you learn to constantly run, predict their next moves just to survive, you learn a lot." He smiled. "Anyway, what about you, what''ll you do?"


    With a knock, the headmaster''s wife entered. She put some papers on the table, exchanged a few words, wiped the headmaster''s nose for him, and left.


    Well, that was something.


    "Have fun at the festival, get married, and have a bit more fun, what else?" I also smiled. "This could very well be myst festival; I''ll make it a longsting memory." If we didn''t have a n yet, then the best I could do was enjoy my time, right? Just worrying about ''what''ll happen, what''ll happen, what''ll happen'' wasn''t going to get me anywhere, anyway.


    I still worried though.


    For a second there he almost looked deep in thought. He smiled. "Yeah, you should do that. You only get to live once." I thought he''d burst outughing, or mock me, but he didn''t.


    I''d known him for a while now. I did respect the man.


    But for some reason, he never felt like the headmaster type. I mean, he never tried to be that teacher figure for me. If anything, he almost talked like we were equals or something, like we were friends.


    So, I couldn''t help but chuckle. "We''re nning on getting married a bit far. I''ll send you a card- probably."


    Probably, indeed.


    And with that our conversation ended.