"Are you guys even going anywhere in particular?!" It was only natural to be skeptical; we had just hopped on a rocket couch soon as Ariel decided we should head out.

"Of course!" shouted Buddy. Those rocket boosters sure were loud.

"Where?!"

"To Selenium city! Right?!" yelled Ariel.

"Yep!" A fake smile of confidence shot across Buddy's face.

He was just flying for the heck of it...

"Hey?! What kind of scenic route is this?! All I can see is trees!"

"Ah yes, a scenic route." He really was just flying without any thought. "Well, I guess it might be too much of a detour, so I'll turn around and head right for the city." He had the vehicle do a u-turn and about sent us flying out off of our ride.

"Wooo!!! This is fun!!!" Ariel sure was enjoying herself. She probably didn't care that we had just wasted time.

I had to admit, it kind of was fun. Reckless, but fun. I suppose the feeling of rushing, not limited by the two-dimensional paths that land vehicles have to follow, through the cool air was entertaining enough to make up for the lack of safety, but I sure wish I had some goggles or something. My eyes dry out quickly in these kinds of conditions, after all.

After sailing around for a while, a city came up over the horizon. From this far away we were just starting to be able to see the tops of buildings, which appeared to be somewhat modern skyscrapers. I guess since we retain our memories from Earth it would make sense that a few people would be able recreate things from their memories.

"Wow, I really didn't expect there to be actual buildings like a city!" I exclaimed.

"Well it is an actual city!" Ariel explained.

A few minutes and one rough landing later we were in the city. At this point I could tell that these buildings were in fact quite different from what I was used to. Upon closer inspection I could tell that while there were normal ones, some were made of rather eccentric material choices. There was brick, concrete, metal, wood, what seemed like plastic, one that was almost a bounce-house, and an incredibly fragile looking glass building. I was assured by Ariel that these wouldn't crash down on top of me, but only after she joked around about how she thought the structures were held up by luck. Her joking face is exactly the same as the happy-go-lucky face that she wields to bring my constant demise.

After a little bit of half wandering, half navigating we ended up at a large, wooden board with notes of all sorts plastered over it and over each other. Other than the frame I could hardly see any of the dark brown wood, and the board must have been a hundred feet long and five feet tall.

"This is this city's Board of Discovery. Most cities have one. People put ideas for adventures, remove suggestions that no longer apply, add public notices, and even put up rewards for tasks! Let's find something that the three of us can do!" In a trail of bubbles she was already on the other side of the board.

"I'll check the middle then, buddy," said Buddy.

"Alright then, Buddy." I looked around, skimming the multi-colored notes for something that might be do-able. I saw lots of weird notes right off the bat, including "Play with my pet dragon - City", "Find some slime in Slick Cave, you know, the living kind - Village", and "Jump down New Angel Falls - Village". I was at a loss on how to handle these, so I went over to Ariel for an explanation. "Hey Ariel, what is up with these 'villages' and 'cities'?"

"Oh those! Those are the approximate difficulty of the task."

I didn't understand, and she was able to tell.

"Hmmm... Well imagine that there's an average person, and give them a suit of medieval armor and weapons. That's one 'person'. Those difficulties tell you how many strengths of a 'person' that you'd need to complete the task." She giggled. "People can get creative with those. I've done an 'Olympic Swimming Team' level task before."

I mulled that over in my mind for a second. That must mean that that Paladine guy was strong as a planet of people. The idea of one person being that strong sent shivers down my spine. "What level of task are we looking for?"

"Good question! Look at you, always thinking and stuff."

It doesn't take much to beat you at brainpower.

"Hey Buddy, how strong are you?!" she yelled.

"Somewhere in between village and city."

"So two village levels and one half person level. We should probably stay safe and choose a village level."

I'm not even a full person?!

I sighed and got back to searching for tasks that looked interesting.

"Hey Buddy! Long time no see!"

I looked towards the source of the sound. It emanated from a character with a similar get-up to Buddy, with bright orange long hair, tattoos littered all around his body, and black and white makeup that made him look half dead.

"Hey Berk! What has it been, like, three years?"

The two walked over to each and, with a large hug, immediately got into a rather loud conversation.

"Something like that! I see that you have a hot dog cart now. Was the pickle cart a bust?"

He tried a pickle cart?! I looked at the man who had so quickly become a permanent fixture of our little group. I had seem him with his cart so much since I first met him that it didn't even cross my mind anymore that he was with it. The hot dog cart had become part of him in my mind.

"Yeah... Turns out people want hot dogs more than pickles... Want one?"

"Depends, did you wear a hairnet when you were making it?"

The two of them laughed. It's no laughing matter. Someone could die from eating one of those.

"You know I can't wear those things! So what brings you here?"

"Probably the same thing as you: I'm looking for my next adventure!"

Buddy gestured for us to come over and join him. He introduced us to the strange character.

"My name is Berkeley, but please call me Berk! I'm a dye man!"

I believe the correct grammar would be "dead man".

"I can change the color of anything within a certain range." His hair color, tattoos, and makeup faded from his body.

I looked at Ariel and found that they had reappeared on her person. I laughed at her, and she laughed at me. We had both donned the appearance of Berk. At this realization we immediately begged him to take it off, which he did.

I, the team sceptic, had to get to the bottom of this strange power. "What exactly leads someone to have such a strange power?"

"I'm glad you asked! You see, back on Earth, my mother was strictly against any sort of self expression, especially when hair was conce--"

"Alright, I get it." These two really are two birds of a feather.

"Hey! How did you guys take on tasks with such lame powers?" asked Ariel.

The two of them turned around and sulked.

"Did you hear that, our powers are lame."

"She's just like my mother."

Ariel turned to me. "Look what you did?!"

"What part of that was my fault?!"

"You just had to interrupt him, didn't you?!"

"That wasn't the problem, you air head!"

We all took a moment to return to normal. Buddy was the first one to break the silence.

"Berk and I hunted blightmares, back in the day. We would focus on luring them into traps made with my hair powers via his dye powers."

"My favorite ways to trick them was disguising poisonous mushrooms as edible ones and creating illusions of predators or food." He held his hand out in front of him. An apple appeared in his hand, and it had the same fuzziness that I imagined holograms to have. "If I focus hard enough, I can dye parts of the air!"

The powers just keep getting more and more crazy.

The apple disappeared in a cloud of red smoke, which was probably just the dye diffusing.

Ariel's LED light went off again. "I got it! Let's find a village level hunting task to warm up!"

We all agreed and started searching for one meeting that description. We eventually settled on a task of exterminating a herd of boar-like blightmares in a field not too far from the city. Berk had to go back to a room he was renting and get his stuff, so we all agreed to meet at the same spot at sundown, which appeared to be just an hour or two away. Wanting to explore the city, Ariel, Buddy, and I decided to head towards what was closest to a shopping district.

-----

"Let's see, I've got my knives, my decoys, and my clothes. I think that's it! Time to check out."

Berk turned around and opened the door.

"Hmmm... Could've sworn that I locked that."

A paralysing fear swept over him. He felt a strong presence right behind him. A cold sweat broke out all over his body. The adrenaline kicked in. His heart was racing faster, and faster, and faster. He slowly looked over his shoulder.

"Could've sworn you locked that too. Wonder what happened to it. Oh well."

A man came into his field of vision. Clad in black, tight clothes, the man had bloodshot eyes and a smile cast over a pale face, as if he had just had a huge dose of caffeine before his favorite game.

"You have quite the bond with that spiky haired man. Reunited after... three years was it? Too bad that you already have an obligation with me."

Berk felt the man's hand touch his shoulder, and everything went black.

***

A/N: And thus begins the first plot line! There's more to it than it seems ;) I just wanted to let you guys know an important structure of this story, which is alternating plot lines and groups of fun stories. Why? For many reasons, but I think that this way will be more enjoyable (and logical) than an entirely plot driven story, but will have more depth than a completely crazy one. I hope that you'll like this story structure as much as I do :D See you next time!