After Anya and I spent a reasonable amount of time talking and kissing, she all but pushed me out of the tree house. I kissed her goodbye, but Anya warned me that I had better be going to spend the rest of the day alone.

She was right, and I probably did need some alone time, but I had so much to do. People in the world were dying, but that wasn't much different than usual.

Humans always seemed to find excuses to hurt or kill each other; the difference now was that it was a one-sided fight. The world was extremely corrupt, and for that part, I didn't care, but it was the people that we were forced to follow these monsters in human skins.

I jumped into the air, and an arm emerged from the tree and grabbed me, still growing more prominent. I sent instructions to throw me as hard as the tree could, but I decided to send myself south.

I had planned on going in a random direction, but there was another city about four hundred miles in that direction. Technically, this would be alone time if Anya asked; I was just casually checking out the next city.

I might also quickly request some tree seeds to edit and drop along the way, casually. Maybe even check on the local Villains, and have some time with them while I pondered my existence.

Pretty sure that's what she really meant… Anya is going to give me such a dirty look when I get back. Oh well, it's me time, and this is what I want to do!

That was my last thought before the tree hurtled me into the air like a subsonic rocket.

"Yahoo!" I yelled and then coughed as I got bugs in my mouth.

The force was so great that I had to close my eyes a couple of times to let them heal. I would start to basically go blind from little bits of dirt, and dust would get in my eyes.

Besides that, it was an entertaining and crazy way to fly. Once I reached the peak of my arc, my wings burst from my back, and I started to glide on a warm spread, still flapping to keep my speed.

It was much colder up here, but my body got used to the temperature right away, and I got to work on the seeds. One of the key things that I had learned about my System was that all the girls' growth that had systems was transferred to me.

I could use their skills, but not as well yet. I assumed I could also train those skills if I did the required training and collected experience.

I started to edit the seeds for the Great Trees, allowing them to create teams of fifty Elf clones. If needed, I could control all fifty, but it would be challenging at the level I was at with my own System.

Once I was done, I started dropping them every hundred miles since that would give the best coverage. Other smaller Great Trees would grow from the seeds, and soon this whole strip between the cities would be one massive forest that would continue to spread out.

The rest of my trip took about an hour before the South City came into view, but I was going to have to work on that. I was going to need to be able to become faster, but it wasn't like I could strap rockets on my back.

The city had a name, and so did the one I was in, but they didn't matter anymore. When the world ended, humanity's grip on the world was broken, and I wasn't about to let it go back to the way it was.

In some areas, my city was pretty bad, but the South City mainly was controlled by gangs. I had stayed away from this city for that specific reason, but I couldn't anymore.

This place was going to be rough and worse than it had been before the power disappeared. I could only imagine how much worse it was now, and I felt two sources of uneasiness.

This was an issue, and I really had nothing set up to deal with them like last time. I did have the Terror Ticks, but my Supersonic Misquietos died; they could one live for so long since they had no way to eat.

"First thing I need is to find some more things to scan," I said to myself, but I really didn't know anything about this city.

Usually, I would just pull out my phone and maps to see, but that wasn't going to work this time. I was going to have to do things the old-fashioned way as I swooped down to the tops of the highest building, dropping seeds.

I needed to be able to recharge, and sooner than later. That little Tree-D display was a bit taxing, and creating these seeds hadn't been easy.

"You! Hero! I am… who are we again? …Oh! I am Shamiel, The Dark Energy System!" A young man's voice shouted from behind me, and I looked back.

There was a teenager surrounded by darkness, with black hair and gray eyes chasing after me, but he seemed a bit weird. Maybe weird was the wrong word, but the guy couldn't even remember his own name.

"What do you want? I don't really want to hurt you," I called back but was hit by a large whip that was made out of the darkness. I smashed into the side of a build but stuck there as my roots grabbed the metal behind me.

"That was rude," I said to myself, pulling my roots in and jumping out into the open air.

The boy came after me and hit me with the whip again; I grabbed it with my roots, but the energy dispersed. With nothing to grab, I was sent hurtling to the ground, but roots sprang out of me to slow me down.

The boy was coming straight for me, but grass shot up and created a shield for me to hide behind, but the whip cut through it like a hot knife. I narrowly dodged the whip, but then a part of the darkness broke off the side and punched me in the gut, mid-jump, and I was knocked into a convenience store.

"You really like doing this, don't you?" I asked as the boy walked over to me, but he shrugged.

"Possibly, but I am a God now, so why wouldn't I crush everyone around me? The other Villain hides from me because she knows I will kill her. You probably think this child looks weak and his mind is the same, and you would be right! I can control this body as I please! Now, we have played enough!" The child roared, and then the darkness split off into many lines.

I really wasn't sure what to do at this point, but I needed to have a plan. I was starting to get tired, meaning my abilities weren't working like they should.

I tried to block the first volley, but they cut into my roots and slammed into my chest. I was knocked out of the back of the store, but the grass caught me, and I was off!

I was lying on my back as the grass weaved me around the strikes from the Dark Energy System, but I had picked up something. There was a large group of animals less than a mile away, but there weren't the animals that I was expecting.

"Stop running, you pathetic excuse for a Hero!" The Dark Energy System screamed at me, and the bolts rained down with more intensity.

The thing was, even when I was hit by the darkness, it barely left a mark. The problem was the force that they hit with, making it hard to get close to him.

Pairing that with the fact that my roots were getting cut up was not good for me, even if I could take a beating. It would only take him time to whittle me down, and I didn't want to get close to one of the Great Trees.

I could still feel the unease from the other Villain, but it wasn't moving. I really couldn't blame them, but I wondered what she was doing.

The grass suddenly flipped me in the air, and an arm grabbed me and hurtled me into the air at one of the growing Great Trees. This was precisely what I didn't want, but instead of hitting the side of the tree, I was absorbed into it.

Suddenly, my vision was all around the tree at once, and my energy started to return, but the Dark Energy System was flying at the tree. This was okay now, and the tree spit me put into a hand before chucking me at what I could now see was a Zoo.

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