Dear Diary:Two "peaceful" weeks had passed since the previous chapter. Although we had a lot of work, as always, now that I think about it, we'd been at this "hero" thing for almost a month. We'd even run into the Great Kingdom's police several times, who thanked us for helping them with their work. Everything seemed to be going well. I thought we'd be nobodies, but it was quite the opposite.Anyway, that day was our day off, since we didn't receive any calls for help or anything like that. It all started around 10 a.m. Jake, Mary, and I were at my house playing a very old board game. As I recall, my mother told me that this game was approximately over a thousand years old, although it's not very well known nowadays, since people prefer video games.But oh well, it doesn't matter, since we ended up playing it anyway. At first, I thought it would be boring, since Jake was the one who suggested we play this, but in the end, I ended up liking it, even though I was losing. I'm not exactly a genius, and this game is about "business": you have to pay money to the bank; depending on where you land, the bank will pay you money, and you can also buy places. If someone lands on a place you bought, since it's your property, you can charge them money, and well, you can also put houses and hotels on your properties, which means that if someone lands on that space, the price they have to pay the owner is much higher.And well, I was foolish enough to think I could win without having to buy a lot of things, and well, in short, Mary and Jake were bankrupting me. Maybe another day that would have made me really angry, since I hate losing, but... the truth is, it was a lot of fun. Maybe it's because I was with them, I don't know. For a moment, I'd forgotten how screwed up Totium was. We were having a lot of fun, joking around and stuff, like we'd known each other for years.But that fun had to end, because suddenly we heard a lot of noise outside. There were explosions, screams, and gunshots. We didn't know what the hell was going on, but we knew we had to do something. We quickly put the game aside, grabbed our weapons, and went outside to see what the heck was happening.When we got outside, we saw hell. The entire Grass Kingdom was in total chaos. Lots of people were being kidnapped by flying things. I didn't know what those things were; they looked like silver plates, basically spaceships. They were nothing like the flying vehicles they have in the Great Kingdom.We ran as fast as we could to help people. Jake shot explosive spikes at them, Mary was slashing their ships with her axe, and I was doing the same with my sword. That caused a bunch of other ships to start shooting at us. We dodged the laser bullets as best we could. I decided to summon two thunderbolts, and with that energy, I invoked the electrical ability "Controlling Lightning." This ability allows me to coat my hands with electrical energy, and from them, I can unleash a barrage of lightning bolts that I can use to perform various actions simultaneously. It's a very complex electrical ability, but quite useful in certain situations, like this one, where I used several bolts to trap the ships that were firing at us and detonate them. This ability works very well against technology.Suddenly, creatures I'd never seen before emerged from some of the ships. I didn't know what species they were, but they were humanoid. They had somewhat dark green skin; most had black hair; and they had long, pointed ears and noses. They all wore silver, cone-shaped hats, and their clothing was the same color, though it looked very tight. All these strange beings were quite thin and rather short, and they spoke a very strange language; I didn't understand a word. That was weird because in Totium, the only language still spoken is Spanish; almost no one speaks any other language.All these strange beings pulled out strange weapons. I think they were something like silver pistols, like their suits. They started shooting at us. We managed to dodge them, but we realized that these weapons were more powerful and dangerous than the weapons on their ships, since when one hit a house, it created a pretty powerful explosion.I used my Control Rays to take their weapons and make them explode, while Mary and Jake hit them all. They weren't very strong, but we couldn't waste any time. Several ships escaped, taking many people with them."We have to save them," I said.We started running as fast as we could, but suddenly we heard gunshots from behind us, and everything went black.I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was the roof of my house. The first thing I felt was a sharp pain in my back. I stood up quickly, remembering what we were doing. Mary and Jake were next to me. I went over and quickly checked their pulses, and luckily, they were both still alive. I tried to wake them up when I noticed a kind of green dome surrounding the house.They woke up with the same back pain I had, although apparently the laser wasn't powerful enough to kill us. The first thing we did was try to break the dome. Not even my True?ioion could do anything to it. At that moment, I thought, "What the hell is this thing made of?"The other option we had was to use an electrical ability called "Electric Intangibility." This ability allows me, as the name suggests, to make my body intangible. I tried to pass through the dome, but I couldn't. No matter how much I forced my body against the dome, I couldn't get through. So I decided to try something else: I backed up a few meters to the other side of the house and ran as fast as I could toward the dome, but instead of going through it, the impact sent me flying and landing on my sofa.At that moment, I yelled in fury:"What the hell is wrong with this stupid dome?! My Electric Intangibility has never failed me before!"Jake said to me:"Hey, why don't you try going under it?"That hadn't occurred to me, but unfortunately, the dome had also been placed under the house, so I couldn't get through it.Mary said in an eloquent tone:"I see. I think these creatures aren't from this planet. They must come from a planet with much more advanced technology than we have on Earth. I've never seen this material before, but I don't think it's harder than the metal the True?ioion is made of, since when we hit it, it seemed somewhat flexible. Maybe there is a way to get through it."Suddenly, she started touching the dome all over. Jake and I sat down on the sofa, since there was nothing else we could do, and decided to trust that Mary would find a way to break it. And she did.After a while, she shouted:"Guys, come here right now!!!"We went to see what was happening, and she pointed to a part of the dome and said:"This is the softest part of the dome. Tommy, try to pierce this part with your sword."Just as she ordered, I did so without hesitation. I started stabbing my True?ioion into that part, and it seemed to be working, as it was beginning to stretch like chewing gum. It stretched more and more and seemed to be starting to break. After forcing it for about three minutes, my sword finally managed to pierce the damned dome, and quickly the rest began to crack and, in an instant, it shattered into pieces.We finally got out of the house, although it was somewhat damaged by the pieces of the dome that had fallen, but that didn't matter at that moment. We explored the Grass Kingdom stealthily, in case we encountered those creatures again."We were very careless, but this time we'll save all those innocent people," I told myself.After ten minutes, we had checked all the houses, and there wasn't a soul in them. The only thing we saw was a strange building we'd never seen before at the entrance to the Grass Kingdom. It looked like someone had put it there overnight. It was a kind of giant silver cube. Obviously, the aliens had put that place there. Mary said there was a chance that all the people they'd kidnapped were there, alive or dead, so we had to go in.But there were several armed aliens at the entrance. Well, it was an easy job, since all Mary had to do was come out of our hiding place to distract them by pretending to be helpless and crying. Then Jake and I attacked them by surprise, knocking them unconscious, though I decided to kill them. Mary and Jake said it wasn't necessary, but I told them:"These are aliens, not people from Totium." They came to our planet to cause chaos and attack our people. There was no way we should let them live.They simply remained silent. That's how my father taught me: we, the Thunder Knights, must protect Totium with our lives. Anyone who tries to harm the innocent deserves to die. That's what I thought back then.We stole some kind of cards that opened the door and entered the place. It was a sort of silver maze; they really liked that color. But not even a minute had passed before we encountered several aliens yelling at us in their language, which we didn't understand, and shooting at us. We easily killed them, but suddenly a deafening sound, like an alarm, began to echo throughout the place.Jake said:"Looks like they know we're here."As we suspected, several of these bastards started appearing. There were so many of them, and it was much harder to dodge their shots, so we decided to run as fast as we could. I deflected the shots as best I could with my True?ioion, Jake shot the spikes from his mace at them, while Mary and I decapitated the others. We quickly passed through several random rooms, not really knowing where the hell we were going.After a while, we entered a very large room, and suddenly, four strange robots emerged from the walls, clearly intent on killing us. I had already absorbed some lightning thanks to the sphere, so I summoned electric agility. With it, I managed to dodge the robots' attacks, and with my True?ioion, I sliced ??two of them into pieces. Mary and Jake also managed to defeat the other two robots: Mary severed their limbs, while Jake threw his explosive spikes at them.We continued entering various rooms, encountering the same thing: aliens and traps. I don't intend to write down everything we found, so I'll just mention the first things that come to mind. For example, in one room, as soon as we entered, the floor disappeared, and underneath it seemed to be filled with acid, but thanks to my ability to control the True?ioion's movement, we were able to float to safety. We also encountered giant saws, more robots, giant rocks, and many other things I'm too lazy to remember.After about twenty minutes, we finally found what we were looking for. We entered a room that looked like some kind of prison, since it was full of cells where many people were being held. They all looked terrified and, at the same time, relieved to see us. We quickly realized that there weren't only people from the Grass Kingdom, but also people from other kingdoms. Luckily, they were all alive.We freed them as quickly as we could using the stolen cards to open the cells. We didn't know where the hell the exit was, but it occurred to me to cut a hole in the ceiling with my True?ioion. We were at the very top of the alien base, so by cutting a hole, we could get outside. We quickly got everyone out of there, but we heard several aliens approaching.I decided to distract them while my sword, Mary, and Jake helped the people get out. Thanks to my extensive knowledge of many martial arts, it was quite easy for me to dodge their attacks and defeat them with my fists and kicks, even though I was already somewhat tired and slower than usual, but it didn't matter. It was also difficult for me to fight and, at the same time, control my True?ioion and avoid accidentally cutting someone, but before that day I had practiced a lot to improve my telepathic control of the True?ioion. Even so, I was very tired, but somehow I managed to do it all.After defeating all the aliens that came, I noticed that outside the place, the Great Kingdom's police had arrived in helicopters and were helping to evacuate people. After a few minutes, all the abducted people were in the police helicopters. The Sheriff told us to go with them, since this place was very dangerous and that special agents would arrive soon, but I replied:"We have to kill all these aliens. We don't know what they're planning, but I don't think it's anything good."The Sheriff nodded, left with his companions, and wished us luck.We returned to the alien base and, after a while, arrived at a room larger than any we had seen before. Suddenly, the door slammed shut, and the walls began to move rapidly, threatening to crush us. To make matters worse, giant spikes protruded from them. It was a trap. Fortunately, Jake managed to hold the walls up with his immense strength, but it was clear that it took a great effort from him.We needed to escape, but there was no way out. The only thing I could think of at that moment was to use fire bolt at full power, tripling my strength and opening a giant hole in the floor. The three of us jumped into that hole as fast as we could and plummeted several stories. It was somewhat painful, since we didn't land on our feet, but we weren't seriously injured. Although, now that I think about it, there were better ways to escape that room, but being the idiot I am, I didn't think of them.As soon as we stood up, we realized we were in what appeared to be the main room, as it contained many strange machines and screens that seemed to display the feeds from cameras throughout the place. There was only one alien in the room, but this one was different from the others. He wore a kind of silver armor, a cape, and a crown of the same color.He spoke to us in a serious tone, though it was clear he was angry, and he seemed to speak Spanish:"You've certainly been a real nuisance, you damned humans. I didn't think you could get this far. I'll enjoy killing you."I replied, equally angry:"Kill us? Do you want to avenge your comrades? Don't give me that nonsense. You came to our planet and kidnapped all our people. We are Team Totium, the defenders of this planet. We don't care why you invaded us, but we're going to kill you all."At that moment, I told myself, "I'm not going to make the same mistake I made with the Plant King. I can't get overconfident. I would have defeated that guy by myself if I had used Fire Bolt at full power, but I got cocky and almost got killed. This time it's not going to be the same. I'm going to kill this guy and destroy this whole place using Electric Tornado..."No matter how much time it passes, I'll never stop being an idiot. At that moment, I realized I only had one Thunderbolt left. I tried to summon two more, but for some reason, they couldn't pierce the base's ceiling. I hadn't felt so damn stupid in a long time. I tried again, I tried two more times."You're kidding me," I thought.I looked up, and the ceiling was as good as new. It was like the Plant King's castle: the hole I created disappeared, which meant we couldn't get out. Even if I tried to create a hole with the True?ioion, it would quickly repair itself. That guy had us trapped.Our only option was to fight him, but this guy seemed to be the Alien King, and he was wearing armor. With the technology these guys had, it meant the King probably possessed the best technology. If we fought him, we didn't know if we'd win. We just had to wait for the Great Kingdom's special team to arrive.Although I think I could have defeated him with Electric Tornado, there was a small problem: I'd forgotten the sphere at home, so I couldn't absorb any more thunderbolts. I only had one lightning bolt, and Electric Tornado needs three. As I explained in the previous chapter, I can only absorb electrical energy, but I didn't sense any nearby.Mary and Jake, without me having to say a word, knew what was happening. They looked at me nervously. The only option left was to fight that guy there and hold out until the special team arrived. Besides only having one thunderbolt, I was already pretty tired. I had a tiny bit of hope that the King wasn't as powerful as I thought.The only electric ability I could think of to use at that moment was Electric Speed, to test how fast that guy was, since if I outspeeded him, I could have killed him by slashing him with my True?ioion, as it can cut through almost anything. So Mary and I decided to attack him simultaneously as fast as we could, but as I imagined, that guy was faster than us and easily dodged our attacks. We quickly retreated.I thought all was lost, that that guy would kill us, but instead, he started talking:"I'm really sorry."I replied, confused:"Huh? What the hell are you talking about?"He answered in a serious tone:"You see, we come from the planet you call Mars." We've lived there for centuries, but before arriving on this planet, we came from a distant galaxy. Our planet was like yours: beautiful and prosperous, teeming with life. But one day, an asteroid crashed into our home. Only 10 out of 100 million of our species managed to escape. Our technology allowed us to survive in space for several years, but resources began to dwindle. Fortunately, after years of searching and research, we found a planet in this galaxy where we could live. Although there was another habitable planet nearby, we decided not to go there, as it was already inhabited by living beings; this one, however, was not.We lived peacefully on Mars for two centuries, but one day several Earthlings came to our planet. At first, everything seemed fine; they appeared friendly. They said they came only for scientific purposes. It was all a lie... Their true objective was to wipe us out. But we managed to destroy them thanks to our technology. Well, that's what we thought, because some time later we discovered that one of them had managed to escape.We were prepared for war against Earth, but that wasn't the biggest problem. They not only took many of our resources, but they also left behind toxic waste on our planet. This was a great blow to our species; many of our people died from the toxic waste. For several years, we dedicated ourselves to cleaning up and preparing for war, but time passed and there was no sign of it. After more than a hundred years, we discovered that the toxic waste had not only caused the deaths of many of our people, but was also slowly killing our planet. Our resources were contaminated, especially the water. Fewer and fewer resources remained that could be consumed, and the population was dwindling more and more. We knew that this planet would soon be uninhabitable.We decided to send several soldiers to Earth to peacefully ask its leader to let us inhabit their planet... Our soldiers never returned; they were killed. The only option left was to invade their planet, but we didn't want to kill anyone, so I came up with the idea of ??kidnapping several people so we could negotiate with their leader. That way, we could talk to him and reach an agreement to let us live here in exchange for not killing all these people and sharing our technology with them. That was the plan, but according to my soldiers, the King of Totium has declared war on us. They're going to attack us one way or another. I've been informed that a massive army is on its way right now. The only thing left for us to do is take control of the planet by force.I didn't want it to come to this, but like you, I won't give up. For my species, I cannot give up. That's why I'll have to kill you. I planned to steal your powerful weapons and take you hostage, since you seem to be valuable soldiers for your planet, but you managed to escape and made it here. That's why I apologize to you."When the King finished speaking, I could see a few tears welling up in his eyes. I realized he wasn't lying. They invaded this planet to ensure their survival. I'm sure Earth would do the same if it were in a similar situation."The only option left is to kill them, or else we'll be turning against our planet. It's my duty as a Thunder Knight," I thought.The three of us understood what we had to do, and without saying a word, we charged at the King. We had to inflict as much damage as possible until the army arrived. Mary and I tried to cut him with our weapons, but he was faster than us. Jake shot his spikes at him, but he could easily dodge them too. In an instant, the three of us were lying on the ground, sore, covered in wounds and blood. This guy was very strong, much stronger than the Plant King. I could tell just from feeling the single blow he landed."If only I hadn't left the sphere at home, I could have defeated him. I'm a damn fool," I thought.Even after the tremendous blow he delivered, we got up and kept trying to land at least one hit, but we couldn't. He struck us again, sending us flying against the wall. Besides not having the speed or strength to hit him, we were also exhausted."At this rate, this guy... will kill us," I told myself.At that moment, I was terrified, but I still couldn't give up. I had promised my father that I would be worthy of being a Thunder Knight. I was prepared to give my life right then and there.We tried about three more times, but the result was the same. All three of us were badly injured; we couldn't get up. I couldn't even use electric speed anymore."This is the end," I thought. "We'll die here."I didn't want to die, even though it was my duty."There are so many things I haven't done yet, like completing my training, losing my virginity, achieving the goal I inherited from Dad, and so many other things. What a shitty life I've had. If only I weren't so useless."As I thought that, the Martian King was slowly approaching us. He was ready to finish us off, and suddenly, I saw Mary stand up and begin to glow green. Then I lost consciousness.I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was the hospital ceiling. I thought I was going to die."Wait, where are Mary and Jake?" I asked myself as I got out of bed and called for them.I tried to walk, but I was still injured, so I fell to the floor. A nurse appeared and told me to go back to my bed while she helped me up. I asked her about Mary and Jake, but suddenly I heard a reassuring voice from behind a curtain. It was Mary. She told me she was okay, and Jake was okay too, but he was asleep. Once I got back to my bed, she told me she didn't remember anything that had happened, though her voice sounded a little strange.Half an hour later, the Sheriff from the Great Kingdom's police force came into the room and, after congratulating us on fighting bravely, explained what had happened. Apparently, they had dealt with all the remaining aliens, but we were the ones who had defeated the Martian King and would be rewarded with medals and a lot of money from the King of the Great Kingdom.At that moment, I had no idea how we had defeated the King. The Sheriff told us they had found him dead; apparently, one of the three of us had killed him with a powerful punch, but all three of us were unconscious. Mary and Jake said I probably did it with my electric ability, electric fist, but I didn't remember doing that. The only thing I remembered before passing out was what I mentioned earlier."But she's supposed to be weaker than me and Jake... or maybe I was hallucinating, or Mary is hiding her true strength?" I told myself.Even so, I didn't feel good about that victory. Because of defending Earth, A whole species was wiped out."Is this what it means to be a hero, Dad? Am I really on the right path to be like you? I wish you could answer me, I wish I could hear you again, you and Mom. I miss you."That's what I kept telling myself.What will happen in the next chapter? Was what I saw a hallucination or not? Dear diary, you'll find out in the next chapter. I have to go.End of Chapter 4

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