Chapter One: Waking up in New Territory

Several hours later, I awoke in a bed with that hooded man from before hovering over me.
"Where am I?" I groaned as I slowly woke up.
"You're exactly where you want to be." The man replied as he removed his hood.
His face was smooth with not a mark to be seen.
Short silver hair lay upon his head and his piercing red eyes were locked on me.
It was as if they were looking into my very soul.
"Bet you were expecting someone special under this hood huh?" He questioned.
"I could care less as to who was under the hood! What I want to know is why'd you knock me out like that?" I thundered back at him.
The man walked away from my bed and walked through an automatic door. He motioned me to follow him.
I slowly rose up from my bed, my body still half numb from the injection to my neck earlier.
I tailed behind him through a series of hallways until we reached what appeared to be a lab.
It was the kind of lab that you'd think that once you went in, you'd never come out.
It even had a table for test subjects to be experimented on, complete with straps to hold your limbs down.
We walked to the far ends of the lab where right above my head, stood a massive monitor.
"Do you still want that explanation?" He asked.
I glared at him and said, "I followed you instead of staying behind, so of course I want an explanation."
He let out a slight chuckle and said, "Well giving me the evil eye won't get you anywhere. Anyway, let's get this show on the road."
The man reached out to the monitor and tapped it's screen. It lit up quickly and on it's screen was a wireframe... of me!
"What the... what'd you do while I was unconcious?" I stammered.
"I strapped your body down to that table over there and analyzed your body.
That power you produce earlier was astounding! I just had to find out how you were able to summon that strength."
His eyes practically shined as he spoke those words.
"However..." He lamented.
"However?" I wondered with a tilted head.
"However, that power that I saw you use against those soldiers has dissipated.
I searched your entire being , but nothing like what I saw before came up."
What he said got me thinking. "He has a point. I haven't felt any of the strength from before since I was knocked out.
Another thing I don't understand is why my body absorbed the energy from that sheild."
"Quite frankly, I just don't get why that power dissappeared." The man said looking puzzled.
"Neither do I. Hm. Wait a minute, I never got your name." I quickly declared.
The man began to laugh, as if mocking me.
"Hahahahahahahaha! Well, well, well, look who decided to be polite all of the sudden."
I scowled at him and raged, "Well, I didn't see you ask for my name yet! Decided to be polite? Ha! You aren't so polite yourself now are you?"
His eyes quickly met mine as the strength of our stares met a deadlock.
"That's because I already know your name."
My eyes shot open at his words.
"Taisho Watanabe. Age 18. Birthday, February 26." He quickly said as if his mind was a computer.
"How does he know all this... just how?" I thought, shocked by his knowledge of who I was.
"Surprised? Well you shouldn't be. When I scanned you earlier, I wasn't able to locate the source of the power from earlier.
However, I was able to look at some of your data." He explained.
"My data?" I responded, with a confused look on my face.
"Well, not so much data as it is basic information. You know, name, age, et cetera.
When I scanned your body earlier, the things I just said about you showed up on the monitor.
It wasn't what I was looking for, but it helped me understand a bit more as to who you are." The man said as he looked back at the monitor.
"Also, I just remembered the question you asked me previously. About my name. It's Fumio. Fumio Nakamura." He announced to me.
"I've always been fascinated by this world and the people living in it. So, I've made it a goal of mine to study anything and everything I can.
Even humans such as yourself."
I looked at him, intrested in every sentence he spoke.
"So let me get this straight, you knocked me out just so you could study me?"
Fumio glanced over at his monitor and smirked.
"You think I'm so intrested in research that I would knock someone out just so I could analyze them?
I'm not that crazy. I knocked you out because, as I said prior to this, you just might have killed yourself if I hadn't come along."
My head tilted down as thoughts filled my head.
"He just might be right. It felt as though my body was going to combust, burning up more and more with each passing second. Just what am I?"
I made eye contact with Fumio again and opened my mouth to question him further. Before I could say anything, Fumio spoke.
"You were about to ask where exactly you are. Am I right?"
His words surprised me.
"How'd you know what I was about to ask?" I demanded.
"Lucky guess. Anyway, I suppose I should show you where you are. Come with me." He said as he motioned me to follow him.
I did ask he asked, still puzzled as to how he knew my question.
We walked out of the lab and kept moving down the seemingly endless hallways, passing the room I slept in before.
Fumio was sauntering out through these hallways like a child at a playground, complete with a smile on his face.
I was still confused as to where I was, my eyes wandering around.
We finally reached an elevator and we stepped inside.
As it went downward, Fumio spoke again.
"Believe it or not, you're underground at the moment. We were the whole time."
"Underground? We'll that would explain why we aren't dead yet. If we were above ground, Amida's soldiers would have slaughtered us by now."
"That's exactly why I built this place. It serves as a safe haven for me. You too, seeing as you're still alive."
"Well, I guess you have my thanks for allowing me to stay here then. Don't think that this covers up the fact that you knocked me unconcious though." I stated.
"I saved your life by knocking you out if you forgot already. So I think it does cover up for that." He quipped back at me.
I glared at Fumio, slightly annoyed.
"Anyway, we've hit the bottom floor." He uttered as he stepped out of the elevator.
As I stepped out of the elevator, my eyes shot open in pure awe.
I set foot on a stone walkway that some how stayed afloat in a pool of glistening water.
That walkway was connected to a circular platform in the center of the water.
Once we reached the center of the platform, there was a large formation of stone that surrounded the platform from about 20 feet away.
The entire floor had a blue light to it.
"This. Is Arcadia!" Fumio shouted.
"Arcadia..." I said, still in awe of everything that lay before me.