A Fascinating New World

What separates a man from a monster? Is it money or power? Is it fame or notoriety? Is it something like physical might or intelligence? Perhaps maybe something like wisdom or restraint? What about common sense or discipline?

The truth is fairly simple and something that is often played by many as some higher moral that most people don't believe or care about. The truth is that the only thing that separates a man from a monster is love. Love comes in many forms, shapes, and varieties. It does not care about anything because love does not worry about people's morals, ideals, or beliefs. Love is fearless and powerful. It can inspire those who are weak and strong to do something that they otherwise would not logically do. So long as that love remains driving a person to keep on going that person remains a man.

However, when that love becomes tainted, twisted, corrupted, toxic, destroyed, or taken away; it can compel a man to fall into such great anger or despair or madness that they become vile monsters unlike anything close to what they were before. When one of the greatest of all virtues and experiences that a person can feel is lost to them or can never be the same; the reaction to such a predicament can create living nightmares in the form of a person. When that happens their only wish is to destroy or get revenge on all those responsible for taking what they loved from them.

You might wonder why I talk about this. Why the story has to start with something so cheesy. That is because love is more important than people give it credit for. This is the story of someone who lost what they loved the most and their actions shaped creation, and how the consequences of their actions led to them finding the love that they had once lost remade anew.

We start with the birth of one of the greatest men to ever lived, Leonidas Ashdrake. He was born in a pathetic little town on the border of Louisiana and Texas in the year 2000. The night of his birth was a hectic one for his town.

For the first time in nearly 100 years, a powerful storm had come through their town. It was the weirdest storm you could ever imagine it was a blizzard, but it was also raining freezing cold rainwater with thunder and lightning so fierce that it shook some buildings. People were afraid that it would knock out the power and possibly cause a lot of property damage. However, the storm immediately began to subside the moment Leonidas was born. The storm had calmed to being quiet and still as if not to cause any problems for the baby boy.

Leonidas was born on the 1st of December in the year 2000. His father was a well-known stand-up comedian in the state of Texas, but he wasn't a celebrity. His father was called Jebediah Ashdrake and he was a man with great charisma which got him into a lot of trouble for being a party-happy lady chasing jackass. Jebediah was the embodiment of the words "Latin Sexy", and he knew it, but it was the fact that he acted on these impulses that often cause conflict in his relationships.

His mother wasn't much better as she was the victim of child abuse by both of her parents and had the scars to prove it. The mental trauma that they put her through was so great that over time she started to disassociate with herself and when she would pull herself together, she started acting more and more like her parents little by little. That was before both of them ended up getting caught in a gang war in her hometown where they ended up dying right after she left home forever. Her name was Savannah Johnson and she used to be a very sweet girl but by the time Leonidas was born she was mostly an insufferable bitch. She knew it and didn't give a damn.

Leonidas had a very troubling childhood due to problems in his parents' relationship. Not to mention Leonidas's mom thought he was some kind of devil child because he was born with a birthmark on his chest that was shaped like a dragon's skull. His father thought it was cool and he even told jokes about it to his friends and people that he would do shows for. But by the time he was 5 years old things changed forever he's already terrible home life became much worse as his father got tired of being abused physically by Leonidas' mother, so he left.

Jebediah tried to gain custody of Leonidas to get him out of that terrible situation, but Savannah lied about Jebediah to the courts. She made it impossible for him to ever get custody of Leonidas. He was barely even given a once-a-month visitation and made to pay ridiculously large amounts of money in child support.

Despite this Jebediah tried as hard as he could to be in Leonidas' life, but every time he tried to come to spend time with his son Savannah would try to make a big scene. She would try to get him in trouble with the law, which always ended with her getting warned by the police not to lie to people just to spite her baby daddy.

Eventually, Jebediah stopped coming altogether around the time Leonidas was 7 years old. Leonidas heard that his father had met someone new and got married and started a new family. He never heard from his father again, so he figured his dad gave up on trying to be in his life altogether.

The abuse that Leonidas suffered from his mother increased after Jebediah stopped coming around. In the end, Leonidas ended up leaving home at the age of 15 due to a combination of things. His mother's abuse had gotten so far out of hand that one night she tried to murder him in his sleep but failed because she was so drunk when she made the attempt that she woke him up and he successfully fought her off. The other factor was the growing gang violence in his part of town that was slowly getting more and more out of hand. He even found himself caught between a couple of skirmishes.

The only escape he had from his terribled life was his dreams which were filled with almost memories of another world. Dreams of a beautiful woman and a story of love and happiness that he didn't really have in his real life.

He spent about 3 years of his life living in an abandoned house barely surviving if not for the help of his two best friends Benjamin Johnson and Fumushi Yamanako. That all changed when the 3 friends chose to move in together and to help out his friends encouraged him to turn his dream journal into a video game. He always talked about how he wanted to develop his own games when he was younger, so despite his caution, he proceeded with it.

After a couple of years of development and growing his video game development team from just him to almost 50 people; they made one of the most successful video games of all time. It told the tragic love story of a powerful God who fell in love with one of his creations but ended up losing her to the jealousy of some of his other creations. Most people did not know that the story of the game was based on the very lucid dreams that Leonidas had for most of his life which kept him going most days. They also didn't know that once he had seen the final dream that showed him how the love story ended in tragedy, he never again had dreams like that.

To a surprise though, the success of the game was so outstanding that he went from barely making ends meet with the combined help of his two best friends that were living with him in their shitty two-bedroom house in Houston to being a multi-millionaire in under a week. Leonidas decided to use his money to make something of himself that would leave both of his parents wishing that they had treated him better. Half of his money went into improving his team and becoming a proper game development studio, and the other half he saved for later use while putting himself through college to become a quantum physicist and robotics engineer.

Benjamin ended up becoming a famous country, r&b, and rock & roll musical icon who ended up marrying their female friend, Fumushi. Fumushi was a renowned police officer who at one point ended up becoming the governor of Texas. After Leonidas finished college, he moved out and set up his second company in Osaka, Japan.

Leonidas has spent most of his life making high-class games that are some of the most beloved in the world, but also technological advances that have stunned the world. Even going back to college to gain his third doctorate in bioengineering. His company in Osaka was made to use the technological marvels that he and his people made and find a way to allow people across the world to use those advances without draining their pockets. That way even poor people could get access to some of what they offered.

Leonidas himself was also one of his own test subjects experimenting on his own DNA and body to improve his overall health and physical capabilities to help prolong his life. Also, to help him survive altercations with those who sought to either get rid of him entirely or use him as a pawn in their machinations. Most people thought he was damn near unkillable because he could survive getting hit with some of the world's most powerful ballistic missiles and had the strength to rip apart tanks with the speed to even be able to keep up and catch bullets fired from some of the most powerful guns on the planet. He was in all words a superhuman, whose ultimate goal was creating technology that would allow humans to traverse the stars more easily and serve the new worlds they might go to.

While in his 30s Leonidas became good friends with Elon Musk, and together the two discussed their hopes for the future of space travel and humanity's future in space. Leonidas spent in between his other inventive projects working on improvements for spacecrafts as well as his pet project of creating actual functioning warp gates. These two inventions of his are seen as the most important of all of his creations and with his friendship with Elon Musk, SpaceX with Leonidas his own company was the premiere groups to get high-quality futuristic fully functioning personal starships.

During his late 40s Leonidas halfway done with making the first functioning warp gate, which he had spent almost two and a half of his life working on, decided to start building a stabilized protective habitable dome for humans on the moon. He figured that by the time he was maybe 70 the dome would not only be finished, but people would start living there full-time.

On the day of his 50th birthday, today December 1st, 2050, Leonidas woke up to the feeling of someone's hand shaking him awake. As he opened his eyes the person, he saw staring back at him was one of his robots. His first attempt at making an actual android with an advanced AI. He called her, Sylvia.

Her outside looks like one of the most top-quality sex dolls that cost him an actual million dollars to buy. But underneath her milk chocolate-colored silicone skin was a highly complex robotic skeleton and certain parts that function similar to organs, but those were completely synthetic and were mostly there to allow her to move, act, sound, and think like a person. Despite her organs being synthetic they did function like real organs. Including her reproductive system which was built to be completely fully functional in case she ever desired to be a mother. She could realistically have a child with some of the donated eggs that were kept ready to be fertilized in her body.

As he looked at her, he could see that her purple-colored eyes, which if someone stared at closely enough, they could see were actually super high-quality tiny cameras shaped and functioning like eyes, stared back at him. She spoke what's the pre-recorded voice of one of his employees who he thought sounded lovely and wouldn't mind having her sound just like. Her voice was that of a beautiful southern belle black woman from America and her tone was kind and sweet, "Good morning, Dr. Ashdrake. Happy 50th birthday. I am pleased to report that not only is it your birthday, but word was received last night that the final preparations for the first fully functioning warp gate was successful, and it has been thoroughly stress tested to make sure that there are no problems. I hope that you can consider this the birthday present from all of those hard at work at the laboratory. I have made you breakfast. It will be waiting for you on the table in the dining room after you have finished your morning shower."

Leonidas spoke with a somewhat thick country accent that he had since he grew up on the border between Louisiana and Texas all those years ago, "Thank you, Sylvia. Your report pleases me. Please give me a rundown on how your overall body is functioning today."

Sylvia smiled at him and gave her report, "All systems are functioning at 100%. No maintenance is required today. There has been a development though. Last night while you slept, I wanted to try and understand what it would be like to dream. I decided to run a program that would mimic what it felt like to sleep and dream like a normal person. After two failed attempts the third attempt was successful. Upon going into stasis mode, a program was run on my system that allowed me to experience the same phenomenon that people have when they dream. My dream was you taking me to go fishing."

Leonidas could not help but smile at how she was learning on her own and becoming more self-sufficient. Not to mention the fact that she was able to dream was something that made him happy because he never expected her to be curious about such a thing.

Leonidas placed his hand on her head and ruffled her hair a bit which was made into her head and was not a wig like more cheap sex dolls would have had. So, she was worth every bit of that 1 million he spent on her outer body. He gave her a smile which she seemed to react to and mimicked the emotion of joy as seeing her creator smile made her feel like she was becoming more human.

Leonidas padded her on her head as he got out of bed, "I'm glad to hear this report. It was unexpected but greatly appreciate it. My only question is why of all things would you dream about us going fishing?"

Sylvia looked a little embarrassed which was an emotion that he remembered she started expressing about a month ago. She explained very shy, "You once said that fishing was a passion of yours. You talked about how like music it was something that most people would never know you enjoyed. I know that since you made me a couple of years ago that you haven't gone fishing since then. I guess in my dream the thought of you and I going fishing together was something that made me happy."

"Happy........? Very interesting development indeed," Leonidas scratched his full beard which was now starting to gray with age as he was elated by this progress. He walked into the shower and prepared for his day.

He thought of his progress with Sylvia. She was a fully functioning android that took several years to make, and he's been improving upon her since then. But her mental and emotional progress has been something that she has developed on her own as time has gone on. He did not have children and as much as he was her creator, he could not see her as his child; not with the body that she had. Initially, he bought her to be a sex toy because at the time he wasn't in a relationship, and when he finished her the relationship he had while he was building her had fallen apart. He felt no shame with the fact that he has often actually had sex with her, which she allows sees it as more of a way to keep him in good health.

However lately due to her progress, he is wondering if she is now just starting to develop emotions, if the reason her dream of going fishing with him made her happy was that she's also developing an understanding of what love might be. That was something for him to think about at least.

Instead, he focused on his day which was the routine of sex with Sylvia, which currently meant if she wanted him to take a shower was shower sex today as she wanted him to try new things with her, following sex was always an actual shower, then breakfast, then work. Sure, enough not long into thinking about things she entered the shower with him, and the morning routine began as it normally does; this time starting in the shower.

Most men would feel shame at the idea of someone going as low as to sleep with a robot, but not Leonidas. Not at his age when he is lonely and every relationship he's had has fallen apart.

Not to mention that this routine was also something that officially became a thing about a year ago as per the request of Sylvia herself. She thought that it would be the best routine for him to keep him healthy and active while also helping him be prepared and focused for work. This certainly was something that he did not mind. Maybe that was because he was lonely. Or maybe that was because despite his loneliness deep down he thought this was a fun way to live his life as a middle-aged man.

Nonetheless, after his morning sex and taking a shower following that, Leonidas had a lovely breakfast with Sylvia and together the two of them prepared for going to the laboratory. Leonidas himself lived in a single loft of a condo, but he owned the entire condo, and he was the only one who lived there. So really the entire condo was his house, but most of it was used for different things such as some of his other scientific projects and his hobbies.

The company that he owned here in Osaka, where he has been living for a long time now, was known as Ashdrake Evolutionary World Industries. It was a building that took up 3 city blocks of space and was one of the most futuristic buildings in the entire world due to the cutting-edge technology that was made here. There were several other buildings like it in 20 other countries worldwide. Which was kind of the source of most of his problems as those countries tried to find ways to monopolize on getting him and his company under their control. But he's always found loopholes and ways of telling those countries to piss off.

Walking into the building everyone who saw him as he passed by looked at him as if he was the Messiah almost, and he didn't like it, but he didn't say anything. Making his way into his main laboratory he saw that the lights were off. When he turned them on, he was happy to see that no one was throwing him a surprise party. Mainly because he doesn't think his heart could take it even at his age with all of the changes, he's made to himself.

After getting some of his stuff set up look through his emails and saw that another country was reportedly trying to send an assassin to kill him. He had his informant send him the information on where the assassin was currently. Learning that the assassin was in an airplane at the moment making their way to Osaka to kill him; Leonidas hacked into the missile system of a nearby military base in the country that the assassin's plane was passing over not long from now. He set the missile system to blow up the plane once it got into range. The estimated time was about 30 minutes.

With that bit of bad business taken care of Leonidas decided to go and check on the warp gate with Sylvia since she reported it was finished this morning. Making his way into the main laboratory where they worked on it not only did, he see the warp gate finished but surrounding him as soon as he entered the laboratory was all of his staff and all of his friends and their children. He saw birthday banners and decorations all over the place.

His friend Benjamin came over and give him a big hug, "Leo! I'm glad that we were all able to make it. Happy 50th birthday my friend. I'm sorry to say that Ben Jr. isn't going to be here for at least another hour as he's currently on a car ride to come to see you for your birthday. Everyone else here made it."

Not having seen his friend in almost a year-and-a-half Leonidas gave Benjamin a big hug. He hugged all of Ben's kids and Fushimi who was still quite beautiful despite her being 52 years old. Part of him was kind of jealous to see that his two friends had been together since they were teenagers and were still happily in love with a family of their own.

His jealousy didn't make him angry or anything. He did deeply wish that he had something like that for himself; with someone who could love him like how Fu loved Ben.

Looking at everyone, he was happy to see all of them there and he was proud to celebrate his 50th birthday with them, and the success of the warp gate prototype. Leonidas saw that they even respected the fact that he doesn't drink alcohol, and instead, they prepared his favorite tea with some of his favorite foods for everyone to eat. He was proud and he felt a sense of accomplishment and joy that he had not really felt for a long time.

Meanwhile not that far away in the poorer part of Osaka was a young Japanese woman who was 30 years old but looked 20. Her name was Chiharu Nakayoshi and she was an astrophysicist that recently applied to start working at Ashdrake Industries.

Right now, she's supposed to be heading there for an interview in about 2 hours, but she had to make a detour to check in on her father. He was a terrible man who treated her like shit her entire life and abused her in every way possible while she was growing up. But her culture and family members demand that she show respect to him and at least see how he's doing now that he's pushing damn near 60.

Her family members had been telling her for days that he wanted to talk to her and that he had changed. They said he was getting sick and that they think he will probably need to have surgery soon. Hearing all of that she decided to go by her childhood home and see how he was doing.

She had called ahead and told him that she would be there today around this time to see him. He told her that he would be up and waiting for her when she got there.

Knocking on his door she heard movement on the inside and after 2 minutes of waiting her father opened the door for her to enter in. He used to be bigger and more intimidating when she was younger but now, he was a shell of his former self. He was looking like he could barely stand up on his own and was half the size from how he used to be. Part of her felt bad for him the part of her didn't because she remembered all of the torment, he put her through. She sees a therapist these days to try and cope with everything that she endured from this man.

Even though she came here to talk and to see how things have been going for him; she did not trust him. She kept her hand in her pocket where she kept a special knife that she bought from one of the stores that sell inventions by Ashdrake Industries. It was a plasma knife that was so hot it was essentially a dagger-shaped lightsaber that could burn the flesh almost down to the bone quickly and easily. She had tested it a couple of times and it was able to cut fruits, vegetables, and even large chunks of meat into pieces while burning everything it cut through with just a single swing. All just by making contact with the very very intense and focused superheated plasma.

If he tried anything she was going to pull it out and use it to defend herself. To her surprise she would have to use it, as the second they entered another room she saw that there were 3 men who were very shady waiting for her. All of them look like Yakuza thugs from some other parts of this area of town.

Her father walked past them and then looked back at her with a devilish grin. One of the Yakuza handed him a briefcase that had 1 billion yen in it. Her father said, "I'm glad to see our arrangement was kept. She's all yours."

Two of the men immediately moved in to grab her but before they could she was quick enough to dodge out of the way and pull out the plasma knife and activate it. One of the men laughed at it thinking it was some kind of fancy cigarette lighter. When that thug tried to swing on her, she cut his arm up to the shoulder. The deep cut and burn from the blade exposed most of the bone underneath his skin causing him to fall to the ground from the intense pain. He was unable to think and do anything but scream.

Realizing that she was a bit more dangerous than they thought the other thug was careful to not make contact with the blade, but he wasn't expecting her to be so quick and agile. What her father didn't know is that she spent quite a long time working on learning how to fight and defend herself, so that she would never have to deal with what her father put her through once she had left home.

She was able to easily dodge out of the way of every attack that the current thug that was trying to grab her attempted. But he was also guiding her over to the remaining thug that was still up and able to catch her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the thug that was moving in to grab her from behind getting closer and she ducked out of the way. She uses the plasma knife to severely cripple him by slashing at his left leg burning deep enough that he fell to one knee, and then she stabbed him with the plasma knife that burned deep into his spine causing him to have the nerves that allowed him to move his lower body no longer function. She did it so that pathway of nerve receptors was burned off to neutralize him as a threat.

The remaining thug tried to pull an illegal gun on her, but before he could get it into position to fire, she had closed the distance between them. She stabbed him through the throat with the plasma night which burned most of his throat away. As the gun fell to the ground, she kicked it away and she held the plasma blade in place making sure that this last thug was taken care of.

As he fell to the ground dead allowed sound was heard behind her as the gun had been picked up by her father and he shot at her. He missed hitting the wall in front of her instead. Realizing that she needed to take him down before he could get off a successful shot, she did not hesitate to close the distance and try and use the things between them as cover in case he could squeeze the trigger hard enough to get it to fire a second time. The trigger jammed for a moment and that is when she finished getting up close to him and went to stab him through the head with the plasma knife.

However right as the knife was making contact with his head the trigger unjammed and he fired a point-blank shot into her chest. As the dagger cut most of his face and a significant portion of his neck and upper torso before it hit the ground and started burning the floor setting the house on fire; she fell to the ground with a bullet that had pierced part of her heart and one of her lungs.

She lay on the ground realizing that her training was successful, but no one could survive getting shot the way she had. As she was bleeding out and coughing up blood, she watched the house around her start to catch fire. She realizes that she wasn't going to be starting her dream job working for the man who stole her heart and brought some light to her world of darkness.

As she closed her eyes knowing that she'll probably die before the fire burns her body, she thought about that specific man. Remind remembered the night that she met Leonidas in person. He had come to speak at her college graduation and congratulated her for being the top in her class offering for her to come work for him.

She remembered when she ran into him a couple of months ago when she decided to take him up on that offer after 3 years of trying to get herself in a stable position in life. He treated her to a lovely dinner and even had her go with him to a social event for wealthy people in Osaka for an art gallery.

The way he talked to her and treated her made her feel like he cared about her unlike everyone else at that time. The way he seems to smile at her almost conveyed that he was captivated by her. She remembered when he calls her beautiful when all her life, she was told that she was ugly. He meant it when he called her beautiful and she knew. He could see how hurt she was deep down and when she looked in his eyes, she could tell that he had lived something similar. Both of them wanted to find someone who could understand them and love them, and they had found each other.

She was hoping to see him today because he was going to be the one doing her interview and it was his birthday. She had got him a present that she wanted to give him in person. However, now it looks like that's not going to happen.

For the first time in her life, she felt like she was actually going to start being happy. Now it looks like that will never happen. Her only wish was that she could get a chance to find the happiness that she had hoped for.

Meanwhile back at the party Leonidas was sitting down and enjoying just seeing everyone having a good time. But then Benjamin walked over with a microphone. The microphone wasn't on yet, but Ben handed it to him, "Your employees want you to give a little speech considering that one of your life's biggest projects is finally completed and working. Also, to commemorate your 50th birthday. Don't give me any talkback and just do it. I know you, Leo. You'll try and weasel your way out of doing it because you always hate being the one to give speeches. But this is a special occasion so make an exception just this month. Please?"

Leonidas looked at him putting his plate of nachos down, "Well when you put it like that, I guess I got to do it. I swear every time you throw me a party you always make me give a speech."

Benjamin replied giving a smile, "That's cuz every time I throw you a birthday party you always seem to have more than just your birthday to celebrate. I'm proud of you looks like we all came a long way from growing up in the gutter."

Leonidas smiled thinking about how far he had come. Remembering how before his parents both died of old age that they had begged for forgiveness. How that his reason for wanting to become the successful multi-billionaire that he was had finally been achieved. How now with his life's greatest work now being a success, every goal that he had set for himself had been fulfilled except for one. All he wanted now was a family of his own to share with.

As he got up on the little makeshift stage that they had for him, he turned on the mic and after he checked if the volume was correct, he decided to go ahead with the speech as everyone watched on with a smile. He said, "My friends and colleagues it fills me with great pride today that not only is it my 50th birthday, but as a present, you all have seen to it that early this morning my life's work is finished. We have spent the better part of a decade working on it in between everything else, and now it has finally seen completion and has been tested thoroughly. I've read the reports. I've listened to the report Sylvia had to give. I've looked over the data. It is with tremendous thanks that I offer this toast, not to my health or to celebrate my birthday, but instead, I toast to you all. Without each of you working hard and for those of you who have been there to support me throughout the years lending me the help that I needed to stay sane as I worked....... I would like to sincerely thank all of you....... I could not have done this alone so thank you for everything. Now let's have a good party before we have to get back to work in a little bit."

As they all cheered and celebrated Leonidas step down from the makeshift stage and handed the mic off to someone else after cutting it off. The smile on his face was genuine and he was the happiest he could ever be at this moment. Despite all of his regrets and feelings of loneliness and pain his joy at everyone there to celebrate with him was overwhelming.

As Benjamin started to hug him, Leonidas looked at everybody with that big smile that he rarely showed. Then his smile quickly faded to pain as his hand gripped his chest and he felt his heart giving out. Benjamin tried to hold him off the ground as he started to fall his legs giving out on him.

Everyone started to scream and freak out and worry as it looked like he was having a severe heart attack. As he was on the ground, and everyone was trying to help him above them all, he saw someone standing over him. It was himself but this version of him looked darker and sinister. This version of Leonidas had solid black eyes and a crown of 9 glowing red eye symbols floating above his head. This Leonidas flexed his large golden feathered wings and his halo that resembled the sun. He looked like both an angel and a demon at that moment and he was clearly a figment of Leonidas' imagination.

As the figment looked down at him everyone else's voice has become unintelligible and sounded more like white noise. But when the unnatural version of Leonidas spoke its voice was clear, "I tried to warn you. I tried to help you to save us. I'll make sure that this does not happen again and that this time you will hear me. Because it's too late to save you now boy."

Soon Leonidas could not keep his eyes open long enough as everyone's faces started to become a blur and the room around them started to become black. Leonidas started to see flashes of his life replaying in his mind before closing his eyes and drawing his last breath as his heart stopped. All he could feel at that moment was regret. Regret that he was going to die before finding the love and happiness that he had hoped for.

As his final moments were spent his mind lingered on the more recent memory have a young Japanese woman that he remembered from years ago that he met again a couple of months back. He was excited to see her today and hopeful that she was going to be working alongside him as they seem to have a chemistry that his previous relationships had all been lacking. The time that they spent together was little, but on the 9 occasions that they've met in his life, each one made him feel different from how he's felt before. She seemed to understand and relate to him in a way that no one else could. Now he'll never know whether or not they would have been perfect together.

And that is his final regret right before he dies wishing that he could get a second chance at life. Wishing he could try again and fall in love. Wishing to have a family. Wishing to be somebody who didn't feel like a lonely sack of shit.

Right as he breathes his last breath, he heard her voice. It was the voice of the woman from his dreams when he was young the one from the story that he turned into the game that made him famous. He could never forget that voice because those dreams meant the world to him. They kept him going and to hear that voice right as he was about to die meant something.

She called out to him, "Everything will be okay Klatu. I am here for you."

Soon he finds himself floating through a black void only lit occasionally by the other souls that are traveling through it giving off a beautiful glow of light. As he does, he starts to think to himself.

It's strange..... I almost seem to remember this place...... This black void between realms as the souls of the dead transition into Limbo. But how do I know that? More importantly, why do I seem fine with this? The souls of the dead who have died around the same time as me are traveling to the bright light of Limbo where we all will be judged and sent to our respective planes of the afterlife. I don't know why I know this, but I do and I'm ready...... But why?

The last thing I remember before dying was that everyone seemed so happy for me to reach 50 years old, and they wanted me to give a speech. After I gave a toast and thank them for all of their hard work and how much they had all meant to me I felt myself becoming weaker than I ever had. It felt as if my heart was breaking in half. I remember that fell to the ground unable to move and everyone came to try and save me.

I just remember hearing her voice calling out to me one last time when I hadn't heard it for decades. The woman of my dreams. The one who changed my life and her sweet voice comforting me as I died.

But that is gone now, and I am dead. At least in my last moment, I got to hear her voice again and I got to feel the warmth of her love. I just wish I could have seen her again.

I wish I could have also gotten to see that young woman I meant before. Chiharu........ That was a woman, but I had hoped to get to know so much. I guess life had other plans for me.

"What a fool you are boy? You think this is how we end. What utter nonsense you speak. This is not the end but only the beginning. As of now, I will make sure that this time we will have a body strong enough for us. Then we will find my dear Yunasilla!"

"What??? Who is that? Where are you? What are you talking abo-"

In an instant, an unknown force whose hands are strong and mighty pulls Leonidas' soul away out of this void and into somewhere else. All becomes dark and he can see no lights, no souls. All becomes silent and he feels like he is locked in a tight closet with no way out or even to be able to move. He wanted to scream but he cannot open his mouth.

Then he feels it... Hands reaching out and grabbing him once more this time different. In moments the darkness fades away and he can hear the voices of people all around him speaking in a dialect that seems so familiar to him. He swears that he heard it before.

He can see light through his closed eyelids but before he can open his eyes someone wipes him down and cleans him as I'm covered in something wet and odd.

When he feels them stop, he opens his eyes for the first time and is horrified. Holding him was a man who looks like he was part demon with horns and purplish skin and purple eyes. He had silvery hair with streaks of green. He heard the words he says as he sees fear on Leo's face. Leonidas recognizes the language finally. The Language of the Dragons that he had heard in his dreams and later wrote from memory to add to his game as they all came from the same set of dreams that he treasured in his last life. The language was so important to him that he still spoke it up until he died occasionally to himself just to practice.

To his surprise, he could understand everything that was being said now that the shock had kind of subsided and he was paying a bit more attention to things.

He now knew what the monster was saying and immediately he was confused by it but not for long, "Hey there little guy. No need to cry. Let's go ahead and give you to your mom."

The doctor handed Leonidas to a woman who looks like an angel, and he was confused. Her wings were folded behind her back and almost seemingly cushioning the bed that she was laying on, but it was very noticeable that her wings looked like half of their feathers were made of fire. Yet nothing that the feathers were touching seem to be burning.

The ends of her hair are ablaze, and her eyes are like staring at two tiny white dwarf stars without the light of those stars burning your eyesight. The halo behind her looks like a flaming ring slowly rotating ever so often. Her skin is golden, and her ears are pointed like that of an elf from fantasy stories.

When she looks at him and smiles even though it is clear that she is tired and in pain; it makes him feel happy for reasons that he does not understand. She says to him joyfully, "Welcome my sweet boy. Mommy is happy to see you are healthy."

Hearing that he begins to think of it more and as his mind raced, he started trying to figure out what was going on.

Sweet boy, she called me. How she looks at me and holds me conveys so much. Despite the exhaustion that she felt she was happy to see me. I could tell that she cared about me and wanted only the best for me. My own mother never looked at me like she is right now.

Given the situation and my predisposition to popular nerdy culture back in my old life....... I must have been reincarnated...... Isekai was not my favorite genre of anime, but it would appear that my knowledge of it has finally come in handy with understanding my current predicament. But if this is real, can I get to live a new life..... If so, then how or why? What makes me so special or so deserving of a second chance? I don't think I did anything even remotely close to deserving this.

I feel a third hand place itself on my head and gently pat me. I tried to turn my head toward him, but I need assistance; luckily the woman holding me adjusted my entire body from how she held me. I see another demon-looking man, and he is looking at me in the same way that she looks at me. The joy and happiness that he seems to have as he looks at me is something that I am not used to.

His skin is red, and he has four horns, the larger of the two slowly curved back towards the back of his skull and then upwards at an angle like an almost stretched and rotated S-type position. The other two are much smaller oni like in their look. Dark red scales are at the base of all four horns and the horns themselves are bone, but they are a similar red to the color of his skin if not just a little lighter. His eyes are solid black and only accented by the dark red scales around them that add a bit of contrast to his bright red complexion. He too has long hair that is white and flowing currently braided into a French Braid and accented by golden jewelry. He has the body of a warrior with muscles that would impress some of the bodybuilders back on Earth. He is 6ft tall and has a tail that is reptilian in appearance. However, the scales are thick on the top side of his tail going up his spine which is covered by the elegant white and red robes that he wears. However, it would be hard to mistake the two large bat-like wings coming out of his back that he has folded neatly behind himself. With one hand he comfortably scratches the underside of his chin covered by his thick full beard that reaches halfway down to his collarbone. With his other hand, he pats the newborn baby boy that is Leonidas on the head and smiles.

The man says with great pride still speaking in that language of Dragons, "I have waited for this day for quite a while. You almost scared us there at the end though, my boy. I was worried there might have been complications....... But think I have the perfect name for you." As he locked eyes with the woman who was clearly Leo's new mother, she smiled, and he laughed.

That was the day that Leonidas Ashdrake was reborn into this world, and the day he was given the new name he would go by. Tatsuhiro Starcrown...... Leonidas thought it has a nice ring to it and that he liked it. He realized his wish in the end as he was dying was granted. This was his chance to start over and live the life he really wanted.

As Leonidas allowed himself to fall asleep in his new mother's arms, he set a new goal for himself one that would hopefully lead to him finding the happiness that he wanted. Only a single thought crossed his mind as he drifted off to sleep.

I will not waste this second chance and will live my life to the fullest. No matter what I will be truly happy this time.