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For those who are fans with TheNovelist's series "Exploration", you'll find that I have written this new story with his permission. Please let me know what you think. This carries on the adventures of my character Ryan Lewis, hence the RLA in the title (Ryan Lewis Adventures). Please enjoy, usual legal warnings you find in most series, not 18 yrs old don't view and bla bla.

***

Sometimes when I look into the mirror I see something that shouldn't be there, like a monster whose time is better spent lying in the shadows or just lying in bed waiting for the better tomorrow. I didn't used to be that way though. In fact just a mere few hours before the unknown tragedy all I could see was the face of a regular teenage boy in the mirror, currently dressed in a black tuxedo, with the inside outlined by a baby blue vest that matched the theme of the wedding to come. Hair was kept neat, although at times it stood long enough to cover part of my eyes, it was rather dark brown, just like my eyes.

If you are wondering who I am, some may already know me as the boy who ran to the other side of the world, only to meet a rather motley crew of off-worlders and would soon become a part of their grand party of explorers. But before I isolated myself to New Zealand, I was living in St. George Utah, within the United States of America, living a completely normal life. If you were to look at me then, you would find that I was probably just like you, I had my own group of friends, plenty of stuff to do, and my only worries consisted of getting into college and winning the next chess tournament.

My name is Ryan Lewis, and this is my story, and it very well begins about just a week before the terrible tragedy that was soon to befall. I was currently 17 years old when this tragedy transpired, what I will tell may shock you, make you cry, and even anger you to the point of madness, but as mentioned before, it is a story that must be told.

***

Even for it being the middle of summer vacation early July, I really despised getting up on a Monday. The blaring of my three alarm clocks constantly did not stop regardless of my feelings towards wanting to throw them against the wall. I eventually sagged and groaned myself up despite my growing annoyance for anything beeping and slumped to the bathroom. As I gazed myself into the mirror while preparing my morning routine of proper hygiene, I couldn't have felt happier. My city chess team had recently won the national championship, which snagged me a nice scholarship. I currently had a summer job in the local grocery store, as a bagging assistant and managed to get an entire week off with my friends so we could spend the week we promised we would together. And to top off everything going perfect with my 4.0 GPA, my elder brother was to be wed to a beautiful bride by the end of the week. Nothing could possibly go wrong, can it?

As I finished my morning rituals, I got a call from my cell phone, the Through The Fire and Flames ring tone could only mean that it was Joe who was calling me, a really good friend of mine. I picked it up and answered quickly.

"Hey Joe, what's up?"

"Hey Ryan, we're kind of in a bit of a bind here. Mind if you hurry down to my place quickly?" He asked, he sounded a little bit urgent, but calm at the same time.

"Be there in about ten minutes tops," I said as I hung up. I left the house before the rest of my family stirred, and I knew they didn't need me for anything until it was time to set things up for the planned wedding the day before.

I was standing in front of Joe's house just within a few minutes, even though his house was on the other side of town, it didn't take me long to get there from my own house. Joe answered not too long after I knocked on the door and he quickly stepped aside to let me in.

"So what's so urgent you need me for?" I asked him quickly.

"It's the usual," he said bluntly.

"Sterling again?" I asked. As if I had enough on my schedule, that asshole prick just doesn't know when to give up.

"He thinks that just because he beat you last weeks in the sparring match he has the right to bug me and all our other friends, I barely slept last night, and he's hanging around the Hidden Valley Park disturbing the peace." Joe explained as he finished a rather detailed doodle in a nearby notebook.

"He's too full of himself to be considered a good swordsman," I rebuttled, "I thought it would be nice to let him win for once and he has to turn it around to something much worse."

"He didn't seem to think you let him win," he said, "But we better hurry because he's bothering Sue and a few others as we speak."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" I asked, "where's the PVC pipe?" We used thin cushioned PVC pipes to make sure we didn't hack each other's limbs off or break each other's bones, although there have been a few times where we accidentally break a wrist or two.

"It's in the garage, let's not take too long," he didn't even finish that sentence as I walked into his garage to pull the roughly four foot resemblance of a sword. I of course had a real sword in my possession as well, but I was far from being allowed to use one in real combat, for obvious reason.

It wasn't long before I was standing within a small park, with a well kept playground of various things to keep the kids entertained, although there were none around this early in the morning. The only people around were a small group of teenagers, split into two sides looking like they were about to fight at any second. The group closest to Joe and I we recognized as our friends. Sue and a couple other guys were in various stances against Sterling and a couple others, who all sported blue bandannas on their wrists and heads, like to resemble a gang also all sported their own PVC pipes. I was more than happy to intervene as I stepped in, wielding the PVC pipe of my own.

"Well well well," Sterling began in a snarl, "look what the cats dragged in. Haven't you had enough from last week's fiasco?"

"Haven't you? I should think it's rude to be douching about at 7:30 in the morning." This earned some giggling within my group.

"What's one person going to do against all of us?" Sterling began, although his gang had more sense then he did as they already started running away, much to his dismay. "COWARDS!" He shouted before pointing his own at me. "Well I'll teach you some respect myself if I had to." My friends got back into fighting positions, which I motioned them away.

"Let me handle this myself," I said, "I believe in a fair match." They looked at me a bit funny before backing off a safe distance.

"Big mistake loser," He shouted as he charged at me. I remained my ground waiting for him to strike. I had gotten used to his aggressive style enough to easily know how to counter. I side stepped just as he lunged past me, my weapon gutting him in the stomach hard and my foot tripping him face first to the ground. Blood was dripping down his face as he got up and with a growl lunged again.

"You just never learn do you?" I asked repeating the same counter, this time half landing both my fists at his ears. He dropped his weapon instantly and grasped his ears, he tried the best he could to stay on his feet. Fortunately my punch disturbed his equilibrium to the point that he fell hard on his behind. It wasn't hard to tell that I won yet again. "Just give it up, you'll never win when you just rush at me like that." Sterling looked up at me and cursed before stumbling to his feet and running off. I turned to all my friends and they looked at me with surprise.

"What the hell did you just do to him?" Joe asked.

"I hit him in his ears, which other than hearing help a person keep their balance," I explained, "when this equilibrium is disturbed they get very dizzy and it's hard for them to keep focus."

"I'm very impressed," Sue said, "just be careful, he's going to want revenge now."

"He can try as many times as he wants to," I said, "he'll never beat me."

"So now that's out of the way," another friend said, "I hope we can go do something now, we have like the whole week before the wedding you have to be at." We all agreed with the idea and left the park heading who knows where. I never thought twice then about the words that I said. Even now, I still wonder if I was meant to regret those words.

***

"Wow Sterling humiliated again," one guy said as the whole group began howling in laughter.

"Yeah and by a nerd," another guy said adding in the howling laughter. Only one person wasn't laughing in the messy living room his house, and he was the hot topic of the subject.

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Sterling shouted, "at least I actually fought you fucking cowards."

"That's because we have common sense," the tallest one said. Sterling gave him the look of death and walked up to him, giving him a solid punch to the throat. The tall man quickly fell to his feet gasping for air with a shout of pain. The rest of the men instantly shut up, not wanting to suffer the same fate.

"This time that dick has gone too far," he growled angrily, "next time I see him, he's dead. I'll kill him, his friends, and his family, then we'll see how he likes it." No one said anything for a minute after that, the only noise being Sterling's hyperventilating breath. One man from the corner slowly stood up to break the silence.

"I have an idea," he began, "I heard Ryan has family getting married this weekend." Sterling stopped his breath and gave a sly smile.

"So they do..."

***

"Hey check this out," my older brother said looking up the computer, "this is a bunch of bull shit but it's hilarious."

"What is it?" Joe asked looking up everything. I was only listening while trying to get through my book I was reading. My brother cleared his throat before beginning.

"I was with my family at the Meridian mall in Dunedin when we saw the most terrifying sight. While a man was tying his shoes someone snatched a crystal off his neck, then the next second the man wasn't human anymore, but looked more like an alien. His while one friend grabbed the crystal back, the other had a pistol like weapon trained on everyone. When they got the crystal back they started running. I wanted to get ahead of the game so I ran after them, with everyone right behind me. I was curious enough that I even took a picture of the alien creature before he turned back to human. I had more pictures there but for some strange reasons the pictures didn't turn out at all." He continued, "He then has all these pictures posted but look, it's entirely fuzz I mean come on."

"The whole thing sounds farfetched," another friend of mine said, "no one's ever really seen an alien before."

"I don't even think they exist," my brother said, "I'm glad they don't either."

"Hey," Sue began, "I think Aliens are cool."

"Do you think they exist Sue?" Joe asked.

"Of course," Sue said, "the biggest proof that there is intelligent life out there is that none of them comes to visit us." Everyone but I was laughing, although I also agreed with her.

"Hey Ryan," Joe said, "what's your thoughts on the subject?" With that note I marked my book and shut it, standing up slowly.

***

‘Another dream about that,' I said to myself as I got out of bed the next day. I quickly garbed myself in some hiking gear, as my friends and I all agreed to go spend the day at the lake just outside of town. Ever since that little news propaganda showed up from New Zealand, my friends would constantly joke about it. I couldn't blame them cause heck, who would believe that. People could probably see that I was more curious about it than just writing it off as some farce. I didn't believe it was true, but I sometimes imagined what it would be like if it was. After a while of driving I met up with everyone by the lake. Sue had brought her dad's boat with her and was busy readying it to take out on the lake. Joe approached me.

"Morning Ryan," he began, "slept well?"

"Yeah," I said drifting a bit in thought again.

"Geez Ryan," Joe said waving a hand in my face, "you're drifting off again, do I need to play you in chess again?"

"No, I don't think you can play in your head like I can," I told him.

"Oh that's it," Joe said chuckling, "you're thinking about that alien stuff again. Come on Ryan, even you know it's not true, so give it up."

"I suppose you're right," I said and smiled, "besides it looks like Sue's boat is up and running." We nodded and walked towards the boat.

"By the way Ryan," Joe said, "you never did tell us your thoughts about intelligent life."

"I thought you said you weren't interested," I said, "besides that was like what back in March or so? It's July now, figure that if I haven't said anything now, I'm not going to."

"Fair enough," Joe concluded and we decided to drop the subject. We spent the majority of the time hanging out around the lake.