"Can I sit?"
Axel's face contorted in a grimace of shock.
"Of course," he said, trying to rid the shock from his voice.
Rhea put her food on the table and smiled, sitting down and saying to Axel, "Thank you."
Axel tried to smile, stunned by her kindness. When he first saw her, she had been observant, her facial expression almost grim, and at that time, Axel had concluded that she was someone who didn't care. But now, coming closer to him and smiling often, it really sounded cheeky. He couldn't actually believe it.
Rhea slowly ate her food, maintaining eye contact with Axel, who tried to look away. He seemed to alleviate his panicking mind by looking at the ceiling and not uttering a word.
Rhea then stopped eating and looked at him, saying, "I don't like being alone. That's why I'm here. So it might come as a shock to you, but well, I need someone to talk to."
Axel looked at her, not knowing what to say.
"Oh," he said, hesitating for a second. "I'm normally alone, you know, and I just try to stay like that. Moreover, I'm always anxious to speak to people."
Rhea was smiling all the time.
"I think you'll be really handsome, but I don't know why you're still Inferno Blaze and not Axel. I'd like to see your face."
Axel chuckled.
"I— well, I just like to conceal myself."
Rhea was starting to open her mouth slowly, saying something when an electro-sonic voice broke out from a speaker in the cafeteria.
"Inferno Blaze, see me now in my office."
Axel instantly stood up, all eyes on him, which he didn't mind.
"Excuse me," he said to Rhea.
She only smiled and nodded.
---
Axel was out of the elevator now, heading down the lobby when he met a guard who said, "Let me show you the way."
And so Axel followed him, his eyes moving around, walking torpidly but in a swift motion. The reason was because he had been bloated— apparently, the meal he had eaten was, well, very mighty.
Following the guard, they took to corners, each having an artwork of a great superhero fighting a villain or a monster.
The first corner they took had an artwork, seemingly a portrait (only that it wasn't). From afar, it looked like one, with the style dating back to the Victorian era, the edges having decorations— stylish stuff that looked alluring.
The first portrait was a superhero clothed in a bodysuit, only that his was thicker-looking than the others. It was torn and bloody, a testament to his victory. A Senora Beast lay apparently dead on the ground, its maw drooling with blood.
At the superhero's back were spaceships. Axel was immediately immersed in the sight. It reminded him of his favorite sci-fi movie about an alien invasion.
The second artwork was just a portrait of a smiling lady, who was clearly a superhero. The third was a villain punching a monster who was sprawling backward, while the fourth was a picture of a super-looking superhero carrying a very large piece of land.
There were many, actually, but soon, Axel wasn't paying attention anymore. He was only looking forward, his eyes focused.
He could see a door now, very far ahead— a steel door, actually— and that was the reason why he was focused.
The walls down this path were adorned with statues, small ones, by the way, perfectly placed on a tiny board-looking thing, which was made of steel.
Axel couldn't hide that he was amazed by the sight. It looked picture-perfect. Picture-perfect in the sense that Axel imagined this as a museum, with the fragment-looking statues on the wall as actual statues in museums. It looked posh, the surface sleek and glistening.
He noticed that one of the fragment statues was an impression of a man clothed in a spiked superhero suit, a golden helmet (literally the same as the other thing on it— the thing it was made of) on its head.
Axel momentarily slowed his pace to study its features, and in doing so, he could see that its feet were encased in golden boots, dotted with tiny, almost unseen fragments, looking like spiked dots of gold.
Axel, fascinated, was tempted to pick it up and take it along when he heard the guard say, "Don't touch anything, please. That is history itself."
Axel paused and stared at the guard, who was far away from him and almost at the steel door up ahead.
"And quicken your pace!" the guard said to him in a loud voice, one that was almost a shout.
"Sorry," Axel said, running with the speed of a tumbleweed to catch up.
Now near the guard, he said, "Once again, I apologize. I didn't know—"
The guard cut him short.
"No need to apologize. You are good, so you deserve to be here."
Axel furrowed an eyebrow. He was to be here? Why?
"Why?" he asked the guard, a tall, hefty, light-skinned man. His skin was light but more a mixture of light chocolate and completely fair-skinned.
"Because only important people come here, and you are going to be the only one that will— out of those superheroes in the cafeteria," the guard said.
This was sounding mysterious, and frankly, he liked it. Axel loved to be hooked on a certain topic. He loved to be in suspense. He liked information to be stretched out only for him to be later told. He liked something brooding and mysterious, and back on Earth, he had been a huge fan of thrillers and novels laden with mysteries and plot twists.
"Why am I here then?" Axel asked. "Why was I summoned?"
The guard's gaze twitched in a grimace.
"You were earlier told by Royal Cloak that all who did well would be called to see him."
Axel nodded.
'Go on, go on,' he said in his mind, suddenly too curious.
"But the reason you were called isn't the reason he wants to see you. He's called to see you for a more important purpose."
Axel squinted his eyes and peered at the sleek-looking floor.
This was the twist!