Chapter 1.:




Ancient warrior






- 17 years later -




Zoe McLachlan stormed into her parents' tastefully furnished mansion on the outskirts of Los Angeles with a swing and not exactly quietly, and dropped her keys noisily onto the dresser in the hallway, next to which, whatever her bike, was.


Although it was quite late, she didn't need to worry about her family's sleep - Barbara and David McLachlan had gone on their well-deserved second honeymoon while they were cruising away from the stresses and strains of parenting a student When a doctor or lawyer recovered, it was now up to Zoe to look after the house for the next four months.


As on every fourth Tuesday, she had spent her evening with Tommy, the little son of her neighbors, so that his parents had at least one day a month in the evening from their little tomboy.

Zoe got on really well with the guy. She loved children, and when they played together it often happened that not only the little one completely forgot the time. And if there was anyone with even more energy than Tommy, that person was Zoe.


Together they had first dealt with the contents of the refrigerator before they could devote themselves to Tommy's beloved hobby number 1: DRAGONBALL.


In that regard, the little one was really spoiled. His parents dragged everything on this subject: Manga books that Zoe then had to read to him because he couldn't do it himself - and every time Tommy was thrilled to see how she disfigured her voice for each character - video cassettes, which Zoe did as well how the radio plays all knew by heart and of course the action figures ...


The little one had a lot of fun fighting her with them, and he kept her up to date, even though she really didn't care too much about the series.But she would never tell him that - otherwise her only prospect of a husband would be gone ...


While Zoe made her way into the living room, she thought with a grin of the sentence that she heard at least once every time she took care of him.


"When I grow up, I will marry you, Zoe !!! You can play so nicely with you!"


That he was only five and she twenty-one bothered him precious little.


At some point, however, Tommy also got tired, and when he was asleep Zoe still had the opportunity to do all sorts of things for university before his parents came back home.


When she arrived in the living room, she sat down on the couch. Although she had lived here most of her life, she always admired the taste her mother had shown in the furnishings. The moon was reflected on the light parquet floor and bathed the white carpet and the sofa set in the same color in a silver light that broke on the glass top of the table and danced in little dots of light on the wall.She herself had never been able to do much with these interior design bells and whistles. Her own room was rather spartan and functional than that she had paid attention to a special ambience ... she just didn't have a sense for something like that.


She gently stroked her Labrador, who was sleeping next to her on the sofa, over the silky black fur. Delia hadn't let herself be woken up by her loud appearance either. Sighing, Zoe got up again and looked through the large window front at the moon as it hung over the sea.


She wasn't tired at all, but rather wanted to do something, even if it was after eleven o'clock. The way she felt now, she wouldn't be able to sleep anyway.


Lost in thought, she played with the silver pendant that she had been wearing on a chain around her neck for as long as she could remember - perhaps the only legacy she had received from her birth parents, or perhaps she had just found the pendant somewhere.However, she liked the first variant better.


She knew that her parents had died in a plane crash when she was a baby. She had survived this catastrophe, the cause of which was still unknown, miraculously as the only one almost unharmed ... through the passenger list one had finally found out to whom this small, screaming, half-naked bundle belonged. Her birth parents had no other relatives, and so she had ended up in the orphanage ...


She just didn't like the thought of having nothing more than a memorial notice from her parents ...


What could she do now? Above all, what could she do to make her tired?


She still looked dreamily at the full moon and considered. She didn't feel like working out a little in the gym that her father had set up some time ago. It wasn't fun down there alone, and since the last time she had dismantled the sandbag, she hadn't felt like doing this mess again.With a grin, she thought back to the theater her mother had put on afterwards ... What could she please if these things couldn't take anything?


After some thought, she finally came up with two possible solutions: Either she went to the fitness room and struggled with the equipment, or she went outside to run.


And she liked option two best: The full moon and the lights of the big city made it bright enough, and after all, they lived here in a fairly quiet part of the city ... no one would bother them, not even on the beach. It was often deserted here at nine o'clock in the evening. It would certainly still be warm enough. She didn't live here in California for free, after all.


Said and done. She quickly took off her sandals and slipped off her jeans. With the shoes and pants in hand, she then went to the bathroom, where her sports clothes were ready as always.Whenever she had time, she could be seen running or doing some exercises in the garden. She just needed it, and since her parents forbade her to continue participating in martial arts tournaments because it was starting to affect her academic performance, she's been draining her energy that way.


While she slipped into her clothes and shortly afterwards returned to the living room to tie her shoes, she finally gave up hope that Delia might come with her. The bitch looked up briefly, but then turned around and fell asleep again.


So Zoe crept out on tiptoe to the front door and quietly locked it behind her. After a few loosening and stretching exercises - after all, you should never go jogging unprepared, not even in the middle of the night - she walked at a leisurely pace down the stretch from the outskirts, where her villa was, to the beach. There she could finally leave the hard asphalt and felt the fine-grained, soft sand give way under her quick steps.

Purposefully she headed for the surf. If she was that crazy and went jogging in the middle of the night, then she wanted to run in the water too.


It was just a wonderful feeling - to feel the soft sand beneath you, the cool water that splashed up her legs with every step, and breathe the fresh sea air while above her the stars and the moon with the lights of the city around Bet beamed.


It was not the first time Zoe had felt this. She had come here many times when she couldn't sleep or when something was bothering her. It was so peaceful here and you didn't notice the hustle and bustle of the day.


But today this feeling was downright overwhelming. Fascinated, she looked at the full moon, which hung like a huge silver disk over the sea, while she ran faster and faster through the waves rolling onto the beach until she finally ran. It was almost like flying.

She threw her head back and spread her arms, still walking through the foaming spray.


She felt so free - as if she could do anything. Fly too if she only wanted to.




Suddenly, however, their 'flight' over the waves was abruptly ended. Something was in their way, her foot caught on it and Zoe lost her balance at full speed. As she had practiced in her training for years, now she instinctively unrolled to avoid more serious injuries.


When she emerged from the knee-deep water, snorting a few meters further, she scolded herself for allowing her feelings to overwhelm her so much that she was no longer paying attention to where she was stepping.


She was sure that her foot hadn't got tangled in seaweed or any other plant, because it would have been torn off when she fell and would now hang on her leg. However, it hadn't been floating debris either, and stones the size of the 'thing' she had tripped over lay around here, as much as she knew.

While she was thinking, Zoe suddenly thought she heard something like a groan just a few meters away from her, roughly where she had stumbled. She raised her head in amazement. There it was again: a low, tormented-sounding groan.


Was there an animal in the end, or even a human?


Startled, she straightened up and took a few steps back. In fact, someone was trying to get up there, without much success. Zoe could only make out outlines and a dark shadow, but it was clearly a human being.


She knelt next to the person and first helped to get them into a sitting position. Or rather, she tried to help.


Because no sooner had she touched this someone than her hand was thrown away and a deep, threatening voice growled: "Paws away !!!"


Zoe had withdrawn her hand quickly. She knew she knew that voice, and she knew where from.But that could be impossible!


Finally, however, the man who was sitting in the water in front of her turned his head so that she could see his features in the moonlight.


For a moment Zoe was speechless. So it really was him ... It could only be HIM! The protruding hairstyle, the face ... she knew this face well, after all, she had seen it enough times - and Tommy always insisted that she play his action figure because she could talk just as nasty as HE.


Then she had found her language again, but at the moment it was only enough for a