In the town of Duplora, in the country of Hawkland... In a run-down orphanage on the outskirts of town...

It is the morning after the fateful events that took place in the first part of the prologue.

Sitting by herself in the small cafeteria, Karen finished her lunch.
The food wasn't that great, but it was edible. Karen didn't want to think negatively about it; the cafeteria workers were probably the nicest people in the orphanage. It wasn't their fault that the food wasn't good; they were just supplied with low-grade ingredients to make the food with.
She took her tray up to be washed, and then she left the cafeteria, ignoring the snickering of the other kids there. It was nothing new to her, and she had learned to just pretend that their insults didn't exist. They attempted to torment her every day, and nothing she had done had ever been able to make them stop, so her only option was to ignore them.
Not wanting to get involved in anything, Karen returned to the dormitory room. There were very few kids who were in there during the day, and so Karen usually had the room to herself during the day. It was perhaps the only place where she could relax. She sat down on her bed and thought about how miserable she was.

Karen was 15 years old, and she had spent 14 of them at the Duplora Orphanage (at least, that was what one of the supervisors had told her; she had been too young to remember). Her eyes and neck-length hair were black as night, and her pale skin betrayed the fact that she hardly ever was able to go outside. She was rather attractive, but the other kids in the orphanage were always too busy making fun of her to notice.
Even at an early age, she had been different from the other kids. Karen had always been precocious and remarkably wise for her age, unlike the others. Kids have a terrible way of shunning people who are different, and so it was with Karen; if they weren't ostracizing her, they were making fun of her. It had always been that way, even now; the only difference was that their insults and jeering had become even worse.
At first, this treatment had greatly upset her, and it had hurt her feelings badly. She had asked the supervisors to make them stop, but they had simply said that kids will be kids, and that that was what kids did. The last time Karen had tried to get help from one of them, he had shut the door in her face. Over time, Karen was less and less affected by it, until she came to simply ignore it.
This had caused her to become outwardly dispassionate, and she rarely, if ever, showed her emotions on the surface. There was no point; if she cried as she had back then, it would only make things worse, as it had in the past. In the end, she pretended that she didn't care what anyone thought of her. If someone hurt her feelings, she did not show it.
At age 6, she had discovered her PSI for the first time. The experience had been very traumatic. One day, a boy named Jordan, a very mean boy who still tormented Karen even in the present, had insulted her and hurt her feelings more than he ever had before, and he wouldn't leave her alone. Karen had never been so hurt before by anything; all she had wanted was for Jordan to stop hurting her and to leave her alone. The next thing anyone knew, Jordan's shirt was on fire, and he did indeed stop hurting her as he ran around screaming. The fire set off the smoke detector, and the supervisors came in and put the fire out. They eventually determined that Jordan had been too close to the old-fashioned heating unit, and they warned him to be more careful in the future. But Karen had known the truth; something in her heart told her that she was responsible for the fire.
Ever since then, she had developed her PSI whenever she could; however, she had to keep it secret so that none of the others found out about it. Because she rarely had an opportunity to practice in such secrecy, though, Karen had not been able to develop her powers very much. Even so, they were slowly becoming stronger.

Above all else, Karen wanted one thing: to find her parents. According to the supervisors, her parents had left her at the orphanage 14 years ago, asking them to take care of her. Then they had disappeared, and no one had heard anything from them since.
Karen knew in her heart that her parents had loved her. But she didn't understand why they had just dropped her off at an orphanage. She knew nothing about them at all, not even their last name. That was another thing that set her apart from most of the other kids in the orphanage; most of them had actually known their parents at one point, before their parents died.
Some people thought that her parents were dead; Karen refused to believe this. She clung to the hope that they were out there, somewhere, waiting for her to find them. And one day, Karen promised herself, she would do just that, and she would finally be with people who loved her. Someday...

Karen wiped the tear from her eye, mentally scolding herself. I must be strong, she reprimanded. I have to be. If the others see me cry, then they'll just laugh even harder.
It wasn't fair, though. Why did it have to be her who was the butt of everyone's jokes? Why did it have to be her whom everyone picked on to increase their own self-esteem? Why did it have to be her whom no one cared about, her who was forced to feel the cold pain of neglect?
Angry and frustrated, she leapt to her feet. "Why?" she cried, at no one in particular. With a helpless sob, she sank back onto the bed.

Having gotten it out of her system, Karen felt a little better. "What should I do now?" she asked herself.
After thinking for a moment, she decided to practice her PSI, since it appeared that no one else was around. Sitting on the bed, she folded her hands in her lap and concentrated. "PSI Flash Alpha!"
The room suddenly lit up with a blinding flash, which quickly died away. Karen usually practiced this ability the most, because it didn't really hurt anything.
Karen smiled; using her PSI always made her feel better. Feeling a little bolder, she decided to try another ability.
She reached under her bed and found an small box; she kept them under there for target practice, when she got the chance. She walked over to an end table on the other side of the room, with a lamp on it, and she set the box beside the lamp. A few years ago she would have moved the lamp in case of an accident, but now she felt confident in her abilities and didn't think she had to move it.
Once the box was set up, Karen went back to her bed and sat down on it. She looked at the box, extended a finger at it, and concentrated. "PSI Beam Alpha--"
At that moment, someone entered the room. "Where did that weird flash come from a moment ago?" the newcomer asked.
Startled, Karen accidentally shifted her hand... And the psychic beam burst from her finger and struck the lamp instead of the box. The lamp shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Karen gasped, horrified; not only had she broken the lamp, but someone had seen her power. Frightened, she turned to look at the person who had come in.
To her surprise, it was a boy; this was the girls' dormitory room, and boys didn't usually come in here. His jaw was hanging wide open as he stared at her in surprise.
Karen recognized him; the boy's name was Neil Willard. He had just turned 16 recently, he had dark brown hair and grey eyes, and he was a little shorter than the other boys. From what Karen had seen of him before, he usually didn't talk much. He never made fun of her himself, but he always laughed with all the others when someone else made fun of her.
She tried to think of some way to explain away what she had just done, but everything she came up with was preposterous. She was caught; Neil had specifically seen her use her PSI.
While Karen tried in vain to think of something, he ended up speaking first. "You... You have PSI," he said, his shock wearing off. "Like the four heroes in the war against Giygas 30 years ago."
She was definitely caught. Despairingly, she hung her head and gave a weak nod. "...I guess you have something else to make fun of me about, now," she replied. "Since now you know another way I'm different from you."
Neil looked at her; she didn't see it, but his face never adopted a hint of a sneer or smirk.
Suddenly one of the supervisors, Mr. Angorage, came into the room behind Neil. "What's going on in here?" he demanded. "I heard something shatter." His eyes saw the broken lamp, and then they locked on Karen, sitting on the bed with her head down. "Karen!" he shouted. "Are you the one responsible for this vandalism?"
Karen felt even worse; Mr. Angorage didn't like her, which was why he had automatically decided that she had committed vandalism. He would probably give her a severe punishment for what she had done.
Neil turned to Mr. Angorage. "I broke the lamp, sir," he said.
Karen looked up at him, shocked. Mr. Angorage, also surprised, turned to him. "YOU did this, Neil?" he asked.
Neil nodded. "It was my fault, Mr. Angorage," he said. "I accidentally knocked it over."
Mr. Angorage looked over at Karen. "Then why is she sitting there with a guilty look on her face, as if she did it?" he said.
"Because, sir," Neil answered, "Karen said she would take the blame for me, which was really nice of her. But I can't let her do that; I have to take responsibility for my own actions."
The supervisor looked at him again. "Hmmm... That's very commendable of you, Neil," he said. "Well, um, just make sure it doesn't happen again, okay?"
"I promise it won't," Neil assured him. Mr. Angorage nodded and left the room.

After he was gone, Karen stood up and faced Neil. She could not fathom why Neil had done that for her. "...Why?" she asked.
Neil smiled. "It felt like the right thing to do," he said. "I guess that, in a way, I was trying to apologize."
Karen's black eyes stared at him. "I don't understand."
Neil looked away, uncomfortable from her stare. "I wanted to apologize for laughing at you along with everyone else," he said. "I've been meaning to for a long time, and every time I had a chance, the words just wouldn't come out."
He put his hands in his pockets and looked down. "It's wrong that everyone makes fun of you all the time," he said. "But I laughed at you too, because if I didn't, then they would all start making fun of me too."
Karen continued to stare, not comprehending. Everyone had made fun of her for so long that she couldn't believe what Neil was saying.
Neil looked up and met her gaze. "But that's no excuse for what I did to you," he said. "I was a jerk. I'm sorry for hurting you, Karen."
Finally it sank in. Karen slowly smiled, tears in her eyes; someone in the orphanage DID care about her. "...Thank you, Neil," she said. "That really means a lot to me."

They spent the next few hours talking. Neil asked Karen a lot about her PSI gift (he seemed very interested in it), but he also wanted to learn about her and who she was. Karen learned that Neil was actually a very kind and caring person. He usually went along with the main group so that they wouldn't make fun of him, but he almost never meant it when they did something mean.
Finally, it started to get dark. Neil looked at the clock on the wall. "It's getting late," he said. "The cafeteria will be serving dinner soon."
"Oh," said Karen; she hadn't realized that they had been talking so long. She looked at the floor. "Do you... want to go and eat with me?" she asked, not used to asking such a thing. He probably won't, she thought pessimistically. He hangs out with everyone else, who makes fun of me all the time...
Neil surprised her with his answer. "Of course."
She looked up. "You mean, you really want to?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Neil replied. "We're friends, aren't we?"
This caused her to feel warm inside. In all her life, she had never had a friend before. The fact that she now had one made her feel happier than she had ever been before. My first friend, she thought with a smile.
Karen stood up; since Neil was shorter than the other boys, Karen was as tall as him. "Let's go, then," she said. Neil nodded, and they left the room.

On the way to the cafeteria, they ran into Mr. Angorage, who stopped them. "Karen, I was just about to come find you," he said, a hint of dislike in his voice.
Karen froze; had he decided that she had broken the lamp after all? Neil opened his mouth to take the blame for her again, but Mr. Angorage cut him off. "There's a man in the office to see you, Karen," he said. "He says he's your father."
Her jaw dropped. "My... My father?" she asked incredulously. "He's actually here?"
Mr. Angorage nodded. "He gave us records that prove it. He wants to see you."
In a daze, Karen nodded and followed him to the office. She had never expected that either of her parents would show up and claim her. Now that one of them apparently had come for her, they would be together, a family again.
Neil was left behind, forgotten.

Mr. Angorage showed her into the office, and for the first time, Karen met the man who said he was her father.
He was fat; he couldn't have weighed much less than 280 pounds. He dressed in a nondescript brown suit that was clearly too small for him. His shaggy blond hair was like an old mop, falling every which way with no attempt at styling. When he looked at her, he brushed the hair out of his eyes, which were as black as Karen's.
Karen blinked. She had often wondered what her father looked like, but her imagination had never come up with anything like this.
Mr. Angorage gestured to him. "Karen, this is your father, Mr. P. Minch."
The fat man waved a hand at him and spoke in a voice that hinted of malice. "Please, sir, just call me 'Mister P.'"

Karen sat silently while Mister P signed the papers that would place her into his custody.
Mr. Angorage looked over them to make sure they were all signed properly, and then he nodded. "Okay then, Mister P, you're free to take her," he said. "Have a nice day."
"Thank you," Mister P replied. He looked over at Karen. "Well, then, shall we go, daughter?" he asked.
He got up out of the chair and left the office. Karen followed him, frowning. Why was there a hint of sarcasm in his voice? she wondered.
On the way out, Karen didn't even see Neil. She suddenly realized that when Mr. Angorage had taken her to her father, she had abandoned Neil without so much as a goodbye.
This realization made her feel terrible. Just when she had finally found her first friend, she had abandoned him.
I have to apologize to him, she decided. She called out to the man in front of her. "F... Father?" she asked, the term unfamiliar to her.
To her surprise, Mister P actually winced when she said that. "What?" he demanded, turning around.
Under his glare, Karen felt afraid. "I... I have to go say goodbye to someone," she answered.
"No time," Mister P replied. "I'm running late as it is. Come on."
"But--"
"Now!" he snapped.
Hurt, Karen followed him, feeling as if she were abandoning Neil a second time.
As they left the orphanage, one of the boys who always made fun of Karen saw her leaving with Mister P. "So your father finally did come for you, Karen," he said with a laugh. "No wonder you're a freak, seeing how your father's a fat pig like this."
Mister P turned to him, his hateful glare boring into the boy. "You'd better watch your mouth, kid," he said in a sinister voice. He flicked his right wrist upward, and a sharp blade slid out of his sleeve. He advanced on the boy menacingly.
Karen stared at Mister P in surprise as the boy wet his pants and ran away as fast as he possibly could. With an insidious laugh, Mister P flicked his wrist again, and the blade returned to its resting place inside his sleeve. He looked over at her. "Come on," he ordered. "I don't want any more interruptions."

They finally left the orphanage, and went out into the streets of the North Side of Duplora. It was dark out, and there was almost no traffic on the road.
Karen looked at the world around her in awe; she rarely, if ever, had been able to go out into town. The only place anyone in the orphanage could go outside was the outdoor recreation area in the back; it was surrounded by a high fence. The orphanage was located on the very edge of Duplora, bordering the forest to the north.
As she walked, Karen tried to remember what little she knew about the surrounding area. Duplora was one of four towns in this region of Hawkland, and one of three that were surrounded by the Great Northern Forest of Hawkland. To the west, past a highway through the forest, lay the town of Primera, which was about the same size as Duplora. To the east, through a rather large meadow, was the larger town of Troisemburg. And past Troisemburg to the northeast, on the other side of the Northern Wetlands, was Quattro City, the largest city in the region; it was on the northern coast of Hawkland.
Karen had acquired that information from an old map of the region she had found in the orphanage years ago. She knew nothing else about the outside world.
Soon they had left the orphanage behind, and it wasn't even within sight anymore. Where is his car? Karen wondered. She called out to Mister P, who was still ahead of her. "Where are we going, Father?" she asked, still unfamiliar with calling someone that.
"Don't ask questions," Mister P snapped over his shoulder, not even turning to look at her.
Stung by his remark, Karen looked down. It finally got through to her that her father was not the kind, caring man she had hoped he'd be. Instead, he was a fat, malignant, extremely dangerous person. Karen shut her eyes, trying hard not to cry; her greatest hope and desire had been shattered, and she was left with the cold sting of disillusionment. I wish I hadn't abandoned Neil the way I did, she thought yet again. I left my first friend behind without so much as a goodbye... For this man.
Ashamed of herself, she covered her face with her hands. I'm a terrible person...

Finally, Mister P stopped. "This is the place," he said, mostly to himself. "This is where he said to go."
Karen looked around; they were in a dark alley behind several nondescript buildings. It was too dark to see much else, although there was a single light on the side of one of the buildings that illuminated the immediate area. "Where are we?" she asked without emotion.
Mister P turned to her. "I suppose I can tell you now," he said; in the dim light Karen could make out a smirk on his face. "This is where they're coming to pick us up," he explained cryptically. "They aren't completely set up yet, or else I could have just gone back to base myself."
She didn't know why, but his words made her very afraid. She took a step back from him.
Her fear caused Mister P to laugh. He stepped forward until he was right in front of her. "Your hair, your eyes," he said, "they remind me exactly of HIM. I wonder what else you inherited from your old man?"
Then Karen knew. She looked at Mister P in a new light. "You're not my father."
Mister P laughed. "Nope, I'm not," he said. "I have to admit, though, I did a pretty good job of faking it."
Karen thought otherwise, but she didn't say so. "Why?" she asked. "Why did you do this?"
"I'm following orders from the master," Mister P replied. "He ordered me to come here and take you out of the orphanage. He wants you out of the way, so that you can't interfere with our plans like your pig's butt father did."
She stepped away from him again, terrified. Mister P smiled a very evil smile. "He told me to either kill you, or collect you for his private Earthling menagerie. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather kill you, but he'll reward me better if I take you alive."
His evil smile widened. "On the other hand, though, he didn't tell me I had to collect you without harming you." He flicked his wrist again, and the blade Karen had seen before slid out. "So I'm going to have some fun with you before they get here."
Karen tried to back away from him again; it was quite clear that he meant to hurt her. "No! Stay away from me!"
Mister P just laughed and suddenly lunged at her, slashing with the blade. More by reflex than anything, Karen tried to twist out of the way, but the blade caught her on the cheek. Crying out in pain, she put a hand to her face. Mister P snickered. "There's one. Let's see how many more I can get in before they get here."
Karen looked at her hand; there was blood on it. She looked up at Mister P again. Hearing his evil, deranged laughing, her fear turned to anger. This man had pretended to be her father, and now he was trying to hurt her. She was not going to let him hurt her anymore.
Angrily, Karen raised her hand at Mister P, starting to concentrate. "Stay away from me," she said.
"Or what?" asked Mister P with a sneer. "You'll push me away? You're as stupid as your father."
Karen's eyes narrowed. "PSI Fire Alpha!"
Fire burst from her fingertips and flew at Mister P. Just before it reached him, he brought a small device from behind his back and pushed a button. The fire was stopped by an invisible shield.
Surprised, Karen lowered her hand. "How did it...?"
"It's my portable psychic shield," Mister P explained. "As long as I have it, you can't touch me with that PSI of yours." He laughed. "I guess it's only fitting that you have psychic power just like that pig's butt father of yours."
He advanced on her again, ready to cut her with his blade again. Starting to feel frightened again, Karen used another PSI ability. "PSI Thunder Alpha!"
A bolt of lightning struck down from the heavens and hit a garbage can nearby, missing Mister P completely. He laughed again. "Looks like you can't aim that one," he said.
Karen backed away from him, not knowing what to do. If he was shielded against her PSI, there was no way she could fight him.
Mister P brought out another device and looked at it. "Crap, they're going to be here in thirty seconds," he said. He looked up at Karen. "Well, it looks like your failed attempt to attack me bought you some time, so I don't have time to hurt you anymore." He flicked his wrist, putting the blade away.
Then he suddenly lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm. "But soon, you'll see things that a lot scarier than I am," he said insidiously. "You'll wish I had killed you."
Karen tried in vain to break free of his grasp. "No! Let go of me!"
"Fifteen more seconds," Mister P said. "Then you'll belong to him along with all the others he's taken already."
Suddenly something shot out of the darkness and struck Mister P. He was knocked away from Karen, and he lost his grip on her arm. "What the...?"
Karen looked around to see who had saved her, and saw someone she hadn't expected to see again. "Neil!"
Indeed it was Neil. He stood between Karen and Mister P. "I didn't like the look of that guy," Neil said, "so I snuck out of the orphanage and followed you."
"You came to help me," said Karen, smiling. "Thank you, Neil." Then she remembered. "And I'm really sorry for just leaving you when Mr. Angorage said my father was there. I didn't mean to--"
Neil stopped her. "You don't have to apologize," he said. "I know you wanted to see your family again."
Struggling to get off of his fat butt, Mister P looked at his device. "Oh, crap," he said. "The master's not going to be pleased with this..."
Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder overhead, and Mister P disappeared in a flash of light.
Surprised, Neil looked up at the sky. "What was THAT?"
Karen looked up also. "If he had been holding onto me when that happened, I would have disappeared too..." She looked at Neil gratefully. "Thank you again for what you did, Neil. If you hadn't come..."
"It's fine," Neil said. "I'm just glad I was able to help."

They slept in the alley until dawn.
After they woke up, Neil asked, "So now what? What do you want to do, Karen?"
"Well," said Karen, "I really don't want to go back to the orphanage. I want to find my parents, Neil... My real parents."
Neil smiled. "Then I'll come with you. You're probably going to need some help."
"You really want to come with me?" Karen asked. She hadn't expected this.
"I don't really want to go back either," Neil replied. "Besides, you're my friend, and I want to help you."
This caused her to feel warm inside. She may not have found her family, but she had found a friend. "Thank you, Neil."

They started walking, not having any clear destination. As they walked, Karen thought about everything that had happened; so much had happened in such a short time.
She thought about that man, Mister P. He knew her father in some way; he had shown that when he talked about her father. Hearing about him had made her want to find her parents even more. Not an evil pretender, but her real parents; people that really cared about her. Since the events of last night, that hope had been revived.
She looked over at Neil, the boy who had changed her life yesterday. She could not ask for a better friend. Thanks to him, she had not been kidnapped by Mister P, and now she would not have to search for her family alone.
Karen watched the sunrise as they walked. She couldn't remember seeing a nicer sunrise. It made her believe that someday, somehow, she WOULD find her parents.

What Karen did not know, however, was that her destiny awaited her...

And so begins Karen's part in the story...