Galaxy of Hyperion: Mystic Heir

Chapter Twenty-One: Mistress of Flames

"I think that we have quite a bit to discuss," Jubilee remarked, a light smirk playing at her lips as she shut the door behind herself. "If you want the truth, there's quite a bit to go through here... Still, I suppose that I shouldn't bother hiding too much. You're lucky that I know who you are. I don't want to cause any unnecessary problems for you given that we're meant to be working together. That would be rather counterintuitive to our shared goals, yes?"

Jubilee didn't wait for anyone to respond to her prompt. Instead, she pulled her shoulders back, and Jay was able to see just how massive Jubilee was. The woman was tall, and her auburn hair was long enough that it almost made her seem larger than she truly was. Her muscles were incredible, and everything about Jubilee screamed that she was not a woman to be trifled with. Jay could see Ronan's eyes go wide with awe out of the corner of her vision, and she found that she couldn't blame him in the slightest for being impressed with the sheer strength that Jubilee had at her disposal. 

"My name is Jubilee, and I'm a Skylian Mage," Jubilee continued a moment later. "I know who all of you are too. Jay, Arian, Lana, Ronan... You don't need to introduce yourselves. I have ways of finding things out aside from simply waiting for people to talk about them around here. It's rather easy to gather information if you know where to look. Of course, I believe that you all know who you are, so I won't go into that sort of thing. Instead, I think that we have far more important business to cover."

Jubilee cleared her throat before she went on, making it clear that she wasn't going to tolerate interruptions. "I did work as a guard at the prison that you mentioned before. It's been quite some time since the place was first constructed, and I would say that times have changed considerably since then. I've gone through a few jobs since I decided to stop working there, and that's how I eventually wound up here," she declared. 

"What happened?" Arian questioned when he realized that Jubilee was giving him a chance to offer inquiries. "I mean, it sounds like that sort of work would have been great if you were looking for money. You were literally built for something like that, so it would only make sense that you knew what to do and how to stay around there for ages..."

"I got bored," Jubilee replied with a light shrug. "What can I say? I'm a bit of an adventurous spirit." Her gaze hardened, and Jay could tell that there was more to it, something that Jubilee confirmed when she continued soon afterwards. "The truth is... I was tired of being treated like nothing more than an item. My job was to look after the worst criminals that the Galaxy of Hyperion had ever seen, but everyone relied on me too much. After all, the only reason behind my existence was to look over those who had hurt others to extreme degrees. That's not a way to live. I wanted to see the rest of the world, and after I left that place behind, I realized just how poorly I was being treated. The people who brought me into existence underestimated me by assuming that I wouldn't realize what was going on."

"I understand," Ronan said softly. He didn't continue beyond that, but Jay didn't think that he particularly needed to. In a way, his experiences were similar to what Jubilee had been through. He had been treated as nothing more than an object after the truth of his powers came out. Ronan himself had been completely unaware of the secrets resting beneath the surface, and the only person who knew used that to manipulate him without Ronan even realizing. It was awful, but he didn't notice that such was the case until after he had been given a taste of freedom thanks to his comrades. It was odd to think of someone as confident and blunt as Jubilee being similar to the soft and delicate Ronan, but Jay still felt as if the connection made a lot of sense. 

"I wasn't going to return to something like that, so I just decided not to. The prison began to fall apart as soon as they realized that I wasn't coming back. The Fearbringers have been making stupid choices for a while now. Their recent decisions aren't all that we should be looking at when it comes to their general actions of ridiculousness," Jubilee snorted. "All of the prisoners at the facility were transferred elsewhere, and I never bothered to look back. They created me for the sake of defending others while not giving me a way of understanding the world that I was trying to keep safe. Kind of sad, eh?"