Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Ready or Not

The human body was a near perfect vessel for the Anima.

And conn envied it, bright eyes, soft skin, a warm beating heart.

The human's grip was firm and reassuring, but perhaps it was only that way because he could hear the thoughts of the man behind the hand.

"This must be hard for him." The human thought, "Returning here after so long.... And we don't even know what we are going to find."

And that was all too true.

He had no idea what they were going to find.

"You could hold my hand instead, make me feel better." He teased, sensing the human recoil at his suggestion before sighing loudly into his helmet. He found it funny, though a part of him sort of found it sad.

If he was another human, it might have been soemthing to laugh over, like he did with the human named Angel.

But still, Adam had never been comfortable with his ability to read minds.

That was something that would never change.

Not even safe inside his own head.

"I'd rather spoon Sunny's mom."

"Don't bring my mother into this!" Sunny's intent was joking, though the images that flashed through her head were enough to make even Conn distressed, it was a pity she had to think in pictures so much.

"There will be time for Levity later." Lord Celex said, firing the engine on his suit once as he began to float forward.

The little creature was.... Scared, scared but trying desperately to hide it.

This was a bad time for the universe to be experiencing big changes for him. His entire world was spiraling out of control and he had been unable to gain his feet.

He worried he was weak.

Worried that he was some sort of coward.

And so he pushed forward at every opportunity to prove this fact false, to himself more than he did to others.

And they followed along with him, holding in tight formation as they flew through the rolling blue smoke and towards the nebular break, where the tar had pushed back the dust into a wide but slowly flattening ring.

The star was young, but maybe, one day, that ring would form into planets of its own, though that was some time in coming, and was not bound to spontaneously happen as they were moving through the dust.

Conn took point before Lord Celex, eager bur worried to see what had become of those who had tolerated his existence at one time or another. Despite his earlier moment, the human flew behind him and close at his right, overwhelmed with the desire to do nothing more than help his friend.

Friend.

It was nice that he thought of Conn that way.

Nice the way he thought of Eris too, which Conn found the most important part of the man who floated behind him.

If there was one thing he could do to make Conn respect him, it was the way he felt about her.

It was the glowing red light that alerted him first.

And as soon as he saw it he knew soemthing was horribly wrong. And he knew it by way of the human's fine tuned senses for danger, which were beginning to peak and quiver at the sight of that out of place red light. He could feel the human's body as if it were his own, pulsing and humming with the beat of his heart, warm blood coursing through his face and his hands as the body prepared itself for trouble.