Awakening of the Shadows [COMPLETE]

Antares

"You'll be taking a shuttle back to Horizon," Vulcan told me. "You and Eternity."

"Wait, why is Eternity going?" I tried to ignore the twist in my stomach.

"You'll need someone there who can help you explain what happened to your people," Eternity said. "I'm definitely the right Hyperian for the job."

"Hyperian?" I asked. It hadn't even occurred to me that Eternity might be an alien species, but in retrospect I suppose I should've at least thought about it, given her fiery orange eyes, a trait so rare I couldn't remember any humans with that kind of eye color.

"What, did you think I was a human?" She said, smiling as if reading my thoughts. "Yeah, I'm a Hyperian. My homeworld, Hyperia, is two planets down from Celestia in this solar system."

"Wait, you mean the gas giant?" I asked. I'd reviewed the other planets in this system when Vesselo and I were determining our fleet's course, and apart from what I now knew to be Celestia, Horizon had been the only other habitable planet in the system.

"Hyperia looks like a gas giant. That's the aerosphere. It used to be a gas giant, actually, but several hundred thousand years ago, my ancestors terraformed the world into a half-gas giant, half-terrestrial - and habitable, for that matter - world." Eternity explained.

"Wow," I said. "That's... wow."

"Yeah, well, it's not your average story, so..." Eternity shook her head. "So, yeah. As soon as you're ready, we can leave."

"Alright," I said. I slid off the bed. "Before I go, can I ask you a question, Vulcan?"

"Sure," Vulcan said.

"What happened to Alaspakta?" I asked.

"It teleported into your Slipspace," He said, yet again using a confusing as all hell word. "I'll explain all of that to you when you get back. For now, you should-" Vulcan was cut off by a robotic monotone:

"Warning: potential hostiles detected in Palace of Shining Talons. Immediate attention of Star Pharaoh Celestys and Star Sentinel Eternity Timewind is required." It droned. "Dispatching Xenoguard now."

"Shit," Vulcan said. "Alright, well, until we deal with that, you can't leave. Eldernova, stay here. I'll be back soon." He turned, gesturing at Eternity. "Let's go."

Before I could say a word, they'd both exited the room, leaving me to think alone.

. . .

Eternity

I hurried down the hall, managing to keep a decent pace with Vulcan, despite his being a literal superhuman, as a Cosmic God in human form. As I ran, I began to organize my mind, filing away my cluttered thoughts for later, allowing my brain to slip into a state of extreme focus. Over the years, from the moment I began to learn how to fight back when I was seven, I'd learned to fully control my brain - at least, most of the time. No one, god or mortal, could fully filter out all thoughts other than one specific task. But by anyone's standards, not just a mortal's, I was pretty damn good at it. Better than most I knew, and even better than a few gods, to my knowledge.

But today, it simply wasn't working for me. I couldn't take my mind off of what had happened earlier today; the events of Alaspakta's awakening and the beginning of Novanus Prophecus, and, probably the hardest out of all of them to take my mind off of, Eldernova. Despite hailing from a capitalist, selfish world that only strove to increase its own economic output at the expense of anyone who lacked the money to be part of the system, he was compassionate and kind-hearted. He was also brave, funny (Despite the fact he usually didn't seem to notice he was being funny), but not completely obsessed with maintaining those qualities. There was a sort of balance to him.