When colour returned to Lumina's world, the first thing she saw was pink. When sound returned to Lumina's world, the first thing she heard were loud sirens. Blaring daggers that sank themselves into her eardrums. They were intermittent, turning on and off at set intervals. Flashes of light appeared in her vision and she knew those weren't her imagination, but rather actual suns of light blinding her. It was all a bright pink impenetrable blur. But during the few seconds where the light wasn't blinding her, she saw a couple of colourful shapes. A mainly green one was collapsed on the floor next to her. An orange one was nearby. There was a bright pink one not too far away, which the blue figure was right next to. It was almost as if they were hugging him, but due to the blur of colours and light it was really hard to tell. But against the pink light, suddenly another light emerged. This time it was a pure white, that of a white Christmas. Soon enough, the white drowned out the pink, everything becoming a bright, blurry mess once again.
R-Reaching out
As the two colours collided, it was like they were naturally at war. They clawed at each other, trying to take dominance, but eventually, as the light swirled, the white light took over.
Rainbow road
Suddenly, in another blinding flash of blue light, the figure that was once pink turned back to his natural shade of periwinkle blue, and everything became clear. Trist looked at his own two hands, before a wide smile, the largest that Lumina had ever seen on him, spread across his face that was no longer tainted an unnatural pink. He looked at Tetra, who was wide-eyed and crying, and immediately smothered them in his embrace. He opened his arms again, inviting the other three, and they all wordlessly leapt into his arms. He closed them around them all and held them close. The size difference was extremely prominent now. Quin, the tallest, only reached up to his shoulders. So naturally, the bear hug that they all shared was warm and just like hugging a real bear. Tetra's face was buried in Trist's warm chest, and there were slightly wet patches on his sweater that their eyes left behind. Trist just hugged them all tighter. Soon enough, another pair of arms - or rather what felt like two, covered everyone, as well as a weight, and they were pleasantly surprised to see that Skye had invited herself into the group hug. But of course, they weren't offended, they felt happy, because as well as Skye's arms wrapping around them all, so did her wings. Her wingspan covered the six of them and bought them all closer together in a little cocoon. This also meant that she was putting all her weight onto them, however, but they didn't mind.
Tetra felt something shift in their pocket, and everyone was surprised to see the minimised piece of the Tree of Life which Tetra held onto zip out of their pocket. The part of the Tree of life which was just uncorrupted also shrank in size, both as big as your palm. But instead of going back to Tetra, they decided a better place to stay. They claimed the top of Trist's headphones, resting on top like two little cat ears. Tetra's heart exploded as Trist smiled widely. The two pieces then dulled in colour and brightness, almost like they didn't want to draw too much attention to itself. Trist poked them with a finger, and his lips curled into a smile. Even if he isn't a very vocal person, Tetra could tell he was much happier.
Soon enough, they could hear voices. Confused voices of normal human beings. They looked up and were surprised to find that the pink had bled out and all colour had returned to their bodies. Reds. Oranges. Whites. Their eyes no longer resembled gaping voids as they darted around the room, confused. There were roughly 50 of them. But as time went on, most of their eyes settled on that of Skye. A woman with wings and deformed legs isn't something you see everyday, and they all crowded around her.
"Hey! What's going on?" One yelled out. "Where are we? What happened?"
'Stay calm! Stay calm!' Lumina, being the people person she was, took charge. 'Listen. We don't know what exactly's going on either, but I think that pink guy who corrupted all of you was planning to use you as his slaves or something like that.'
At first she was met with an uproar, but as she convinced them she wasn't making all of it up, she told them everything. Immediately they listened, although among some of them there were some doubts. Most of them didn't even know what the dude looked like, and those who did had extremely vague memories of him. He was pink, sure, but their descriptions all varied. Some say he had long hair, some say he had short, some say he was missing a leg, some say he had one. Even the main quartet weren't 100% sure. A couple of the civilians that were rescued were drugged and had a limited sense of what's going around, which Skye, plus a few medical professionals and even one or two of Skye's co-workers at the Search and rescue brigade, tended to. During this time, Skye tried to Ask Trist a few questions, how he was, how he was feeling, and other stuff about his life. But Trist never even uttered a word. He was dead silent. Although his body and facial features were alive. His lips were curled up into a smile, using his facial expressions and body language to respond to Skye's questions. His forearms kept themselves close to his body, inner wrists instinctively pressed against his chest. This posture was very characteristic and specific to Trist and Trist alone. Quickly realising that Trist was probably either mute or really not the talkative type, Skye nodded, understood and just carried on with her work. However, she did talk to the Quartet. Tetra probably never let go of Trist not even once. It was an almost constant hug. And Trist never even let go of Tetra either, they both missed each other dearly and Trist just went through an extremely traumatising experience, it was perfectly understandable. Trist didn't show it for the sake of the four friends, but he was secretly terrified and on the verge of tears. But of course, Tetra felt that he wasn't feeling great, so they just comforted him. They would never verbally admit it, but they were scared shitless at the thought of losing him. Trist just held them.
Once everything was under control, they thought it was all good.
Until they posed a question. What now?
And almost like magic, they heard more sirens. Sirens blared like screaming children throwing daggers into their ears as everyone frantically looked around for what was wrong. And a voice, through some sort of intercom, added to the cacophony of high pitched sounds.
"EMERGENCY PROTOCOL EMERGENCY PROTOCOL EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ALERT THE KING ALERT THE KING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL PLEASE EVACUATE IN A CALM AND CIVILISED MANNER" The surprisingly calm sound of a woman through the intercom made everyone on edge. But then, a couple of civilians yelled out as bright pink Corrupted with gaping black eyes appeared, but they posed no harm. They silently watched the masses of people, and in particular the four shapes that had just uncorrupted the part of the Tree of Life, before disappearing behind a corner. Almost instinctively, a few gung ho civilians chased after them. A few minutes later, they all came back, faces red. By the look of frustration on their faces, they hadn't managed to catch them. But not all hope was lost, because they instantly asked for the four kids and that winged woman. When they did get to them, they told them what had happened. Apparently they followed them through a couple corridors before they came to this massive place. It was surrounded by water, and there was a massive network that supposedly led to the tower. They all went up there, but after they entered, three walls closed in and blocked the entrance off. The only way to disengage the doors was to flip the switches, but they had solid metal protecting them. They even said that shortly before they left, they saw these weird, gigantic Circular things that looked like black holes, but they were on a platform too high up to reach. Tetra, Lumina, Quin and Pi all looked at each other before deciding that was where they were gonna go. And it's not like they were gonna leave Trist behind either, so the five of them all looked at Skye simultaneously. She just sighed. "I've never carried five people before..."
Turning corners and rising up through vertical corners was much, much harder for Skye now. Weighing on her were five figures. Beforehand, when there were just four of them, she was doing alright, but with the addition of Trist, she was practically being shot out of the air. Trist was huge and at almost 175 lbs. The other four of them were small and light, barely topping 130 lbs. but Trist was like a boulder in comparison to them. Skye's face was red as a wet layer of dew covered her forehead. Her teeth gritted themselves as she flapped her mighty wings up a ledge, and collapsed on the ground. She was smaller than Trist, but almost as heavy as him because of her wings and the sheer muscles she needed to fly. So when she collapsed on the three teenagers underneath her, Tetra, Lumina and Pi let out anguished yells, because not only is Skye weighing down on them, so is Trist and Quin. Quin and Trist scrambled off, and after that Skye practically flopped over onto her back. Her wings twitched and she massaged them. Trist took one of her wings and also massaged them, resting beside her and making sure she was okay. She thanked him. She couldn't even use her legs to push herself up against a nearby wall, so she ended up having Trist, who was surprisingly strong, straighten her up. Tetra's lips curled.
"I'm sorry..." She muttered. The five of them didn't blame her, they knew they were all extremely heavy. She panted heavily as she groaned at the pain. Lumina wondered to herself: What kinds of bras did she wear? But maybe she'll ask her in private.
After a while of her panting, Skye finally stretched her wings out. They flapped themselves for a little bit, before she turned her head as if to say "Hop on". Once they were all ready, she spread her wings and flapped them. Luckily, the destination they wanted to reach wasn't too far away. She flew behind a corner, and saw a bright light. It was coming from a gigantic ledge, but it was an open space, so Skye breathed a sigh of relief. The hallways were cramped and didn't allow her as much freedom as she would've wanted. It was surrounded by a large body of water, so Neptune might be nearby. Much to the four siblings' relief, there were voids there. But what they did wasn't immediately clear. Trist looked around shyly, while Skye took a rest, stretching her wings. They told the two to stay here while they worked the voids.
Into the Zone. Vindicate me. Try this.
They murmured in conversation, wondering which void to trial out first, when they heard a familiar voice.
"Ahoy!" It was a young man's voice. "Mateys!"
Everyone's heads whirled around to the water. A shape was poking out of the water, along with a long, skinny arm. It was Neptune. Unlike before, Neptune now wasn't wearing any clothes, he was technically stark naked. They couldn't see the entirety of his body, but they could see an exposed collarbone. At least he still wore his trademark pirate hat.
"Neptune!" Tetra waved, and the merman swam closer, until his elbows rested on the edge of the massive pool.
"Mateys! How are..." His voice trailed off the moment he saw the flying woman. They turned around and saw that Skye met his gaze with the same mild surprise.
'Are you a merman?' She muttered after moments of them staring at each other. Neither of them were human, they had abnormal features that would cause any normal human being to stare at them in astonishment. Wings. Fish tail. Deformed legs. Gills.
"Aye." He responded. "What're ye?"
'I don't know. Can you breathe out of water?'
"For about 'alf an 'our. What kinds o' shirts do ye wear, if ye don't mind me asking?"
Skye turned around and revealed her back. She was wearing a backless shirt that exposed the pale skin of her flesh. However, covering her back while branching out around the wings was a single bandage-like object, which, when Lumina looked at it, she realised was to support her breasts as a bra. It was like a roll of bandages covering a torso injury. Her bosom had to account for around 10% of her body weight, this and because of her wings, finding bras must be a pain in the ass. Neptune made sounds of understanding and thought. Luckily for him, his tone was innocent and had no underlying intention, he was just purely curious.
"Ahem." Quin interrupted. The two abnormal human-like figures turned their heads.
"Neptune, this is Skye. Skye, this is Neptune."
"Skye, eh? Name suits ye."
'So does Neptune.'
"And-" Quin stressed the word. He gestured towards the larger, more human-looking man beside him. His little "ears" perked up like little mountain peaks. "This is Trist."
'Oh yeah' Neptune's eyes lit up as he stuck out a wet, webbed hand from out of the water to shake his dry one. 'They told me 'bout ye! Nice to meet ye, me hearty.'
"Why do you speak like a pirate?" Skye raised an eyebrow.
'Arr, guess ye can say I was raised by pirates. 'ardly met anyone until they came along, Arr, I learnt from them as much as I can. Met a buncha merpeople later on, travelled with 'em for a while, and when I came lookin' for those guys few years la'er, I couldna find 'em anywhere.' He shook his head. 'Later on I foun' out them was in jail. Stealin's a crime, apparently.'
"Damn." Skye actually sat down in front of him, wings folding themselves up as she listened intensely. "You ever tried to visit them?"
'You tell me, Beauty, with these darn fins 'ow can I get 'round? on land?'
'True.' She nodded.
"Um, we're just gonna go into the voids now, we'll leave you three here, 'kay?" Lumina interrupted their conversation. Trist nodded, Skye bid goodbye and Neptune waved.
They went up to the first one. Into the Zone.
Here goes nothing.