When the Clan Leaders arrived back on Earth, Jayler couldn't stop smiling. A few hours had passed, and he was internally thankful that he had remembered to text his mother before school got out to say that he was going to be hanging out with some friends. Of course, she hadn't objected in the slightest, glad that Jayler had managed to form such a lovely community, so he was more than fine with going back home without suffering any punishments for staying out so late.
The sun was starting to set, and Jayler cringed as he realized how long they had been on Daragon. It really hadn't felt like too much time had passed, but he had been rather excited, so that likely distorted his view on the world around him. The rest of the Clan Leaders seemed just as shocked as him when they arrived back on the empty football field. Nobody was around, and they were able to walk away from the field without any issues.
"I want to hang out tonight," Xia suggested as she shut the door behind the rest of the group. "I guess I'm excited about tomorrow. Plus, we can plan what we're going to be doing after we head back to Hyperion if we're all together."
"Any volunteers for a place to stay then?" Luke questioned. "I guess that we could come back to my house... My dad is working late tonight, so it would just be us. I don't think we'd need to worry about him overhearing us, because by the time he's going to be getting back, we'll probably already be asleep."
"That would be lovely," Ocean smiled. "Maybe we could all split up for a while to get our things together and then head over. Thank you for offering, Luke."
Luke beamed at her words before looking to the rest of the team. "Um... What do you all think? Is this okay with you?" he questioned.
Nods surfaced from Gemini, Lex, and Jayler, prompting Luke to smile once again. "Alright... In that case, I suppose I'll see you all in about an hour or so. If you want to bring some extra money, then we could order pizza and share it while discussing a plan for tomorrow," he told the team.
"Consider it a plan then!" Lex exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. "I'll see you all then!"
Farewells rang out from the rest of the group as all six of the Clan Leaders went their separate directions. Jayler pulled his phone from his pocket to call for his mom to come and pick him up. She answered quickly and said that she was going to be on her way soon, giving Jayler a moment to gather his bearings and try to put on a mask of regular behavior before she arrived. He didn't want to seem too excited over seemingly nothing and risk making her suspicious. As a whole, Michelle Rose never pried into his affairs too much, but Jayler still thought that it was best to be safe rather than sorry.
Jayler sat down on a bench outside the school after he had finished the call, cringing when he realized that his upper legs were covered in snow since he had forgotten to clear the space away before taking a seat. Jayler shook his head and thanked the group for coming up with the idea to split up and then regroup. The last thing he would have wanted to deal with was soaking trousers for the rest of their meeting.
Still, Jayler shut his eyes, and he leaned back against the bench while trying to forget the uncomfortable sensation beneath him. He thought back to all that had happened that day, and he started smiling all over again. He was glad to have finally gotten the chance to go back to the Galaxy of Hyperion after all this time, but he couldn't help but think about what he had missed out on that first day.
There was still something important that Jayler had to accomplish on the other side. He didn't know how he was going to pull it off, but Jayler simply had to figure out a way to reach out to the Silver Knight. It had been far too long since he was last able to see her in his opinion. Even if not that much time had passed since he was on Hyperion from a technical standpoint, it was still enough to bother him. He had been looking forward to meeting up with her again all this time, and he wasn't about to back down from it since Hyperion was finally within his grasp.
There wasn't all that much for him to go off though. The Silver Knight had told him what her former name was before she took up a new title: Lia Rose. Still, that wasn't enough for him to actively track her down. He had changed his name at one point after all, and trying to find him through his birth name wasn't going to work out either. He didn't know at all what she could have changed her name to, but without that simple clue, how could he track her down? All he knew was that she supposedly looked similar to him underneath the silver armor.
Jayler was a Hanilia in the Clan Leaders' group, but the Silver Knight was part of the same faction. There had to be a reason for that. She was likely part of another Hanilia group, but which one? If he was going to be trying to reach out to other Hanilia as part of the castle operation, he could get closer to finding her, but that was still a shaky proposal. The Silver Knight was rather good at hiding herself when she didn't want to be found, and who could say for sure if she was ready to come out of the hole she had been in since the end of the war with the Fearbringers? His only way to reach out to her was already proving itself to be shaky and uncertain, and he hated it.
Jayler watched as his mother's car slid into the nearby parking lot, and he forced himself off the bench. His smile had faded away already, something that tended to happen when he thought of how hard tracking down his sister was going to be. Michelle didn't seem to suspect anything as Jayler slid into the passenger seat of the car before shutting the door.
"What did you wind up staying after school for?" she asked first before taking the car away from the lot.
Jayler kicked himself for not coming up with an excuse sooner before covering at the last moment. "Just studying with some friends," he replied. "I'm going to be heading over to Luke's house tonight with the rest of the group. We wanted to get a break from schoolwork after all that studying."
"Alright," Michelle smiled, looking over to her son for a moment before her eyes flickered back to the road. "You seem to be in a rather good mood. Is it because you're going to be seeing your friends?"
Jayler hadn't even realized that he had started grinning after getting back in the car. Hyperion had slipped into the back of his mind again when he wasn't paying attention, it seemed. Finally, he was back in a world of magic after all this time, and his joy for such wasn't going to be forgotten easily.
But Jayler didn't say any of this. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders loosely. "I guess so," he replied.
~~~~~
Jay was already starting to get a bit frustrated with Lana Tarulum.
The first step of her shared journey with Arian was proving itself to be aggravating already. Despite how long the two had been searching, all Jay and Arian had stumbled upon was the concept that Lana would reach out if someone acted in a way deserving of the gods. What was that supposed to mean?
It appeared to be symbolic of a pure act, but Jay still wasn't sure what Lana could have meant when she said something like that. Arian seemed to be just as confused as she was deep down, but he hid it behind a mask of optimism and determination that everything would be fine. Jay wished that she was less realistic for just a moment, wondering why she wasn't able to buy into Arian's easy reassurances.
After Jay and Arian walked away from the library, night had fallen, and Jay couldn't help but cringe at how late it had become. The first day had been far from promising, and she was already starting to get frustrated. She kicked a stray pebble on the ground and watched it bounce away before screaming at herself to focus and stay grounded. There was no reason getting worked up when she was encountering a small roadblock. Soon enough, everything would come together. All she really had to do was give it a bit of extra time.
"Why don't we head into the nearby hotel for the night?" Arian questioned. He pointed to the building that Jay had been staying in the night before, and she cringed. She had canceled her stay at the hotel after hearing about her mission from Lyloc. She hadn't thought that she would need to stick around for any longer than she already had.
Jay hesitated before shaking her head. "Let's go somewhere else. We can find another place that might have new information for us, and we can settle down there for the night. All we need to do is hop through the Portal," she told him. Arian stared at her in shock for a moment before burying his confusion as deep as possible and nodding in her direction.
Jay formed a hole in the sky before she had even properly registered where she was heading. Arian trailed after her, and Jay walked out with a small sigh. She recognized this space rather well, though she wished that she could store her memories of the space in the back of her mind, never to be brought up again.
"I think I know where we are..." Arian whispered as he looked around for himself. "We're in one of the smaller towns near Nadia, aren't we?"
Nadia, the town that had fallen during the sole Fearbringer attack on Skylia. Nadia, the town that the Skylox Heroes had tried to defend only to fall in the process. Nadia, the town that had signified the beginning of the end for Skylia.
Chances were that it had useful information, but Jay really hated that she had to be back here.
"We're going to search the area in the morning," Jay answered bluntly. "The Skylox Heroes were defeated in the Battle of Nadia. Their leader was Lyloc, a Skylian Mage. There weren't any other clues at the castle, so we're going to look around here and pray that we manage to latch onto something. We can figure out another space to look for more information regarding the act worthy of the gods later if this winds up falling through. How does that sound?"
Jay's voice left no room for objection, but it didn't seem as if Arian was going to speak out against her anyways. He nodded softly before trailing after her away from the entrance to the town. There was a rundown hotel at the back of the space, and the two entered the space silently. Jay's shoulders remained knotted tight with tension, but Arian didn't comment in the slightest, too focused on getting to a bed to bother.
Jay handled everything involving their rooms. She wound up paying for two, one for each of them, because she had the extra money and really didn't want to deal with Arian all night. It wasn't as if she hated him or anything; Jay simply valued her personal space, and him waltzing into her life had shattered the bubble of peace that she had enjoyed for so long prior to his appearance.
Arian waved her goodbye silently, and Jay walked into her room before shutting the door behind her. A sigh left her lips, and she practically collapsed onto the bed she was going to be using for the night. Jay had been hoping that perhaps things would be easy involving reaching out to Lana, but that was quickly establishing itself to be nothing more than a pipe dream. She understood why Lana would be defensive of her privacy and the boundaries for the City of Steel, but it complicated her mission, so Jay still found herself upset regardless.
She hadn't felt this way in quite some time. For ages, life seemed to pass around her as she sat at its center, numb and unfeeling to the world around her. There was more than enough reason to justify such, but she would prefer to not think about it. Jay shook her head to herself and closed her eyes. Lyloc reaching out had finally given her something to do, and she had been all too eager to grasp it. If only Lyloc had been a bit kinder in her distribution of tasks.
Then there was the matter of Arian. Jay couldn't figure out what was going on with him, but he bothered her in a way that she couldn't quite explain. There was something uncomfortable about him that nagged her from beneath the surface, trying to reveal an answer that she couldn't even be sure existed. Her instincts were often correct, and she had taken to trusting them immensely over the years, but she couldn't claim that Arian was lying to her without any solid evidence.
Part of her wondered what someone who was sixteen had to hide, but then she remembered that she was no better than he was. If anything, she was even worse.
Jay didn't object when her body tried to pull her into slumber. She hadn't eaten anything for dinner, but she didn't feel hungry enough to justify forcing herself out of the hotel to see if there was anything for her eat. All she wanted to do was wake up and have everything solve itself. Jay had spent so long waiting for something to make sense in her life, and even when she had found a goal to strive for after being alone for ages, it didn't slot together as she would have liked. Everything was just as confusing and aggravating to her as it had been when she was doing nothing day in and day out, praying for an end to the monotony.
Jay fell asleep soon afterwards, the covers undisturbed beneath her. The mattress was serviceable, she supposed, but it was nothing like what she was used to back home. Then again, longing for home was utterly pointless as far as she could tell. There wasn't a way for her to return to those days, so she needed to stop thinking about it.
Still, when she closed her eyes, she dreamed of family and what she would never have again.
~~~~~
By the time that the pizzas had arrived at Luke's house, all six of the Clan Leaders were already stretched out on the living room floor. Daytime clothes had been swapped out for comfy nighttime counterparts, and the TV rattled mindlessly in the background to offer a little bit of white noise to the space. Luke shuffled out to the room before sitting down and distributing plates to each one of the teens. As hands reached for pieces of pizza, Luke leaned his neck back to stare at the ceiling. "So... Is there anything that we want to be aware of before tomorrow?" he questioned.
"There's something that I was given before we left," Ocean declared. "I didn't notice until I got home, so I would probably say that it was Tuila. It seems that she had the feeling we would be curious about all of this, so she gave me a list of all the Hanilia factions and what they do. I think that's pretty helpful thing to have on hand."
"Then read it off to us," Lex suggested, taking a mighty bite from the piece of pizza in her hand. She chugged down half her water soon afterwards before wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.
Ocean nodded. "The first planet of Hyperion is Daragon, and its Hanilia are the Clan Leaders. We already know about what they do... You know, since that's us," she told the group. "So let's move onto Skylia next. The Skylian Mages are meant to look over Skylia, but that's where things get a bit more complicated... There hasn't really been a member of the Skylian Mages identified since the days of Lyloc. Nobody knows for sure who the others could be."
"That certainly makes our job a lot harder," Xia sighed with a shake of her head. "What are we supposed to do if we can't find the Skylian Mages?"
"I suppose we just press on with the rest of our searching," Gemini shrugged. "There's no point in stressing it right now anyways. What's the next group, Ocean?"
"From Regasys, there are the Spirit Guardians. The leader of the group is decided differently than most other groups. It's a hereditary position passed through the monarchy of the planet, but... This note seems to think that it's going to be a lot harder to figure out who the leader of the Spirit Guardians is than we would think," Ocean replied. "They come from Earth the same way that we do."
"So one of them is born in Hyperion while the others all come from around here," Jayler nodded to himself. "That's rather strange, but I suppose that we'll just have to figure out what to do about it in the future."
"Next up are the Angelic Watchers of Quyatil. Again, they come from Earth, and the current generation is unknown," Ocean told the rest of the group. "The same applies to Brashi's Dark Guardians. The inner five planets mostly have Hanilia who come from Earth while the reverse applies to the outer five planets. Still, it doesn't seem like any members of those inner five groups have been identified aside from us. It certainly makes our jobs more frustrating."
"Then... All we can really do is figure out what we can do about the outer five planets," Luke suggested. "We already have the Draconic Superiors together, so that has to count for something, right?"
"I believe so... But this is where things get harder," Ocean frowned. "You see, the inner five planets all have members of the group who possess multiple elements. There are fewer of them since the elemental distribution is across a smaller group. The outer planets have larger parties, and each of them have one element. That's how the Draconic Superiors are structured, for example."
"It'll be easier to find a member of these groups, but we'll struggle more to actually get all of them together... That's what you're trying to say here, right?" Xia questioned.
Ocean nodded. "Exactly. We might have the Draconic Superiors together, but this is where things get complicated... On one hand, the Draconic Superiors are already working with us, and we know that all of the Fearbringers are alright with allying with us. They're another group in this outer five... However, you also have the Skylox Heroes, who were wiped out a while ago. It's hard to say if any of them are even alive at this point, and if they are, chances are they don't know about being Hanilia, so that will make them even harder to find," she explained.
"In exchange for the Draconic Superiors, we're going to need to figure out how to manage the Skylox Heroes, a group that makes absolutely no sense at the moment... And then we need to figure out where the Fearbringers disappeared off to in the aftermath of the war. Sounds like we've got a lot to take care of already involving these outer groups," Gemini remarked.
"The other two groups are known as the Portal Protectors and the Moon Sages. The first group is responsible for maintaining the Portal that keeps magic inside of Hyperion. The Moon Sages look after the various moons of the planets. According to Tuila, some people actually do live on the moons, but the civilizations there are far smaller since the planets themselves are far larger," Ocean declared.
"So this is a lot harder than they were trying to make it seem during the meeting," Lex sighed. "I suppose it means that they have a degree of trust in us since they're willing to give us such a huge mission, but... Who can say if we'll even be able to get one of these groups to come out of the shadows? There has to be a reason for the Fearbringers disappearing so suddenly after the war came to a close, and it's not as if we know where they've been hiding out."
"We'll have to figure that out along the way, I suppose," Luke frowned. "We'll get to it later on, I guess... Is there anything that you guys have to say on the matter?"
"I don't think so," Jayler eventually said. "All we can really do is put all of this into motion and pray that it goes our way. Maybe the Draconic Superiors will have a few extra clues for us on where to find different members of these groups. I don't know if they'd want to give us that information when we were about to leave, but... They could tell us tomorrow when we arrive back in Hyperion."
"All we can do is wait and see what they've got for us then," Lex commented. "Until then, I want to know what Jayler's been thinking about."
All attention shifted over to him in an instant, and Jayler stared at the rest of his team with wide eyes, unable to properly form words under their attention. He sputtered for a moment before letting out a sigh as Lex kept talking.
"Look at him!" Lex exclaimed, pointing her pizza in his direction for emphasis. "He's clearly thinking about something. He's had this faraway look in his eyes ever since he got here. If there's really nothing else for us to think about regarding Hyperion, then let's ask him what's been nagging at him... But I don't think that we really need to ask as much as we need to guess since it seems pretty obvious what's going on."
Jayler let out a sigh and shook his head. "Okay, you caught me," he murmured. "I've been thinking about the Silver Knight again. Now that we're back in Hyperion, I can't help but want to look around and see if there's a way for me to reunite with her. I haven't spoken to her since the war ended, and it's really starting to bother me. I'm sure that she's out there somewhere, but... I want to find her as soon as possible."
"That's understandable," Ocean assured him. "After all, she did drop a huge bombshell on you before you parted ways, and even if she promised to meet up with you again... Sitting on that sort of information for so long was bound to make you antsy."
"I want to find her too," Luke admitted. "I want to try and understand why she isn't a Clan Leader. By all definition, she really should be. If she's your twin, then that means that the group should have grown to be seven people rather than just six. The reincarnation cycle has the team growing by one member if the spirit of a Clan Leader reincarnates into twins or triplets, after all... She should be one of us, and yet, she isn't... I really do have to wonder what's going on there."
"We've all got our reasons to try and see her again then," Gemini frowned. "I'm sure that we'll cross paths with her at some point, but I certainly understand Jayler's eager anticipation regarding seeing her again."
"I just... I wish that I got the chance to get to know her better. She's my sister, and if we were in any other timeline, we probably would have grown up together. It bothers me that it's been so long since I had the chance to reach out to her. I know it'll probably take some time to spread the news that we were back on Daragon today, but I want her to hear about it and come out of hiding at long last. I want to know what she's been up to all this time, and if I can help her with it, that would be even better," Jayler told the group.
"We understand that," Lex assured him. "Don't worry. I'm sure that you're going to get the chance to see her sooner or later, and when you do, everything is going to be fine. We're going to be here for you ever step of the way, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Doesn't that sound like a lovely little deal to have going on?"
Jayler grinned and nodded. "Yeah, it does... Thanks for this, guys," he said quietly, looking to the ground. "It's going to be weird having the ability to go back and forth between Hyperion and Earth after we were so used to spending all our time on one side or the other of the Portal. Still, I'm hoping that everything will come together in a great way in the end. There's a lot of cool stuff for us to do over there, after all."
"Including decorating a castle," grinned Xia. "Think about it! We're going to be able to renovate that place however we want. It's going to be a pretty important place from here on out, so we've got to make sure that it's in good condition for everyone who comes through. Imagine how great it could be. Maybe it'll wind up being like a new version of the hideout from when the war on Daragon was going on."
"I know I'm going to prefer the castle already," Gemini snorted. "As much as I loved the hideout, I did not love the fact that it was underground. I could certainly use a bit of extra fresh air above the ground after all the time we spent in the hideout."
"It works out for everyone... Plus, if the castle is large enough, we might get a designated space for our group," Luke pointed out. "I think that would be a good idea if we wind up having enough room. We could give each of the Hanilia factions a designated area to hang out when nothing is going on, and that would encourage unity among the teams that are still going to be getting to know each other. After all, we know for sure that not all of the Hanilia factions are as tightly-knit as we are."
"That's true... Of course, we should probably wait on deciding all of that until after we've gotten the chance to look around the area," Ocean pointed out. "We don't want to get our hopes up only for them to be crushed in the end. There's a lot for us to take care of, and I don't think that we should add destroyed dreams to the list of things for us to contend with."
Jayler couldn't help but laugh at Ocean's words. "Chances are you have a point... Still, I guess we're all in a good mood now. Even if we're relying on Tuila's help, we're going to be able to move back and forth between the two worlds whenever we want. That sounds like an absolute dream, and I know that we're all going to enjoy it."
"Maybe we could convince Tuila to help us to learn how to pass through the Portal on our own," Lex suggested. "That would cut out the middleman and give us the chance to be a bit more independent. Imagine the possibilities there... Then again, I suppose that all depends on if our magic is even strong enough to allow us to move through the Portal. I can't really do all that much here on Earth unless I really focus, and even then, I still feel like it's going to fall apart the second I stop concentrating."
"Me too," Ocean murmured. "No matter how many times I summon little spheres of light, they always disappear the instant I stop focusing... We're just going to have to get stronger then. There's not any conflict on the planets right now as far as we can tell, so that gives us the time we need to train and improve ourselves outside of battles where we're fighting for our lives. That sounds rather nice, wouldn't you agree?"
Everyone else in the circle nodded before Xia spoke up. "This is giving us a lot to think about, I suppose... But I don't think there's anything for us to do about it right now. I mean, we don't have enough information to start planning, and Ocean already gave us all the details found on the paper Tuila passed off to her. Maybe we should take this as a chance to kick back and relax," she suggested.
Luke looked over to the television screen nearby with a smile. "We could always turn on a movie if we wanted to... That could be a nice bonding experience, right?" he suggested.
Murmurs of agreement were shared between the members of the team, and Luke got to his feet before picking up a stack of empty DVD boxes off the table the TV was sitting on. He set it down at the center of the circle before gesturing to it. "Take your pick."
Jayler couldn't help but smile as they decided on a movie to watch. He could already tell that the rest of the night was going to be tons of fun, and he couldn't wait to see what came next.
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Honestly it's a miracle I got this update done given that I was up all night wow
-Digital