Its mid-February and Alura is hard at work at her job, managing to get a few sales in, showing her improvement.
Jeff and Stewart are looking forward to the weekend though, for Valentine's Day is coming up. Alura, not knowing what the heck that is, winds up receiving a lesson from the two, finding out its a day of love.
She's not entirely sure what "love" is, only that it involves kissing and seeing that happen makes her heart tighten up and think of Joe Dark.
Stewart pieces together how Alura's totally in love with Joe Dark and this makes her go silent and freeze up. Jeff doesn't feel right pressing it further but Stewart does, cause he can't let Alura just keep bottling her feelings up when it'll hurt her in the long run.
He tells her to at least try and confess to Joe Dark and see what happens, a painful thought which sticks with her throughout most of the rest of the day.
Julius ends up catching on and sits down with her to provide his usual aid. Alura describes love as painful, when its supposed to be good from what she heard.
Julius thinks her feeling this way is normal because she's not used to so much joy in her heart. The only way she can release this pain, much like what Stewart said, is to confess to the one she loves.
Julius leaves and Alura pulls out the song she had written for Joe Dark on Christmas only to realize...She doesn't know why.
Only...she has to use this to settle the pain in her heart. The rest of the night and most of tomorrow is spent preparing for the inevitable moment of confessing to Joe Dark.
Before dinner, Alura takes her guitar and the paper in hand and prepares to approach him...Only to be struck with immense stage fright.
A knock's heard on the door and Julius answers it to find, much to their surprise, the arrival of Mew and Maria.
Mew's brought Maria here because she has something to give to Joe Dark. She presents a box of her own home-made chocolates as a gift for Valentine's Day.
Joe Dark's stunned cause he forgot it was a holiday and accepts Maria's chocolates, Alura watching on in horror as he eats it and loves it.
Before he can have another chocolate, Alura runs up and swats the box out of his hand in a mad fit of unexplained jealously.
As the chocolates drop to the ground, Joe Dark gets upset at Alura, who doesn't even understand what she did or why.
In her confusion she sprints out the front door. Joe Dark is about to follow her when Mew picks up the paper she left behind and realizes what's going on.
He doesn't explain and instead gives Joe Dark the paper to hand to her later, then offers to help catch her.
Alura's pretty slippery though, as even after combing all her favorite places the three fail to find her.
Mew decides to take a second round with Maria while Joe Dark catches his breath back home for now. Julius chimes in once their gone, however, subtly hinting that she had merely snuck off to the roof.
Joe Dark sighs and goes up to try and talk to her by himself. Once he calls out to her presence she drops her illusion and is seen crying uncontrollably.
She wants him to go away but he's got to set her straight about how rude and bratty she's being. When it gets too much for him though, he raises his voice and wants her to stop tip-toeing around the issue.
Alura turns and expresses how much her heart hurts, and that its HIS fault. He's confused, naturally, which Alura takes as a sign that he just really doesn't care about her at all.
Of course that's bullshit because he wouldn't even have come up here in the cold if he didn't care.
However, Alura reveals she heard him talking with Julius before about his future plans, which causes Joe Dark to bite his tongue and realizes he might be the dumbass here.
He tries to defend himself by saying she was going to be told eventually, but she's not stupid enough to realize that he never had a definitive date planned.
She reminds him how he ran away from her before and wonders what's wrong with her NOW. She starts breaking down in a crazed rant and tries to use her illusions to make Joe Dark see her as other people until she's presentable for him...
Only for him to break through and grab her shoulders, telling her he likes her the way she is now.
The only reason he struggled to tell her was because he didn't want her to be burdened by his life choices. He'll become the President, so she can't be chained to that.
It doesn't matter to her though, cause she wants him. Joe Dark thinks they're just friends though, and sometimes friends just...part ways.
Alura expresses the true depths of her pain as best as her limited vocabulary allows her, leading to her finally confessing her love to him.
Joe Dark trembles and takes some time to understand what he just heard. And he doesn't know how to respond, cause...how could someone have fallen in love with him of all people?
Alura doesn't know either, only able to explain it as attachment due to the fact he saved her life. And beyond that, he listens to her while everyone else thinks she's weird.
She's happy because of him.
Joe Dark still worries that he'll never be able to keep her happy with how much he'll need to commit to being the President.
But Alura doesn't care how far she has to go, she wants Joe Dark to be sure that he can rely on her too.
Joe Dark starts to feel like he's being too stupid or stubborn, and wants to be absolutely sure she's committed to her feelings.
Alura plans to follow him to the end though, as there's nothing he can do to disappoint her.
Joe Dark confronts his cold heart and finally warms up to her feelings, choosing to love her too. They hug, briefly mind you, only to find it hard for their first time.
Joe Dark then whips out the paper Mew found and hands it back to her.
Alura decides to pull up her guitar and sing the song on it. A beautiful melody emerges from her lungs, which Joe Dark compliments with genuine heart.
He thinks she'd make a good musician someday, and she shyly hangs her head to thank him.
Alura then presses him on what he thinks of her appearance, and if its "sexy". Joe Dark says she's cute instead, and that's fine.
Alura is glad he's fine with that, because she thinks she'll be like that forever. However, Joe Dark notes she has grown a little bit already since her father died, so she's not going to look this way forever.
Alura takes that to mean she might get as big as Lunis someday. Joe Dark teases her for thinking such things.
He tells her not to worry about her father anymore, and also, to maybe start raising her voice a little more when she needs to express herself.
Joe Dark and Alura spend the next few seconds yelling out their frustrations, Alura eventually managing to reach a tone similar to what she takes when she sings.
In a passionate moment following Alura tries to leap at him to give him a kiss...Only to fall off the roof and land in the pool.
The two pull themselves out and embrace each other to stay warm, then decide to head inside and warm up in front of the TV to watch a movie while eating take out.
And as they celebrate...Akumu watches over them, happy to see that his sinful fruit shall soon be sowed...
A little time later, an unlikely group consisting of Riku, Lunis, Solaris, Joe Dark and Alura make their way to the most dangerous location built by man...The DMV.
Turned off immediately by the drab atmosphere, needless to say the only one in their ranks who is positive is Lunis and even then just barely.
They prepare to get in line when they're stunned to find Mew at the back of one of them. He's here with Maria to get, what else, a driver's license.
Joe Dark calls him out for needing one while Riku's more calm about asking why.
Mew explains it as getting a rush from driving that you can't normally get from flying.
Lunis can't believe he would've read a book ahead of time to learn how, but Mew didn't. Of course not. He's confident though, cause he's played a lot of driving video games.
Joe Dark offers sincere prayers to whoever is stuck with Mew.
They wait out until they get to the front of the line and then hand off their ID cards so they can take the test. Unfortunately there's only two cars available at a time, so they'll have to wait.
Joe Dark goes first to get his anxiety gone. Solaris is the other person going, and he gets into his designated car with his own examiner.
He fumbles at first with shutting the door and the like but manages to show a surprising degree of skill behind the wheel despite panicking in his mind at every possible turn.
Really though its the fear of Samantha's opinion if he failed that kicks his ass into shape.
So he manages to succeed in getting his license and Joe Dark returns not long after, having done the same.
Lunis and Riku step up next, with Lunis getting into the same car Solaris was in, her body making the examiner nervous with temptation.
Lunis has some bits of nervous and winds up talking out what she needs to do quite a bit before being told to stop. But ultimately she succeeds, though that's not really too surprising.
Riku passed too, leaving the stress of failing on the shoulders of Mew and Alura. Mew teases that Alura will be the failure, only for her to bite back with a rather good comeback.
Even Mew admits it was good, frustratingly.
He takes Maria with him to his car, slyly managing to sneak her in with some honeyed words towards the examiner.
Turns out this was all according to plan, as to compensate for his lack of book smarts Mew had Maria draw out the instructions on her little drawing book so he'll be able to see them in his rear view mirror.
And it works...to a point.
It doesn't take long for Mew to be gripped by a need for speed and once on the freeway, he starts pushing the car up to 100 MPH.
His speeding gets caught by Alura doing her test and she has to hastily use her illusion powers to keep her examiner from noticing.
Meanwhile, Maria knocks out Mew's examiner with gas to keep him from doing anything, which even Mew thinks might be crossing the line.
Nevertheless they avoid the cops tailing them and return to the DMV, where the examiner wakes up and seems to have forgotten the last few minutes.
SOMEHOW Mew manages to get his license out of this and thanks Maria for her teamwork. The two are acting pretty high on their horses until they return to their friends.
Alura immediately storms up to them and calls Mew out for being a sham.
Mew admits he MIGHT have gone over the speed limit, making Joe Dark question the legitimacy of Mew getting the license.
Yet Mew manages to swerve out of danger with some smooth talking and some help from Riku trying to get them to celebrate over their success.
However Mew nearly spoils it by making them realize well uhhh...they all still need cars.
Mew feels happy knowing he can use his powers to make a car, though Joe Dark laughs at the prospect.
Solaris is the only one not soured by this news, as Samantha will let him use her car whenever she allows it.
Riku and Mew pity Solaris for being reduced to a simp, and the group share a harmless laugh at his expense.
But hey at least Solaris has his job and a girlfriend. On a later night he's busy serving people their drinks with Samantha's aid, the two of them having a blast with each other.
However the "fun" gets crazier with the arrival of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Gabriel wanting to enjoy some drinks at Gabriel's recommendation.
Of course Solaris is aghast but whatever, customers are customers so he has no choice but to tolerate their presence.
Samantha and Jupiter hit it off over drinking experience immediately which worries Mars, but he doesn't try to get involved for his sake.
Saturn is deemed too kiddy for drinks and that annoys the heck out of her, as her universe saving exploits SURELY have earned her the right to some drinks.
Samantha likes her bluster and figures there's no harm in letting her hit one cold one for the fun of it.
The group chat is up for a while, passing off conversation partners save for Gabriel, who really only finds a fair conversation with the bar's boss, Zeke.
Zeke reveals that he knew Gabriel's true identity as an Aurian way ahead of Samantha figuring it out from Solaris, cause of his connection to Prometheus.
Gabriel suspected as much but doesn't sense any animosity from Zeke so doesn't get aggressive against him. However, he is curious as to why he's bringing this info up now.
Zeke laments that the man he was inspired by died long ago and his corpse was finally buried in that fire months ago. His ambition was corrupted by hatred towards what humanity had become.
That doesn't excuse his actions in his eyes, but he wanted to at least express that there was once a good man in Prometheus.
At the very least, that corruption didn't harm Samantha. Zeke is happy to know she's got friends and can laugh every day.
Gabriel raises a glass to that, and Zeke decides to break character to enjoy a drink too.
Not long after that, Julius rolls into the bar. Him and Zeke share some brief animosity due to their old jobs but aren't going to settle affairs now when there's no point.
Julius gets a drink and him and Gabriel get introduced to one another at long last. They talk about the youth they watch over and the love that's in the air around them. As a matter of fact Julius is only here because Joe Dark and Alura are enjoying a date at the movies.
Zeke, Julius and Gabriel sort of lament having no fair maiden of their own to return to, recognizing that age is going to get to them soon enough.
So they decide to toast to the hope that their young charges' loves will be everlasting.
Saturn soon interrupts, having becoming crazy drunk off not even a full drink. Meanwhile though Jupiter's down drinks like an elephant guzzles water, surprising even Samantha.
While Mars tries to restrain Saturn a little, Jupiter and Samantha share some girl-talk about their respective boys.
Needless to say the subject of sex comes up and Samantha impresses Jupiter by mentioning her taking Solaris' "heat" multiple times already.
Unfortunately Mars cannot really hold Saturn down for long so it forces the Aurians to head out before Saturn damages someone.
Samantha had fun though, and it sort of inspires her to want to make this bar a place for all of Solaris' buddies to hang out and gather to talk.
Solaris thinks she's asking for trouble but that isn't too surprising at this point. She's not making a hard commitment to that plan though.
Solaris thinks about his dad and looks up at the ceiling, wondering if he's proud of what he's managed.
Mid-March soon rolls around and Mew and Riku are together, taking a simple stroll through the city while talking about recent events.
The subject of Ba'al and Beerus comes up with Riku feeling guilty for not being there to help. But its fine in Mew's eyes, cause at least Riku's been able to enjoy the peace.
Riku suddenly asks a curious question about the type of girls Mew likes, with Mew feeling pride that his brother has tastes in women after all.
The two exchange curious details, though Riku's more specific and is clearly pining for Lunis from Mew's perspective.
Mew chuckles and then the two pick up some sodas for the road, continuing on into town where conveniently enough, is also where Alura and Joe Dark work.
Mew wants to go pester Alura cause she's been a pain in the neck recently and ends up heading into the music store she works at.
Turns out Alura's been spreading some rumors about Mew to Jeff and Stewart, leading him to be called the Perverted Couch Potato.
Mew slings back by calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2, denying all claims that he's a pervert.
Mew then turns his attention to Alura and prepares to show her what its like to thrown down with disses.
However, Alura winds up calmly and professionally disarming him by stating they're a place of business and if he has no plans to buy anything he needs to leave.
Mew tries to debate it but Alura stonewalls him, forcing Mew to ultimately just cave and buy a CD for the hell of it.
He feels like he's been conned and by ALURA of all people. Needless to say this won't end here, though Mew worries she's going to become trouble someday with all the bad influence she's getting.
Either way, next up is saying hi to Joe Dark. Naturally he wants nothing to do with Mew's jokes during work, but really...Mew just wants to invite him to lunch.
...Joe Dark agrees just to have a change of pace and meets up with them in a half-hour to go have McDonalds.
They order their meals and sit outside to enjoy the fresh air. During which, the subject of Joe Dark becoming the President comes up.
Joe Dark's a little embarrassed to talk about that but brings up his resolve. He knows he's got a long ladder to climb from retail at Safeway, but he's going to do it. Damn it, he's going to do it...For Alex's memory.
Melancholy spreads among the three, broken by Joe Dark chuckling, saying he's going to miss having moments like this when he becomes the President.
Mew forces Joe Dark to promise to abuse his Presidential power to just get out of work for a day and join them for the occasional lunch.
Riku's worried though that him and Mew will eventually have trouble scheduling things when THEY have jobs.
Mew thinks it'll work out like all other things tend to, which by now Joe Dark is willing to believe.
But on the subject of jobs, however, they wonder what Mew and Riku will do later on.
Mew's finally figured it out...Race car driver! Its like, honestly the perfect job for him. High-octane action without fear of his powers providing an advantage.
Riku's not sure however, because...Well, he suddenly goes silent for the rest of their meal.
They say farewell to Joe Dark for now and continue to stroll a little longer. Riku reflects on the past year of his life and how surprising it is that many of their former enemies are just...settled down into normal life.
And Riku pins it all on Mew. He believes that Mew is the glue that binds them all together, and also their heart.
Mew's flattered but thinks this came out of nowhere. Riku insists his message is true, even if Mew's too humble to believe it.
And he wants Mew to hear something else, something he's very hesitant to explain...
Before he gets the chance though, they receive an urgent telepathic message from Auris...Shina's water has broke. She's having her baby.
After some fumbling trying to find a hospital where Shina might be, Mew receives a warning from a very angry Auris that they're doing the childbirth at her place.
Mew and Riku rush in and find Gabriel there, and the house shaking terribly with the sounds of Shina being in labor.
This is apparently normal for Aurians. Gabriel explains that Auris' touch is necessary to deliver a child cause it soothes the baby with a familiar bloodline aura.
Riku and Mew try to relax on the couch cause they have a lot of time to wait for Shina to have the baby. Kairi's been made aware and will be arriving shortly, while Mew suggests telling the others, even if the likes of Joe Dark and Alura won't be able to make it until later.
Gabriel contacts Solaris and manages to get Lunis to come up in a couple hours, but Solaris will have to come later.
Kairi charges in and immediately tries to check on Shina, only to be yelled out.
Kairi drags herself back to the living room and looks pale as a ghost.
She worries about Shina's condition and fears she wouldn't want to have a child herself if this is what its like. Even Riku's worried about Lunis getting scared of childbirth cause of this.
To alleviate some concerns, Gabriel discusses the benefits of an Aurian's childbirth.
There's a lot of measures in place to connect a fetus with the pure essence of Aura in order to help it develop its own Drive.
There's a cycle to Drives, in when one person passes, the Drive returns to the Aura to be renewed by another. Someday, even his Drive will be given to someone else.
There is a minor worry about Shina's child not having a Drive though, as the fact Alex isn't a pure-blooded Aurian muddies the waters a little. He even cites that this has happened before in his lifetime.
It seems to be a measure by the Aura to ensure its power isn't abused by other bloodlines. That's also why Auris is necessary, as the familiarity in the bloodline is necessary to break the shell surrounding the baby. Otherwise, the aura would respond by crushing the fetus.
Despite Kairi's screams against it, Mew wants to know how this process would work with twins. Kairi stops them both from continuing though.
Eventually they turn silent...And over time, so do the screams Shina utters...But worst of all, silence follows. No sounds from her, and no sounds of a baby.
Then, there's crying. Lots of crying...
Auris comes down and the shake of her head confirms enough.
Kairi rushes upstairs while Gabriel slowly follows. Auris can only say "Sorry" in her most timid whisper before returning upstairs.
Mew collapses into the couch, refusing to believe that the universe would be so cruel as to rob Shina of her child.
But during all that, he overhears Riku worrying about this same thing happening...to Lunis.
Mew catches on and Riku's unable to really take that back.
He confirms the events that happened between him and Lunis on Christmas Eve, how they were a victim of innocent passion that ultimately...Has led to Lunis being pregnant.
Riku already knows their child's going to be a girl and refuses to abandon her despite his doubts about raising a kid.
However, that's assuming he even gets the chance.
He's given it a lot of thought lately because of this kid he'll be having...How the "higher-ups" problem still hasn't been addressed, and at any given moment their world could be wiped out without them even knowing why.
He doesn't want his child to live in a world where she won't be able to live a full life. He begs Mew to give him some kind of hope, ANYTHING that'll help him make it through the night let alone tomorrow.
Mew can't stand to let this stand any longer. He realizes how foolish it was to just turn a blind eye to what's happening and pretend they can leave their lives in peace.
Choosing to break a promise for the first time ever, he leaves Riku behind for now...To speak with Auris again about the "witch".
Story 10 END
