AN: It has come to my attention that the spacing I use is ineffective, as the formatting on FF dot net is lacking in how it carries it across.
I use proper spacing for paragraphs, some of the capitalized words after commas are necessary, however it does not carry across my intent.
Again, I write this primarily for my own enjoyment, however I will keep this in mind and may go over each chapter from the beginning when I have the opportunity.
Jade and Sternum were teleported outside the table room, both glad to see the other were unharmed, save a few scrapes, bruises and cuts from their battles alongside their respective people, completely confused by the appearance of the immense magpie-mimic owls, and more than a little annoyed. They had been mere moments away from death, they were certain, and while thankful for being able to keep breathing, both warriors had accepted that they would fall fighting the hated enemy of all life. Or so they thought, until Kemet had popped into everyone's head jubilantly, the owls began appearing and both had been saved by the skin of their backsides.
Though forewarned of the appearance of their maker, neither Jade nor Sternum had known what to expect, and neither were prepared to see a second doppleganger of Pyrus next to Khilseith. Once they entered the room and saw for themselves the almost identical Firians, Jade had her hand on her pistol and Sternum readied for a fight, both relaxing and blinking when Pyrus smiled at them.
"Hey, sorry, I forgot to ask Sam to warn you both." Pyrus grinned sheepishly, Jade narrowing her eyes and tilted her head slightly, skeptical of what she suspected. Pyrus' increasing grin and response in her head saw her throwing her arms up in exhasperation. Khilseith and Samateus laughed lightly at the whole thing, the rest raising brows in question.
**Being like dad is going to take some getting used to. For everyone, sorry Jade.** Pyrus attempted to placate her ire, Jades hands going to her hips indignantly. He blushed furiously at her mental retort, Khilseith laughing aloud before going silent at a suddenly appearing and very powerful presence.
"No need to be vulgar now, Empress of Rock. My Ward has no ability that all of you lack. Instead, it is dormant, primarily from lack of use and understanding." Everyone stiffened at the shadow that rose from the floor next to and slightly behind Pyrus, unfurling from the bipedal form of their maker. Jade and Sternum's eyes went wide, everyone in the room having varying reactions of awe, concern, terror and hope. Even Khilseith, who had met Leon before long ago, stiffened and lowered his gaze, Pyrus unfazed and looking up at Leon with a wry smirk. Leon scoffed lightly, grinning right back.
"Of course he's alright. Took me a bit more than I had hoped, however, Xerxes will be fine. He's resting, I'm quite surprised at how long he lasted without my interference, he gave quite alot for you." Leon wryly explained, waiting for Jade and Sternum to be seated, appearing to ignore Samateus for a moment as she grinned toothily at him, Kemet sprawled on one of her horns in a miniature form. Pyrus nodded, sighing as he understood the extent of his father's impromptu gift to save his life following the crash, Khilseith glaring lightly at Leon who bobbed his head sadly a moment.
"Ok, this is almost too much. You seem way too friendly for coincidence, what the hell is the connection between you and Samateus?" Sternum frowned, pointing at Leon briefly. He used to love keeping secrets and weaving stories to make others second guess his motives and actions, but this was too much for Sternum to simply step back and let happen. Femur was too close to Pyrus for him to sit by and watch as who he swore could almost be another younger brother was taken advantage of by yet another. Leon narrowed his eyes briefly, looked to Pyrus who shook his head lightly, the new feline-appearing figure visibly relaxing as he started to understand more of those his new Ward saw as friends and family.
"Apologies, it's a lot of information to share, but I'll do my best. As Xerxes had before, it's probably better to explain from the beginning." Leon stretched his wings back and shook himself lightly, visibly relaxing further as he was still slowly recovering from being in a hundred-year slumber. "My name is LeonLocke, though Leon is my preferred moniker. I lived as a mortal for a little over eighteen years, and nearly a thousand times as long as I am now. When I was young, Samateus was only known to me as an Avatar of Ashtareen, who I had only known of and interacted with for a handful of years prior to meeting her for the first time. I had three children, one of whom is Kemet." Leon paused a moment, Kemet trilling and happily purring from his spot atop Samateus' head.
"After a great deal of time, stepping back to watch my fellows from my homeworld make their share of mistakes and govern as had been done for millennia before I was born. They ended up nuking the planet, almost destroying everything and my family with it. Other species, living alongside and even underground in comparison, pushed them off-world, and I went with, from obligation to my younger sister, who is presently in stasis, but I'll get to her later." Leon paused again, flicking an ear lightly as he took in a deep breath to steady himself. Pyrus watched him with concern, the rest able to tell the two could almost feel each other's emotions as their own, this sentiment seemed to bother Zera and Graveheart, Pyrus sadly smiling at both, yet refrained from responding to their concern.
"The Ark was our method of transportation, but more than that, as the star that powers it is actually a sentient being, named Aureiahnna, who was gifted to me by Ashtareen in my youth. She is what helped us make the world engines, create the many peoples and non-sentient species for the worlds we left behind. Few of them remain, humans or Terrans as some have come to call them in other realms, aboard the Ark, and I let them live as they please, only asking that they monitor the cryogenics storage for the genetics samples from Earth -my homeworld- to ensure no undue harm comes to any of them. I do have the means to recreate or duplicate existing samples, however I like to keep a buffer on the off-chance I come across a suitable world for terraforming to a second Earth. That was originally our plan, had sat on for a long time before I and Xerxes had our brief time working together, but had been put on the side when we... Dabbled in something we shouldn't have, and created Voyd." Cryos frowned at Leon's admission that he had created Voyd around the same time that Xerxes had been working with him.
"Oh, no, not that recently. Voyd has been around about three thousand years. Most of that he was silent and quiet, started off originally only about as big as a Voxx unit." Leon then waved a hand, conjuring a ball of shadow that was only about the size of Tekla's hovering companion, a miniature version of the massive black sphere all of them hated. It hovered around him much as the others had come to see Tekla's companion do, the small conjured sphere promptly evaporated in a puff of smoke when Leon dismissed it.
"It listened to commands, helped with disposal of chemicals and irradiated material for a long time without comment or complaint, and I vastly underestimated it. Aureiahnna warned me many times that it reeked of Setesh's influence, yet had no malice in it in the early years so I left it alone. When Xerxes came to me with Samateus to ask for help with Molostroi, Voyd had bolstered his size to a small moon, and I still did not heed the warnings directed at me from my own companion. Regardless, Molostroi's illness is very similar to what plagues my sister, Integral, and Samateus introduced Xerxes and I in hopes we could help each other. I through my own hangups, and him through his own. She and I have known each other for years, she came to Earth in my youth to help us with an Avatar of Setesh and increase in void occurences that would have seen my homeworld torn apart, worse than what humans had done themselves. While we tried for years to work through and figure out the issue with our family members in stasis, the only thing we came up with was the inhaler Xerxes himself uses. From what I understand, it's been refined and updated while I've been slumbering for a hundred years, but I and Pyrus are hopeful we may come up with something else more permanent." Leon stopped speaking then, Samateus making an off comment privately which made him snort and grin at her. "Yes, it does feel like an old bureau briefing... Regardless, I should also mention this, Samateus and Xerxes, and the Ahr'aht, aren't from our universe."
"Wait, seriously? How did that work?" Femur blinked almost comically, the first to voice their opinion and question of those who were not familiar with him. Leon smirked, glad that he could be candid with the Bonean and not worry about intimidating him, despite what Pyrus had shared. Leon looked to Samateus who shrugged and sat back in her chair.
"Ashtareen. She popped me through Luminous rifts similar to how Voyd was opening rifts before to attack us, I was able to open one big enough to get the Surrithae Alliance and the three World-ships through at the time. We were wanting to explain that before, when we mentioned multiverse theory, I guess it kinda slipped through everything else." Samateus sighed, slowly meeting the gaze of the others. Femur accepted the explanation, but remained unsettled, wagging a finger accusingly at Leon.
"So exactly how did you give Pyrus all this information, why does he look like he spent a year with you while the rest of us were just kinda, here doing our best not to die?" Femur almost growled, Sternum and Graveheart most shocked by the outburst. Jade raised a brow, sitting forward and grinning lightly, Pyrus shaking his head.
"Easy Femur, or you're going to give Xerxes a run for his money in being a responsible adult."
"He still has plenty of time to do so, at his own pace, Jade." Leon chastised, eyes narrowed as he felt Pyrus was slightly offended by the rebuke. "Xerxes had his share of difficult choices to make, leaving a child behind was not one he made lightly. Not when he was perfectly capable of remaining, despite what might have been seen or said about his surviving that battle." Jade almost deflated, eyes wide and not realising beforehand just how harshly her words might have been received, her apologising wordlessly to Pyrus was met with him shaking his head, offering a sad but understanding smile in response.
"Too soon, yeah?" Zera interjected, glaring lightly at Jade herself, but sat forward and looked pointedly at Leon. "Honestly though, you seem way more attuned to everyone's thoughts at once, not like what Xerxes or Samateus or even Pyrus now can do."
"I've had a long time to hone my abilities, and longer still to understand my own failings in much of my life. One thing that may be difficult to beleive, as I mentioned earlier, is that every one of you has the ability to use psionic speech, it's just dormant for whatever reason. Bringing Pyrus to me, to my personal realm inside the Ark ship, I was able to gift him information and insight he needed to continue as my Ward -the one holding my contract in a sense- and a bit of extra healing as he was still not quite at full strength. I needed him to be, his people need him to be, and as far as I'm concerned, he's still very much the Pyrus you all knew, with about a years more experience." Leon quickly glared down Cryos, who had seen it as stealing a year of Pyrus' life and was about to berate Leon for such, Pyrus quickly interjecting.
"It's a lot like, but different from the Foundation Chamber, where things going on inside the Ark -or Leon's private realm- aren't happening in the real world, so time moves differently. I don't feel any different, maybe a bit stronger, but I'm still me."
"I just hope our people see things the same way." Blaze interjected, speaking for the first time during the entire event. Pyrus looked at him sadly, sighing lightly and nodded after a bit. His gaze rose and met Leon's, who grinned promptly and chuckled, Pyrus' eyes going wide.
"Are you sure? I mean, I thought they died out?"
"Of course they'd want it to look that way. House Firehawk has just as much skill at hiding in plain sight as the Leopards and Wyrms. No one sees them out and about, but they are there." Leon's grin made the rest uneasy, but was soon revealed to be more playful as Pyrus chuckled and met Blazes' confused and concerned look.
"Yes, Blaze, some of the lost House Firehawk survived the assault on their volcano all those years ago. Turns out, Cinder is from that family." Pyrus explained, the rest blinking comically as they were completely lost. Khilseith and Samateus wore their customary knowing smiles, but refrained from commenting due to their preference for the others to speak their piece.
"Okay whoa, I have to know this first, before we start talking about anything else. Why in the hells, did Ashtareen not get called to help us instead of pushing for Pyrus to wake you? I mean, that would have given us a chance to get away, to toss the Beast back to the edges of the galaxy again instead of stopping it outright due to your presence, but wouldn't it have been easier to call her again?" Sternum interjected, Leon's ears perking up and forward. Instead of speaking he looked to Samateus and Khilseith, who appeared to pale.
"Because a loyalist to Ashtareen, one recognised as her Champion who has received a vision from her at least once, must be the one to call on her. An Avatar will come or listen to the call and allow their bodies to become her conduit." Samateus explained simply, sighing herself. "Khilseith is loyal, certainly, however as he is first and foremost a General, he's not able to call on her as Xerxes can. Leon could, probably, but he was asleep and outside of my jurisdiction."
"Jurisdiction, meaning that I'm more dark aligned and can't actually call on Ashtareen through Sam, because I am not mortal." Leon added, sounding saddened by it.
"So am I understanding this correctly, only a mortal who has received visions from Ashtareen can call on her? And Xerxes is the only one we know of who has, so if he died we'd be left to fend for ourselves?" Sternum frowned, almost glaring at Samateus who solemnly nodded.
"Unfortunately, yes. Hopefully though, Ashtareen may find others who can do the same amongst the rest of the Alliance, however, unless they are able to broadcast their request for help, I may not hear it. The Virtues, I can summon one or two for aid if I'm strong enough at the time, but I wasn't able to today as I'm still recovering from earlier in the week. I know I don't show it, but I am beyond exhausted and sore after channelling Ashtareen, even for a few minutes, probably will be for another week. So unless we were even worse off, if Leon had been still too far, I had to refrain from calling on Aardreith or the others." Sternum frowned at Samateus' explanation, but nodded that he understood, though remained quite unhappy about it. Leon chuckled lightly himself, offering his own sad smile to the Bonean Emperor.
"Would you be okay with deities suddenly popping up whenever people asked? I certainly appreciate a bit of insight from them on occassion, however it gets overwhelming trying to explain their existence and appearance to the general public, as I'm certain you're all aware." Leon swished his long tail lightly, still slowly relaxing his stiff and sore muscles from being asleep for so long, idly brushing a lock of his hair back behind his right ear, which revealed a scar from his hairline to his jaw, barely missing his eye. Jade and Graveheart raised brows at it, Femur and the others lightly gaping. "OH, sorry, something from when I was a child. Training accident." Leon lightly motioned to the scar, picking up on the concern and light shock from the rest, Pyrus smirking himself knowingly. Sternum sat forward and frowned though, as the scar looked almost new, Leon expressing it was a constant reminder of what he had given up in order to stick around as long as he had, a visible mark on him, but nothing that pained him regularly. While explaining this, Sternum relaxed again, nodding that he was satisfied with the response and explanation, he and the others finding they could not think of anything else to ask offhand that had not already been explained, or had been referenced in passing already.
"I also want to elaborate a little bit on what we were mentioning in reference to House Firehawk, Leopard and Wyrm, before any of them are encountered firsthand, but that means I have to also show you a bit of actual magic. Transmutation, summoning, both are forms of magic that we both can use that is also used by the three groups I mentioned before. There's another I've not mentioned as I'm not certain of their current situation, but we'll get to them." Leon chuckled, seeing that he still had the full attention of the group, Graveheart frowning that Tekla and Capacitor were being kept out of the conversation.
"Tekla and Capacitor already know all of this, they've been too occupied with their own people and the shield array to worry about Magic and the fact it's as real as the science that helped make all of us." Pyrus offered, grinning lightly at Graveheart who smiled and chuckled, shaking his head that Pyrus had started picking up his father's habits, which made the Prince blush slightly.
"For example," Leon then reached back and gingerly plucked one of his smaller feathers, holding it between a forefinger and thumb lightly. He concentrated on it, invisible markings along his face and arms slowly beginning to glow with radioactive green light that matched his eyes as the feather warped and reformed as a long black arrowhead. It changed again, instead becoming a blue rose that he then lightly tossed at Zera, who caught it gingerly and blinked almost comically as she gingerly ran her fingers along its stem. "Just a small example of what can be done, and why none of your worlds have lost any mass despite the many millennia each has existed. Sand is a unique example of this, they have systems that work similar to how I can conjure and transmute things on a smaller scale, that's why they only have the one city-state on the planet. While I am irate that much of what I had left behind for them had been forgotten and borderline ignored for centuries, if not longer, I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt to the Sunians for their quick response when Ashtareen was envoked in their presence." Leon almost glared at Samateus, his smile betraying his inner contentment for how she had been doing her best to help while still keeping his secrets. Pyrus looked to Femur then, the rose reminding him of something else they had all encountered.
"Femur, how's that clipping from Jungle doing anyway?" Femur almost groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face again.
"It's almost taken over it's entire greenhouse, and I haven't even been giving it anything extra for three months."
"It also knows each one of us when we enter, whips vines at me to keep me away from pruning it." Sternum added, smirking lightly as both looked from Pyrus to Leon who blinked, fur and feathers fluffing up lightly.
"Jungle gave you a clipping? I'd be happy to rehome it for you, the sample we had on the Ark died some millennia ago due to age." Leon almost purred, genuinely happy that the sentient plants had seen an opportunity to continue to survive even when their home had been sacrificed. Pyrus grinned sheepishly at Leon, who privately asked why he had not mentioned it earlier, receiving a light shrug and Blaze laughed.
"Too occupied with his own, which I hope is understandable, Lord Leon." Blaze bowed his head lightly, Leon appearing stunned and gaping lightly as he realised why, the memory from Pyrus regarding the loss of over three hundred Firians in a single event transmitting to him in a moment, wings and ears visibly drooping as he gently lay a hand on Pyrus' shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I... I should have pushed you to come to me sooner." Leon held his ears flat back and closed his eyes, appearing pained. Pyrus offered a reassuring pat on Leon's hand, smirking himself despite the wrenching of his heart in his chest.
"It can't be helped, just have to keep going for them, right?" Pyrus' smile relaxed everyone in the room, the understanding that loss and death were commonplace in their lives needing acknowledgement and the support of the group for each other would help even those outside of their spheres of influence. Graveheart chuckled, knowing that Pyrus was only saying what they all understood and needed to be reassured of often enough, he himself having been the one to do so many times over the last two years. Leon suddenly perked up visibly, turning to the door that opened to allow Cinder to enter, who saw Leon and was on his knees in a breath, Leon laughing at Pyrus facepalming lightly at the display. Leon chittered at Cinder, who straightened up cautiously and carefully rose, appearing intimidated and uncertain as Leon approached him.
"I... Yes, here though? Maker, I've not been able to change forms in many months, I worry I may do more harm to the ship. Even in here." Cinder's hesitant smile and grin at the rest nearly had Samateus in stitches, only Pyrus and Khilseith rolling their eyes at her, the rest completely lost.
"Not in here, of course not. It must have been a while, if you forget just how much space your wings take up." Leon laughed, the sound helping reassure the rest that they would understand what the two were talking about soon, tilting his head aside briefly and smirking. "Zuma and her kin are waiting for our appearance on Sand, Ramset is going to end up wearing out the supports on his armour if we don't show up soon." Leon chuckled, looking briefly to Cinder almost expectantly.
"The engine is running again smoothly, I was initially headed here to give my report, my understudy can cover for a few hours."