Even though the duties of a Gen-oath member can always have the tendency of keeping members hard-pressed and always employed on the field, that's a misconception, they every now and again have time to themselves, it all closely depends.
The Trio had alerts all day but none this day when the afternoon swung by, so Lyle, Ember and Artus returned to their home to relax. Lyle refused at first but eventually the lack of crime, monsters and basically anything to do caught up to him then he returned home to his siblings.
"We are here with Co-creator of "The definitely conquered hero!" with an exclusive interview with his behind the scenes scoops of the show, everyone!!" Said the talk show host excitedly and pumped, "Oh, thanks but let's take a bow of silence for the true one and only creator of these awe-inspiring creations!" Said the co-creator as Artus watched the interview on TV, with Ember sitting in her chair next to the couch.
"Hey Embs, should the voice actors be more famous or like, the main creators of a show?" Artus asked after watching this talk show debate respect in the media world, Ember thought for a second then agreed with the hostess, "The main creators, the executives and Artists behind the show… anyone can act or voice act but they truly put in the respectable work that makes the show what it is..." Ember opined.
"Waaaht, no way!" Artus cried out, "Their works are cool and all, but the voice holds way more essence, way more soul than the look of the character. And sometimes really, way more look than their appearance." Artus argued her reasoning with a confident attitude.
"The look and actions are the "essence" of a character, the animation and the scenes, the design and if you ask 99% of the world this question, oh wait, I forgot there's a lot of people like you… I just realized how doomed this world is actually" Ember argued even more against him.
"Why don't we wait until Lyle gets home, then we'll ask him and have him end this… prove you wrong, lady!" Artus replied, genuinely convinced of Lyle's gonna side with him, "What makes you so sure he'll agree with you and not obvious logic?" Ember questioned.
Artus made a distinctive face and deepened his voice so that he could sound serious, "... Because he's my brother!!" He answered as he held up his fist in the air, Ember sat cringed up with her own distinctive face, "... But he's my brother too, though…" She replied unamused and cringed.
Over time their debate escalated and the both of them only grew angrier to the point each poofed up a weapon and activated their shared indefatigable glow, Artus had his sister in his sights, Ember pointed her blade at her brother.
Before either could engage the other, Lyle poofed up out of nowhere and acted quickly, he disarmed Artus' gun first then teleported and disarmed Ember's sword from her. He used a certain untold pressure point in the arm that doesn't depend on nerves or pain exactly to force them into releasing their weapons. The weapons dropped and made noise when they fell, then disappeared like usual.
"Wh-What the?!" The two exclaimed, shocked and surprised by what he just did to them, "Alright bro, when'd you learn that and teach me, please??" Artus asked and yelled, "He was placed in the Advanced hand to hand class, remember?" Ember answered for Lyle, "Ohhhh riiight, they put me in the advanced sniper's class instead, but I wanted that class…" Artus informed his siblings.
"What's going on, exactly?" Lyle asked as calmly as ever, "Ember and I got into a teeny, weeny, fight over a question I asked about shows." Artus answered his question, "Yep, it was a conversation, then he had to turn it into an argument then he had to turn it into a literal fight!" Ember added while she crossed her arms.
Artus scoffed then yelled, "You drew your sword first, Lady!" As he crossed his arms childishly mocking her, "Oh well, I remember you drawing your gun first, but since you wish to be correct so direly, you're right now!" Ember argued before she poofed up her sword, "Happy?!" She finished.
Artus stepped back slowly and grinned as he rhetorically asked, "Oh, yeah?" In repeat, he poofed up the same 2 pistols.
Lyle himself stepped back and thought in his head, "As always, I'm the chill one again…"
"Ember, you're usually the intelligent one of us three, why'd you gotta be like this?" Lyle stated then asked, "Arty, you got her riled uup again!" Lyle complained a minor bit.
"Wait, be like what??" Ember asked sincerely bemused, believing that minor statement went deeper than it sounded, "A lot of times you're a know it all, but when you don't know something or you want to… you let nothing stop you from believing you do anyway!" Artus answered his sister.
"Sounds more like you noticed my powerful mind!" Ember replied in refusal to believe they were right, "Or you're just extremely boastful and deep down know you're wrong but you use pride as a shield." Lyle thought aloud by accident again when he realized it, he saw Ember glaring toward him, forcing him to look up and whistle as he leaned against a wall like usual.
Ember heavily sighed as she dropped her sword and got on one knee, "Maybe you fools got a bit of a…. Reasonable point?" Ember responded after finishing her glare towards Lyle.
"Nah, it's okay Embs, ya just gotta… remember this talk and try to accept you can be better because always believing you're right all the time, can be just as dangerous as always being wrong." Artus said in an attempt to comfort her while addressing this flaw.
Ember looked up at her brother with her smile slight, "Wow… you're actually sort of like me but with a heart." Ember commented, "I used to think Lyle was the big hearted one and you were just the fatuous one." When she finished, she came off more mean than she was attempting to…
"Heh, that sounded like you said fat choice!" Artus laughed and chuckled, Ember rejoiced after realizing he genuinely didn't know what Fatuous meant. Lyle stood with his arms crossed enjoying the moment.
The Trio spaced out when Artus coincidentally looked down at the floor and saw a peculiar dice laying where he looked, and through what made his jaw drop, influencing the others to look down at it too.
The dice was white but it had strange symbols on it that none of the Trio could read.
"What is it?" Artus asked truthfully unaware of what they were, "They're dice, idiot, how do you not know?" Ember answered her brother showing a pet peeve and flaw, overly reacting when someone doesn't know something most of the world knows, "Don't touch it guys, dice don't appear out of nowhere so I think we should definitely leave this alone!" Ember responded when she realized it appeared out of nowhere..
Artus picked it up when the other two agreed on Ember's idea and turned around to go back to their rooms, he picked it up then dropped it, genuinely unaware of how it worked also…
The dice fell on a strange symbol, rolling by many other symbols by chance like a dice would usually, but when it fell on the symbol it landed on by chance, they all started feeling delirious and each began swaying and stumbling from side to side. They basically had no control over their bodies…
-
Waking up with a massive headache, Lyle remembered seeing a void changing and shifting colors as he felt like and recollected flying through this colorfully shifting void. His voice sounded different, sounded familiar, he stood up and he felt like he was as tall as a mountain. This realization made him hop back a little, the realization that he was now in his brother's body!
Lyle in Artus' body immediately ran to wake up his siblings, they were in poses he noticed that made it seem like they just abruptly blacked out.
The other two woke up as freaked out as Lyle when he first realized they've switched bodies, except his confusion was silent. Before their headaches came, they screamed having no belief anything like this could happen but it can, and it has….. To them. Right now.
Artus surprisingly stood calm after screaming just for the fun of it, "Magic?" He asked his siblings, "Magic??" Ember asked in return, far more in disbelief than he did, "We're gonna need you to explain a little further, dude." Lyle responded to his question.
"A little bit ago, some old dude taught me the "basics' of Grantsing'' then he told me he would translate in English to magic or sorcery or somethin' like that." Artus elaborated more to his siblings.
Ember smugly smiled before she thought of something, "So, to solve this issue we just have to track down Aleph and ask him how to fix this, right?" Ember posed, in Lyle's body, remembering Aleph told her about magic before he left, "Alright yeah, yeah miss genius, all we gotta do is find Aleph and badabingbamboo!!" Artus responded before he pointed his two fingers at his sister, in her own body.
"Alright yeah, then let's start at the place we randomly found him last, I was able to get a great look around from the air and memorize the area and street name I saw from above before I fell into his apartment." Lyle informed his siblings, except in Artus' body.
"Then let's gooooo!" Artus yelled excitedly as he started walking out the room before Lyle could lead the way.
-
The Trio arrived where they found Aleph the first time, but he wasn't there and all of the things Lyle saw were gone... It was completely empty.
"Yep, just like I thought, this isn't Aleph's home or apartment, it was just a temporary resting place for him to smoke in." Lyle told his siblings as the other searched around the other rooms, "There's one other option we could try, guys!" Ember replied, "Let's ask around!!" She gave them...
Asking around went way worse.
-
"Why haven't we switched phones yet?" Artus asked rhetorically, Artus asked for his phone and so Lyle gave it to him, "Who are you calling, dude?" Lyle asked him, "Oh right, Forgot to tell ya guys, Conyrol gave me his number, we homies now!" Artus responded in a more puffery way than what actually happened that night.
His siblings reacted absolutely staggered because of numerous, numerous reasons, "Shame on you guys for judging someone based on his friends, sheesh!" Artus expressed in a disgusted tone, "That's not all what I just did..." Ember stated, "Oof, you got me!" Lyle replied... His siblings placed their head down feeling a teeny bit of shame.
Artus ringed Conyrol and it took a moment for him to answer but he eventually did, Conyrol had just finished freezing a good many of Grey, miniature, muscular troll type monsters.
"Yep, yep, wassup Arto?" Conyrol responded first, "Uhm, Heya buddy, we sorta need help finding Aleph and was wondering if you could help us?" Artus informed him, except with Ember's voice since he was in her body.
A jiffy of absolute quietness happened before Conyrol asked him a question, 'Body switching?" With a straight face, Artus answered him "Yep" quickly... That straight face turned into hysterical laughter, so loud the other two could hear it.
"Stop laughing and just assist us in finding Aleph, damn it!" Ember voiced, Conyrol's laughter provoked Ember's ire.
"Okay, okay, I mean I could probably help but, here, I don't think he's using his charm right now so I'll just call him up for you guys and tell him you're on your way!" Conyrol replied before Ember heard tittering.
"We can hear you laughing, you bastard!" Ember yelled, still filled with some Ire, "I honestly don't, Embs." Lyle corrected her.
-
An hour or so later, the Trio arrived at where Aleph was currently staying, it was at a friend of his bar, he was still in Generil but he was staying in the basement of the bar.
Aleph couldn't stop cracking up at the fact they fell for the easiest magic trick to avoid.
"Guys, I'm sorry, but this is just too hysterical... The way you guys got tricked, you should've been feeling the puissant energy pouring out of it and avoided this!" Aleph informed the Trio, but none of them, besides maybe Artus, had any idea of what he was talking about at all.
"Could you just read what's on this dice or fix us?" Ember got to the point, "I have a feeling these anomalous symbols give some kind of clue." Ember suggested as she handed the dice over to Aleph.
Aleph turned and twisted the dice, to see each and every symbol that was placed on it, he didn't like what he saw at all.
"Okay, fortunately you guys came to the right man, there's a prankster going around town and you guys are the latest victims of one of his tricks... The bad news is, I can't dispel this but the good news is, it'll only last for 24 hours so have fun!" Aleph couldn't finish without laughing some more...
Aleph gave the dice back to Ember, she then started asking herself questions about the dice in her head as she evaluated the dice like him a little earlier, she turned it and Aleph recognized a symbol he didn't before...
Aleph started comically laughing so hard, he began to cry and tears of joy came out a minute, "What's so funny now?!" Ember asked peeved off. The inspiring preserver retrieved the dice from her and pointed to the symbol that truly made him giggle, "This symbol means Eternity!" He continued laughing the same after that with no further elaboration.
"Ugh!" Ember noised as she stormed off, peeved off, inflamed then her brothers followed her, Artus mostly felt content, he was just happy that it wasn't permanent as he assumed it could have been with the worst luck. Lyle didn't care and stood silent mostly. Aleph pocketed the dice. Their emergency alerts rang off, Aaida shot them a message as she and her men were evacuating the people, it read: "Giant scorpion. Downtown right now. GO!" No further words or emotes. The Trio said no further words themselves and rushed off downtown, which wasn't that far from them. They arrive at the scene to witness numerous gigantic scorpions wrecking up the area with no remorse, no regret, no control. Using his strength, Lyle, In Artus' body, grabbed his siblings and pulled them behind a pillar of a building to strategize and talk about the problem.
"We need to be extra, extra careful in this fight, guys!" Lyle started with, "Yeah, none of us has used each other's powers before..." Ember continued with, "Except you and I, Embs, got basically the same set, so let's go!!" Artus finished with, before rushing out to the battle but wasn't used to himself moving quickly and forgot Ember was beyond significantly swifter than him.
Artus ran into a pole but of course, it didn't hurt him since his armor, or more so Ember's armor. The Sanguine sharpshooter got back up, recalled Ember's sword but this time stood where he was and threw it but then it just bounced off the scorpion's pincers like a basketball does to a hoop.
"Oh, C'mon!!" Artus yelled stressed on the first word. The scorpion rushed at him then when it got to him, it started trying to crush him with its pincer.
"So, he seems busy, how do I poof a gun?" Lyle turned and asked Ember after seeing Artus get grabbed up, "Beginner tip, just realllly want the gun you imagine and you'll conjure it up!" Ember answered him, "How do I teleport like you?" Ember asked following after him.
"Beginner tip, stay still and calm, stare at the palm of your hand until you feel that it's hot, then think of a spot you want to be in and once you see smoke in that area, close that palm into a fist!" Lyle answered her before sprinting away to help his brother.
He left Ember embarrassingly confused, leaving her asking "Huh?" As he sprinted off, before she attempted his advice many, many times with no success, "Forget it, I can probably use him or his lethal babies to fight these abominations off anyway!" She thought in her head. Lyle ran out to the battlefield as swift as his brother's body would allow while he summoned an LMG, 100 round magazine and began firing it off on the scorpion that held Artus in its clutches. The gun did nothing to it, but it sent its stinger down to paralyze Lyle, he shot the stinger and chopped it apart with the bullets though. Lyle turned around and saw Ember sprinting into the battlefield and thought of an idea, "Try my knife, step jump move, Embs!" Lyle called out as she was rushing.
Ember made it to him, and using Artus' massive size and strength and Lyle's body's own power and athleticism, he gave Ember the perfect boost that landed her on the head of the gigantic scorpion itself. Using Lyle's Josue-branded combat knife, Ember jabbed the knife into the Scorpion's eyes forcing the scorpion to drop Artus and tumbling he went. Artus got up and scurried away, still not used to Ember's impeccable speed though. The undaunted Trio of Generil while still in their transferred bodies, regrouped as they usually would if they can't individually solve an issue.
"Hm, so my blade isn't going to be enough for all of these scorpions, at least while Ember can't understand my spatial authority as well as she needs to and Artus' suffering in Ember's body makes him a liability, what to do?" Just then, after the Sangfroid paragon realized he had no sure fire answer, an idea that would involve high risk found its way to his mind. Artus began warming up to his sister's speed.
"Embs, could you toss my key over?" Lyle asked, Ember did just that, she searched his pockets then when she found it, she tossed it to him, "Yeah, what for though?" She asked after she tossed it to him with no answers. Lyle in Ember's body leapt and caught it with one hand, with the same hand that he flipped it in the air, caught it again and held tightly onto it before darting to the nearest Gigantic scorpion with all the speed Artus' body could run with, then he launched himself upwards. "If I recall, focus hard on envisioning yourself being cut and shot with holes in you but with an attitude like that isn't enough to stop you. Isn't enough to keep you from your dear ones— isn't enough!" Lyle in his brother's body reminded himself as he sprinted full throttle. An intense thrill came over him, an intense smile after dodging the scorpion's attacks, he launched himself with all the strength that Artus' body had and crawled into the scorpion's humongous mouth.
"Absolutely dirty— yet brilliant!" Ember commented before she rushed in, with the same plan as Lyle in her mind. Ember reminded herself of what Lyle advised regarding controlling his abnormal abilities. Artus viewing his brother's plan in action from Ember's body witnessed Lyle's enormously intense ruby red glow that he wasn't left shocked by in the slightest. "Alright, we'll be needing to talk about how he's better with my body than me after this!" Artus commented aloud after darting toward his own gigantic scorpion. On the way, Artus eventually got used to Ember's remarkable speed, with his control and focus mastered, it's like he just has a speed upgrade since he knows how his sister's powers worked from the start, mirroring his own.
Artus hared his way, dodging the surrounding scorpion's attacks to get to the one he's aiming for, dodging their blows with thought out rolls since that's the only dodging he knows... He's not Olympics worthy like his siblings but he can move, however with Ember's body, he felt free even though he stuck to the same style. The Sanguine sharpshooter in the Blue-stocking blade's vessel ran and hared, had darted to his scorpion then when he felt close enough, launched himself inside of it using a similar method except with a claymore after whetting it prior with a method they curiously discussed with one another in the past.
While not being as swift as her, Ember couldn't help but appreciate and acknowledge her versatile little brother's own stupendous celerity and found herself with no trouble maneuvering her way through the numerous scorpion's attacks with his body. Ember in the Sangfroid Paragon's body continued taking advantage of his agility before she leaped and bounced off one scorpion to his friend but was caught mid-air and got stuck in its pincers like Artus a little minute ago. Sealed by the scorpion's massive pincer, Ember couldn't get herself loose at all, desperately wanting to be released, she committed to following Lyle's tip from moments ago except this time. Terrifically more resolute and caught on with this next attempt. Instead, his body turned into a whopping cloud of smoke, Ember felt tranquil, no pain, no heaviness, she didn't even feel as if she was alive just existing, she felt like she was nothing for a split second before she transformed back into his physical form but remained feeling nothing and instead his muscles went numb until the feeling returned to his body.
She side rolled over as she was on the ground then barrel rolled herself back up, her legs remained a little wobbly but she decided to play support this time in a battle, she noticed as she was waiting for her feeling to come back again, the less occupied... Less dying internally from her brothers were wandering away not caring about their scorpion comrades... She decided to keep them busy.
Lyle shot up the inside of the scorpion he got inside of but it still wasn't enough to get the job he intended done. Thinking harder, desiring more, Lyle summoned something much more heavy-duty, much more fierce, much more explosive and summoned a rocket launcher. With it, he blasted the scorpion to bits from the inside of the creature.
Inside of his own monster scorpion, Artus tried combining his sister's swiftness with her blades and cut up the creature like he swallowed a helicopter propeller, but then he wouldn't be able to do what he always wanted with her powers secretly. Artus smiled joyfully when this idea came to his head, he poofed up a ginormous fantasy-like sword and went to town, with what little room he has, he swung the sword like it was a batter in a baseball fame except far more restrictedly because of the little room he has inside. Lyle crawled out of his dead scorpion as Artus climbed out of his, only to see not all but a few dead around Ember.
"Guys, it seems we were wrong while planning this, it only takes a bit of inhuman strength and some very deathly babies to make them bleed, they bleed out strikingly quicker than you'd think." Ember informed her brothers.
Lyle and Artus could only stare in amazement at how many she exterminated while they were taking down their own. For Lyle, he repeated the same process, for Artus he went Ember's style and the process continued until each one of them was dead. Regrouping after successfully and stunningly more efficiently each time exterminating the monsters, they checked to see how long they've got.
"It was 12:00 AM on the dot when we first woke up, I checked!" Lyle informed the team, "12:00 AM waking up, it's now 1:24AM!" Ember continued, "We have 19 hours left??" Artus screamed overly dramatically before looking lost, "No, Numbskull, we have 23 hours left." Ember replied, correcting him. The Trio waited for the cleaning crew to arrive and to report to Aaida.
"Of course, that was my second guess, guys!" Artus responded confidently, "Hm, no it wasn't, Arty." Lyle replied, "Yeah, no it wasn't!" Artus owned up, obviously in a saddened tone, "It's fine, Art!" Ember commented when she noticed how sad he truly became...
"The old age truly is really gone and of course, one of the impossible obscurities to solve had to be time travel. He was right, compared to time and life, every other particular detail of existence is nugatory!"