Seril stirred slowly. Her body was aching all over. The last thing she remembered was getting rag-dolled by that murky ball of liquid, and then she blacked out from the pain.
'The twins!' Seril thought suddenly and whirled her head searching for Emmia and Icarth.
What she saw were two floating cocoons of condensed universal energy and no sight of the twins.
'Are they in there?' Seril questioned after picking up their scent from the balls of light. Trying to move her body, Seril found it extraordinarily stiff and unresponsive.
Groaning slightly, she made her way toward the twins. While moving, she felt warmth enter her body.
'What the..' Seril thought looking around. There, she found that the entire location was dense with universal energy. It was rising from the ground and was acting as some sort of barrier from the outside.
Seril watched as the universal energy entered her body and nourished her while fixing her soreness and pain. The energy was warm and gently enveloped Seril's body. Getting a feel for the energy, Seril felt an unexplainable sense of loss fill her as a distant memory tried and failed to surface from the depths of her mind.
Seril paused for a while to enjoy the warmth while that sense of loss was slowly washed away. Refocussing, Seril inspected the cocoons which contained the twins.
'Hmm, it doesn't feel dangerous. It looks like the universal energy is nourishing them like what it's doing for me but on a bigger scale.'
Confirming that it wasn't dangerous, Seril settled herself in to watch the twins. Suddenly, she felt the pillar shudder around them. She swiveled her head towards the source and saw the universal energy of the barrier fighting against an external source of energy.
'That thing is still there,' Seril shuddered. She squinted her eyes trying to make out what was happening outside. Vaguely, she could make out two beings clashing against each other violently. The strength of the beings was powerful enough to shake the pillar just from the aftershocks of their battle.
'Strong,' Seril thought frustrated. She needed to get stronger. Seril felt pitifully weak at this point and wanted to get stronger to protect the twins, which she had decided to do. She just had a feeling she needed to protect the twins to find out about her past. That and she didn't mind protecting them either.
'Wait, what if I try to absorb the universal energy around me?' Getting an idea, Seril started to absorb the energy surrounding her. Confirming that it wasn't hindering whatever the twins were going through, Seril continued to absorb the energy surrounding her. The energy was especially potent for some reason. Seril felt her strength increasing by the second.
Inside the pillar, a short spiral of universal energy formed around Seril. While Seril was trying her hardest, there was no way she could exhaust all the energy in the pillar unless she had a power similar to the beings outside.
Seril hunkered down, absorbing universal energy, keeping an eye on the twins, and an eye on the battle outside.
Outside, everything seemed to calm down. Seril raised her guard. She didn't know who had won or if they had malicious intentions.
She pushed her mind furiously for a plan when the being entered.
When Julian entered the pillar, he didn't expect to be ambushed by an adolescent lioness with crimson eyes. Universal energy swirled around the lioness as she used it to enhance her body.
While Julian was surprised, he still managed to dodge easily and face the lioness.
"Easy there, I'm not here to hurt anyone," Julian said calmly, raising his remaining hand in the air.
"Who are you?" Seril demanded, not letting her guard down.
"I'm Mia and Ica's grandpa, Julian Struze," Julian introduced himself.
"Grandpa? You don't look like a Dread Lion," Seril commented after scrutinizing Julian, who looked like a humanoid lizard with wings and horns.
"Well, they are adopted," Julian replied with a small smile.
Seril didn't say anything and continued to observe Julian. She didn't sense any malicious intent and taking in his scent, she found it to resemble Ica and Mia's.
"What happened to that purple thing?" Seril asked after she remembered the polikinnate that had almost killed her and the twins.
"I killed it," Julian said calmly. "Although, I did lose an arm." Julian rubbed his right shoulder ruefully. While the wound was still fresh, it wasn't bleeding because he had blocked it up with his universal energy.
Seril gazed at his arm and then noticed his other injuries too. His horns were damaged and bent slightly, while there were other scratches and cuts on his scales, but strangely no blood.
During the fight, Julian had to tank some of the lesser hits. He had neutralized the wounds with his universal energy before they could spread and kill him.
'Guess I am getting old,' Julian sighed softly, and asked the lioness, "So, are you going to keep being on guard?"
After everything she had seen and heard, Seril relented, "fine I believe you I guess."
Julian chuckled softly, trying to ease the tension. "What happened to Mia and Ica?" He asked after seeing the cocoons of universal energy.
"They were like that when I woke up," Seril answered cautiously. Even though she decided to believe what the man said, she couldn't fully bring herself to trust him.
"Hmm, looks like they are finally awakening their gifts," Julian sighed in relief after observing the cocoons. Initially, he thought that Distortion had done something to affect the twins. But, it looked like his worries were for nothing.
"So who are you?" Julian asked even though he already had an inkling.
"Seril," Seril answered.
"How did you meet Mia and Ica?"
"I rescued them from drowning,"
"Thank you," Julian expressed his heartfelt gratitude. If Seril wasn't there, then he would have probably never found the twins again for the rest of his life....
Seril was slightly surprised at the thanks. Her distrust slowly started to melt away. Maybe he really was a caring grandpa after all.
"Old man, how did you meet them?" Seril asked curiously.
"They tried to rob me," Julian answered with a smile.
Julian broke out into a fit of laughter after he saw Seril's face to his response.
"Hahaha, it does sound weird when I say it like that doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Seril replied, turning her gaze back to the twins.
A few moments of companionable silence passed by, in which Julian was setting up a welcoming gift for the incoming guests.
Then suddenly without warning, the pillar of universal energy around them trembled and split into two. The cocoons started to destabilize as well as all the remaining universal energy in the air rushed inwards to the cocoons. The cocoons swelled dangerously and began to unravel revealing Emmia and Icarth in an unstable state. The barrier around them fizzled out as the twins stopped floating in the air.
Julian turned serious, something had gone wrong. He acted swiftly and caught the twins with his remaining arm before they could fall to the ground.
"Old man, what happened?" Seril asked, her voice trembling slightly.
Julian furrowed his brows as he checked the conditions of the twins. They were burning up with what seemed like a very high fever. Both of them were shivering in pain it seemed as their bodies continued to change. Icarth's legs were no longer human legs, they were covered in dark brown fur which outlined a changing set of legs that seemed like a rabbit's legs, but bigger.
Emmia had also changed, parts of her skin were crystalline in nature, and they just kept spreading throughout her body while she trembled in pain.
"I...don't know," Julian replied after a moment's hesitation. Before he could theorize on what happened, Emmia opened her eyes slowly.
"Granpa?" she called out in a weak voice.
"Mia, I'm here," Julian answered her in a reassuring voice.
"It hurts," Emmia whispered. Everything hurt. She vaguely remembered being in a white space and everything after that was a blur of pain. She looked up at her grandpa and saw his draconic face. Even though Julian looked vastly different, she still recognized her grandpa's voice. Breathing out heavily, Emmia felt suffocated as pain rattled through her body over and over again.
"Make it stop..." Emmia whimpered in a pitiful voice.
Julian's face turned grim. He couldn't figure out what was going on, and now the other polikinnates were almost upon them. Gritting his teeth, Julian pulled something from the air and turned to Seril. Seril's eyes were currently fixated on the twin's bodies engulfed in pain. She couldn't seem to take her eyes from them as countless thoughts ran through her head.
'What went wrong?'
'Should I have gotten them out before something like this happened?'
'No, the universal energy was fine before, it looked like some external force acted like this.'
'They look like they're in so much pain.'
'What should I do to help? Can I even help in this situation?'
'Maybe....what if I used my gift and sent them into their minds.....no that would be even more dangerous than what is going on right now.'
"Seril, take this medallion and the twins with you," Julian said shaking her out of dangerous thoughts. He handed her a small medallion that looked more like a coin with a faded engraving of a woman on it.
"And go where?" Seril asked in confusion. She took the medallion and placed it in between the fingers of her front paw.
"I'll be sending you somewhere where you can get help for the twins. And someplace safer." Julian added as he placed the twins gently on Seril's back.
"What do you mean it's not safe? Didn't you already kill that purple thing?" Seril asked nervously as her senses weren't warning her of anything.
"There are more on the way-" Julian hurriedly tried to explain. Then 'they' started to show themselves. Slowly one after the other polikinnates started to appear in the night sky.
As they got closer, Julian's welcome gift activated and a multilayered spatial lock formed, protecting Julian's group while separating and trapping the other polikinnates on the outer layers. In some spaces where weaker polikinnates were trapped solo, the spatial layers collapsed on them and crushed them to death.
"Time to go," Julian commanded. He gathered a significant portion of his universal energy and started to plot a course to Aster city.
"Gramps....are you going...to fight.." A weak voice sounded out. Julian turned his head and sat Ica staring at him. No, more specifically, where his right arm once was. Emmia, who had shut her eyes from the pain, reopened them to look at Julian.
Both twins were staring at Julian, who didn't seem to be in much pain that he lost his entire arm.
"I'll be fine," Julian reassured with a small laugh.
"Didn't you say.....you were weak.....," Icarth struggled to articulate his words. He was terrified at the thought that his grandpa would be fighting against all those beings all alone and without an arm.
Julian was stunned for a moment before cracking out a grin.
"You're right. Then why don't you become strong first and then come tell me that," Julian laughed.
"Now go," Julian smiled to reassure the twins. A rift opened in front of them leading straight to Aster City.
"Make sure you take care of Mia and Ica, Seril," Julian said.
"....stay alive old man," Seril glanced at him one more time before entering the rift where the trio traveled as Julian's energy protected them from the volatile spatial energy.
The last thing Emmia and Icarth saw was their grandpa waving at them while behind him the spatial lock crumbled and fell to reveal hundreds of polikinnates. Little did they know, this would be the last time they saw their grandpa in a very, very long time.