Everything had been set up, Dragan had worked through the night with the Kuro and Neso to get everything ready, and a shrine had been set up just in the middle of the village, I was to walk from the fields to the shrine. Everyone got up early, it had been nothing but the talk of the town for all but 3 days. At this point expectations were high. Sybil was about to come online with only a couple of minutes to spare.
Finally, Dragan and I heard her reassuring robot voice, with a tinge more human than what you would find with A. I am back during my time on Earth.
However, I was starting to feel like she had a lot more personality than she was letting on.
>Sibyl's system is back online
>Sun God in confinement; ready to deploy.
"So that's what she was doing," I whispered to Dragan who was at my side.
Kuro, Neso, and Dragan were transporting me like I was some kind of pope. I was to be presented to the shrine, which I believe had a statue of Bastet for protection.
Sibyl?
She popped for a moment in our vision and left.
Aah! Um..
Maybe she needed full questions, otherwise, she just went back to the background.
Sibyl, how can we know Zomearon won't just show up like last time?
>There are still many unknowns about this individual for me to make a full assessment.
>The probability of him showing up is less than 15%, but no more than 62%.
Which is it?
Can't you just look into your database or whatever?
"I don't think that's how it works," spoke Dragan in a whisper to me.
A crowd had formed like we were some type of NASCAR track of something.
>Unfortunately, I only know what you know.
>My prediction abilities are only within logical parameters
An exasperated sigh left my mouth. I scooted over near Neso.
"Hey, uh, quick question," he perked his ears. "When we release, the Sun God, how do we know Zomearon won't show up,"
"Oh he will be here, but, if we can cast him out with one-time use zeals. He won't be able to see our barrier shields after that, and the village will disappear from the map to him, that is if you break the seal he holds over us, our barriers will do the rest," explained Neso, why didn't they tell me this earlier?
I nodded and gave him a look that said I was ready, except maybe I wasn't.
Sibyl, can you do that?
>I'll initiate a program once the sun god has finished merging with the current celestial body.
I'm curious about that too, what exactly is going to happen?
>The Sun God will make his home inside the star.
"It's where it's supposed to be," said Dragan in a thought.
Then what was it doing in Tarragon?
"It was there when I arrived," said Dragan through telepathy. "It had always been there."
Too many questions. Too few answers.
Speaking of unanswered things, Kuro was at my back, carrying the pile of wood I was sitting on with one hand.
He was taking his job seriously. He yawned with a mopey face, did he need some sleep?
We had stayed up all night after all.
It dawned on me, is Zomearon has everyone under his control, what's Kuro's relationship to Zomearon? Something must have happened if he was in his evolved form.
Kuro seemed so happy and go-lucky in his blissful unawareness - so I wasn't sure I should ask.
This was no time to deepen my bonds with him!
I needed to focus on the task at hand, even though I hated being the center of attention.
Finally, we made it to the middle of the village. There the elder was waiting for us.
They put me down and I jumped to a pillar at the center of the temple, Bastet at my four corners.
The sun was rising north of where we were, Grimalkin village had several mountains that encapsulated it. The sun was shining behind them.
"It's time," said the elder.
"Sibyl, whatever you're going to do, the time to do it is now," I said to her as I pushed my little slime arms out of my body.
>Massive amounts of mana will be released unto a single point
>User discretion is advised.
"Everyone stand back," I shouted. They all took a step back.
>Initiating.
Suddenly in front of my eyes, what I can only describe as a cube with moving fractals inside of it appeared as if a single point in the space around us, it got big enough like the size of a rubrics cube.
Then suddenly my body felt like it was on fire.
I gritted my teeth and pushed my neck upwards, the water tensed around me, and the pain was incredible.
>Transferring Sun God into 4D fractal imprisonment, please hold.
I couldn't bear it anymore, I let out a scream, it was curling to the ear. The mana flowing through me felt like a million burning suns, except it wasn't hurting me.
It was just the initial scare.
I realized this and stopped screaming, my breath shortened, but in a moment I was able to stabilize it.
My scream turned into a grunt, as if I was pushing all this mana out my body and into the cube in front of me, I could see the fractals start to burn themselves, each little whole filling up, with yellow, but at the same time it was like it was folding in on itself. I've never seen anything like it.
Suddenly the ray of light coming out of me stabilized and got even more powerful. For a moment I was able to touch it, I could feel it. This is what source mana felt like.
But I couldn't keep it for myself, they tried to convince me I should have, but I ignored the voices in the flares.
Then with a high-pitched scream, it was over like the moment it started.
My body came back to normal, and I was left taking heavy breaths.
>Initiating the second sequence.
Sibyl suddenly moved the cube and took it up into space, everyone went outside the hut that was the temple to be able to see what was going to happen.
From the sky a giant beam flashed from the cube and into the sun, it took a couple of moments to reach into the sky and then outer space. It was something else from down here, but the view from outer space must have been spectacular.
The mana emanating from the cube lasted all but 8 minutes until it had been depleted, and it was all just flowing toward space, some of it had missed the mark and stayed within Earth's orbit.
>Success; The Sun God has been restored to its celestial body.
>Margin of error held within acceptable 3% range.
Thanks, Sibyl, you did a good job.
She stood there staring at Dragan and me without saying a word and then just left.
Was she shy of compliments or something?
The man that had been thrown into orbit, clashed with the atmosphere and turned nice purple colors, it reminded me of the aurora borealis. But with a nice orange background to it, as the sun was finishing pushing past the titter top of the mountain.
"So, does it work?" I turned to Dragan.
>Mana influx through the sun's rays should start as new rays fly off from the star
"We still have another 8 minutes to go," I said, everyone just gasped in awe. A crowd had formed around us, their fluffy skin bouncing against us.
A voice suddenly chilled me from behind.
"Hello, like I've been here the whole time," said Zomearon as he just appeared seemingly out of thin air behind our back.
Neso and Kuro got into a defensive position.
"Neso you betrayed me once, but Kuro as well, I'm disappointed in you two,"
"Kuro!" I shouted.
"You don't control me anymore!" Kuro shouted. Without my intervention, the chain broke, or more like it just flew out into the world.
"This is how you treat family?" said Zomearon to Kuro.
"You're not my family anymore, we serve you no more!" he said with a powerful roar. I started to see the other chains and the chains he had on the village.
The sun's rays were starting to hit us now.
>Purification ritual commencing.
As if Zomearon knew, he pushed a sharp object towards me, but it missed by a couple of inches.
Mana flew out of me, and into the village. Where the Bastet statues were, they all started shining and pushing mana outwards, it flew like a sea through the village. When it touched someone's house, it made those chains toward Zomearon disappear, soon all of his chains were gone, and his grasp on the village was completely gone in just a matter of seconds.
Zomearon is now visibly angry.
"This game you're playing will get you nowhere with me, don't you understand, you're playing with fate! This is inevitable."
can't fool us anymore, we have the power to fight back," said Neso.
"That's -" said Kuro but was pushed to the ground by Zomearon janking on his chain.
I saw it now.
The one on Kuro was different. It wasn't made of metal, but a soft cuddly texture.
Zomearon had already once talked about fate. But it didn't make much sense, now he was once again spouting nonsense.
"Neso! Kuro! Expel him now!" I shouted. Kuro and Neso ran towards him with two talismans they had previously acquired from the elders.
They managed to get to Zomearon before he could react and put them on his body.
Zomearon shook violently and suddenly was projected out into the sky.
>Reinforcing the night veil over the village.
With those words, the sky passed over a ray of light, like it was made of glass, Zomearon crossed the veil. And everyone took a normal stance once more.
That was that.
"What'll happen to him?" I asked Neso.
"He'll come back down, but to a forest at night, hopefully, it'll buy us enough time," said Neso. I imagined Zomearon trying to get out of a forest wondering like a lost dog.
"He will be able to use magic when the wards blow off," said Kuro.
"How long will that be?"
"Not for a very long time, he'll be stuck in that night forest,"
So that's that - I thought to myself.
"Come on we have to get up there," he said grabbing me and putting his arm around me.
Everyone grunted with slight annoyance as Dragan pushed against them with me in his arms.
Did he want to climb the mountain now?
I tucked away myself inside his shirt, and made myself like a backpack around his back, he took his shirt off and now was able to move both arms and legs.
"I'm borrowing some magic okay?"
He activated me, my body grew red.
>Mana hotspot activated
>User 'Dragan' is currently accessing mana transfer.
"You won't give out, will you little one," he said as mana suddenly went into constant influx through a point in his back, my body felt his body, this was different from before.
There was trust, real trust between them.
My love for him complimented how much he took, I didn't mind giving it to him, as long as I could generate more.
>Mana gate opened, throttle at 99%.
>All systems are optimal.
"You heard the lady, Dragan take all you want,"
"I was running on empty anyway," he said with a wry smile, I could tell just by his voice.
He pushed a jumping spell towards his legs, then gained some momentum, and pushed onto the ground, we flew thousands of meters into the air, we landed but with great grace, and then it was just a matter of parkouring ourselves through cliffs and slides that went up, then grabbing one rock after the other, Dragan was fast at this, really fast, he was getting faster still.
I could feel him change, his body that is.
Suddenly his skin felt prickly, but smooth with scales, his muscles even more ripped than before, if that's even possible, and his breathing was almost silent apart from a few grunts here and there. The village was getting tiny at this point, and just like that, we made it to the summit.
"We're here," he said. I got really sad for some reason. He didn't have to rely on me anymore, not that he ever did anyway, for magic that is, he's so self-centered with some things, he only relies on himself, I wish he had just opened up a bit more to me, even though he did do that, for some reason, even those times back in Tarragon, I felt like he had been vulnerable with me in one way or another, that he had left himself be seen.
Even if he had bad intentions because of the prejudice placed upon him.
I knew that now.
"I want to stay here for a while longer," I said. "I don't wanna see," I covered my eyes with little hands even though I had managed to make the straps as large as his shoulders, but still had left them loose enough.
It was airtight.
But movable.
"It's okay, it's just free mana," he said inhaling a deep breath and extending his arms wide apart.
He took deep breaths, and then suddenly the mana hit us like it was some type of shockwave, the sun rays had actually sort of deposited mana in the air.
"This is incredible," he said. "It's like I can breathe for the first time," he had closed his eyes and just let the mana touch him.
His body changed, slowly at first then all at once, from his forehead, two horns started to grow, his muscles got some type of sharpness, then from his back, out sprouted wings, they were translucent and made of hard ligament.
"Woah!" I shouted. "You get wings!"
He crouched gasping for air.
"We should get down," I said. "It's too high up, you're losing air, come on let's get back down,"
"You're right," he said in between short breaths. His forceps suddenly gained a reddish color, and his skin became like a protective armor.
I couldn't take it anymore.
"Let me see your face," I said and detached myself from his back, pushing myself in front of him.
He hadn't changed, his face was the same, except his teeth were bigger and popping out of his mouth, like massive sharp and pointy stones, they were almost comically big, but still made sense on his face.
His horns made semi-circles around them. His nose had been made a little bigger. Honestly, he looked like a troll from a comic book or something.
His eyes were cat-like, yellow, and with diagonal pupils.
"How do I look?" he said catching his breath.
"Like the person you're supposed to be," I said suddenly cuddling up to him, he was rather cute in this form. He smiled, he still had that dumb quirky smile. I rubbed my cheeks against him.
He was still him, there was nothing that had changed bout this personality, he closed one eye and pushed back with his face against mine.
"This is thanks to you," he said. I wanted to give him lots of kisses, but something off in the distance caught our eye.
We enjoyed the mana breeze for a second.
"I've been thinking, what Zomearon said just now, what if he intended for this to happen, what if he's also part of the loop?" I asked Dragan.
"Then he'll be back, he'll figure out how to use mana inside the veiled forest, we will see him again, that's for - "There was a beat, and Dragan realized something in the distance.
"What is that?" he said pointing towards a black spot in the sun. We both looked intently at it,
it was a spot in the sun, but it got bigger and bigger.
"Is it some type of sunspot?" said Dragan.
>Enhancing
Sibyl pushed my POV forward, and then another time, I still couldn't make it out, one more time on the zoom level, it started to make sense, it had wings, and was flapping them intently, one more zoom level, and I was face to face with another dragon.
"I think it's a Dragon," I said. A blue flash ran across the figure in the distance, and suddenly
it was landing on the mountain, just inches away from us, the teleportation spell leaving a blue mist in the background.
A full-scale Dragon was in front of us, its wings massive, red armor scales, with claws for days, and a large tail, burning at its end. It had angry eyes, tinted with magma. It was muscular like nothing I've ever seen.
That was one big lizard.
It huffed at us, with little sparks coming out of its mouth.
"Not just any Dragon, that's my dad," said Dragan trying to conceal an awkward laughter.
"You're DAD!" I shouted, at the top of my lungs.