In a dark meeting room filled with thirteen chairs, six on both sides of a long table and one at the end, the only light source came from a wide screen behind the executive chair.
But these chairs were not completely empty, and obviously, the screen wasn't just there to provide a little lighting.
"It's been a while since we last came together like this... And, I see you've gained quite a little weight, Gren."
The woman sitting opposite to the man who had just spoken gave a false smile. "And you still smell like fish, Payn."
"Hahaha." Payn laughed. "You can't run a beautiful province like Coity without taking a swim with the marine life once in a while."
"But to do it so much that you even look like a part of it... just stinks." She pinched her nose and looked at him with disgust.
"You..." Payn grinded his teeth.
The two bickering harmlessly had now become the temporary focus of the meeting. However, as they went on, their ranting started to become annoying.
"Geez, you two have been like this since day one. Why don't you get a private room and see how that works out?" William rocked his chair back and forth as he interrupted Payne and Gren's argument.
The two cleared their throats and sat straight on their seat as they finally realized that there were people watching.
"What? No you take your legs off the desk. The meeting hasn't started yet anyway." William spoke again, but this time, to his assistant who was nagging him through the shuriken shaped earring on his ear. "How'd you even know I was doing that? Get off my back already." He turned his communicator off.
"Speaking of starting the meeting, when is that going to happen?" Robert asked.
"Whenever you're ready."
The eleven people currently in the room shook with surprise as Lucius' body started to materialize in the chair at the end of the table. But he wasn't alone, as Katie also appeared, standing beside him.
"Woah!" William pushed his chair a little too hard and fell on his head. "President, when did you and Kat get here?" He stood up.
"I've been here from the start, watching you secretly this whole time—"
"We arrived a minute ago, but the President insisted we come in unnoticeably to make it look like we were punctual." Katie's monotonous voice interrupted Lucius' dramatic lie.
"Thank you, Katie. You just ratted me out in front of these jokers." Lucius' body slumped into his seat."
"Sorry, sir."
Regina chuckled. "So I take it that Mr Richard won't be able to make it?"
"He's extra busy at the moment. And you know how cranky he gets when I interrupt his work."
"You interrupted his work, didn't you sir?"
"I interrupted his work!" Lucius shook his head as he gave a cheeky smile. But soon, his smile receded.
"Now, the space dividing barrier has been broken, and all three of the island's divisions are now one.
A lot is going to have to be put into calming the citizens down and rearranging Ansel's systems. So let's begin, shall we?"
Before the main discussion commenced, the eleven castellans stood up and gave Lucius a bow of greeting.
———
"The President's really taking those young'uns seriously. Are they preparing for a tournament or something?" William laid on his back, resting his head on a soft, white object.
Kisha pushed his head away from her lap, only for William to drop his head on it again.
"It couldn't be because his daughter is a part of them now could it? Because, it's one thing to have the Castellans teach them personally, but another crazy thing to have an A-ranker amongst the rest of the Black ranks. I mean, that poor guy would probably die spending a single training session with them."
He started to rub his head over Kisha's lap while she tried to pull her skirt down.
"Ugh!" She grunted in frustration.
"Sir, maybe if you read the students' data files for even five minutes, you'd understand why." She glared at the man below her.
"Yeesh, if you would have been this grumpy, why come to my seat in the first place?"
"Sir, this is the couch for visitors. Your seat is over there." She pointed to the desk in front of them.
But William was stubborn. "Hey, this is my office, so the chairs are also mine, okay? Now let me see the data files you're talking about." He turned his head to look at her angry face above his as he spat out silly facts.
Kisha handed him the screen in her hands and then rested her head on the wall.
"Hmm." William soon started scrolling till he got to the data of the student he was looking for. However, he really didn't see anything special in his records—
Level: 69
Ability: Pending...
Team function: D
Battle function: S+
Strategy planning: S+
Fighting techniques: S+ (Invented a fighting style.)
Equipment: A+ (Needs better resources.)
Threat level...
William rubbed his eyes in confusion as he looked at the last line of information. 'What was his name again?'
Name: Asher Tuttel.
Threat level: SS.
Warning: Teachers are expected to keep all guard around this student, as any atrocities he causes under their watch, will be blamed on them.
"What the hey?" William blurted.
"And sir, the amazing is that he's not the only one with a calamity class threat level."
"Who else?"
———
"Apocalyph!"
Yenn called out. However the white haired man had already taken a great leap towards his home in Neath.
"Haa~" Yenn sighed. The man was too much of an anti—team player.
"Sibling problems?" Enzo walked beside her after passing through the security check of Neath's main entrance.
"You have no idea..." 'What you're talking about.' Yenn looked behind her.
"Weee!" Jiten soon came running out of the wide space in the colossal wall, jumping around with Neven's car above his head.
"Hahaha!— Ooh!" However, Enzo suddenly swooped in and threw a punch at his stomach. Neven's car disappeared and reappeared safely on the ground.
"You know, you could have done that teleporting thing before letting him take you for a spin like that." Yenn walked towards Neven.
"Yeah. But he just looked so happy when he was doing it." Neven shrugged as he stuck his head out of the open car window.
"Don't let that deceive you. He may look like a cute pup, but he's got a heck of a bite." Yenn warned.
"That's how the world is isn't it? The prettier reptiles usually have the worse venom."
Enzo pulled Jiten by the collar, and just when Jiten's butt was about to hit the floor, a floating disk suddenly came out of nowhere to lift him up as he was being pulled. Soon after, a young boy came looking for his Buoy-board but couldn't find it, as he was soon pulled away by his parents.
Yenn looked at Neven and smiled. "I look forward to your ascension, Mr Neven Clery.
As she walked away, Neven just stared dazedly into thin air. That smile, why did it fill his chest with so much warmth? He wondered.
Her scent was still lingering in the air; a blissful and cleansing mist of vanilla and lavender. Neven closed his eyes with a smirk, inhaling. He liked the state he was in at the moment.
But good things don't last forever right?
[Congratulations! Your sexuality has been confirmed.
Standby...]
"Wait, what?" Neven suddenly fainted, slamming his head on the edge of the open car door and then falling back to inside it.
———
Yenn walked through the forest to an open space with her house in it. The building was a single storey tall modern house, with a sharp—edges—and—beautiful—shapes exterior.
It's wide windows and polygonal walls were completely black though, and there were no doors or windows to pass through it. At least that was how it looked till Yenn walked up to the front of a flat, square shaped wall.
The wide glass parts of the house lit up in purple and white lines crawled everywhere around its walls.
Without stopping for the wall, Yenn walked through it.
GOOD MORNING MISS YENN.
A feminine voice sounded all around her.
"Take me to my room." Yenn yawned in the dark space she was in and a door shaped space opened up.
THE BATHROOM HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR A NICE AND RELAXING BATH.
As she got into her bedroom, she walked towards a door and it slid open.
After a few minutes of freshening up in the bathroom, she came out wearing purple pyjamas and a cap over her head. She made her way to her bed and picked up the medium sized screen on the desk beside it.
"It's the 16th of August, 4043. That means it's been exactly two weeks and seven years since then." She smiled with a touch of sadness, longing and nostalgia in her eyes. "Wherever you are, I hope you're okay, Asher.
———
Asher's body was shaky while sweat dripped from his unconscious face, down to Nova's bed. From the way he was acting, one could easily guess that he was having a bad dream.
Nova's left hand, voluntarily moved towards his black hair. "There there." She whispered in her sleep as she rubbed his head. "It's not the same, but mom always does this to calm me down."
Her hand suddenly started to glow white as she caressed his hair. "I wish I could do that glowy hand thing too... Maybe you wouldn't have left, if I could do it."
A teardrop slid down her closed eyelids as she dreamt of how she wished she could have comforted Asher just like how her mom could comfort him then.
But without her even knowing it at the moment, she was recreating her mother's unique touch. If Nova was being watched, the religious ones would have probably said,
"The Core has answered her prayers."