The wind howled through Aqua's ears as she sprinted through the dense blue forest. She had no idea where she was going, but she didn't care. She just needed to get away.
Away from the laughter.
Away from the eyes.
Away from everything…
She didn't stop until she reached the coastline, where the dense forest of blue trees of all shades gave way to an endless stretch of white sand and light blue waves.
She collapsed onto her knees, gripping the wet sand as small waves crashed against her, washing over the tears falling from her eyes.
"Why...? Why am I like this?... Why was I born with this stupid curse?" She wept out between sniffles.
Her webbed fingers dug into the shore.
"If only… if only I wasn't born, then maybe everyone would still be–"
Her words stopped immediately as she heard quick footsteps approaching from behind. Her head shot up as the crunching of sand stopped just beside her.
"Hahhh… wow, you're… way faster… than you look."
"Sera…?" Aqua muttered, eyes wide with confusion.
Sera hunched over with her hands on her knees wheezing for air like she needed an inhaler, sweat dripping down her face.
"You… you just took off! I was calling your name and… who knew someone with fins could be such a speedster?" She gasped out before reaching a hand out to lean on Aqua's shoulder for support.
Aqua shuffled backwards through the sand in a panic.
"Stay away! Don't come near me!" She shrieked.
Sera blinked, her face a mix of worry and confusion.
"It's not safe! I-I don't know what's wrong with me… I don't want to hurt you—" Aqua cried out.
A sudden chill spread through the once warm tropical air around them.
Dozens of jagged ice spikes erupted from the sand around Aqua, growing at a rapid rate. Frost slithered outward from underneath her, covering the sand. She clutched her head, squeezing her eyes shut as hard as possible.
"Please… I beg you…don't come closer. Please… I don't want to hurt my first and only friend… so please. Stay away from me."
Sera stared at her silently for a long moment, her face unreadable.
"Okay." She muttered out.
Aqua's breath stopped for a second. She looked up and had a hard time processing what she was seeing in front of her. Sera slowly sat down on the iced over sand, criss-crossed apple sauce.
"I won't leave, though. I'll just stay right here." She said calmly with a subtle warm smile.
"W-what? What do… you mean?" Aqua stuttered out.
Sera shrugged causally.
"You said not to come closer, so I won't. But I'm not gonna leave you alone, either."
"But… but why?"
Sera's warm smile widened past her eyes.
"Because… you're my first and only friend."
Aqua's entire body ceased its trembling, her mouth slightly agape as her watery eyes stared at her.
Both of them sat silently as the blue sun slowly fell toward the horizon of the light blue ocean. The waves crashed gently at their feet, washing away the frost on the sand. Aqua wiped tears from her eyes, sniffing.
"You're gonna get in trouble for missing class you know…" She muttered.
Sera waved a dismissive hand.
"Yeah yeah. The instructor will live. Who cares?" She said before leaning back on her hands, watching the sky.
"I know what it's like to feel alone. To feel like no one understands you, like you don't belong. My world… It used to be beautiful. But then… war came."
Aqua's body slightly jolted after absorbing her words, watching as she clawed at the sand below.
"One day, everything was fine. The next… everything was gone."
She looked down towards the waves crashing at her feet, her tone filled with a depression no one would expect from her usually theatric self.
"My parents… they were forced to protect our home by our nation's leader where they both eventually died in combat. I was so young at the time, so they sent me away—to some overfilled refugee camp on a moon orbiting a gas giant nearly two hundred light years away from my homeworld, barely big enough to hold half of the refugees there."
"There were so many of us… From different worlds, different star systems. All thrown together like discarded trash… I saw things… things no kid should ever see."
Aqua's throat tingled slightly seeing the tears welling in Sera's eyes… hearing the pain in her voice. The way her usual confident, larger-than-life demeanor seemed to shatter under the weight of those memories reminded her… of herself.
"Sera, I—"
"Don't apologize." Sera cut in as she looked over to her, eyes serious as could despite the tears flowing down her face.
"Don't apologize for something that's not your fault. It's because of them."
"Them…? Who's… them?" Aqua asked hesitantly.
Sera looked out to the horizon, eyes hardening.
"The Accord."
Aqua's entire body perked up slightly.
"The Accord? But… aren't they the ones who keep the peace throughout the cosmos?"
Sera scoffed, shaking her head.
"That's what they want people to think."
She turned to Aqua.
"The Accord is made up of five factions, each ruled by a different leader. Together, they control hundreds of galaxies and have influence over thousands more, even partially this one."
Aqua listened, stunned as she continued.
"My world got caught up in a proxy war. A nation on our planet had strong ties to the Accord, and they wanted more control, more influence. But not everyone wanted that. So naturally, a war broke out."
She clenched her fists.
"I don't know which faction was behind it. But honestly? I don't care. One day, I'm going to get revenge. Not just for my parents, but for my entire world."
The waves crashed against the shore as the sun was halfway past the horizon. Aqua wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her chin on them.
Neither of them said anything for a bit again…
Unit Aqua finally spoke.
"I don't remember much about my world because I was so young… But I do remember how big and beautiful the oceans are. No matter where you go, they seemed endless, like they stretch forever."
She tightened her arms around her legs.
"There were so many islands… and each one is so different from the next. Some have sand that glows under the twin moons, while some are covered in frost all year round. The people, the cultures… everything is so unique, you might think you've traveled to an entirely different world."
Sera listened intently, her wings beginning to flap subtle.
"That sounds amazing…" She muttered.
"What about your family?"
Aqua's breath lodged in her throat for a moment, visibly stiffening up slightly.
When she tried to open her mouth and speak about her family, her chest tightened instantly and her head began to throb violently. Her hands shot up to grab her head, fingers digging into her scalp as if she was trying to dig the memories out forcefully. Her breathing turned erratic and her pupils shrank. Sera saw her beginning to lose it and immediately acted.
"It's okay, Aq—bestie. You don't have to talk about it, alright?" She said quickly, forcing a lighthearted voice.
"You know what? Forget all that heavy stuff! There's a holo-theater just outside campus. They're playing this new comedy about a—"
"I killed them..." Aqua mumbled out.
Sera froze. She slowly turned to Aqua, her face shifting from casual amusement to a quiet shock. Aqua didn't turn though… she stared blankly at the waves.
"My people… those who are born with a water affinity are seen as gifts from the universe. Water is… everything. It nourishes. It heals. It gives life. Without it, most beings in the cosmos wouldn't even exist… but… not all of us are seen as blessings. Some… are seen as a curse."
Sera gulped, her wings stiffer than they've ever been.
"There are those whose water becomes something else. Something… unusable for life. Something that destroys instead of nurtures…
Aqua looked down at the ice surrounding her.
…Ice."
"When my big sister was teaching me how to control my essence… something awakened inside me. Something powerful. Something… cold."
The tears began to well up in her eyes again.
"I didn't mean to. I didn't know what was happening. I… I just…"
She bit her lip until it bled, nearly ripping it off. She took a deep breath before continuing again.
"The elders called it a punishment from the gods. They said I was an abomination… A mistake that never should have been born."
A single tear fell down her cheek.
"They exiled me. Sent me to the opposite side of the galaxy. Here…."
She let out a shaky breath, her voice begging to break.
"I'm a monster. I never wanted to hurt anyone… I never wanted any of this… I just wanted to be normal. I just wanted to—"
CRUNCH.
Aqua froze for a second, swallowing her words before looking up only to see Sera walking towards her.
Through the jagged ice poking from the sand.
Through the frost creeping outward in all directions.
Through it all.
"What are you doing?!" Aqua's voice rose in panic.
"Stay back!"
Sera ignored her, silently continuing to march forward.
"Sera please, stop! I-I can't control it! Please! I don't want to hurt you!"
The ice spiked violently around Aqua, her essence flaring uncontrollably. The frost thickened. The temperature plummeted and more and more spiked ice formed…
But Sera didn't care. She walked through it all.
"SERA, PLEASE!" Aqua begged with all she had, her eyes squeezed shut.
Then, she felt warmness… The warmness of two arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a tight embrace.
Her eyes snapped open only to see Sera holding her.
Despite the ice cutting into her skin.
Despite the blue blood dripping from her arms.
Despite the frost spreading over parts of her body.
She walked through it all just to reach her.
"S-Sera, w-what are you—" Aqua stuttered out
"Shhhh…" Sera whispered in her ear, squeezing her tighter.
"You're not alone anymore… I won't let you be alone anymore…. Never again."
Aqua tried her best to push Sera off of her, but it was useless. Sera wasn't letting go whatsoever.
"You're not a monster. And don't ever call yourself that again. You're too beautiful for such a word."
Aqua's lip quivered as more tears fell down her face. Sera pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes.
"I don't know what all you went through. I don't know what it felt like. But I know this—if you were really a monster, you wouldn't be crying right now."
Aqua looked down to the sand below, avoiding any eye contact to the best of her ability.
"But… I don't know what to do. I… I don't want to live with these memories forever. I can't."
Sera smiled softly.
"Then don't."
Aqua looked up at her, confused.
"I know how to take them away. If you trust me, that is… we can make those memories go away forever."
Aqua stared at her for a long silent moment.
"…Why?" She whispered.
"Why are you doing this?"
Sera hesitated for a bit, clearly fighting back tears of her own, but then—she smiled again.
"…Because seeing you in pain like this… I don't know why, but… it hurts me."
As they stared into each other's eyes silently, the last of the ice melted around them. Neither of them could hold it in anymore. They both sobbed uncontrollably. Tears, snot…. some other bodily fluids, dripping on the sand below as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon.
Later that night, the twin moons sat high in the night sky as Aqua and Sera walked out of the holo-theater near campus. Their laughter was heard throughout the empty streets of the city just outside the academy's perimeter. Sera waved her hands dramatically, reenacting a scene from the movie they had just watched.
"Did you see that fight choreography? The way the hero dodged that laser blast was so slow it looked like he had time to write a whole dissertation before moving!"
Aqua chuckled, shaking her head.
"It wasn't that bad."
"Not that bad?! The directing? Trash. The pacing? Trash. The camera angles? Who let an Arkanian worm rat operate the holocam? That director is a fraud. The angles they used for the action sequences were horrendous! The lighting was inconsistent! And don't even get me started on that forced romance subplot. What a waste of screentime!"
Aqua couldn't help but smile as she watched Sera continue her passionate rant.
"So, you think you can do better?" She asked casually.
"Excuse me? Of course I can do better! I already have at least twenty scripts lined up, and not a single one of them is as ridiculous as whatever that was!" Sera replied back right away, her tone seemingly filled with a little offense.
Aqua chuckled again, but then a thought crossed her mind. Her smile faded slightly.
"Hey, Sera… earlier, when we were talking, you said the Accord is a group of powerful factions that control entire galaxies… How exactly are you planning on fighting them? Better yet… taking them down?"
Sera looked at her for a moment, then grinned.
"Well, it's not like I'm gonna take them on alone. I know some powerful people who'll help me make that happen. They're—"
She stopped mid-sentence as she noticed Aqua stopped walking.
Her eyes were locked onto something.
Sera followed her eyes to a massive holo-poster plastered on the side of a nearby building. It depicted a masked swordsman standing atop a destroyed starship. The title read:
"The King of the Stars: A Hero's Journey"
"Oh, that one? It's another ridiculous adaptation of the old fairytale. Some guy unites all the known cosmos and brings peace and justice to everyone. Total nonsense if you ask me. I mean, come on. One person uniting the entire universe? That's the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard." Sera scoffed out.
She turned to Aqua and expected her to laugh or shake her head at the idea as well, but Aqua did neither.
She was staring at the poster in pure admiration. Slowly, almost instinctively, she reached a hand out toward the image of the hero.
And then her hand was grabbed.
"I got you." Said a familiar voice.
Her vision blurred and the movie poster faded into darkness as reality came crashing back.
She was no longer in front of the holo-poster next to Sera anymore…
She was falling.
"Where am I…? Is that… Kai…to?"
The present came rushing back as she felt Kaito's arms wrapped around her, holding her as they plummeted through the sky. Far above, Sera screamed out.
"AQUA!!"
But before she could say anything else, the shadows wrapped around her, covering her mouth, silencing her cries.
Aqua blinked slowly as the sound of wind howled in her ears. The world below was fast approaching.
The next moment, their descent stopped in its tracks. She weakly looked up to see Nara grabbing hold of Kaito's jacket.
She flew them just outside the marked perimeter, landing them safely. As soon as they touched down, Kaeline was already there, waiting.
Kaito let out a breath of relief.
"Thanks for the save. I kinda didn't have a plan for the fall."
"Don't mention it." Nara replied to him, but her eyes flicked towards Aqua, who still looked dazed and unfocused.
Kaito straightened up, looking over to Kaeline.
"We're good to go."
Kaeline barely acknowledged his words, her eyes locked onto Aqua as well before grabbing a kunai from her thigh strap and throwing it into Kaito's shadow.
The next moment she vanished, falling inside of her own shadow.
Nara's eyes widened.
"What in the world kind of ability was that?!"
Kaeline reappeared from Talon's shadow that was cast on a small rock just behind her, grabbing her arm.
"You ready, Talon?" She asked calmly.
"Yeah."
In an instant, the two of them sank into the same shadow before emerging from Kaito's shadow.
Talon walked forward without speaking a word, walking past Kaito, Nara, and Aqua, her multi-pink essence flaring wildly around her.
She lifted her remaining good arm to the sky. A black orb the size of a baseball formed in her palm. The next moment, it floated high in the air, above the majority of the floating debris. Just as the orb passed over the sun, she calmly uttered out two words.
"Celestial Convergence."
The orb seemed to come to life, now looking like a tiny black hole with a tiny accretion disk. The world within the perimeter erupted.
Everything from trees to the entire mountains—all of it was ripped from the ground and swirled into a chaotic vortex, being sucked into the tiny black hole, converging into a sphere from the very land beneath them.
Nara and Kaito stared up in shock.
"This power…" Nara mumbled to herself.
"That thing is huge… It's almost like a small moon being made right in front of us." Kaito thought before looking down to Talon right in front of her, his CPI scanner beginning to flicker in his eye.
Talon: 12,000,000… 16,200,000…
Sweat rolled down his back to his ass.
"Kaeline wasn't kidding when she said Talon was more than capable without her resonance transformation, but… I would've never imagined to this extent. If they're this powerful…"
The sky darkened as the sphere continued to grow, swallowing everything in the perimeter. Talon's essence surged, seemingly warping the very atmosphere around her.
With a single motion, she shot her arm skyward.
The large sphere, now the size of many large mountain ranges, seemed to follow her command.
It broke past the clouds, escaping the atmosphere until it settled in orbit.