12: Black is Beautiful!
2752 Words
“You’re the last one to come out Azalan,” Zorg greets me with a hug. Holding the sword in my hands was a victory to me. “It’s time for us to get out of here and show them that these swords have come to accept us!”
“Thank goodness,” Dizane sighs in relief. “I thought you have failed sister!”
“I can’t fail not with all of you succeeding,” I boasted. “Where’s your sword, Axent?”
“Inside my pillow, of course,” Axent shows the Eternal Sword Labyrinth Library to them. “My pillow has many uses after all~”
“Uh family…” Zorg taps my shoulder, “Don’t you think it’s unnecessarily dark?”
“Now that you mentioned,” Dizane looks around confused. “There should be a lot of lighting around to illuminate this place.”
“Something’s not right,” Axent notices a movement from the darkness surrounding them. “Is anyone there?”
“Is this part of the test?” Dizane brings out her Eternal Sword Phobius Orchid. “I have mastered the art of inducing total fear. If you don’t come out, I, the Ice Queen of Fear will devour you!”
“S-s**t,” Zorg feels very afraid and raises his Eternal Sword Knightingale. “This is the first time in fifteen years that I feel scared…”
“Stay down,” I smelled something… something very familiar… the scent that I’ve always longed for, “Dad, is that you?”
“Wait, are you sure that it’s dad… I mean… father?” Dizane lowers her guard. “Then, this is a funny prank dad! Come on out we miss you!”
“If big sister says that it’s our father,” Axent puts his weapon back in the pillow, “it is our father.”
“Dad,” Zorg yells like a kid, “Come on out, we miss you so much!”
…
…
…
“Oh really,” he appears as the darkness disperses away. “You’d just believe your sister just like that. I was about to surprise you but… you ended up surprising me instead.”
The way he looks does not resemble the father we know so much. However, he is our father no doubt about it. We did the only natural thing we have to do… throw ourselves at him and give him a big hug! Dizane hugs his left arm while I hug the right, Zorg hugs his legs, and Axent hugs his torso. With all our weight pressing onto him, he falls down on the floor.
“Dad, we really miss you so-so much!” Dizane wipes her tears off his clothes.
“We’ve been waiting for this moment!” I unconsciously bit his arm.
Axent lets go off him, “Look at me getting taller than you… and look at this!” he shows him Labyrinth Library. “All of us passed!”
“I can’t wait to show you my girlfriend!” Zorg happily grins.
Father chokes, “Girlfriend?”
“Is there something wrong with what I said?” Zorg suddenly stiffens and trembles.
He gives us a serious look for a moment. Fortunately, he gives off a big sigh followed by a pat on Zorg’s shoulder, “You’ve grown up so well!”
Feeling relief, Zorg drops to his knees and cries hard, “I TWOT WU GOWNA YEWL AWT MEEE!”
“Why would I do that?” he stands back up. “Dry those tears my child. I have a present for all of you!”
“Zorg, calm down now,” Axent throws a lot of tissue paper at him. “Seriously, act like your age…”
Dizane aims her gun at him, “If you don’t want me to freeze your tears then stop crying already crybaby!”
“I’m going to tell everybody that you are a crybaby, dork.” I grinned.
“EEEEEEEEH!” he exclaims.
“I’ve missed this part of you~” father laughs out loud and we laughed with him too!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
“I hope you’ll like my gifts.”
“Father,” I sighed. “Any gift you give us, we’ll treasure it!”
“Yeah dad,” Axent extends his arms, “I can’t wait to see what those are!”
“Shut up now,” Dizane glares at us. “You two are delaying the process!”
“Sorry…” we both replied.
Zorg raises his hand to speak, but decides not to and shuts up.
“As your father, I always want you guys to wear matching costumes, but that would be too much of a hassle. So, I decided to make black versions of your clothes right now!”
As he unveiled our new gears, our eyes sparkled, glistened, and glittered. It was all too perfect for us that I, myself, cried tears of joy as I receive the most important gift I’ve ever received in my life.
“Dad,” Dizane wipes off her tears and starts to undress, “I’ll get changing right away!”
“Not here you,” father envelops everything except her in darkness. “You are a teenager, young woman! You should be conscious of your body…” he then glares at me and envelops me in darkness as well as I also started undressing, “You too, young lady!”
“S-sorry father,” Zorg, already naked, grins. “I was too excited that I also…”
“You kids need some more education,” father hits his head, “seriously…”
“Come on dad,” Axent already finished changing to his new gear grins, “it’s not like we have genitals to hide, we’re like mannequins.”
“That…” father sighs, “I’ll have to fix that later. After this big war, I promise that I will get all of us essential beings the COMPLETENESS WE DESERVE.”
“Father…” Zorg feels the seriousness in the atmosphere. “I don’t get it…”
“Nitwit!” out of nowhere, Axent throws his pillow at Zorg, “Seriously, bro what the hell!”
Looking at father, I almost broke into laughter after seeing him almost hitting Zorg with his pistol’s handle. Praise the Lord Xpir for the pillow-throw of Axent. After changing clothes, father took us all in the rooftop. Apparently, he wanted to discuss something important.
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“I don’t want you to use those eternal weapons yet during the war,” father hatches a plan. “Those are our trump card and we’ll only use them when we fight against the Supreme Being.” Father grins, “We are after all the Heart Five, right?”
“Father recognizes the Heart Five Group,” Dizane roars, “Finally, our first mission as a real TEAM!”
“Not a team, sis,” I corrected her statement, “We are a FAMILY!”
“I’m getting the hand of this outfit, father,” Zorg grins. “Darker colors are really awesome!”
“I don’t see any changes with your costume,” Axent inspects his uniform. “They look exactly like the ones you used to wear.”
“That’s not true,” father defends on behalf of Zorg. “His usual one is a lighter shade of gray with those unstable white line patches on his outfit that move at random places. The change I made is that I made the shade of gray darker and those white patches black. After all, BLACK is beautiful~”
“Why are we here on top of the tower, again?” I asked.
“At midnight, which is a few more minutes, Lord Xpir will be giving us the spotlight.” Father walks over to the edge, “If you notice, it is unnecessarily dark tonight, right? Lord Xpir, again, gave a few more announcements to turn off all the lights just to hype up my surprise return and your glory.”
“Isn’t that a bit too much?” Zorg feels some trembling on his knees.
“As your father, I want to let you feel this overwhelming pressure of becoming a true leader.” Father hugs Zorg with one arm while the other arm extends toward the horizon. “Be strong… for when the time comes for us first generations to take a rest, you second generations will be the leaders… and you will be able to stand strong. Of course that won’t happen because nobody dies, right?”
“YES FATHER!”
“Now stand side by side with me and wait for our cue,” Father looks down below.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
It looks unnecessarily bright down there with the lights directed downwards to better hide us from the darkness. Looking down below, Lord Xpir delivers his speech in such a position the audience are facing their backs against us. Instead of feeling very afraid, I am met with a soothing feeling of courage.
“…AND THAT YOU WILL ALL BE UNITED AS ONE, NOT TO GO TO WAR, BUT TO PUT AN END TO IT!” Lord Xpir gives an inspirational speech. Any moment now, he will be turning off the lights down there and will give us the spotlight. “THE SCHOOL GAVE YOU A TASTE OF WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH! YOU EXPERIENCED MORTAL FEELINGS THAT YOU USUALLY DON’T FEEL! I WANT YOU TO HOLD ON TO THOSE FEELINGS FOR NOW BECAUSE… WE NEED YOU TO SURVIVE FOR THE SAKE OF THE ESSENCE BEINGS WHO WILL BE FIGHTING WITH US IN THE WAR! AS FOR THE WAR, LET ME GIVE YOU YOUR CHAMPIONS WHO WILL BE IN LEADING US IN THE FRONTLINES!”
All lights down below are put out and suddenly, lights from the sides of the tower illuminated our presence. At the center is father, I am right beside him together with Dizane, to his left are Axent and Zorg feeling the same as I am… READY.
“I PRESENT TO YOU, COMING BACK AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS IS YOUR HEAD CAPTAIN GAZBLEIR CELXION! WITH HIM ARE THE CHOSEN WIELDERS OF THE ETERNAL WEAPONS! PLEASE GIVE THEM YOUR WARMEST WELCOME!”
It felt overwhelming. As Lord Xpir pointed to us, their attention suddenly shifted. Father amplifies his voice and begins his speech as the crowd cheered for his return and cheered for our victory over the eternal weapons. Wielding an eternal weapon is really a big deal because they are created from shards of destroyed universes that they themselves contain some kind of conscience, existence, and presence. These weapons gained sentience.
The people are in awe seeing our father in his full black outfit. Even we were surprised to see him donning this cool badass gear as it emanated darkness. Father never gave a speech. He only raised his weapon as it burst out a powerful force that tore open the sky. While doing this, the other first generation Essential beings raised their weapons as well as their powers burst out into the sky. Soon after, we raised ours as well. Multiple colors shoot up from the sky creating a wonderful spectacle.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
“Looks like you’re back,” Yxede (Leadership) comes up to me together with Suxil (Justice). “I’ve always missed seeing you in full black attire.”
“Well I’ve always wanted my uniform to be black,” I fixed my gloves.
“Once the war is over,” Suxil sighs, “I can definitely say to myself that I am free.”
“Free… from what exactly?” the orange leadership captain asks him.
“It’s something personal…”
“You can’t go talking personal like that, Kevin.” I grinned.
“There I was wishing you’d forget about the nicknames,” he chuckles.
“It looks like you’ve got more company,” Yxede turns his head to the others behind him. “I’ll go and have my children some orange clothes.”
“At least I’m not the only one jealous of the uniforms,” Suxil grins. “I’ll gray them up too…”
As they leave, the others greeted me. Some of them were class presidents and while some are captains. Honestly, I was waiting to see somebody. During the war, I kept thinking about it. Right now, I guess, is not the proper time for me to attend to these emotions.
“I’m glad you took my advice,” Krozel (Jealousy) happily approaches me. “You returned to your full black suit~”
“You never gave me an advice, actually…”
“Oh s**t really? Anyway… am I boring you?” she jokingly reminds me that time when she went for a visit. “You are out of your mind again, Head Captain.”
“Not really,” I chuckled, “I thought you were funny. It’s just that…”
“You are worried about your children, I know.” She hugs the teenage girl beside her. “This one is Xaralu Zefir the essential being of Friendship~”
“She looks like a nice teen,” I smiled at the little kid and then looked at Krozel. “Hopefully when this war ends-”
“Head Captain,” Zenphea (Beauty) surprises me with a hug from the back. “You totally looked badass a while ago!”
“Zenphea… your chest…” just then, I heard some fists cracking somewhere.
“By the way,” Zenphea rubs my back, “You’ve been working out haven’t you?”
“Well I did…” I looked around and saw Zirack (Willpower) approaching us, “to get some more power for the war…”
“Hello Head Captain, and hello ladies~” she greets us happily and unexpectedly she clutches my arm, “I’ll tell you something important later~”
“Looks like you’re being surrounded again,” Semcaxa (Judgment) waves her hand at me. “How’s everything?”
“It’s going to be different Semcaxa,” I waved back at her. All of a sudden, she grabs me by the other arm.
This time, I can definitely sense killing intent directed towards me. I wish my children were here with me right now!!!
- Writer
