POPPING

Leonel sat back lazily, reclining against a tree. He didn't even bother to go and check what was happening in the outside world. He knew that it was chaos, but it also had nothing to do with him.

For the first time in a while, he could actually relax. Well, the last time he had tried to relax he had gotten thrown into the midst of such a wild plot, but hopefully this time, that wouldn't happen again.

He had ended up helping the Spiritual Race out more than he desired. Flaura almost certainly had some dirt on them that he wasn't aware of, and because of him, they had wiggled out of that and even came out stronger as a result.

He didn't like it for the sheer reason they had slandered his wife. He didn't care about their reasons, but he would have to wait a while before he made them give him an explanation for that.

For that, it was fine to just lie here and recline, listening to the water wash against the store.

The air smelt of spring, though it always did. It didn't have the particular saltiness of an ocean, but instead it was like an enormous fresh lake. It was almost like an office fresh paper smell, but not quite.

Leonel laughed to himself. He didn't know why he had suddenly thought of such a thing, he could admit that he was a bit weird in that respect. He had always loved the smell of books and freshly printed paper. It was just that Earth had moved away from that technology long ago and it was impossibly rare to get a chance to smell such a thing.

'I wonder...' Leonel's thought drifted.

There were still two main mysteries that he hadn't quite dealt with just now.

Aside from the Spiritual Race's secret, it was the hand problem. He felt that there was definitely some undercurrent related to it. Anastasia said it was a human hand, and he believed her, but it just felt... off.

Unfortunately, the anatomy between even people of the same race differed too much. Like, if a doctor of Earth were to cut Leonel open now, they would assume him to be an alien of some sort. His heart was too large, it had extra chambers. He was made up of way too many cells, and his cells themselves had organelles not native to humans. Plus, there was a whole extra circulatory system inside of him that wasn't normal at all: that being his Nodal Pathways and Nodes.

When you factored in Lineage Factors, or different and odd techniques that different people might practice, or Ability Indexes, the variability even within a Race was far too much.

This was why Leonel couldn't just like at a hand and make assumptions about what Race it was mimicking. He hadn't studied enough bodies.

Aina might be able to tell with better certainty, but even she hadn't studied many humans to begin with. She might be able to help the owner of the hand improve before she could even get to the point of understanding what their Race was.

But that was just the first issue, the second was the Owlans.

From his perspective, he had forced the Owlans into this war, and at least from Minerva's reaction, this seemed to be so as well.

But the hands seemed to suggest that the Owlans had always been part of this plan.

This suggested that the Owlans were likely split or there was a secret cabal of them hidden in their ranks that was taking action, much like how Flaura was acting independently as well... or so it seemed.

The question was, then... if such a cabal existed why not rope in Minerva? She was already in the Ninth Dimension, she was exceptionally powerful, and she was obviously sympathetic to their cause.

Leonel grinned. "Now that's an interesting tidbit of information-"

"Look at you, talking to yourself. Have you gone insane, Leo?" © 2024.

James plopped down beside Leonel.

"I spoke out for your sake," Leonel said with a laugh.

"As if I'd believe that, nutcase. We've got things to do."

"Like?"

"We're about to host a football game."

"Huh?" Leonel blinked in surprise.

"Yeah, we got a bunch of the kids together from the slayer lego or whatever you call it. We're indoctrinating them into the way of real football, not that soccer kicky thingy."

Leonel burst into laughter. Only James could mix up legion and lego.

"Okay, I'm in," Leonel hopped up, stretching.

"You're not allowed to play."

"Eh-" Leonel didn't know what to say.

"You're too competitive."

"Says who-"

"Says me. This is the little kiddie's first time, they have to love the game, not fear it. It's not time for you to appear yet. You're only allowed to coach."

Leonel shook his head. "Fine, fine."

James laughed and wrapped an arm around Leonel's neck, pulling him away.

The time was more fun than Leonel expected it to be. At first, he was disappointed that he didn't get to play, but soon he was so lost in the moment that he was grinning ear to ear.

Without the gap between men and women closed thanks to Force and Ability Indexes, the boys and girls played without restraint, and the variability that different abilities gave forced them to create new rules on the spot and even widen the range of the field by as much as a hundred times.

There was far more to leading a group of people than to just lord over them and provide them the chance to grow stronger. Leonel quickly realized that this was Joel's way of telling him that they needed to do things like this more often. Who else would be able to see through these things if not his right hand man?

Aina and her friends sat high in the stands created from Leonel's Earth Force, watching with happy smiles on their faces.

"So," Aina looked toward Yuri and Savahn, "when are you two going to start popping out babies?"

She blinked innocently while Yuri and Savahn looked like their tails had just been stepped on.