-Sunday, July 31, 9 am, The Hub-

The Radiant entered the Living Quarters after a call from the leader of Sword Unit. They found the red-headed canokian standing behind a table with a small brown box in his hand. When the group gathered in front of him, he opened the box, revealing six marble-size gems.

"Oooh!" The braided girl smiled brightly at the jewels in the box. "Pretty, what is the value?"

"Cool present." The spiky redhead spoke with less enthusiasm. "I kind of expected something else."

Pilot sighed. "I planned on giving you these a few months from now, but you defeated the Mistress, so the plan has changed. These are known as Weapon Gems. They are crafted to equip you with a weapon you will most likely adapt to."

"So, once we absorb them," The short black-haired girl eyed the gems. "We will get a specialized weapon for us?"

"Correct." Pilot nodded. "Mine introduced me to my sword, but not everyone chooses them. They either pick a weapon themselves or pick a gem and a weapon." He frowned. "Only one Weapon Gem can be equipped in a lifetime."

The brunette nodded. "We can't absorb two?"

"Will it cause us to explode if we absorb two?" asked The faded-cut teen.

"No, your body will reject another Weapon Gem." The leader informed.

The spiky raven nodded, then reached out to grab a gem. "Well, I'm interested."

The teens took a gem and held it in the palm of their hands. Instantly, the gems shattered and absorbed into their hands.

"Give it a moment. It should click for you on how to summon your weapons."

A feeling came over them. The group held out their hands, and immediately, their weapons materialized in their hands.

In Jake's hand was a broadsword with a three-foot-long blade and a red hilt. Ryu gained a yellow three-section staff with silver tips, Amy received a pair of orange tonfas with a bronze grip, Christina received a naginata with a blue polearm, Sam received a four-foot gray boomerang, and Tanya received an estoc sword with a white hilt.

The lightning lad analyzed his weapon with glee. "This... is... awesome. They're like nunchucks except like bo staff.."

The ice princess smiled at the blade. "Maybe I should have taken fencing lessons."

The wind teen smirked at his weapon. "With wind, I can make this badass."

The water girl looked intrigued at the spear. "Interesting."

The light user seemed to admire the tonfas. "I need practice."

The fire boy calmly swiped the sword. "I like it, so what does it mean?"

"The gems analyze your entire being; body, personality, potential, to bequeath you a personal weapon."

"How come you did not give them to us earlier?" asked the ice teen

"I wanted you all to learn hand-to-hand combat first." The leader of Sword Unit replied. "It's what I was taught first before weapon training. You don't want to be stuck in a situation where you only know how to fight with a weapon. If they break, it will take a week for them to reform completely."

"That sucks." wind teen. "What you are saying is we need to alternate between bare-handed combat and weapon combat."

"Also." He formed his sword in his hand. "The more you train and fight with your weapon." He pumped mana in his weapon. The blade quickly turned red, the guard turned square, and the grip turned silver. "Your weapon will evolve depending on how you use your mana."

"Which is why we are training to increase our reserves." nodded the water warrior.

"Correct, but before evolving, get better at weapon training." He sent an intense glare. "You don't want to have a weapon with no skill or control, right?"

The group nodded.

"Good, training will begin in a few days." He smiled at them. "Enjoy yourselves, you earned it."

----------------------------------------

-Cairo, Egypt, The Porta Hub-

"Your problem has been solved before us."

The tone sounded rude, but was calm. A blonde-haired canokian male sat on a chair, communicating to Pilot. His green eyes stared into the monitor with Javo on the screen. He wore a black jumpsuit with a brown belt. The belt held a thick yellow buckle that held an armor emblem.

"Don't be like that, Jin. That is one problem taken care of."

"True, I congratulate your team." He took a piece of pie and shoved it in his mouth, displaying poor table manners. "The musical fiend eludes with his cowardly tactics."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"You are chewing with your mouth open; that is not how a knight behaves."

"Pah, it is befitting of a knight." He scoffed. "Hopefully, we can wrap this up. He is looking for something here, and we are about to head out to search for clues." He turned around. "I will be signing off now."

"Ha ha," Javo noticed something behind his colleague. "Hello."

"Hi." A calm and cold voice came.

"Don't be rude, Jack." came a feminine voice with a Scottish accent. "Salutations! We heard it all! Glad our allies passed the percentage of not dying! Cheers to them!"

"Hmph." scoffed the boy with a slight German accent. "It's good, but we don't need their help yet. Lina and I can handle this."

In full view, a teenage boy with an induction buzz-cut light brown hair and bronze eyes, a small scar on his right cheek. He had a green handkerchief tied around his neck, a black t-shirt with a white silhouette of a tiger's head, a tan vest that looked worn, faded blue jeans with holes on the knees, and black front lace-up combat boots. His face looked like he was halfway between stoic and disappointed.

The other was a teenage girl with short, curly red hair who brought up her finger to adjust her bronze rectangle framed glasses in front of her blue eyes. Freckles around her cheeks and shoulder blades. She wore a blue blouse with a picture of a red flower on the front, brown shorts with front pockets, and blue strap-up hi-tops. She wore a smile that looked like she was plotting something.

"Great, I need to sign out. Pilot ordered me to check something." The monitor was turned off

Jin stood up and gazed at the teens. "Ready?"

"Yes." spoke Jack.

"Affirmative." Lina nodded.

----------------------------------------

-London, England. Porta Hub-

"I'm glad everything turned out well."

Sitting in front of a computer was a canokian woman with pink and red hair. In full view, she wore a short-sleeved red tunic, a small red scarf around her neck, elbow-length red gloves with red trimmings, a red skirt with red tights, and a pair of knee-high white boots with black straps.

"Yep." Reinstar appeared on the monitor. "They proved who they are, Selen-ja. I was worried, but no problem. A maiden like myself is proud."

"How long has it really been? We should get tea with Luka and the others."

"It has been seven months. When you wrap this up, we can ask the others back home to schedule tea and sweets. Speaking of schedules, are you two able to leave?"

She shook her head. "No, I found the artifact, but it won't work with just the two of us. It might need The Count for all three of us to get out, but he's hiding somewhere and sending monsters. She feels bad about us being trapped."

"It can happen to anyone."

"She took it personally, yet is determined to find The Count. We still got all of England to find him."

"Yeah... oh?" The ninja's eye caught something. "Hello"

"Hi..."

The canokian woman turned around at the girl standing in the doorway with her hands behind her back. A short teenage girl with a medium brown skin tone and long brown hair tied in a high-side ponytail. She wore a gray athletic shirt with purple trimmings, black athletic pants with purple trimmings, and around her waist was a black leather jacket. She wore a pair of purple sneakers. The colors of her eyes were different from the others: the right eye was deep blue, and the left eye purple.

The girl looked a bit shy when seeing the shinobi on the screen.

"This is Reinstar."

"I'm Blair," She nodded to her. "Selen-ja, I'm heading home."

The woman nodded. "Alright, also, the others won against the Mistress."

She lightly smiled. "That's good... nice to meet you, Reinstar." She left the room.

"She seems... lively."

"It took a while for her to open up to me." She sighed. "She's nice once she opens up to you."

"I'm sure when she meets the others, she will join in their nonsense of making disgusting pies and straying off topic during serious discussion."

"They sound like a good group of kids."

----------------------------------------

-Ishida House, 12:30 pm-

Instead of spending time at the Hub, the gang decided to use Jake's house after the fire warrior invited them over. Ryu was grilling hamburgers, hot dogs, and some veggie meats. Across the yard, Christina, Jake, Sam, and Tina were playing volleyball. In the kitchen, Amy and Tanya were seen putting donuts in the oven after deciding on the flavor.

"There." chirped the brown-haired girl. "I'm glad we decided on Almond Butter Donuts."

The braided-haired girl nodded. "A lot more appealing than..." She scowled. "Avocado Donuts."

"They might be good! You don't know it will taste bad."

"I don't trust us to make them. You cannot put avocados on everything. We'll save that for the next time we experiment with food."

"The theme will be donuts, and I will make them. You can." She smirked. "Go with shrimp."

"Absurd. I'll make them, and you will eat them whole."

Amy had a fire in her eyes. "Challenge accepted!"

"Do you all often experiment with food?"

The girls glanced up at the matriarch approaching them with potato salad.

The braided girl nodded. "Only once, but we are planning to do more later."

"Just a fun game. We make something, then force each other to eat them." spoke the brunette

"As long as you enjoy yourselves." She handed Tanya the potato salad. "I'll watch the time. Go enjoy yourselves."

"Thank you for your hospitality." Amy smiled at her

"It is no problem." The older woman smiled gently. "I am happy to have you all. Jake feels embarrassed when talking about you, but Tina has a lot of positive things to say about you both."

"Ah..." The ice girl felt bashful. "She's just being nice."

"We like her too!" chirped the light girl.

"I'm glad you all have a good influence on her."

"Thank you." They said.

"Now go out and have fun."

The girls nodded and went to where the others were playing volleyball. Tanya walked to the table where she placed the bowl. She looked up to see Ryu tending the grill.

"Ryu." She walked to him. "I would have thought you would join in on the game."

"I did, but we are taking turns on the grill." He said while putting some food on a plate and flipping other meats. "Although, I keep wondering why you wanted a vegetarian patty. I have seen you devour a steak after training with your hands covered in barbecue sauce."

She grimaced. "I was famished. Is it wrong that I want to have less red meat?"

"Nope, just wanted to know if you faked being a vegetarian."

"If I do, I will let everyone know."

"Cool," He picked up a bean burger. "This is for you."

"Thank you... I know this is not my business, but are you and your father good?"

"Ah, you heard that." He sighed. "He's a regional manager, so he is busy working from his office, traveling to other branches to check up on them, and working weekends sometimes. He used to be around more." He smirked at her. "He and uncle are where I get my nifty humor from." He wiggled his eyebrows while grinning.

"Is that your attempt at flirting?" She said humorously.

"Uh... no. I was just being funny." He rubbed his head sheepishly.

"Careful when you do that; some might take it seriously."

"Basically, I am mad he's not around every weekend." He shrugged. "It's life."

"Life, yes." She placed a ketchup on the bean patty. "But if the battle with that woman taught me something, we can't let our anger consume us." She gazed into his eyes. "Right?"

He nodded with a smile. "Right."