Location: Zealous, Earth

--Zeal's Perspective--

"Ah! Welcome back Mr. Zeal!" Ruby said to me. As my assistant, Ruby always greeted me when I arrived or said goodbye when I left. She kept the city under her surveillance when I wasn't there, and she had a natural charisma to her that better fit the role of the mayor of the city constructed under my rule. In all honesty, I plan to retire from this position and give it to her within the next year

"Can I offer you some tea? A bath? Anything you need?" She asked me, holding a clipboard in her hand and eagerly awaiting orders.

"I need you to take the day off. Go, do whatever you please, I'll take things from here, Ruby." Her eyes sparkled within the afternoon sun, and she quickly thanked me and exited the room.

"Now then… that Seventh White Stone," I said, peering my eyes to the alleyway around the corner. I knew he would be there. I slowly and silently approached the man hiding in the alley and summoned the Strands out of my left hand, catching his collar before he could run away.

"Genesis… you're not sneaky enough to get past me. I assume you heard me mention the new White Stone?" I asked him. Genesis put down his cloak and his bleak smile answered that question for me.

"I don't know why you're so concerned about it… I ordered Talion to handle it. And if he can't, then Orion will take it. It's about time that I relax on Earth. I've been out and about with her and with the other White Stones recently," I said to Genesis.

"I understand but… it seems like a bad time to tell you that Xian (she-an) wants to meet once more," he announced. I bet that was the reason Genesis was smiling in the first place. It seemed he had a knack for enjoying the trouble he caused.

"What does he want? Shouldn't Elo, Demos, and Xian stay on their respective desert of an isle?" Even if I knew he wouldn't have any answers, I asked him.

Elo and Demos, former habitants of my city on Earth, had gone up to the Scorched Isle to assume some form of balance within power. They slowly remove tyrants from power within their respective cities, and do good deeds for the citizens, but to want an audience with me… what could they possibly want?

"It's about the Isle's themselves… it seems that while Elo was on his off-day, he managed to catch a glimpse of The Isle in the distance…" Genesis said, waiting for me to react.

At first thought, it didn't seem like much of a concern, until I realized that the isles aren't supposed to be connected. The Isles put into the atmosphere above Earth were specifically pulled apart so they wouldn't ever interact with each other. It had to do with the experiment Talion and I learned about in Orion's library.

"That's impossible Genesis. You're completely sure Elo wasn't having a hallucination or the light wasn't reflecting weirdly off of the water? One of the repercussions of his White Stone Flaw is to cause hallucinations," Before I even finished, Genesis was shaking his head. Because of the confidentiality of what we were talking about, I led him back into my home to talk about the current situation.

"Now that we're not in a public setting I don't have to put up that stupid act anymore. No, I can see up into the sky. The stars are illuminating two objects in our atmosphere that look just like the Isles. They're connected, for some stupid reason. I'll look further into it, but we can either have Elo, Demos, and Xian come here, or we can go there. What do you want to do?" Genesis asked.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I almost forgot that Genesis is required to act mysterious when out in the city because of his reputation. He has been exiled from the city before on several accounts of murder. I understand why Genesis did it, but to uphold my position, I had to exile him instantly.

I shut the wooden half-door to the kitchen and he opened my fridge, looking for any food he could find. I teased him about stealing my stuff. I didn't care, but he could've at least asked first. Genesis closed the door and sat back against the chair beside my wooden table.

My house wasn't too technologically advanced like the rest of them were. It was a simple two-story home. Wooden floors and carpets where they should be. Two bathrooms, four bedrooms, a large kitchen, and a family inside. It was all I needed. To stay as the mayor of the city with a large majority in their favor, I needed to live a poor lifestyle. All the people care about is what I do, so I stay under the radar in my average home.

The kitchen had a small island with tile on top in the middle, a fridge off in the corner, and every appliance between the fridge and the opposite wall. The table, tucked in the back corner of the room, was where Genesis and I were at. Down the hall that led to the kitchen where my two kids' bedrooms, which I wanted to check on after Genesis left.

"Bring them here. We can hold the meeting here once everybody goes to bed at my house. Do you need access to the Transporter to help you gather them?" I asked Genesis. He waved his hand, dismissing my concern. He pushed the front two legs of the chair off of the ground and balanced it, leaning back on it with a light smile.

"I've already thought about it." He finally said. "Don't worry about how I'll do it, but expect them here tonight. Now, let's talk about something else. That White Stone. Have you seen him? What does he look like?" The tone of Genesis's voice was beginning to change.

"I'm not sure. Why are you so concerned?" I asked, but he only shook his head, looking back down at the table after putting all four chair legs back onto the ground. "Nothing. Now that I've delivered my messages, I think my job here is done. I'll return later tonight with everybody else." He continued.

I was staring at the counter while he was speaking but was soon grabbed into a hug. Why the hell was Genesis hugging me?

"Welcome home Dad!" The culprit had been my daughter after all. Ophelia, my eleven-year-old daughter, had just returned home from school. My younger son, Rudy, was standing behind her, trying to act all cool by showing that he didn't want a hug either. I knew deep down he wanted one too. He was a bad liar.

"What did you guys learn in school today?" I asked them both, specifically looking at Rudy. Rudy's mood shifted and he seemed a lot more interested in being around me now, telling me what he learned passionately. Ophelia then went on to tell me what she did during the school day.

Ophelia and Rudy were my pride and joy. They were reminders that the horrible times I spent on the Isle when I was born there. My children and my wife Alba, the only things that truly matter to me in this world, besides keeping the Isle from falling to that new White Stone.

There was a fundamental problem with the new White Stone that awakened. There are three Isles in the atmosphere. Desert Isle, The Isle, and The Dump. Each Isle has two White Stones that keep watch over them to stop any conflict that might arise. With three White Stones on The Isle now, the balance has been interrupted. This White Stone didn't awaken on Earth to receive the explanation from me, which means he's a defect.

No White Stone wants to admit it, but we're born to be violent creatures who dominate over all else. System Flaws were put into place so we wouldn't become mass murderers. If that new White Stone didn't awaken on Earth as the past two have, I fear for how he will grow.

As for the Flaws we all have, even I'm not safe from them. Every time I meet a fellow White Stone, I would put them through tests to find out their Flaws so we can avoid them.

My Flaw only came to light once I first tested Elo for his flaw. I cannot witness any other flaw being executed or else my System will corrupt, and the rules that bind me will be broken. In a sense, breaking the flaw wouldn't mean anything anymore, but the act of corrupting my System would destroy my credibility for being a perfect being.

Elo, the White Stone who witnessed the Isles coming close together, has been blind for the majority of his life. He first blinded himself in one eye on the Isle's Beach by accident. The only eye left, his left eye, exploded out of his head once he saw blood for the first time, which ended up being his flaw. Elo cannot witness any blood leak from a wound, so hearing that he saw the Isle was... misleading, in a sense.