Domel Arcturus

"He's stirring. Andrates! He's awake!"

The first thing I heard when I returned to the waking world was Zarya's voice calling dad's name. As I woke, the daylight was so bright it hurt my eyes, so I turned away. I tried waking up, but my body felt heavy and my head was spinning like crazy. I felt like I had a very bad case of anemia while I slept. I quickly associated it with my journey through the dreaming world. To be fair, we were in there for who knows how long.

Zarya heard my grunt and quickly turned her head. Her presence brought calmness after the crazy shit I had been through.

"Arc!" said Zarya with a relieved tone. "Thank the skies you're awake!"

"Y-yeah," I said, weakly. "Sorry I went out on myself."

"Went where? You fell into a coma for three days after you slept that night. George, too. He did not wake up after the operation's over. We thought there were complications and we were afraid to bring you the bad news before he was revealed to be stable."

"T-three days?" I said, surprised.

"I was worried sick, Arcturus!" she said, with tears started trickling down her Vyrnian face.

"Shhh," I said, trying to calm her down. "I'm awake now. It's fine. I'm sorry for making you worried. I promise not to do that again."

"Don't do that ever again!" Her voice started to broke as she started crying.

I messed up big. I could've just blame Kyrand for not warning us about this, but it was my own fault, too, for not telling them what I was going to do. I did not want to start a blaming game, so I just say sorry to Zarya, hoping she'd accept.

Then the next thing I wanted to ask was George's situation. To my relief, one of Zarya's fellow healers called her through a nearby terminal, telling her that George was also awake. I wanted to see him to see if he was alright, but three days in a coma clearly made my body rather weak, along with the stress and tension during the fight in the Concept Dimension.

Kyrand...oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that dragon. It came out rather infrequently and in its own pace, so I did not really think about it. But then, I remembered what it sacrificed to greatly help our efforts. I did not know where it ended up, so I silently wished it luck...until Zarya opened the nearby bathroom door and exclaimed, "What in the...?!"

I weakly turned towards the bathroom, just as dad walked into the room and heard her surprised tone. I wanted to stand up, but three days in a coma clearly took a greater toll on my body than I thought. Dad took a glance on me and said, "Good to have you back, son." Before he focused himself towards the bathroom, from which Zarya pulled out an interesting looking Vyrnian.

"A white-scale?" said Zarya, surprised. "But I thought there's none out there anymore."

"Back in my day, we called this albinism," said dad as he helped pulled out the unconscious Vyrnian. "Just what the hell is he doing in your bathroom?"

"Don't look at me. I don't even know white-scales beyond what they taught us in healer school."

An albino Vyrnian was as rare as a Vyrnian with a heterochromia and he was in the bathroom. I met a commanding officer with the condition, but only when there was a meeting on Vyrn in which I was part of the guard. Among my security team, those albino Vyrnians were also called 'red-eyes' not from the term red-eye flight, but from their eyes, which were bright fiery red that became even more apparent with their featureless white scales with no color, almost like a freshly whitened and bleached bedsheet.

But as I observed his naked body, I also found some peculiar features Vyrnians would not have. For starters, his wing-arms were slightly translucent, not white. He also had a smooth face with no horns, with his long Vyrnian ears very apparent and for all to see. Vyrnians always had horns, and those without it usually had problems growing them and needed a surgical operation because they would hurt and possibly damage the cranium. I had a childhood friend with that condition, so I was not bullshitting it.

As Zarya and dad were confused with what to do to this Vyrnian, he opened his eyes and groaned.

"Agh...damn it," he said. His voice had this weird echo effect. It was as if he was talking through a voice modulator, and not just talking normally either. It sounded like he was singing.

"Are you alright?" asked Zarya.

"It depends. I...." He looked down towards his hand, and then towards me, before he chuckled.

"Guess it works," he said as he slowly stood up and walked towards me. I felt strange, but I somehow knew this Vyrnian. There was something about him that quickly reminded me of someone.

"Sorry, but...can I help you?" I said.

"I may not look like the form you know me best, Arcturus, but it's me, Kyrand," said the albino Vyrnian.

"Kyrand?" That name quickly returned me to the loop. "Kyrand?!"

"Took a form that might identify me among your people, but I think it's a little bit too conspicuous to my liking." He then sighed. "Oh, well. Can't go back in time and find a new look, now, can't I?"

"Then why the hell did you choose to be one?"

"Hey, it's my new life as a third-dimensional. Don't be so hard on me."

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"At least put on something to cover that junk of yours now that you have one," I said while glancing towards it. "We got something called 'decency' and you just showed yourself bare to my girlfriend."

"I'm a healer, Arcturus," said Zarya. "I deal with things like this at work."

"Someone walking around naked?"

"Someone in need of medical attention, which Kyrand here needs."

"I'm as healthy as I am," said Kyrand. "You go focus on him."

"And you need debriefing," said dad. "Go get some clothes and we'll talk."

"Oh, we have a lot of things to talk about, Domel Andrates," he said. "A lot."

It felt weird called it as 'he', now that it finally showed his naked Vyrnian body to me and talked like he was a Vyrnian, not some amalgamation of voices. Still need to get used to the echo effect, though. Still, the thing that I was glad of happened to be that he was now visible.

Before I could think of what they were going to talk about, Zarya kissed me on the snout before saying, "You owe me a dinner. Steak at Inkra's."

"Sorry for making you worried," I said. "But I..."

"I know, I know. It's your job and only you can do it. You told me about it before, just not the details. But, at least consider what your loved ones are going to think when you get into a dangerous mission."

"I thought it only takes us a couple of hours, or maybe even no time at all."

"Just promise me that next time you do stupid thing like this again, you tell me. I don't care if it's just you and George and how all this may seem like it's out of my head, but we are in this together, okay? I got shot with you on Ijuri and Aurelis Three, so I know danger."

"I know. I'm sorry. It's bad judgement."

Zarya smiled. "It's alright. You came back. That's the important thing. Now, rest up. We'll need to get you on your feet. You still owe me that dinner."

Both of us smiled at each other before she tended to the panel near my bed. I tried to get myself to relax, knowing that the ordeal was over. Well, for a while, at least.

Things would start to escalate soon. It was inevitable, especially after what we did.

***

It took me at least a couple of hours for me to regain my strength to walk and stand. The first thing I did was to check on George, who got it worse than I did due to Arkari's gravity. It did not affect George that much since Arkari and Earth were not that different in G's, but it was still significant enough to affect him, especially if it took all his strength to fight in the Concept Dimension and to recover from the prosthetics operation.

He looked like he had the worst hangover of his life, exacerbated by the anesthetics used during the operations. The operations took at least 12 hours, half of which were used to connect the nerve ends on George to the new prosthetics. I know it wasn't painful, but the anesthetics used were intended for Orians, the closest in body proportion and appearance to human. It certainly was not, judging by George's hammered, barely conscious look.

"He was lucky the anesthetic did not kill him," said Zarya when I talked about this. "We used only one-third of the intended dose. That, and the exertion during your adventure caused him to look like that."

"Will he recover? No permanent damage or anything?"

"Not sure about that yet. We'll run diagnostics as he recuperates."

I sighed in relief, and I could see George weakly smiled. I did not want my partner and savior to end up killed by the thing that was supposed to save him. That would be the most ironic way to go.

We decided to discuss what happened next in George's room so he could listen. After everyone was ready, Kyrand, now properly dressed in Vyrnian fashion, started talking.

"Before I continue, I would like to apologize for causing distress," said Kyrand. "I thought it would only take us a couple of hours. I never thought three days had passed since I took them to the Concept Dimension."

"Concept Dimension?" asked dad.

"A land full of concepts, ideas, and imagination. You'll get the idea. What I want to talk about, however, is more about what you're going to do next. This is important, because it depends on your survival."

"Is it the Trikelians? Are they finally going to engage us?" asked dad.

"Yes, but they got delayed. Thanks to me, you got a couple more years to get ready."

"How can you be so sure? You could've mistaken your concept of time again."

"I did not say a precise time, did I? Like I said, whatever they have in plan, it is considerably delayed."

"What did you do?" I asked. "You mentioned a sacrifice. The Wardens mentioned suicide."

"I traded my omnipotence, if that's the right word, and used my extradimensional body to block their way into this world. That way, they only have one open and that is behind the force field on your sealed planet."

"Wait a second. You said they can open other portals like the Eye of Vyrn. How?"

"Trikelians made themselves extradimensional and they can open other portals. However, it takes a lot of their time, that is why you only found one. This way, you only need to destroy the only one in Vyrn."

"Then why a couple of years?"

"I think you know why."

Dad thought about it for a while before he found the answer.

"The shield charge," he said.

"When will it be expected to fail?"

"We're not sure. But the data found on Lekan gives it...500 years, give or take."

Dad's expression was grim upon the realization, and I was sure I was, too. The Exodus happened 500 years ago. We were not sure if the shield would fail or not, only assuming it would someday fail or the Trikelians found a way to bypass the force shield protecting the generator. The fact that it continued its operation was a miracle.

But, for how long? It could fail tomorrow, or even while we were talking about it. Kyrand seemed so sure that it would only fail a couple of years from now. Questions turned to curiosity, so I asked how he could be so sure.

"Well, I cheated," he said with a smug smile on his face. "I pre-determined a future, setting it in stone. In the moment after I got off my chain and just before I discarded my old body, I saw a future. I knew it was years from now, but with the time I got and with the only power I could muster, I saw the moment your planetary seal failed and the Trikelians already ready for combat."

"Why didn't you make it specific, so we know what to expect?"

"Clairvoyance is a dangerous ability, especially if done by me. Once you see the future, it is guaranteed to happen. The universe will try to find a scenario to fulfill it even if you manage to change the chains of events. What if I saw you all fail and enslaved by the Trikelians?"

"Did you?"

"No, because I do not wish to bring harm to the Vyrnian who was once my host." He turned and winked towards me. "It's what I can give him out of gratitude."

"You don't have to do that, you know," I said. "What's in it for you? You lost most of your powers and now you're stuck here."

"Which is something that I have planned a very long time ago: A way to die before the end of this universe."

"A suicide," I said. It was clear that in Kyrand's perspective, his remaining lifetime in this dimension would be short. Very short, in fact, that he might not even think of it as a suffering. But no matter what you wanted to say, you could not just say our lifetime as a suicide. It just wasn't right.

So, I decided that after this was done, I wanted to help Kyrand enjoy his life. I could start now, but we had to process what he just said to us, and what we needed to do and who would believe what we had to say.

We had no progress regarding the unification of this galaxy's races, and nothing could convince the major governments to help us until it was finally too late. But, while we might not be able to convince many of them, we might still be able to prepare ourselves so that we would not be caught with our pants down.

Until then, we had a lot of loose ends to tie, one that involved George. Like he said a long time ago, if he died out here, no one from his planet would even know what happened. He had a lot of friends and acquaintances back home and it would be best to know that they knew he was alive before our greatest hour yet.

We'd do that once he recovered. For now, George needed his rest, and I got myself busy with Kyrand.