Chase woke up with a stir, groaning and reeling from the pain of the previous night.
It was early morning and Luna was snoring loudly as her legs dangled over her hammock.
Chase sat up with grogginess in his emerald eyes. The smell of fried food and meat crept into his nose from downstairs, which immediately made him raise an eyebrow and wipe his eyes.
But before he got up, he looked down at his bare chest...
Purple veins were glowing faintly all throughout the skin of his chest, just as the black markings were barely visible, yet still slithering around like snakes inside of his own body.
"It hurts..." He muttered, feeling him doze off again before he felt a pillow smack him in the face.
"Put a shirt on!" Luna yelled, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes as she had already stood up from her hammock: Now standing barefoot on the wooden floor of the small worn down room.
Chase sighed, reaching for the rickety drawer of his bedside table and pulling out a white T-shirt.
"Who's cooking breakfast?" He asked, confused as to which of the members of Unity had boldly chosen to take responsibility for once.
"Dunno... You're the leader, shouldn't you know your subordinates well enough by now that you would know that?"
"Kaylynn is my guess... But don't you think that's kinda mean?" Chase asked, finding it necessary to ask why his benefactor was blatantly insulting her champion.
"Because, she is a women?" Luna asked with a snarky giggle.
"No... That isn't at all why I guessed her." Chase frowned, standing up and walking towards the door and turning the rickety knob, before nearly stepping on a slumped Equan.
He was shirtless, lying on the floor in front of Chase's door with what looked like a bright red spot on the side of his face.
"What the hell?" Chase asked, raising an eyebrow before leaning left and peaking into his assigned room.
Volaris was of course... Asleep, sprawled across Equan's bed like an animal.
"Damn kid can't catch a break..." Luna muttered as she happily jumped over Equan and skedaddled down the stairs like a little kid on the morning of a holiday.
Chase lazily followed behind, making sure that he didn't trip over the poor archer as he did.
When they made it downstairs, both of them were shocked to see that Luke was donned in a white apron that read "Daddy is the best chef" in bright red water colors written boldly on it.
He was holding two pans over a fire as smoke shrouded the entire ceiling, which of course laid forth the reason as to why Gemini was hunched over the couch coughing and hacking violently.
Luke was humming some sort of tune as he flipped a pile of eggs into the air, allowing to land perfectly on a large ivory plate.
"Eat up!" He yelled, outstretching his arms and yawning before grabbing his own plate and loading half of the food onto it.
Chase tilted his head, as Equan stood behind him with a similar but more exhausted expression.
"Who the hell does he think he is?" Equan whispered in Chase's ear followed by a yawn of his own.
"Who cares? We don't have to go into the city for a meal..." Chase gladly remarked, as he simply put it all aside and went and got a plate of his own.
Kaylynn had been in the midst of putting some sort of facemask on as she sat beside Gemini in the living room, making her look like some sort of clown, which of course Equan found it necessary to communicate aloud.
The next thing everyone knew, was Equan was getting clobbered in the head by small gusts of wind as Luke had to catch his plate from crashing against the floor.
Chase found a strange amount of bliss in the moment, finding himself exceptionally grateful for the friends he had been able to make in the recent years.
But he found a strange hollow feeling creeping up behind the former, as he wished that Leo, Neveah, Lithica, Michael, and Gabriel as well as Hans' group also had a chance to join in on the group breakfast.
He wondered where they all were in that moment, and almost found himself praying that they were alright, and that they would have a safe journey home.
That was until a loud knock shook him out of his thoughts.
Everyone froze...
"Are we expecting anyone?" Luke asked quietly, reaching for the crossbow at his side.
"It's probably just Mikey and Gabe..." Gemini said as he set his plate down.
That comment made Chase far too excited to open the door and greet his friends... But a strange intuition was telling him to be overly cautious at that fact.
They had said that they would probably be gone for a month or two, which would mean that they were quite early.
Chase frowned as he stood up, slowly walking towards the front door and even avoided peeking through the curtains of the windows.
He silently summoned the black crescent behind his back as he slowly reached out towards the door.
In the other room, everyone had also grown overly alert, as both Equan and Kaylynn had ceased their fighting and were now wielding butter knives as weapons.
Chase felt the pulsating energy of his new lumen humming in the palm of his hand as the sharpness of his new weapon threatened even cutting his own skin without any jolts of movement.
He slowly turned the knob of the door, and then slowly pulled the door wide open.
On the other side of the door... Stood two cloaked individuals... With every part of their faces hidden, except for pairs of blue and red eyes... Piercing Chase's own emerald eyes.
"We're looking for Chase of House Phoenix." The man said in a gruff voice, holding something on the left side of his waist...
Chase sighed with a roll of his eyes.
"Who's asking?" He said blatantly, gently tightening his grip on the onyx crescent.
Then he seen it... An ebony black dagger resting behind the back of the women...
Chase almost found himself wearing a grin before stopping himself just in time.
"I don't think poisoning me is going to work this time either..." He called out, before the grin finally made its way onto his face.
And before he knew it.
The girl threw her hood off and grabbed Chase in a vicious hug.
Which then led to Neo of House Cobra pulling Chase away from Poppy and nearly strangling him to death in an even more vicious hug.
"We thought you were dead!" Neo growled, squeezing Chase even tighter.
"Gods! Let me go please!" Chase dreaded, trying to gasp for air.
Then... Luke found himself firing a warning shot as he must have been alerted, by the words "poison" "let me go" and especially the violent gasping for air.
"Detention crew?" Luke asked in awe as his jaw dropped at the sight of three of his most dreaded students back together in the same room.
And it was true...
For the first time in months, Chase of House Phoenix, Poppy of House Aries, and Neo of House Cobra... Had been reunited...