'What the fuck!' Ava furtively looked at her brother Daemon, she did not like him making a decision for her.
Solstice smiled at them both. "Thank you for placing your trust with me. With that being said, I have a spot we can stay at in the outskirts for the time being, however, I have to warn you that I don't have much to offer. I'm sure you guys have connections or other places to stay as well, so if you're open to letting me tag along, I'd be happy with that." Solstice's smile faded away into an embarrassed expression, lowering his head to them both, unable to confront them.
"Mhmm. Due to our current circumstances, I would rather not reach out to our current connections, even if they have a good relationship with our family. We don't have the luxury of our family being able to expand their resources and keep their watch on us, especially if people find out about you. Ava and I need to get hired somewhere for money for now. Just focus on studying and training in your free time. Once you're ready, we'll take a trip to the actual realm of the Wyrd."
"Sounds like a plan." Solstice nodded, his eyes distant, seemingly looking into the unknown future.
Ava looked over to her brother Daemon, even though she tried to hide it, she was grinding her teeth in anger. "Can we talk? Just you and I?"
Daemon noticed the change in the tone of her voice when she spoke. "Sure….Solstice we'll be back, we're going to take a walk."
Solstice wasn't the most emotionally intelligent person, but he knew for certain that Ava was upset about Daemon agreeing with him. At this point, he was hoping for Daemon to convince her to be on board, although right now that seemed very hard for Daemon to pull off. Nonetheless, this was a prime opportunity for Solstice to take a power nap, and leave everything to Daemon's talking skills.
Ava walked out of the room, not bothering to hold the door open for her brother, who followed after her. Ava glanced behind her at Daemon before slowly walking down the long hallway towards the top of the stairs, with Daemon catching up to her to be side by side.
Ava put her hands in her pockets, her head was slightly tilted forward as she purposefully took a long time between each step. "Don't ever do that again."
Daemon nodded, he attempted to say something but the words were caught in his throat. Ava noticed that Daemon's lips drooped slightly and his eyes were mostly closed, as if he was upset about something. Ava patiently waited for him to speak, at least looking at her brother, she cooled off a little knowing that what he did, did in fact weigh on his conscience. His confidence shook to the might of his guilt.
As they were walking down the steps, down to the first floor, Daemon found the words he wanted to say, "I won't ever do that to you again. As you know, I said I'm placing my bets on Solstice, and I really meant it."
Ava's lips twitched into an angry crooked smile that was directed at Daemon. "That doesn't mean you fucking decide that for me too, I'm my own person." Ava balled her fists that were hidden in the pockets of her leather jacket.
"I know….but whether I did it or not, the Wyrd would've made it happen one way or another. You felt it too right? We were originally set to return to our family's estate on the original path, I felt that same deathly feeling in my gut towards that, as he did to his own path. When Solstice made his decision to go against his fate, there was a subtle 'opening' in our paths. And I wanted to make the switch for us right then." Daemon firmly made his point, the confidence growing back in his tone.
Ava's crooked smile dissolved, she took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
"Yes, I felt that too. But, at least with our original path, we could almost guess which direction we're being forced to go. And if we were going to defy fate by going on our own path, which I have no issues doing considering the whole situation with The Rotten One, I would've been a lot more comfortable with accepting Jest's offer instead. At least we would've been under protection with the World Government. I'm sure we could've always deserted at some point and have our family remove and handle anything that the World Government did to us, once they handle that entity. With this, we're going into the complete unknown, and the scale of probability is no longer tilting in our favor."
They made it down to the first floor, still continuing to walk slowly down the long, open corridor, in an attempt to extend their time to talk.
Daemon felt uneasy, was racking his mind for things to say, his usual quick thinking faltering. "Understood. Looking at the bright side, this could potentially be great for us in our growth-"
Ava turned sharply towards Daemon, interrupting him, "Don't try to justify it. You know the reasoning isn't rational at all, it's a major long-term gamble we don't need to take, especially for the two of us. It truly baffles me why you're forcing this on us, for a guy that we met yesterday."
Only considering herself and her brother Daemon, and considering their current situation with their family, it made more sense in her mind to temporarily align themselves with the World Government.
Of course, Ava and Daemon, while it wasn't the safest option, could return to their estate. They would simply have to attempt to quarantine themselves the best they could, whilst being under the protection of their powerful family.
Going off on their own, with Solstice, removed any immediate protection that the Lazarus family or World Government could provide them.
However, Ava absolutely didn't want to abandon her twin brother, as they were taught at a young age that Lazarus family members were incentivized to always be in pairs. This was due to another part of their bloodline trait that they hadn't explained to Solstice, as this was an extremely personal part of their 'Sacred Fire'.
The Lazarus family's 'Sacred Fire' also granted them a very high resistance to hot temperatures and fire itself, as well as resistance to diseases and poisons. But most importantly, if a Lazarus family dies near a hearth, they themselves can come back to life after some time. Additionally, If a precious loved one dies nearby the Lazarus family member, the Lazarus family member can collect and safeguard the loved ones soul within themself and nurture them, and after a long while, they can reconstruct their loved one's body with the help of Sacred Fire, whenever they get a chance to visit a hearth.
This meant that as long as two Lazarus family members were with each other, if one of them were to die, the other one could fully revive them.
Daemon stopped walking, crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "You have me….we have each other."
"We are still not powerful enough!" Ava barked back at Daemon. There was another problem that until now, was only Solstice's problem to deal with, that troubled her.
The trio all inherited divine blood and gifts, they were prime targets for other paragons, especially Solstice, who was an even rarer existence than they were. As they were all at what was called the Prosaic stage, Grade 0, they were considerably weaker than who would be sent to hunt them. Most likely, any shady Traverser family, would either personally send out squads of their own Grade 1 Traversers, and or solo Grade 2 Traversers. They were also likely to commission dark groups from the criminal underworld, around the same amount of power to go after them.
While the three of them did carry powerful gifts in comparison to almost all other Traversers, sheer numbers, experience, and physical power would overwhelm them if it really came down to a fight. They wouldn't have anyone to fall back upon, except themselves with their own capabilities. It would be pretty much the same as an adult bird committing infanticide to a rival's nest, this was an analogy that Ava thought made the most sense to her.
To Ava, monsters were one thing, but humans with bad intentions, that were intelligent, that collectively came together to act on those bad intentions, were harder to deal with, and was therefore something more terrifying to her.
Daemon was taken back at her stark response, he intended to reply, but once more were his words caught in his throat, his argument not voiced.
It was then, that the already cold temperature violently dropped into an extreme cold, startling Ava and Daemon, they both began to frantically look around, in confusion, in alertness. A few seconds went by, an eerie silence filled the corridor, the suspense growing in their hearts as they began to beat faster and faster.
The sound of something heavy falling to the ground was heard by both Ava and Daemon, the sound was muffled because it came from behind the door labeled 'Communications & Planning'. The knob twisted as the door was pushed open, and out came two people, the extreme cold from before immediately ceased to exist.
One man was Jest, who had a very unamused look on his face, his aura was murderous. The other person was another man, who had turned into a corpse just a few seconds ago. Jest held the dead man by his long white hair, with his right hand that was drenched in warm red blood, dragging him out of the doorway as he walked out of it himself.
The dead man, had long white hair, was somewhere between 1.8 to 1.9 meters in height, a lean stature, blue eyes, and a large hole that was right where his heart was. He was wearing a brown trench coat, a red tie, a black button-down shirt, and some brown trousers that looked tailored to him.
Seeing as it was Jest, Ava and Daemon relaxed a little, however they were still on edge, as they had never seen this side of Jest. Daemon adjusted himself and asked, "What happened?"
Jest quickly looked over to Daemon which made the latter jump a little bit. "This guy is a hitman well known in the criminal underworld, a Grade 2 Traverser. He was hired by some bad paragons, his goal was to capture you three."
Daemon's eyes widened, he was speechless, he turned to look at Ava, she took a few long, aggressive strides towards him, before she punched him in his face hard enough to send him to the ground.
"My point is proven." Ava shook her hand which stung in pain after punching her brother so hard in the face. She turned around towards Jest only to see that the corpse was no longer there, and he was currently using a cloth to rub the blood off his right hand.
Daemon sat up on the ground, holding his face, blood leaked out his broken nose that healed in only a matter of seconds. He turned to look at Jest as well who was laughing.
"Hahaha. Harsh! I guess you two had an argument. Anyways….have you two decided on what you'd like to do?" Jest finished rubbing the blood off his right hand, the dirty cloth disappearing out of thin air.
Ava glanced over to Daemon who was just now standing back up, she turned back to Jest. "Someone decided for me, you should go ask them." Ava pointed to Daemon, she then quickly and angrily climbed up the stairs, to get away from her brother.
"You messed up didn't you." Jest had a dumbfounded look on his face, while Daemon looked severely crestfallen.
"In her eyes I did. Probably in your eyes, if I had to guess, I did too." Daemon looked Jest in the eyes, despite being unhappy at the moment, he held a glint of hope and determination within them, he was hoping Jest could see that as well.
Jest held his breath in anticipation. "What's the verdict?"