The following day had finally arrived, every Veilguard was already awake, even if it was only 6 a.m. Darian wanted to arrive early at his base, and he asked everyone to wake up early. Darian expected only Vane, Liro, and Lily to be already awake, but seeing the others here too made his heart jump with joy. Kael and Lara, who weren't used to waking up this early, were still half-asleep, while Alerya and Allocen, who were more used to waking up this early, didn't have any problem.
Darian looked around at his comrades. Snowy was on his shoulder, sleeping as always, only to see Liro and Lily completely awake and extremely happy to be there, while Vane was still half-sleep, in an even worse condition.
"Well, I don't think we should lose any more time," said Darian. They had just finished waving at each other, not knowing for how many days they might not see each other.
"I've counted how long it might take, if everything goes alright, it might take us 12 to 15 days," said Liro as the group started to walk away.
"Well, I'm sure that once you're back, the city will be in a much better condition," said Alerya, looking behind her at the city which was extremely quiet, as everyone was still asleep there.
"Eheh, we're sure of that," said Lily. With that, the group gave one last goodbye before waving back at the others. "We should not lose any time either," whispered Alerya while entering the city; the others nodded their heads and followed her from behind.
"I'm sure we didn't need to leave this early…" said Vane, a bit annoyed with his eyes half-closed.
"C'mon, Vane," said Darian, full of energy. "The sooner we arrive, the better it is."
Vane looked at him, then his eyes rested on Snowy, who was sleeping on Darian's shoulder without any problem. Even if Darian was walking with this much energy, Snowy was sleeping without any problem. "I wish I could be like him…" whispered Vane. Liro and Lily next to him heard his words pretty well and laughed softly.
Darian, hearing Liro and Lily laughing together with Vane a bit annoyed and not understanding why, felt really curious. Rather than walking in the front, he positioned himself next to the others. "Hey, why are you laughing this much?" asked Darian.
Vane positioned one of his hands on Darian's free shoulder and on his face there was a deadpan look. "I'm too big to sleep there," said him.
"Don't worry…" said Darian, petting Vane's head. "Soon you'll sleep in a better bed," said Darian with a playful voice, knowing that in these travel days, they wouldn't sleep comfortably at all.
Vane's expression changed to the one of someone who knew that his end was near. "It's over…" said him while looking in front of him at the empty horizon; the others next to him laughed softly.
Around 4 days passed since they left Therya; they would still need 2 days to arrive at Darian's base. "By the way, Darian, before we left Therya I'm sure I saw you and Allocen in the training camp… what were you doing?" asked Liro.
"Oh right, I haven't told my considerations yet," said Darian as he realized that he hadn't told the others the conclusion he came up with about Snowy, who was currently awake on his shoulder. Before speaking again, Darian gave a small pat on Snowy's head.
"I feel like Snowy falls unconscious because I'm not strong physically, and with the help of Allocen, we realized that it might be because Snowy needs to help my body not to get ruined too," said Darian.
"And so? You need to become stronger physically?" asked Lily.
"Exactly. Allocen was helping me become stronger even when I don't have Snowy," answered Darian. "So whenever I have time I need to train… I guess I'll ask Rusty to make me some gym machines," added him. Everyone behind him looked confused.
"Gym?" whispered Vane, confused.
"Machines?" added Lily, even more confused.
"Machines like Rusty and robots?" asked Liro, trying to follow Darian with what he was saying, but realizing that the others had never seen a gym in this world, it was hard for them to imagine it.
Darian laughed softly before starting to explain some of the machines that you could use to train in a gym and what they were.
"And in the end, people went there to train their bodies and become strong physically. I'm sure that Rusty will not have any problem in building one of them," finished Darian after his explanation. While something this hard to follow was explained by Darian, Lily and Liro were always the most excited ones, while Vane always had a puzzled expression trying to follow what was happening.
After that, another 2 days passed; the group had finally arrived at the base. Before entering, they could see Rusty already in the greenhouse. "RUSTY!!" shouted Darian while running towards him; the others all followed him from behind with normal steps, except for Lily, who had never seen this base and felt extremely excited to see this.
While Darian stopped in front of Rusty, Lily passed right through them and immediately arrived at the greenhouse with an amazed expression. "I guess you brought another energetic person, Master," said Rusty while looking behind at Lily.
"Ehehe yeah… by the way, we have a lot to tell you, Rusty," said Darian. Rusty moved his metallic head to Darian and nodded. "You can tell me now. I need to harvest some fruit… I'm sure you'll like these fruits, Darian," said Rusty. Darian followed him inside the greenhouse, confused, followed by the others until he spotted a tree with purple leaves that was impossible for him not to recognize.
It was one of the trees from XERBAB-7, and Darian immediately spotted the fruit. Darian decided to call it the nebula heart. It takes the shape of an irregular dodecahedron, roughly the size of a grapefruit. Its skin color was a beautiful bioluminescent blue.
Darian discovered it on his sixth year on XERBAB-7; he discovered it this late because it only grew in specific parts of the world and it was extremely hard to grow, mostly because of the conditions. In all these years, Darian found it as one of the best fruits in XERBAB-7; if he had to choose, it easily was his favorite one. It starts with an intense, menthol-like chill that rapidly dissolves into a warm, spicy sweetness, reminiscent of salted caramel infused with star anise.
"I've been able to grow it without any—" Rusty couldn't even finish speaking that Darian immediately rushed towards the tree and grabbed a fruit. "No way… you have been able to grow it, Rusty?!" shouted him. The others all went next to him, surprised and confused.
"It wasn't hard, Master." Rusty slowly grabbed the fruit from Darian's hand and started to peel it so he could make everyone try it. He gave a piece to everyone. "Hey, dammit, this is really great!" said Vane. Liro and Lily didn't find it extremely good.
"I thought it was better…" whispered Liro after chewing the fruit. Lily next to him agreed.
Darian looked at them with a more confused expression. "What are you even saying? This is great," said him while taking another bite. "Hey, I want more!" said Vane, as he saw that Darian had the biggest piece and him and the others only had a small bite.
Rusty sliced another part of the fruit and gave that to Vane, who ate it without any problem.
After that, the group entered the house and started to explain what happened after the last time they went away from this base. "So that huge creature you encountered really exists, Master," said Rusty, referring to Kyujin.
"Exactly..." finished Darian as he just told Rusty everything.
"Well, by the way, I've got something important for you too, Master." With that, Rusty suddenly walked towards one of the drawers of Darian's desk and took out what looked like a phone.
"We don't have any way to contact each other if something important happens," said Rusty as he gave the phone to Darian, who remained extremely happy to see that.
"No way…" said Darian, amazed. Everyone else positioned themselves next to him, wondering what that thing was. The moment Darian turned it on, what looked like a black chat appeared; there was only one contact, which was called: Rusty.
The app was both black and green and while Darian was checking everything that he could do with this app, he received a text from Rusty: 'if you're reading this text, this means everything works perfectly fine.'
Darian without hesitation began typing: 'IT WORKS!'
After sending the text, Darian raised his head to look at Rusty. "We won't have any problem staying in contact with each other now. If I discover something new, or you have important information to share with me, you can let me know immediately." Darian realized that he had the possibility to take a picture too with this phone.
In fact, it had a small storage that was enough to hold some pictures plus the chat together with Rusty. "You don't need to worry about charging it; it can charge easily with the sun," said Rusty, even if Darian couldn't hear him as he was feeling like a child who just received his first mobile phone.
"No way, Rusty… how did you make this?!" said Darian, surprised, as he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Around 500 years ago, after the catastrophe, I've been able to gather some materials in an old city nearby. I've always kept them; recently I've been able to find a use for them," answered Rusty while Darian opened the camera app and saw that he could take a picture, even if the camera wasn't one of the best. In fact, the quality was nowhere near as good as the one that Darian was used to.
"What's this, Darian?" asked Vane, confused. Darian didn't answer immediately and he felt that it was something that he had explained already another time; as he glanced around he noticed that the others were equally confused as him, so even if he wasn't understanding anything, he felt a bit reassured.
Darian before answering thought for a bit, then came up with a beautiful plan. "I can see everything behind the phone, what's that?" asked Liro, confused.
"You'll see it now," said Darian with a smirk as he gave the phone to Rusty. Darian gave him the same look and Rusty, without any problem, understood immediately. After Rusty took the phone in his hands, Darian walked up to the bed and sat down on it.
"Guys, come nearby," said Darian while not looking at them and looking directly at the phone. The others, confused, did as he asked. "What is it, Darian?" asked Lily, confused. "Just look at the phone," said Darian, pointing to where the others had to look. The moment everyone was looking at the camera, Rusty pressed the button and a small click was heard.
The others hearing that jumped, scared. "What was that?" asked Liro, at first scared, then he saw that Darian remained more calm and realized that it wasn't anything dangerous.
Darian walked up to Rusty and took the phone in his hand. 'Let's hope that the quality isn't that bad…' thought him while looking at the picture and realizing that it was better than what it looked like. "Let us see, Darian," said Lily, trying to look at the phone.
Darian slowly lowered it and showed that to everyone. "Hey, that's us!" pointed out Vane. Suddenly Liro realized something. "Hey, I've read about it, so this is a camera?" asked Liro, realizing that he had read a long time ago about a thing that could capture an image.
"Eheh…" said Darian while looking at the picture and he felt like a child again, back to when he first took a picture together with his grandmother. Now that picture was lost and couldn't be retrieved anymore, but now he had something new in his hand: a picture with all his friends. Darian first looked at the picture, then at his friends who looked at him confused, then smiled warmly.