Chapter 103: The Reckoning Part 4: Doorbell Scare
Sora took a deep breath as he made an announcement over his loudspeaker.
"We have a guest. Brie and I heard his prayers. He is from Solstice, the planet that was just destroyed. Celeste, I am linking with you now. Please teleport with Lucious to MeadowSong to ensure the goddesses are not at the same place. Everyone else, please meet in the living room. I’d like to hear this man out."
The party stopped what they were doing and started walking toward the living area.
"Someone from a destroyed planet is here? How did he get here?" Jubelle asked as he grabbed Ox’s hand.
"Not sure, come on Mindy, your dad’s have to meet someone and we want you to be with us!"
"Coming! I wonder if he’s nice like you two! Uncle Sora said he prayed to him, so he must be good, right?"
Mindy’s words echoed throughout the halls and everyone took a second to comprehend what she meant.
"I have also prayed to the gods, and I do not sense any evil approaching. However, I will have my deception ability active to protect us," Levi shouted.
Xander teleported to Sora and kept pulling at his shirt.
"Dadda, Dadda!"
"What’s up little buddy?"
"Fire guy wose evewyone he wuv. He vewy sad."
Brite teleported into the room and caught the last of Xander’s sentence.
"How do you know he’s sad sweetheart?" Brie asked calmly, with a smile.
Xander frowned and shrugged.
"It’s ok baby don’t worry. One day you’ll be able to explain it to us. Do you think we should go meet him?"
Xander smiled and said, "Yes! He needs fwiends wight now."
"Ok Xander, now you have to stay with Levi and Sasha while we go let him in, ok?" Sora said kindly.
"No. I go with." Xander said and stomped his foot. "He not hurt us."
"That’s not the point Xander. We need you to wait with the others so he isn’t shocked to see a god, a goddess and a god baby, ok?"
Xander pouted, opened a portal, went over and sat on Sasha’s lap and closed the portal.
"Well, at least he’s trying!" Sora said with a goofy smile.
"Yup, he is, let’s go meet this interesting looking guy," Brie said as she grabbed Sora’s hand and teleported them both outside the front gate.
*****
"You must be Sora and Brie? I am Ignis Solaris, King of Solstice, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Please tell me my prayers got to you in time." he said while bowing.
"Nice to meet you and please don’t bow to us, we don’t like being treated differently. Also, you said you’re a king? The only information we could fully make out was ’you needed to speak with us because your planet was destroyed and you knew where they were going next." Brie said with her usual charismatic, bubbly charm.
Ignis stood up awkwardly, his flames always moving with his body.
"Would you like to come inside? I must warn you, our party is very large and we have a child of our own, we have a werewolf/vampire hybrid child and a pregnant demon expecting a vampire/demon hybrid, so if you do anything to cause us danger, we will not hesitate," Sora said politely, but with enough seriousness to stress his point.
"I’m not here to hurt anyone. I was able to trick Azazel into thinking he killed me and caught him off guard. This allowed me to grab his head and gain insight into his thoughts and memories. He’s clearly afraid of you two and whomever you’re allied with so his plan is to ambush planet after planet."
"How did you manage to trick someone like Azazel? You surely must be gifted as a warrior... Do you mind if I ask how you accomplished this feat?" Sora asked. He was intrigued and smiled in wonder.
"My brother and I were both born from, to our knowledge, the only two phoenix parents the Universe has ever produced. He is more of an actual phoenix than I am. I am a hybrid, where he stays in phoenix form." Ignis explained, manipulating his fire as his wings sprouted from his back.
"My brother flew above the chaos, using his phoenix vision to remain undetected. He swooped down when Azazel thought he pulled my heart from my chest. Luckily, Azazel only grabbed the protective fire and half of my heart. My brother flew down and entered my body. By doing this, my heart reignited and healed itself! Pretty cool, isn’t it?" Ignis couldn’t help but smile.
"That’s amazing! How did you grow a new heart so quickly?" Brie asked as she was also deeply intrigued.
"Phoenixes are reborn from their ashes, so our hearts are mostly fire. His actions caused him to burst into flames once we reached our secret hideout, which contains the great phoenix flame. I allowed him to eat my fire, and he returned to an adolescent phoenix before I left," Ignis said with a large smile. "I told him to pray to you two if he’s in trouble."
"That’s absolutely amazing! So you and your brother are the only remaining phoenixes?"
"To our knowledge, but in this Universe, you can never be certain of anything!" Ignis said with a laugh.
"I think he’s telling the truth babe, let’s let him in?"
"I agree, yes. I’m sure Xander has some sort of ability that senses someone’s lifeforce or emotions. I’m not sure, I just remember Lucious making the comment when we brought him home that he thought Xander was staring at everyone and reading them," Brie responded.
Ignis stood around for a moment, and Sora realized Brie could inspect people using just magic, so he tried for the first time since removing his system.
’Inspect Ignis Solaris,’ Sora thought long and hard.
To his surprise, rather than seeing the numbers being listed in front of him, he could hear the results.
’Solaris Ignis. Race: Unknown. Adventure Rank: Unknown. Highly skilled in fire magic and can transform his body into a mythical creature.’
"Hey Brie, did you get anything from your inspect? Mine was pretty vague."
"It’s been awhile since we’ve used that on a person, hasn’t it? Let me give it a shot–He’s part phoenix, that’s all I got really other than the obvious."
Ignis laughed.
"Guess we’re busted eh?" Sora joked.
"It’s perfectly fine. I’d expect nothing less from a god and goddess. I’d love to answer your questions, but you said something about a party. I’d rather not explain myself twice."
"Oh! Right, of course, come with us. We’re undetectable and untraceable inside my mansion, although since Azazel, Helen and Eris left, only a demon or werewolf here and there have been lurking around. Let me make a temporary seal with you so you can get inside and get your spacecraft in there." Sora offered.
After setting the temporary seal, allowing Ignis access to the mansion with the understanding that the penalty for betraying them while under the seal was death, he happily jumped in his spacecraft, which turned invisible once he got inside.
"That makes so much more sense why no one followed him. I can sense a werewolf, but he’s too far to notice anything. I’m surprised they don’t pay more attention to our gate." Brie said with a chuckle.
"Yeah, ever since we realized how much we missed over the past three years while we were in Paradise yesterday; I feel like we have so much catching up to do. You always used to joke about me living under a rock. Well, apparently all of us were!" Sora said while shaking his head.
"I’m baffled with all of our brain power... especially Jubelle, and your library, none of us thought to go looking for other planets or at least have Celeste ask Athena or someone from Paradise about them."
Ignis appeared in front of Sora’s front door, so he grabbed Brie’s hand and teleported there.
"Shall we, my friend?" Sora said politely while opening the front door.
