The moment Darian opened his eyes again, he was still stuck on the same table in the same gray room and couldn't move at all. 'My head again…' Darian was feeling extremely weak, as he hadn't eaten anything until yesterday, and he was feeling extremely cold, as Zrelekai hadn't put a shirt on him after cutting it off.
Darian noticed that Zrelekai had put his bag in the room, and the scientist was searching inside it. "I must say that you've got really interesting things here." Suddenly, Zrelekai grabbed some seeds inside a small pouch labeled: Starryk.
"What's this supposed to be? A fruit from that planet of yours?" asked Zrelekai as he slowly opened the pouch, grabbed one of the countless seeds, and inserted it into his mouth before swallowing it.
'Damn, I forgot to give those to Rusty…' thought Darian as he looked both confused and angry toward Zrelekai, who was literally wasting the things he had brought from XERBAB-7.
"Oh, what is it? You're angry that I can do everything I want with these things?" said Zrelekai as he smirked, took some seeds in his hands, created a small plastic bag, and inserted half of the seeds there.
"I've never been interested in harvesting… well, it's a good thing that I can try," he added as he left the plastic bag in one of the desk's drawers.
"But why steal them from me…" whispered Darian as he tightened both of his fists. Zrelekai heard what he said without any problem and slowly walked closer to him.
"I can't create something without knowing it first. I first need to study it from zero; using my power is not as easy as you might think…" Zrelekai slowly positioned his hand over Darian's shoulder, looking as if he had just gained an idea.
"But first, I'm curious… how does this Starryk thing work?" he asked. After touching Darian's shoulder, he returned to the stool and, after sitting down, looked Darian directly in the eyes, waiting for him to explain.
"I found that during my fifth year on XERBAB-7. That Starryk was a fruit, and the only one on that planet that was spicy." Darian then started to explain everything about the Starryk.
"Oh, spicy things are so bad; I never create them, as I totally hate their taste," Zrelekai interrupted Darian with a comment. "Why did you decide to bring it here?" he added.
"I brought everything I discovered on that planet. There wasn't any reason for me to leave something there; the whole of humanity should have discovered it too," said Darian angrily, remembering their last conversation about the discoveries.
"You're always stuck with that thought… that is the thing that ruins you…" whispered Zrelekai. "Well, that wouldn't be a problem, as humanity is facing other problems, so no one will ever care about an alien fruit… but what shape does it have?" added the scientist.
"It had a star shape and it was the color yellow," said Darian. Hearing these words, Zrelekai's eyes started to sparkle.
"Woah, like one of the stars I can see in the sky?!" shouted Zrelekai. Suddenly, he closed his eyes and opened the palm of his hand. "Something like this?" he whispered. Darian remained still, looking over Zrelekai's hand and waiting for him to create something.
After a minute, something with the shape of a star was created in his hand, matching Darian's exact description. "Hey, don't tell me that you only need to hear a description to create something," murmured Darian, a bit surprised. Suddenly, Zrelekai broke off a piece and gave it to Darian.
"Something like this?" asked Zrelekai. Darian noticed that the inside of the fruit was red, while the ones he was used to eating on XERBAB-7 were yellow inside.
Zrelekai gave the first bite of the fruit to Darian, and the moment he chewed it, Darian realized that it wasn't spicy at all. In fact, he even understood why it was red.
"First, on the outside it was rough, not soft… and second…" said Darian as he looked annoyed toward Zrelekai. "Hey, I told you, I don't like spicy things, and watermelon flavor will always be the best."
In fact, this fruit tasted like a watermelon, except it had the shape of a star. Zrelekai ate the whole fruit in just a single bite. "Mhmm, yeah, watermelon flavor will always be my favorite." After he chewed the fruit, he returned to Darian's bag to keep searching.
"I had seen this other thing before, and I found it to be extremely interesting." Suddenly, Zrelekai grabbed Darian's phone and turned it on.
"Hey, leave that!" shouted Darian angrily, but Zrelekai didn't listen to him. In fact, he simply opened Rusty's chat and noticed a new message that Darian hadn't replied to yet.
"'Master, have you arrived…' said Rusty. What should I answer?" Suddenly, a huge smirk appeared on Zrelekai's face. 'Right, I should have contacted him when we arrived in Ardoris…' thought Darian. Suddenly, Zrelekai grabbed a knife from the table and started to make multiple cuts over Darian's chest.
"Hey, stop… why?!" shouted Darian angrily, but Zrelekai didn't answer and didn't stop. He kept making small cuts all over his chest, and even though they were extremely small, blood had already started to drip from the injuries.
"Mhmmm… good, I think these are enough," said Zrelekai, proud of himself, as he suddenly grabbed the phone on the table again and opened the camera.
"If I've understood these objects correctly, you should be able to take some pictures… oh, here, perfect." Suddenly, Zrelekai pointed the camera toward Darian's cut-covered body, but before taking the picture, he stopped for a moment.
"Hey, can you tell me how I can rotate the camera? If I'm correct, the right word for it must be 'selfie'…" Zrelekai positioned the phone in front of Darian's face, whose body was crying in pain. "You see the two arrows near the huge white button?" whispered Darian. Zrelekai looked at the phone for a moment and clicked on them.
"Oh, this one! Perfect!" Suddenly, Zrelekai positioned the phone in front of his head and was able to take a selfie of himself with Darian's cut-covered body behind him. "Cheeseeee!" shouted Zrelekai before taking the picture. Darian could only look down, as he didn't have the strength to look into the camera.
The moment the picture was taken, Zrelekai returned to the chat and sent this picture to Rusty. "Still, I wonder why people used to say 'cheese' rather than 'watermelon'; this fruit tastes better than cheese!" he said, slightly annoyed, as he turned off the phone and left it in Darian's bag.
Darian remained silent as he didn't know how to react. 'Rusty will definitely see the picture… sorry, Rusty…' thought Darian. As he looked over at Zrelekai, he realized that he had already turned off the phone and wouldn't look into the full chat anymore. 'At least he won't ask me anything about the black crystals…' Darian realized that the previous parts of the chat were full of him and Rusty talking about that topic, and it would have been a real pain to talk with Zrelekai about it.
"Honestly, I never understood how phones work on the inside, too many parts and they were too small. It felt extremely boring." Suddenly, Zrelekai created both a blank plate and some biscuits on top of it.
"Are you finally letting me eat?" said Darian, as he realized that because he hadn't eaten anything, his strength was slowly leaving his body.
"Exactly. Mothers in the past used to say 'here comes the airplane' to their children, I'm sure they must have told that to you too, right?"
Darian remembered when he was a small child and his grandmother, Anny, would give him food. She would always say, "Here comes the airplane!!" Darian, when he was just a child, would always smile and laugh at that sight and eat happily.
"I would like to say 'here comes the airplane,' but these are watermelon biscuits… so here comes the watermelon!!" shouted Zrelekai as the biscuits entered Darian's mouth without him asking. While he started to chew them, his mind was stuck on the thought of his grandmother, Anny, feeding him when he was just a child and still happy.
"I see you're getting sadder, don't worry, soon you'll meet someone really close to you," said Zrelekai after he had given Darian all the biscuits he had just created. Hearing these words, Darian snapped back to reality and realized something: Snowy wasn't in the same room as him.
"Are you talking about Snowy? Where the hell did you take him?!" shouted Darian angrily. "Calm down, he isn't far." With that, Zrelekai moved behind Darian's chair and, with the wheels under it, started to wheel him toward another room.
After some steps, they arrived in a huge room that was separated into two parts by a wall of glass. "I'll leave you there," whispered Zrelekai as he left Darian inside the room. The moment he came outside, Darian had already spotted Snowy in the other part of the room, and he was no longer unconscious.
Suddenly, Zrelekai pressed a button on a small remote control and Darian could move his hands again. "Okay, if everything works correctly, you must be hearing me, Darian," said Zrelekai. Darian, who had climbed down from the chair, nodded his head.
"Obviously it will work; everything I create is perfect…" whispered Zrelekai happily. Suddenly, he spoke again. "Okay, then, now I need you to fuse with Snowy." The fox, seeing Darian move freely, arrived near the glass wall, and the two of them remained as close as they could, separated by the wall.
'Fuse with him? Man, that would be an easy way to escape, thought Darian as he smirked. I guess this Zrelekai wasn't as smart as I thought…' Darian was starting to get ready. The moment Snowy was free, they would immediately fuse together and escape.
"Judging by your facial expression, I see that you're already thinking of escaping… as if I wasn't prepared for that," said Zrelekai, amused at the sight of Darian's face slowly turning surprised. "I've made this room as resistant as I could and I want to test your resistance. I want to see how your soul holds up and why you don't use it…" Suddenly, Zrelekai pressed one of the buttons, a small door opened in the glass wall, and Darian and Snowy could meet again.
"Let's go kick that guy's ass, Snowy!" shouted Darian as he immediately rushed into the other part of the room. Snowy, seeing Darian rushing at him at full speed, did the same and launched himself into Darian's hands, fusing with him.
The magic between the two happened again, and Zrelekai immediately noticed something: the temperature of Darian's body had dropped drastically, and the room had become colder.
"Ohh, interesting…" whispered Zrelekai. Suddenly, he pressed the button on the microphone in front of him and spoke again. "Let's see what you can do," said Zrelekai, inviting Darian to do whatever he wanted.
"I'll destroy you!" shouted Darian angrily as he immediately focused his hand toward the glass. 'I'll be free…' he thought. "ICE SHARD!" shouted Darian, and a huge shard appeared from his hand and rushed directly toward the glass, unable to create even the slightest scratch.
'What?' thought Darian, confused, as he looked at the window, which hadn't been broken at all.
"I told you, Darian, everything has been reinforced as much as I could. Now, let me see how it is possible that you don't use your soul to cast magic," said Zrelekai, amused by Darian's face as he waited for Darian to use as much magic as he could.
Some hours passed. Darian had kept shooting multiple shards of different strengths toward the glass, but there wasn't the slightest damage. 'I've tried to hit it for three hours straight, nonstop… how can it still be intact?' Zrelekai's eyes never left Darian's body. "It's curious; after three hours of constantly using magic, my body would start to bleed too. And yours? It's still perfectly fine," said Zrelekai, surprised, as he wrote down everything he was seeing on a small piece of paper.
'Snowy… I need your tails.' It wasn't the first time Darian had called for Snowy's help, but the more he called for him, the more it seemed he wouldn't arrive. Darian had just fallen to his knees and couldn't resist anymore; soon he would completely pass out.
'Why can't I destroy it…' thought Darian angrily. Zrelekai, still looking at him, noticed that he had just fallen to his knees and realized he was reaching his limit. "He has resisted for three hours straight… no Alterid would ever be able to resist for this much time," whispered Zrelekai as he watched Darian charging up another shard.
'In much less than three hours of full magic usage, an Alterid would have already reached the last stage. In three hours, my body would begin to bleed… but him? It feels like he can resist for three hours only, and under some circumstances, I guess it must be longer for him…' thought Zrelekai as he noticed a huge shard being created in front of Darian's palm.
"ICE SHARD!" shouted Darian with all the strength in his body. After this last shard, Snowy was launched out from his body and both of them fell unconscious. The moment Zrelekai was sure that Darian had fallen unconscious, he entered the room to grab his body and brought him back into the gray room.
"And that is everything. In the last day, before you arrived, he had just asked me a lot of questions about XERBAB-7 and everything I discovered there, but nothing more," said Darian, finally finished explaining everything. Liro, Vane, and Lily had horrified looks on their faces, as they didn't expect Zrelekai could be this brutal, and the other three, who were used to hearing these stories, just looked extremely sad.