Chapter 45: Silver-haired Family

IVORY:

A new world flooded us.

Two men yelled and made aggressive gestures at each other; another pair of people were violently haggling with each other over some food while a mother cried over her daughter's dead body.

Nobody seemed to notice that we appeared out of thin air. With Rei's dried blood dyed on our class and ash of our faces and hair, we fitted right in.

"We need to find Easton." Emilia commanded, giving the scene of the mother and dead mother a sympathetic glance before adopting a determined expression.

Kyle seemed to waver, staring at the situation his future subjects were in, perhaps blaming himself to be unable to help them.

"Let's go." Luke pulled him with us, "We don't have forever."

Many situations like earlier became even more frequent as we walked further,

"Where do you think Easton is?" I asked, "Because we're currently just getting even more lost."

"Shh…" Emilia hushed us, staring at a crowd of people standing in a queue in front of a food stall.

We all stayed silent trying to see what Emilia was looking at.

A young woman, in front of the queue, was picking out fruits and bread to buy. There was nothing too unordinary about her except for the fact that she had silver hair exactly like Solaris.

"You think it's his mother?" I whispered, watching as she began buying the food in her basket.

"I'm sure of it." Emilia nodded, "She looks like the female version of him."

We started walking towards her before,

"Ivory. Change our appearance." Kyle suddenly requested, "We can't just walk up to her covered in blood."

"Ah. Yeah, I guess." I glanced down at our gruesome clothes before closing my eyes and imagining four young children with slightly dirty, thin clothes.

A thick coating of illusion coated us, weaving us into the image of four, poor children.

"Thanks Ivory!" Emilia grinned, rubbing her freckles, and flicking her sandy blond hair over her shoulder.

"You grew a lot shorter." I looked up at Luke.

"Let's go." Kyle gestured us, walking towards Solaris' mother.

We walked steadily towards her, and Emilia tugged on her thin coat.

"Hm?" She turned around, her plaited silver hair twirling as she looked at us, "Oh, hello there, children."

The four of us briefly glanced at each other, seeming to read each other's minds and Emilia smiled prettily,

"Is Easton home?" She asked, a childish grin on her face, "We want to go play with him!"

"Easton?" The woman gave Emilia a confused smile.

"That's our nickname for Solaris!" I cut in quickly, "It's an inside joke."

Kyle, Luke, and Emilia gave me a puzzled glance before nodding and grinning.

"My Solaris never brings friends home!" The lady hummed, starting to lead the way to her home, "I was worried he was being bullied!"

Behind her back, Kyle mouthed words at me with obvious exaggeration,

"Who. Is. SOL.AR.IS." Kyle mimed, his eyebrows winkling in confusion and I bit back a chuckle,

"Easton's childhood name." I tried to convey back, despite the lack of sound.

The three of them nodded, confused but didn't press further.

"Home sweet home!" Solaris' mother beamed, gesturing at the broken-down shack, "It's not much, but it's home."

"…It's cute." Emilia answered politely after a few seconds of silence.

Solaris' mother laughed merrily, before opening the door.

"Solaris dear, your friends are here!" She grinned, walking up the stairs to a room.

Solaris sat inside, with a book in his hands as he gave his mother a loving smile.

"Friends?" Solaris frowned, a small wrinkle in between his eyebrows.

"You children can sit inside there!" She beamed, "Don't blow the house up!"

She went back downstairs towards the kitchen and none of us spoke.

Well, our plan clearly hadn't been planned up to this point.

"Why are you here?" Solaris demanded as the door slowly closed behind us.

"We're here to lay with you!" Emilia smiled sweetly, expected the child to believe her.

"I'm not an idiot. I've looked into the future, and I'm not supposed to meet you until later." Solaris snapped, "You've come to kill me, haven't you?"

"No-" Kyle began to argue.

"And take of that shoddy illusion of yours." Solaris demanded, "Clearly, whoever cast this hadn't had much practice before."

I let out a sigh of relief, and the heavy strain on my shoulders lifted as the shadow illusion faded away.

"Now, I guess I'll have to kill you first." Solaris, stood up, spheres of different colours and elements suddenly flaring up.

"He's just a child!" Luke unsheathed his sword, "We can kill him! It's four against a child!"

"I've lived enough lifetimes to know I can destroy you even in this weak body." Solaris scowled, even more spheres twirling around him.

"Die." Emilia used her light ability to travel at the speed of light right behind him as she solidified her light element into a razor-sharp dagger.

"No thanks." Solaris replied coolly, not even turning around as he shot a flare of blue fire towards her.

Barely dodging the fire, Emilia quickly used her light ability to dart back towards the back of the room.

"I guess Rei sacrificed himself, didn't he?" Solaris asked airily, "I'm impressed. There was only a 3% of that happening in all the futures I saw."

The room we were in started wobbling, and we were thrown into an unsteady state.

I glanced out of the window, and with a bolt of shock, I realized the room we were in was being ripped away from the house and into the sky.

"Solaris?!" The cold, silver boy's mother screamed frantically.

"Do you know how Rei acquired that interesting power of his?" Easton asked, and the sphere of darkness burst open, flooding the room with heavy, pitch blackness.

I stumbled around, almost tripping on something.

"My light element isn't strong enough to light up this room!" Emilia anxiously shouted, "Stay alert, he might attack at any time!"

"Rei was born with wind element. But his father managed to find and sacrificed 5 people with strong powers in light, shadow, nature, water, and fire. I suppose he wanted to experiment on Rei and make him into someone like me; with multiple powers." Solaris voice appeared from somewhere else, "But he failed miserably. Not only did he get caught and got thrown into prison, but he only managed to combine the elements together to create the final, infinite power: time. Even I don't possess the power time."

"Where are you guys?" I heard Luke's voice close to me.

Suddenly, a weak ray of light shone in the thick shadows and I glanced towards it, glad that Emilia had finally succeeded penetrating Solaris' darkness. But it wasn't Emilia's power. It was flickering in front of Luke's face, and Luke didn't have light element.

"Boo." Solaris grinned manically, the shadows and light on his face only making seem more demented.