Chapter 30:

"That's it!" Luciel gasped, pointing directly at Skylar, "that's right! Definitely!"

The rest of the group drastically turned to Luciel, confused over what he had just discovered. 

"What?" Ren asked, "what'd you figure out?"

"Chronos - I know who he is!" Luciel exclaimed, instantly catching everyone's attention as he continued, "the reason why I called him Rylie before was because I had met him once."

"Wait- really?!" Adrian asked, suddenly grasping at Luciel's shoulders, "where? When? Who is he?"

Darius yanked Adrian off Luciel, pulling him away as they waited for Luciel to begin explaining. He seemed to pause for a second, piecing together his story before beginning.

"I don't remember exactly when I did meet him, but I was with Sofia at the time." He began, "it was definitely a while before we left for space, and I think she was meeting someone... her boyfriend I believe, and she wanted to introduce him to me..."

Standing beside Sofia, Luciel anxiously waited by the gates to the academy. He was finally going to meet his sister's boyfriend and according to her, he was an important person - the president's son. Evening was growing in closer, the sun descending down towards the horizon at a gradual pace as evening stars started lighting up the darkening sky. The silence grew thick between the two siblings as they patiently waited for the man to arrive.

"Don't be so anxious, Lu," Sofia smiled as she leant back against the wall, "he's a super nice guy."

Luciel only nodded, not really feeling like meeting her boyfriend at the time since he originally planned on studying for the medical exam the following day. She told him that he should arrive soon and all he had to do was greet him then leave if he was too bored. In the distance, soft lights and the faint sound of a car began echoing down the street as Sofia jumped off the wall and waved to the car. Within the next couple of minutes, the car reached the two siblings and gently came to a stop right in front of them. Stepping out of the expensive, luxury car was a tall blonde man wearing high-end clothing.

"Sofia, hey." He smiled, hugging her tightly.

"Tommy," she smiled back, her grin as wide as the crescent moon as she embraced him lovingly, "I'm so glad you could come."

As the two spoke, out of the corner of  Luciel's eye, he saw someone else sat in the passenger's seat of the car. He looked bored. Hell, even fed up about being drove so far as to the academy. Curiosity got the best of him as he slowly crouched down to get a better look at the young teen in the car. He noticed that he was just sat on his phone, his eyes expressing the evident boredom he felt as he lifted his feet onto the chair. While he was flipping through the contents of his phone, it seemed like he caught eye of Luciel staring at him as he turned his head to face directly at him.

Slowly, he mouthed, 'what do you want?'

Before Luciel could reply, Tommy and Sofia noticed his curiosity with the lad in the car and Tommy dragged him out, much to the lad's reluctance.

"Sorry, this is Rylie, my younger brother." He said, a little embarrassed as he indicated towards the bored guy, "I had to pick him up just before coming here."

"Nice to meet you Rylie" Sofia softly said, smiling at him as she indicated to Luciel, "this is Luciel, my younger brother."

"Hey," he quietly said, "how are you?"

Rylie glanced up at Tommy, clearly not wanting to involve himself in any sort of human interaction as he sighed and reluctantly replied with, "I'm good."

It seemed like the youngest lad really didn't want to socialise at the moment and constantly kept his responses short and closed-ended. Rylie acted incredibly unbothered about anything anyone spoke about and always returned his eyes to the contents of his phone, regardless of whether he found them more interesting or not.

"Ah no way," Tommy exclaimed, bringing Luciel back to the conversation as he focused too much on the unusual behaviour of Rylie, "you're training to be a medic too?"

He timorously nodded, quietly replying with, "yeah, I'm trying to be."

"Ah, that's cool!" He smiled, excitedly, "much more ambitious than Rylie for sure."

"Shut up..." he quietly said, "I'm heading back in the car, don't take too long."

And with that, the quiet teen ducked for the car, avoiding any possible opposition to the idea.

"He was so... introverted when I first met him too," Luciel finished, "I'm not surprised I didn't recognise him immediately."

Shock flooded into the other's eyes as Luciel finished telling his story of meeting Chronos. Each one stunned at the difference in personality between Rylie, the version they hadn't met, and Chronos, the version they had met, but it would make sense, the idea that he was the president's son would provide him access to knowledge about upcoming events.

"So we're definitely thinking it was a nuclear war." Kennie asked, wanting confirmation, "and America started it?"

"I'd say so," Darius replied, "it'd make sense, and even though the president's son shouldn't have access to the war information, he may have overheard it and that's why he was able to hop onto your ship."

"That would make sense," Ren said, thinking back to when they first met Chronos, "it would be the answer to why we encountered so many issues with returning to Earth, he probably didn't want us to return in the middle of it all."

"So he was trying to play the hero," Marcus commented, "from his analogy. He knew something no one else did and through his conscience, he had to do something to prevent humanity from going extinct."

The group continued talking for a bit longer, conversing over the ideas that Chronos could've had to help prevent humanity from disappearing from the universe entirely. As they spoke, theorising his plans and how he expected to save everyone, Luciel remained silent. His mind elsewhere as he thought over something different to what everyone else was talking about. He prioritised thinking about how they could save humanity themselves instead of how Chronos would have. Soon his mind filtered its way over to the new ship, realising that something aboard the ship could inevitably be the key to resurrect humanity.

"The wormhole!" He exclaimed, shutting everyone else up as his eye gleamed with his peaked excitement, "we could travel back in time to before the war started and prevent it!"