Symbol

This fruit was more than mere fruit.

It was the symbol of Pequi Republic, the symbol of the Central Plateau, the symbol of all the people who lived in those subtropical plains. Even among the many animals, perhaps only the guara could match the popularity of this form of plant life.

Trevor sighed at the distant memories coming back to him.

More and more, the young man understood and found out more about what he was in the past.

'Well, at least it seems that I never stopped being filial towards bad parents, but what happened to my dream of becoming a doctor? Did I get to honor my parents?' For all those questions, Trevor could only make guesses that were more hollow than pans made to drain water from noodles.

No matter how much he filled that pot with the drain, at the end of the process the water would still leak out of it only to disappear into the abyss of uncertainty beneath Trevor's feet.

'My biggest loss was actually the medkit…'

The green-eyed boy wasted no more time.

'This is your lucky day Aicanhir, remember about our powers? We just won an excellent opportunity.' Trevor smiled, making his cheeks lift in a smirk: despite his eyes being closed, the powerful guara could only feel goosebumps.

After coughing the air from his lungs a few times, the guara showed an expression that bordered on sadness and joy: his ears were drooping, his tail didn't wobble, but his eyes and mouth tried hard to show happiness.

'That's very good!' The cheerful tone in Aicanhir's voice in his mind seemed to be as genuine as the people who pretended to be wheelchair users but who got up in their chair the next moment out of sheer idiotic recklessness.

'You want to know why I haven't tested or sought to use superpowers before, right?' Trevor didn't wait for his mate's response and approached the pequi tree. The tree got closer with every step Trevor took on the red ground: to the point where he could clearly smell the yellow blossoms of that beautiful tree.

'Yes! Until now you've been making mysteries about it like there's someone else here besides me for you to entertain!' Aicanhir stopped pretending and showed obvious displeasure this time. The poor guara was quite upset with this unreliable companion of his.

"It's pretty simple actually, when I first woke up, the first thing I did was imagine those images about-" Trevor couldn't finish speaking.

'SHUT UP!' The Golden Sun of Dawn left no room for any details about these images to be leaked! Those things were so frightening that the guara did not want anyone but him to suffer from such frightening things.

Trevor just nodded and was silent.

'As I was saying, after imagining those things, I then looked at the tattoos you left on me. I still feel a connection to these things, but there was something bad happening every time I tried to make use of them.'

The black-haired young man stopped in front of a green fruit that resembled the red figure of a peach, and plucked it from its branches. The small pequi in Trevor's hands was dirty: dark patches in its peel indicated its antiquity.

'What a bad thing?'

Aicanhir also looked at the fruit in Trevor's hands with curiosity. He had never seen such a thing before, however glorious the House of Tomorrow's Golden Sun, Aicanhir had no knowledge of the outside world.

'Hunger, extreme hunger.'

Trevor said two simple words that were simple to understand, but Aicanhir still twitched his muzzle at those words.

'How bad can this hunger be? Would you rather drown than starve?!' The Golden Sun of Dawn not only twitched its muzzle, but its white tail was also extended upwards.

'Hunger is not that bad, but I preferred to bet on the long term. I need to accumulate perks to save my father. Every opportunity that doesn't come I'll create with my own hands.' Trevor opened his mouth, his teeth bared to the air.

'Do you think life is a mere game?! Aicanhir almost said those words, but preferred to remain silent at the end. Trevor didn't see any of his furry friend's complex reactions.

His teeth touched the rind of the unripe fruit: the mud and dirt in it soon assaulted Trevor's mouth with the characteristic taste present in that red earth. As the young man's nose smelled the fragrant yellow flowers, his mouth felt the foul taste that Central Plateau had to offer.

The original light color present in the boy's teeth was being wiped away each time his jaw closed, along with those bites, green varieties fell to the ground near Trevor's feet. Soon, the figure of the interior of this fruit was becoming visible.

As well as the color of its flowers, the interior of the pequi contained the color of gold. The curious thing about this iconic fruit was its very structure. The peel along with its outer mesocarp has been taken off from the rest of its body with ease: similar to building blocks of a construction toy.

What was left of this green fruit after it was cut, was a big lump. Trevor's entire hand had to be used to grope this huge lump without it slipping through his fingers.

'What are you going to do with this thing? You literally threw more than half of the fruit on the ground! How are we going to test our powers if you waste food like that?' Seeing that fat gold-colored piece of pequi fall to the ground made Aicanhir mad.

'Oh, is that so?' Trevor didn't explain his actions.

After the peel and most of the fruit had been thrown away, the challenge came!

The green-eyed youth shifted his eyes towards the ground, his eyes stopping as he glimpsed mountains and mountains of exposed rock in the distance. Normally, it wouldn't be easy to find such a formation at the Central Plateau, but luckily the disaster that occurred didn't just bring disgrace.

Calamities and riches were sides of the same coin.

'Hey! I'm serious, do you really want to go there now? In addition to you being crippled, your precious poison spear was gone along with half the world in that flood. You should at least wait before you get anywhere near that damn lake!' The Golden Sun of Dawn was sad.

Trevor did not follow the guara's advice, his footsteps on the ground sounded like a funeral march to Aicanhir's ears. Fortunately for the latter, there were no other monstrous spectators stalking this event.

As expected, Trevor arrived at the natural quarry.

As expected, Trevor bent down and chose the stone he wanted.

As expected, Trevor got up and walked away with the stone he'd taken.

During each of these events, Aicanhir observed the surroundings with great vigilance. The mental pressure was not little, it didn't help that during all the moments nothing happened out of the way.

Trevor walked back to the pequi tree with the rock under his right arm. The stone had a surface with low roughness, in addition this same item had the shape similar to that of a vinyl record, without the hole in its center.

'What are you doing?' Aicanhir lost his previous alertness and now showed his handsome face with visible weariness.

'Look and learn.' Trevor didn't exchange any more words and his right hand went straight to his tight brown pants. That hand of his struggled into his pants, and what followed was a large bulge in the area of ​​his groin.

The guara carefully watched the act.

After some effort, Trevor successfully pulled the solid item out of his pants.

What was in his hands was an important item: it was the lighter he managed to keep!

Still under Aicanhir's watchful eye, the black-haired young man moved the stone and propped it up against the trunk of the pequi tree. Then, the lighter he was holding in his mouth was caught in his right hand: the red flames of the item glinted off its silvery surface.

The lighter then moved towards the stone, the red flames licking the almost smooth surface of the stone and heating it. Trevor did his best to prevent those same red flames from somehow igniting the tree beside him.

'Do you really need to do all this to eat that measly lump in your hand?' The guara's gaze was even more tired than before, with his ears down and his lids nearly closed.

'Oh, what am I supposed to do then? Biting that beautiful lump in my hands?' Trevor grinned, but his eyes remained glazed over by that improvised natural stove he'd created by using both stone and lighter.

'Yes. You should also have eaten that huge piece of pulp you threw away with the peel.' The guara was sleepy to the point of losing his usual animation.

Regarding Aicanhir's comments and precious tips, the young man with green eyes just smiled without saying anything. The stone pot he'd made then started to get so hot, Trevor felt his forehead get drenched in sweat.

The smile on his face widened as he saw that the stone had finally reached the temperature he wanted. Trevor let the weight of the stone be supported partially by the wooden trunk, and he moved the lighter in his hands so that it could stay lit close to the stone even without Trevor's assistance.

Next, Trevor took the lump and began to scrape it against the almost smooth surface of the hot stone. The truth was, the young man could have chosen to look longer for a smoother stone, but he didn't choose to do so.

Regardless of the risk involved, just the work of having to look for such a stone would be another waste of time. Suddenly, the lump that was rubbed against this slightly roughened surface began to soften.

The lump broke up.

The yellow pulp ran off.

The smell of yellow oil grew.

The pair watched the slow gradual process unfold.

'Do you still think I should have bitten that pequi lump directly?' The sneer on Trevor's face was wide as the heavens. Aicanhir, in turn, had his eyes wide.

'No…' The guara showed obvious surprise as he looked at the pequi pit in Trevor's hands. After all, what was there in front of his eyes was nothing less than countless sharp black thorns!

It was as if a sea urchin lodged inside this strange fruit.

The more the fruit in Trevor's hand fell apart, the less the guara wanted to taste it.

'It's really funny to remember the stories Dad told me about the idiots he had to operate on. I'll never forget the time he talked about how a prestigious foreigner from the Southeastern Plains who came to visit the Pequi Republic never came back.'

Trevor's fingers never stopped scraping the fruit against the hot stone.

'What happened?' The sleepy Aicanhir awoke from his sleep: curiosity gleamed in his eyes.

'I don't remember the story in detail, but what I do know is that although that prestigious foreigner demonstrated a frightening diplomatic talent, he was too rushed. After discussing various trade treaties and other plans, this foreigner was invited to join the Dekino Clan and its supporters for a meal.

Trevor stopped rubbing the rest of the pequi core.

There were black thorns in that remnant.

'And then?' Aicanhir wagged his long white tail with glee.

'And then, during the meal, the foreigner approached everyone and began to eat with ease. Everyone was smiling, but suddenly he bit into the pequi pit. From what my father told me, this incident was deliberate. They wanted to send a message to the Southeastern Plains.'

Trevor threw the black thorns away.

That was the meaning behind the iconic fruit of the vast subtropical plains!

You can attack us, eat us, but we'll make you bleed to death in the end!

This was the ultimate symbol on the Pequi Republic banner!