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It was already past noon, and no one had carried a watch as it could get in the way of taming the animals. All that they had to tell the time was how high the sun was raised.

One by one though, every person who had been out taming an animal was returning to the center where they would meet up with everyone else.

John was perched up atop the flipped-over car, he had no clue what happened to it but when he got back from watching Vito it was completely recked. He wondered what could have happened while he was away.

The first to arrive was Cyrus, he walked into the scene side by side with his Zebra, and they walked as though equals.

Next was Edith, she was riding on her giraffe and being carried away as though a princess, it truly showed that the animal carried her and even slowed its stride to make her comfortable.

The third one to arrive on the scene had come in with quite the entrance as the was a roar heard in the air, when everyone turned their heads to look around they could see Vito coming in with a smile on his face, he was riding fearlessly on the tiger, each step that the best made filled Vito with pride for he had accomplished something that his younger self would call him crazy for imagining.

"Well well well, looking good Vito?" Edith said smiling above him.

"You keep smiling like that Edith, what are you happy about? That you are finally taller than us?" Cyrus commented softly as he fixed his glasses.

"You can't just let me have a good thing can you Cyrus? You were so quiet till he showed up, do you only feel the need to speak to me when others are around?" Edith complained.

"Don't worry about it Edith, I see you didn't struggle much," Vito replied as he laughed nervously, he remembered when he ran away from the tiger in the jungle but compared with him Edith basically looked unhurt.

"Didn't struggle much?" Cyrus asked when he heard that.

Edith's heart shivered when Cyrus said those words, she didn't know how but Cyrus probably knew of her endeavors and her falls, in only a few words and he could reveal everything she went through.

Quickly changing the subject she asked, "Oh my gosh Vito, your shirt!!?"

Cyrus who had his vision partially obscured didn't notice Vito's torn shirt. He turned his head and could properly see it and was intrigued to hear what had happened to him.

"Oh this little thing? Yeah, I may have gotten into a small disagreement with this thing, but it all worked out, see?" he said as he lifted the sides of the tiger and made it smile, he then proceeded to play with its jaws too.

Edith was even more worried, "Vito, the size of the claws is massive, how are you not bleeding?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure, I don't remember much that happened after. Mhm, that's weird," he replied.

Only John had seen what had happened and could explain why, but he was waiting for Terra and Dawn to arrive and not soon after, Terra did.

At first, they heard the roar of a lion and everyone knew it was Terra, even Vito was happy to hear that he succeeded but then the roar sounded like it doubled, and then it tripled.

5 lions were following behind Terra who was in the lead with the leader of the pride.

Everyone was shaken, and Vito of all of them was a tad jealous, he struggled to tame one of these things, and yet Terra had a whole pride following after him. 'Maybe he is better than me?' he wondered.

Terra walked up and jumped off of the lion he was on, they all bowed down and crouched beneath his feet, the formality made him a little nervous but then he snapped out of it when he saw Vito.

"Vito your shirt!!? What happened?" he asked.

Vito didn't give a quick reply, he was still amazed that Terra had done so much better than him and yet was worried about him instead.

"Y-yeah, stuff happened," he said putting on a smile, he was kind of hurt that he did so bad.

His shoulder was vibrating a little bit and gave off a dark green glow, it was still very bright outside and the glow was so little and lasted for only so long that no one would have been apply to notice it unless they were paying attention.

And one person was, Cyrus.

He had his eyes on Vito from the moment he noticed the chest would, the chest was partly revealed as his shirt was torn but yet he could tell that with a claw mark that big it was impossible for Vito to have been unscathed. 

And yet he looked and moved perfectly fine.

He remembered when Terra was having a small breakdown in the bedroom, it felt a bit sudden, and even he felt a small pinch on his shoulder when Ariel was talking with him, but he was too distracted back then to let it sink in.

If what Vito is having right now is anything related to what has been happening so far, then that would mean that the symbol is being affected by emotions. 

'Perhaps it enhances emotions or maybe it records them?' he wondered. The act of doing so is so subtle that it would take one with good eyesight to see it happen.

"Has anyone seen Dawn?" John asked now that everyone was here.

"I went to go check on him at one point but I couldn't find him, I figured that he was with one of you," he said concerned. He wouldn't want one of them getting lost on their first mission.

"Dawn? N-nope! Haven't even seen the guy," Edith said smiling nervously.

'She's lying,' Cyrus thought next to her.

'She's definitely lying,' Vito considered standing next to her as well.

'Is she lying?' Terra asked himself.

'I guess no one has,' John decided to himself. 'They would have spoken up by now.'

From the distance, they could hear a small rumbling as a creature was making its way to them while carrying a human-sized object in its mouth.

As it came close it was made apparent to them that the human-sized object was actually a human. 

It was Dawn.

"DAWM!?" Everyone asked including John.

This was a very surprising way to show up and not exactly one with style.

The hippo having arrived on the scene, opened its jaws and let Dawn slip out of its mouth, it then carefully pulled the back collar of his shirt and helped him sit up on the floor.

"Dawn! What happened to you?" Terra asked as he crouched down to shake Dawn.

He was the first to go down and then Vito came and helped, Cyrus was bending over to take a look at Dawn and Edith was looking straight ahead of her with a drop of sweat falling off her face.

'So now we all like him?' she asked herself, she took a small glance at him and then quickly averted her eyes, guilt was eating at her, she didn't know how to feel here. 'Sorry Dawn, you were a worthy sacrifice.'

As Dawn was being brought back to his senses, or life, whichever came first, John was thinking to himself how everyone did.

Each animal was to reflect on them in a way if not teach them something. Dawn's animal was mostly related to him having to come out of his comfort zone. John had information on every kid here and out of all of them, he knew that Dawn was still living in the past.

His mind still wasn't letting him grow past a second part and it was affecting his life socially. He could imagine that when Dawn tried to leave the hippo gave chase because it didn't want him to run from his problems.

In the end, Dawn was having it worse than the rest of the group.

John now had his assessment, he was only going to be with them for the first mission due to the fact that at any moment Terra would be sent into space, they wanted him to experience something first and that experience required that their instructor would change from mission to mission.

"Alright everyone, this has been wonderful, now only me to explain some information I withheld from you from the start of this." 

At this point, everyone had stopped what they were doing to listen in on him.

"I would like to apologize first, I wanted to help you more but I was given instructions and I cannot guide your hand on each step, we do not have that time," as he said this he looked at Terra. Terra was oblivious to what had happened and assumed that he was looking at a lion.

'Maybe the lions need to go back home soon?' he thought. He was keeping out the fact that he would need to leave the earth eventually. He didn't want to think about it right now.

"Moving on, there is a certain level of skills and assets you should be aware of. Being chosen by the Earth or better yet, having that symbol on you gives you a certain amount of abilities."

Eyebrows were raised when he said those words.

'Did he say, abilities?' Edith asked herself.

"Superhuman feat, to be honest, advanced speed, strength, healing, and more. Basically, everything you can already do has been enhanced. That as well as the recognition of all animals on Earth, none of them will kill you if you get near them by the would attack if agitated enough."

"Wait! Recognition!? Does that mean these lions didn't actually choose to follow me because they liked me?" Terra asked feeling hurtful. He could not imagine that all his efforts were for naught.

"Not exactly, just because your taming abilities were enhanced doesn't mean that you didn't accomplish it on your own. Having the ability to do something and achieving it are two separate things. The lions really do like you," John answered with a smile.

This made Terra smile and he started petting the lion he was on, it purred happily as it felt his hands caress its body.

"Wait, let me get this straight, you are telling me that we are basically superhumans right now?" Cyrus asked.

"Actually!! Does that mean we could fly?" Edith asked excitedly.

"You can't do anything you couldn't do already," John repeated.

Edith was let down and Vito laughed a little. He too wished to fly.

Cyrus, on the other hand, was now more curious than others, if being chosen by the earth could give one superhuman capability as well as affect the mind in some way and these superhuman capabilities include healing, then what is stopping him from relinquishing his title to his father and waking him up?

Apart from him, everyone else was excited by this news, they had superpowers! Maybe not much but enough for them to feel and act like heroes.

"What more can we do?" Terra asked with stars in his eyes, he was the most excited because he was the one who was going to keep them the most since he was chosen to represent the planet.

"Calm down, we can keep talking about this as we get some food. I am sure we are all hungry but unfortunately, the homemade food we had packed seems to have been tarnished. In exchange I am willing to take you guys out to eat, does anyone want to choose the location?"

"I Volunteer!" Edith yelled as she lifted her hands out with lightning speed.

The boys were taken aback by this so much that Cyrus was even brought out of his trance.

"Shouldn't we all decide on this together?" he asked but was met with a cold stare from Edith.

"It was just a suggestion," he said.

"Alright everyone, let us just clean up this place and then we may head out to the restaurant. I look forward to hearing what you have in mind, Edith." John said with a smile.