Chapter 9 - What are you?

"What's wrong with him?"

Kaen was quite surprised with this outcome.

He had just arrived at his office's door when Ferri, Argentum and Rockfield came running to him.

Ferri had an unconscious Kiran on his back, his clothes tainted with the blood of his nephew's eyes.

He took the kid and sent the others off to their rooms.

This was a family matter.

He was healing Kiran, who he laid on the couch, when Noir asked.

"He overtaxed himself" He explained "One of his classes require his vision, but it's dangerous do use it carelessly, I might not even be able to heal him one day"

After doing what he could, he covered the kids eyes with a few magic plants that helped with healing and wrapped it all with bandages.

With that finished, he took a small sphere from his storage space, it was his magic communicator, the only safe device for this type of subject, and called the only person he could discuss this with.

{Kaen? You're not one to call me like this}

The voice that came from it was feminine and mature, the voice of Valencia, his sister-in-law.

"Val" He called "We might have a problem"

{Of what kind?}

Her voice was serious now, he practically could see her sitting straight on whatever chair she might be sitting on right now.

"Kiran overtaxed himself again" He said.

There were only six people who knew Kiran's Seer class, seven maybe if he assumed that Ferri might have learned about it, but, among these people, the kid's mother wasn't one of them.

"By the gravity of his injury this time" He continued "I can tell that there was a major change in the future he saw, we should be careful for now and-"

"All of it"

He froze, then turned to the kid, who was trying to sit.

"The whole timeline changed" He said "I didn't see it all, but I can tell that everything I saw before is irrelevant now, none of it will happen"

He felt his blood run cold.

Kaen assumed it would be a big change, like last time when he took to heart Kiran's warnings and refused to go in a delegation to a seemingly calm area of the sea folk kingdom.

The whole delegation was killed by a beast tide that erupted there and he successfully changed the future for the better on that day.

But now Kiran was saying that someone did something that changed the whole timeline, to a point that everything he might have seen was unusable?

{My child, I know the rules, but could you tell me what started this?}

They had long created rules with Kiran to prevent people from discovering his Class and to prevent time problems, one of them was not to tell the actual future.

Kiran could give warnings and hints if it was extremely important, like he did on the delegation by hugging Kaen's leg and refusing to let go, or when he insistently asked if Valencia was sure when she planned of taking a seemingly beneficial deal with an old friend that ended up being a fund for an illegal slave trading company.

He wouldn't tell them why he was doing it, nor what would happen if they had really made it or the reason it happened.

But that changed today.

Such a drastic change couldn't be left alone.

Kiran hesitated, but told them.

"The Bakugan"

There was a moment of silence, all the Robotallion scattered around the room turned to the boy, and Kaen didn't blame them.

"All the timeline changed the moment Duke Rockfield bought Topaz for Lily" The boy said "From then on, everything went to a new path, everything I saw before lost its meaning, even the most unavoidable events completely disappeared, but I have to tell you one thing is for sure, even if I had to break another rule"

The kid set upright, an air of seriousness surrounding him.

"The Empires need New Vestroia" He said "Or we're doomed to the catastrophe of the previous timeline"

***

"You called mother?"

Elias had been called by his mother to her office, where she stood prodfully behind her desk.

Valencia Bronte, former third princess of the imperial family of the Golden Empire, her golden hair and eyes showed her strong bloodline, a bloodline that was partially passed to him, as it is proven by his golden hair.

She looked serious, something must have happened, especially taking in account the fact that a sound barrier was activated the moment the door closed behind him.

"The future changed" She said without wasting time.

He frowned.

He knew what that meant, someone did something to drastically change the future Kiran saw.

"How bad is it?" He asked "Did Kiran give you any hints?"

"He outright spoke about a place called New Vestroia" She said, narrowing her eyes "The place you were at when he had the vision that started this conversation"

He froze and Sirenoid flinched inside the inner pocket of his coat.

"Am I the reason for the vision?" He asked.

"Most definitely" She said "Kiran won't tell me why, but I do hope you could clear this up for me"

His grip on the arm of his wheelchair tightened as his lips contracted.

He planned to keep this a secret for some time, to surprise his enemies and hit hard where it hurts.

But it seems he couldn't keep his mother on the dark, especially when said secret was big enough to cause Kiran to have a vision drastic enough to alert her.

With a sigh, he got up from his wheelchair.

—

"Leave it to me"

The bakugan closed herself in her sphere form and started to shine with various colors.

He watched as she floated off the man's shoulder and started to circle him, small particles leaving her body and falling into him.

The result was immediate, but he didn't say a thing and waited for her to return to the man's shoulder.

He opened a smile.

"I'm sorry" He said "But it seems that it failed"

The man was surprised, so much that his eyes opened, revealing his purple irises.

"Impossible" Said the man "There's nothing Wavern can't heal"

"That's quite unfortunate" Elias said "But my situation is quite different"

Before the man could say anymore, he looked at Jass.

"Could you please go buy something for me to eat while I pay?" He asked "I've been smelling the food around here and it's making me hungry"

She hesitated a bit, but left, leaving him alone with the man and bakugan.

"Sorry for this" He said "It's just don't want people close to me knowing that I was healed for now, it'll be troublesome"

The man stopped for a moment, then calmed down, closing his eyes in the process as he let out a sigh of relief.

"If that's so" He said with a new found smile "You gave me a scare there! Never would I think of a physical problem that Wavern can't heal"

"Can't say that I wasn't surprised myself" Wavern said, also sounding relieved.

"If she can't heal it" Naga added "No one can"

And this time he believed, because no one had ever heard of a cure for this type of poison.

He wanted to buy Wavern, but held back as he remembered that she was one of the owner's personal bakugan.

If Wavern, the calm and gentle bakugan, had this kind of healing ability while still in her sealed form, he didn't want to know what her brother, the hostile one, could do.

He decided to be content with his current recovery and not anger them.

—

"That's what happened" 

He watched as his mother frowned as he set back into his wheelchair with Sirenoid now seated on his shoulders.

"Now I can see why Kiran said we needed New Vestroia" She said.

He was surprised by that.

"Kiran said?"

Even though he knew Kiran broke his rules, he didn't expect him to bluntly say it.

He never spoke about the future, even when their lives were at stake.

He looked at his mother, who gave him a serious nod, both thinking the same thing.

They would need to get closer to the owner from now on.

***

[Hidden quest 'Get their support' completed!]

After a day of lukewarm business, Dante was eating an early dinner when the notification popped in front of him, making him choke.

[You successfully got the attention of an high rank person and they're willing to support you]

"The hell?"

Wavern and Naga turned to him from their place on the table, he could feel their confusion.

"What happened?"

"Have you lost your mind?"

He ignored them and read the last part of the notification with a blank stare.

[Issuing rewards]

Rewards? In plural? With an s?

Before he could even think more about it, the System window shone brightly, taking him and the bakugan by surprise and taking a swear out of Dante and Naga.

When the light went out, he couldn't see shit, but he could still hear.

"Hello people!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you"

He paused, surprised by the sheer possibility of what was happening.

He couldn't believe who he just got.

And so did Naga and Wavern.

"Drago?!"

Oh well, what a day to get Drago and Preyas.

***

"Do you think he'll come tomorrow?"

Lily was lost in thought when Ferri spoke.

They were in one of their common classes that Kaen didn't teach, Gina didn't share this subject with them unfortunately, so it was just Ferri and her.

"I doubt it" She said "It'll probably take a day or to for him to recover enough to come back"

The last time she saw that happening was when Elias intended to give a rubby collar to the second princess of the Golden Empire as a birthday gift.

Apparently, after some investigation, Elias discovered that it was swapped with a cursed replica that would explode the moment it was worn, promptly putting him as the number one suspect of assasination attempt to the second princess of the Golden Empire.

It would have been a mess if Kiran hadn't stopped it quickly.

She was worried, beyond worried, but refused to let it show in her face, and so did Ferri as she ordered.

People must not know that something this serious happened, only knowing that Kiran was hurt was enough.

The bell rang in the distance and they knew that the afternoon class was over.

They were ready to leave the class to check on Kiran, their expressions serious and bodies tense.

"Lily!"

But they froze at the shrill call, Lily herself breaking her code on etiquette and letting out a loud groan that the whole class could hear, making everyone stop what they were doing.

She was so done with it.

She turned to look at Grace, who had been glaring at her ever since Ferri sweet talked her into sitting with her gossip friends instead of being by Lily's said.

"There you go again! Leaving me behind to go out with a boy-"

"Amelia Grace"

Grace seemed stunned as Lily gave her a tired, but hard glare.

"This is will be the last time I'll warn you" She said "Leave me alone, stop calling me Lily, and stop acting as if we are friends"

"But-"

"No buts!"

She was tired of this, tired of always having to look over her shoulder in case Grace would jump on her from the shadows, tired of being constantly grabed.

She nearly pushed away Gina, someone she cared a lot, the day before because she thought it was Grace. 

Now she would stop her from seeing one of her best friends just to cause another scene?

Enough was enough.

"I'll say this right here right now, where everyone can hear!" She announced "You and I are not friends, you and I don't even actually know each other! You just started following me around and talking over me, crying whenever I didn't do something you wanted and not giving me space to have my own thoughts! I have to play Russian roulette every time I have to go to my own room because I don't know if you'll be there too! I even have to keep all of my things in my spatial bag because I don't know if you could take something or even put something when I'm not there!"

She was just so done with Grace, so done with her antics, that she just couldn't not speak up.

"You are no friend of mine" She said finally "So don't pretend to be close to me"

Silence, no one spoke a word, not even the teacher, who stared in silence.

Lily took a deep breath and composed herself, a cold expression on her face.

"If you excuse us, Barron Ferri and I have a friend to check"

She then grabbed Ferri by the arm, turned around and left without saying anything else.

She had more things to do than play around with this girl.

***

"What are you?"

Dante, after finally calming down, got to sit down again and work on his little project when Drago asked the question.

He paused for a moment, stunned at the question, he remembered.

He wasn't disguised anymore.

His crown-like horns, similar to Ken Krawler's, were exposed, just like his grey skin and sharp canines, even his hair looked wild, a great contrast to the straight long hair he had in human appearance.

"The System made me a Gundalian" He said "It's a species that had access to bakugan too, the reason for this… something about them being more resilient, but I don't really like this appearance that much even though I also don't like the disguise"

"Why not?" Preyas asked "You look great!"

"Can't say I'm really welcoming" He responded with a toothy smile that he knew made him look like he ate children.

People already thought he looked like a scammer by looking at his human appearance, what would they think if they saw his horns and sharp eyes combined with fang-like canines?

"It's… not that bad" Drago tried.

Dante scoffed.

"Oh please" He said "You're starting to sound like N"

"Who?" All four bakugan said.

Right, he didn't have the chance to introduce them.

Nor the chance to show off a little to the others.

He got the time, so why not introduce his bakugan to everyone?