myth of the sacred warriors came from?" Brandberd looks hard at Rico.
"Are you serous?" Ricio counters with an equally hard stare
Brandberd nods. "There was a time when the Husarii were out in the open. But now it works in our favor for them to be mysterious warriors with untold powers. Hopefully one day all Carpati will be faithful followers of the Brothers of Bitani, and their powerful sacred warriors."
For a moment Ricio stares at his dad as if he is from outer space. Looks at the frozen hologram of the man in blue limping away, than back at his dad. "You're telling me that when I become a Husarii, I'll be able to do that?" Pointing at the frozen hologram of the blue man.
"That depends, if you train hard enough."
"Can you? You went through the training." Ricio forcefully asks his dad, but Brandberd reacts by puffing up with a deep breath, suddenly looking displeased.
"It's a life time of training to get to that level." The Commander cuts in.
"So you can't." Ricio responds to his dad, still ignoring the Commander.
"My level of training is not important." Brandberd responds dismissively.
"How about you Commander? Are you a true Husarii?" Ricio finally turns his eyes to the amour clad soldier.
"You will find out if you complete your regime. If you can excel beyond your Sentinel training then we'll see if you can cut it as a Husarii." The Commander counters Ricio, and for the first time exuding total confidence. Ricio stares back at him defiantly.
"I'm already better trained than most of your Sentinels. Didn't I put your best in their place during the last trial?" Ricio scoffs at the Commander who remains stoic with no reaction.
"Son, focus." Brandberd cuts the tension. "I showed you this for a reason. You trust this Carpati kid, for whatever reason. I told you who his father was, and it didn't phase you. Now look at him. He's already way ahead of you in Husarii training. Where did he learn it? Did he tell you about it? Why is he so good? What's he planning? Who is he working with?"
Ricio is staring at the desk stone cold and stumped. He literally looks locked in place by frustration. Seems not to know whether to speak, to stay, to go, or what.
Adinaa places two hot bowls of soup in front of Nayaa and Andee. Old Tom and Mirceu are next to them, on the front wall sofa enjoying soup from their own bowls. Mykee and Lykon are on the side wall sofa, studying some schematics on his white panel. Adinaa seats in a chair facing the two sad and quiet teens with a bowl for herself.
"They cleaned up your clothes pretty good. Did they put you in that weird sound chamber?" Mirceu breaks the tense silence between spoon-fulls out of his extra large bowl.
After taking a sip of his soup Andee responds. "That, and they used some kind of hand vacuums to clean us up before they put us into those healing machine."
"I've been in that thing before." Mirceu continues. "Back in the day when I was a boxer, I had to use it a few times. Pretty weird experience. You feel almost nothing. A little tingling, but after a few hours, you come out with no cuts, no bruises. Pretty nifty."
"I thought you never lost a fight." Andee responds with a frown.
"I didn't, but that don't mean I didn't get hurt. I got hurt plenty of times." Mirceu nods as he speaks.
"If you'd been there, you'd have broken that blue weirdo in two." Nayaa scoffs without looking off her bowl.
"I doubt that." Mirceu continues. "I'm strong, but you two are much better fighters than me, with those Parza skills of yours."
"Yeah, some skills." Nayaa scoffs. "We're alive because he let us live. He just vanished, like a ghost into thin air. If he wanted, he could have killed us." And she focuses back on her bowl of soup despondent.
Old Tom looks at Nayaa with a squint. "What do you mean, he just vanished into thin air?" She looks up to Tom than quickly to Andee, but he ignores her, focused on eating his soup. "And you said blue weirdo. I don't understand." Old Tom continues, but Nayaa turns back to her bowl and continues eating her soup ignoring Tom.
Adinaa and Tom look at each then back at their two teenagers who are feverishly eating their soups, faces leaning over their bowls, as if trying to hide in them.
"All right. What the hell is going on again?" Adinaa interjects with a more assertive tone. Mykee looks up from his panel to watch the drama. Andee and Nayaa continue slurping their soup ignoring Adinaa. "Fine. I'm taking those staff's away and neither of you are allowed to leave the house without me, Tom, or Mirceu along." Adinaa finishes her words with a strong glare at them, but no reaction from the two.
Old Tom reaches out and rubs Andee's left shoulder. "You know we're keeping secrets from you. We've told you a few things but not everything. Now you're keeping secrets from us. This isn't going to work. I think it's time for all of us to start trusting each other, and clear the air." Adinaa stares at Old Tom concerned. He nods at her, and she responds with a deep breath. Andee finally looks up at Old Tom.
"I don't know who he was, but he was wearing a blue robe. Those Brothers of Bitani, the ones in front of your yard, they told me their high priest wears a blue robe. Maybe he was one of them."
"He was a sacred warrior." Nayaa ads. Old Tom frowns. Adinaa does not react. Mirceu respond with bright round eyes of awe.
"Are you serious?" Mykee shouts wide eyed himself. Nayaa looks up to him and nods her head in agreement.
"A sacred warrior?" Old Tom interjects with disbelief in his tone and on his face.
Andee shakes his head disapprovingly. "Nah, he wasn't a sacred anything. Just a man with Bitani tech."
"You don't know that." Mykee interjects.
"Of course I do. He even told me his name."
Nayaa turns to Andee with a frown. "He did?"
Andee nods. "He said he was Husarii."
"He said what?" Old Tom's eyes lock on Andee, but then quickly tries to dispel his shock.
"So he has a name. Doesn't mean sacred warriors can't have names." Nayaa continues, but Andee is focused on Tom and his reaction.
"Wow, you two fought a sacred warrior. No way!" Mykee's voice echoes excited. "That's crazy. So they do exist. I knew it. And he was way tougher than you two."
"I know." Nayaa responds. "We're nothing. He wiped the dust with us. We're so stupid. We thought we we're something, but we're nothing." And her eyes glaze over again.
"Nayaa stop." Adinaa cuts in. "If that man is a real sacred warrior it changes things. I don't like you two fighting but we live in a crazy world. I realize that sometimes you don't have a choice. I was mad earlier, but... you should be proud of yourselves. A regular person would not have survived someone like that." Adinaa is suddenly consolatory. Andee finally takes his eyes away off Tom and looks at his mom suspicious, surprised by her instant change of attitude.
"A regular person would not have chased after him. We did." Nayaa rubs her eyes fighting the urge.
"Well, take it as a lesson." Adinaa continues, leaning forward on her forearms, over the edge of the table, towards Nayaa. "Now you see why we've been keeping secrets from you. There are things even we can't understand. I always thought sacred warriors were a myth, and here you two got attacked by one. The more curious you are, the more problems you discover. There's so many things in this world that we can't understand. That's why we did our best to protect you from them. We thought that by not knowing about them, by being normal kids, you wouldn't draw attention. That's what we were trying to achieve. We never meant to hurt you. Or put you in a situation where you would get hurt. But we failed, and I don't know how we could have done things different..." Adinaa's words cut off as her eyes glaze over this time. She's suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. Nayaa immediately leaps off the bench and grabs Adinaa in a hug, lifting her up off the chair..
"Mom, it's not your fault." Andee responds to Adinaa without getting up.
"We don't blame you." Nayaa adds holding the hug a moment longer before moving back to the bench. "We're nosy. We stuck out our noses... and he broke them." Nayaa than grabs her nose, twis
ts it, rubs it, checks to see if it's still broken. She exaggerates her gestures with a slight comic aura. Andee cracks a smile, which forces Adinaa to do the same even though her eyes are now wet with tears. She wipes them quickly and takes a deep breath clearing the knot in her chest.
"Oh Nayaa." She then leans in, grabs Nayaa by the sides of her head and gently taps Nayaa's forehead with her own, like a forehead kiss. "Thank you. I don't know how you do it, but you have the ability to put a smile on my face. Even when you frustrate me, I somehow always end up laughing." Adinaa finishes her words with a big smile. The mood is so intoxicating. Andee follows with his own smile followed by Old Tom and Mirceu.
"Whoa!" Mykee shouts and leaps off the bench away from Lykon--who suddenly turned into Ricio. Everyone else snaps their gaze to him, all looking at the hologram of Ricio horrified.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but Andee, I need to talk to you." Holographic Ricio is looking at Andee concerned.
"What is this?" Adinaa asks shocked and horrified. "How... can...?"
"I'm sorry, I really am." Holographic-Ricio turns to Adinaa. "But I have to talk to Andee, in person." Turning his holo-face to Andee. "Please meet me, same place as last time. Today. Right after horizon." And Ricio morphs back into Lykon. Everyone stares at one other and Lykon unsure for a moment.
"Turn that thing off!" Adinaa snaps at Mykee. He quickly shuts off Lykon. "What the hell is going on here? I want that thing out of the house."