Grian

Chapter 1

Shock was visible on everyone's faces, their mouths were wide open, hanging down. Their eyes were staring at the person in front of them, not quite believing what was in front of them, a couple of the council members pinching themselves making sure what was in front wasn't just a part of their imagination. They couldn't believe that Astaria was the High Leader, but in a way, it made sense to everyone. After all, they had never been in the same room together and around the time that Astaria's existence was known to them, the High Leader was no longer showing up.

Lysabel didn't know what to think, she was one of two council members to have known the High Leader for as long as she had made herself known to everyone. Lysabel thinking back could see all the reasons why it made sense, both of them were extremely powerful and were able to enter upgraded watcher forms and they could both control their auras, some of the only ones she knew other than the 800-900 attackers that they had just sent back. She remembered how she had drawn the parallel between how Astaria's aura had comforted everyone after one of their battles back to how the High Leader had done for a previous battle but still, she didn't think that they were the same person. The boiling anger about being left to deal with all the matter subsided but there was still that sting of betrayal after she had approached Xelqua first even if he hadn't been on the council for as long as he had.

Xelqua realised that it also made sense why they never saw the High Leader in the alternate reality, he did but just didn't know it. He also thought back to when the attacks had started about how the files mysteriously ended up on the desk he was working on, with some strange white hair inside, he thought that it was just from an older person, but now he was thinking that Astaria had left the files and because she was the High Leader they didn't have a security breach, he and everyone else had forgotten about the theorised security breach in the tornado of everything that was happening. He had another kind of anger, not a boiling one, but a sort of anger nonetheless. He thought that she had come clean about everything, he supposed that he was right about how it looked like she wanted to tell him something else before they left the academy grounds. He just hoped that it was the last of her secrets so he could trust her because he wanted to trust her, but something inside of him just couldn't. Not after all the lies.

There was just silence for a few minutes as the council members came to terms with what they had just been told. The thoughts kept bouncing around their heads but it was taking a while for them to truly sink in, that was until Zyrex was once again to first break the silence. "Welp, I was not expecting that," he said.

The rest of the council members finally had the previous events sink in and seemed to all agree with the sentiment that Zyrex had just expressed.

"So I'm assuming that you have questions?" Astaria said.

"Assuming? Because we definitely have questions," Zyrex replied, "A lot of them,"

"Who wants to start?" Astaria asked, looking around at the 12 people standing in front of her.

The other council members' eyes all fell to where Lysabel and Gryff were standing, after all, they had known the High Leader the longest, so they should get to ask the first questions, even if Xelqua was the first one to meet the face behind the mask the council members had known the person with the mask for the past 100 years.

"So why have you never actually shown your face before?" Lysabel asked.

"When I first came back I didn't know what exactly had happened, so I covered myself so if anyone knew who I was they wouldn't try and attack me. When I heard people using the word ⨅ᒷꖎ╎⎓ᒷ ̇/, which is my last name, I didn't know if they would know who I was or not which is why for the attack I stayed covered. After that, it was just me not sure who would know but I just didn't want to. It was a way to separate myself, this isn't my time and I didn't have anyone. So Astaria became a recluse that helped those who couldn't be understood by anyone else, and Aleria became the leader the Main World needed,"

There was more silence as the words made their way through their heads as they realised what they had been told. They couldn't truly understand, they hadn't been through the same things that Astaria had, but they could see why they thought that she would do that. "Why did you reveal yourself?" Gryff asked.

"It was finally time, Astaria had become known by all of you so I no longer had the separation which was the reason for my mask in the first place so when you were... going off at me I thought this may as well be the time I do it," Astaria replied.

There was another moment of silence, trying to think of other questions that could be asked, but she had revealed most things earlier. Xelqua had the added information of how they were related but he didn't think that it was that important in the grand scheme of things, it didn't change anything. "So... Why us?" Neferus asked.

"What do you mean by that?" Astaria asked in return, not understanding fully what she wanted.

"Why was it us 12 that you chose to lead? Why are we the members of the council?" Neferus explained.

Astaria seemed to stop for a second, she was deciding on what exactly she was going to say. When she had decided she said, "The reason why I chose you was because I knew what you would be like to lead. I could see that you were the ones who would be the ones who would be here now,"

Some of the council members seemed to just take this but a few of them, Gryff, Lysabel and Xelqua, found the words that she said pretty cryptic. Silence once again fell, to them, there weren't any more questions to answer, and they were just enjoying these moments of peace.

WC~ 1080 

A/N: I'm proud to present the final book in the series. It has been around two years of working on this. This series started with the ending being planned out and then filling in the other four books as I knew what villains I wanted. A lot of this was planned while I was doing my one shift a week at work, so I'm happy that I've gotten this far. Enjoy the first chapter of the final book (at least in the main series)!

Also, does anyone have any good ideas for the name of this series? - right now I have it saved as Watchers and Admins.                                                                                                                                                          I also plan to maybe do a podfic of this, if so it will be after my official end-of-year exams that start tomorrow.