Of Good & Evil

IV. A Lesson From History

Three days passed following the incident in the chamber. Xenon was taken to the infirmary where he was being monitored closely by a number of strange medical devices. Immediately after he was revived by Judais and was able to collect himself, Judais carried him to the infirmary where Xenon immediately passed out again. He sat Xenon on the bed, and a thick, black smoke engulfed him. As soon as the smoke subsided, he was in what appeared to be pajamas. Judais pulled the blankets over his shoulders and disappeared. That was the last anyone had seen of Judais since the incident. Xenon had been asleep for three days now.

Time, Scopes, and Hardy had been attacking the sparring dummies in unison, attempting to grow more in sync with one another and were making fairly good progress with that. They were down in the training room for hours at a time, stopping only to eat and sleep. It seemed the idea that Xenon would be stronger than them motivated them to work even harder than they did before. Moreover, they were determined to work better as a team.

Passion spent most of her days in the library, attempting to achieve an understanding of what was going on. Every time she would stumble on something in an old text which might explain why Judais was able to use so many power types so efficiently, more questions would enter her mind. The questions weren't necessarily about the task at hand, but rather about things that had been happening in the guild. She wanted to know why Judais sent them after a spectral diamond. She wanted to know why Judais had tried to kill them. She wanted to know where that strange power Xenon used to save them came from. She had so many questions, but so few answers.

She decided she wouldn't be able to make any progress on her research while these thoughts kept interrupting her. She stood up from the table and walked out of the library. As she passed through the halls of Phantom Diamonds, she was sure to avoid the training room in order to prevent catching too much attention from the others. She headed toward the lounge, where Judais could be found most often.

No luck. She thought about where he might be, and after a few moments thought he may be in his living quarters. She walked through the halls, crossing the main hall toward the staircase that lead to his living quarters.

She walked up to the entrance, seeing the familiar silver skulls on the doorknob. She paused to look at the faint purple glow coming from the eyes of the skulls and placed a hand gently over the top. Slowly opening the door, there wasn't a creak or any sort of noise she would have expected from a large door of this design, but rather a strange sound that sounded almost like something taking a breath.

The room was different than last time she visited. There was a sort of black fog rolling along the floor, quickly sneaking out of the now opened door. Moving into the room fully, she could see that it the thick fog lined the floor throughout the room, gently moving around the intruding body navigating through it. The room was lit more dimly than when she had visited it before. It was so dark that it was a bit difficult for her to see.

As she moved further into the room, closer to the canopy bed, she felt as though there were eyes on her. She quickly turned and was startled to see a shadow sitting in a chair in the corner. Squinting in the direction of the chair, she realized the weird smoke-like fog was coming from this person.

Judais.

She walked toward him slowly and stopped about ten feet from the chair.

"Hello, Passion," Judais said calmly.

"Hello, Judais," Passion replied, "What are you doing in the dark?"

"I'm not doing anything in particular, I'm afraid," Judais said, looking about the room. "Just thinking."

"...I see," she said, knowing that she wouldn't get a straight answer if she asked what he was thinking about. He waved a hand and the lights grew a little brighter. At least now she could see.