The suffocation only went away after Maximus spoke. “You’re our friend, no matter what you are, and what you think of yourself.” The others nodded in agreement and then the feeling of relief washed over me.

“In reality if you were evil and wanted us dead, we would have died long ago.” Virgil chimed in.

“Watching you fight was scary, but that doesn’t mean you’re a scary person!” Amethyst was yelling, even though we were only several feet apart, not miles.

“We’ve all seen the way you care for Lux, even if you are a daemon by blood, at heart you’ll always be 100% human.” As Ruby spoke I felt some tears running down my face. I hadn’t been rejected by my friends.

“I know one thing for sure, I’m never going to piss you off.” As Virgil talked with some light hearted words, the rest of them were in agreement. That I was not someone to make angry, for obvious reasons.

“Noct, I’m cold.” Lux spoke up as we were talking. For the record, Lux was never one to complain, no matter what the condition was. I felt her forehead, and it was burning up. She had a fever. I wasn’t sure why, but I would guess it had something to do with the fusion. Her body might not be able to cope with the amount of power that’s running through her body.

Before my fusion, I had tempered my body to become accustomed to daemon blood for 2 years. She had no prior encounter with her archangel’s blood. It would make sense if her body started to become stressed under that sort of instantaneous change. As for how to help with this kind of stress, I was at a loss. I hadn’t fully gone through Exidium’s memories, and now he wasn’t here to tell me what I needed to do.

I had no idea what to do. I didn’t really get sick, ever. Maybe once or twice when I was young, but not since then. Lux was the same way, she never really got sick, so I never had to deal with a situation like this one. I was starting to panic when the twins came over and took Lux from me and began to help her.

She was still wrapped in my coat, when they brought out a blanket and covered her up. I guess they camp here often so provisions like a blanket were something that they needed. I never think to bring one, since weather doesn’t really affect me anymore.

Amethyst created some ice and wrapped it up in a cloth and applied it to her head, and Ruby began to make a fire. Lux was already out cold by the time the girls had finished taking care of her.

“She was such a harsh teacher that I forgot she’s still only around our age.” Amethyst had the chills, which transferred to Ruby as they thought back to the training they were subjected to. I could only imagine what they were forced to do.

Maximus and Virgil looked at each other. “Ours wasn’t that bad. He just made us to physical work outs most of the time and then switched our weapons and threw us into the labyrinth.” Well that was a rather crude way of putting it. I did a lot more than just that.

“Hey I sparred with you, too.”

“And beat us senseless. Thanks.”

“I gave you some pointers here and there.”

“And then you beat us to the point where we either couldn’t move or so badly that the pointers were forced out of our thought process.”

I guess I did go a little far sometimes.

“Hey Du-, er, what should we call you?”

“Noctis is fine.”

“Alright, Noctis. Tell us how you and Lux met!” The twins looked at me with eyes that were full of curiosity. “We could never get it out of her, so now that you owe us for saving her, I figure that it’s the least that you could do for us.”

Girls are scary. I wasn’t given much of a choice in this situation. I mean I could just scare them off, but I do want to repay them for helping her when I clearly had no idea what to do.

“Fine, fine. It started on our 13th birthday...” I went on to tell them the events of the Red Equinox from my point of view and how we met up again and again over several years. I didn’t tell them about how I got stuck in a labyrinth for 2 years, and lost my arm. Although they didn’t really know what to think of the arm that was as dark as the void, with a thread of light holding it together.

By the time I got through with talking, it was well into the night. And we went to sleep for the night. The next thing I knew, I was woken up by a poke to the cheek. When I opened my eyes I saw Lux, who looked even more angelic than she did before. All her beautiful features were more vibrant than before. Her complexion, her smile, her eyes, and everything else in between.

She was still wearing my jacket, so I was going to go another day without wearing anything but some pants. Oh well, it was just the way it had to be.

After a few moments of staring, she tilted her head and gave me a confused look. Almost as if she had no idea why I was staring.

“Good morning.” she then showed me a radiant smile and I turned away.

“No such thing.” I promptly buried my head in a blanket that was provided for me. Morning people. They’re true anomalies. She shook me again and again until I finally budged and got up. She gave me a kiss and then I fell back onto the ground.

As I tried to return back to sleep something strange happened.

Come. A voice whispered into my ear. It wanted me to go somewhere. I knew where it wanted me to go. The bottom of the labyrinth. I was already up and heading out toward the direction of the labyrinth before I knew I had started to move. The others were looking at me strangely, as if I was crazy, which, wasn’t that unlikely.

I didn’t know what was waiting for me, but I wanted to do this alone. “Don’t come.” I said these words and moved faster than they could comprehend. My speed increased by a large margin since I lost most of my humanity.

Before long, I was already at the labyrinth, which lacked any adventurers, due to the commotion of yesterday. As soon as I set foot inside the labyrinth I noticed something was odd again. The ring I kept from my father began to heat up, and then I fell. Not the, oops I fell, silly me. No, it was more of the floor opened up and swallowed me and was sent hurling down a bottomless pit.

Before I hit the ground, I was brought into my father’s realm. I remember it from last time I was here a little over a year ago. There my father was, with my mother. They were sitting in on a comfortable looking couch. They were both dressed nicely. My mother in a green dress that went well with her eyes, and my father in some sort of formal wear that was all pitch black.

“Heaven knows that you exist boy.”

“So, after nearly killing me again, there was no ‘Hello.’ ‘How have you been doing?’ or ‘Sorry for almost killing you again?’” I wasn’t mad, it was mostly sarcasm. I knew that my father was probably stripped for time, being that he’s a sovereign of hell.

“Yea, yea. Thanks to your little stunt, they now know you’re not normal, and will likely do anything they can to kill you. You may ask yourself, ‘Why?’ The answer is simple. Something that will become scary must die now. Make sense now? Good. Now the reason why you’re here is because I know your contract is gone, and will give you another as a gift for returning your mother to me.”

“What? How do you plan on doing that?” I was pretty sure that only the church and Heaven could make things like contracts.

“You really think that only Heaven has access to the Spirit Realm? Well you’re right. What I have isn’t a full fledged spirit who's been alive for centuries and has knowledge and magic.” I didn’t really know how to deal with this man.

“This is something that I came across when I used to go around the realms looking for something to do, back when I didn’t have responsibilities.” With a snap of his fingers a kitten of some sort appeared and looked around. It was black, with white stripes on it, and was so small it could probably fit into the palm of my hand.

“A baby spirit isn’t something that’s easy to come by, or usually even possible to make a contract with. As this little guy grows, your power does tremendously as well, and because he’s impressionable, he’ll likely give you all his power no matter what. His potential as a spirit, in my professional opinion, is that he is truly without a limit. He'll grow to be far more powerful than that dragon, but only because of you. Take good care of him.”

The kitten ran towards me and phased through my body, going right into my heart. The contract was formed and I didn’t notice too much of a difference, besides the small mark that was burned into the middle of my back. I didn’t notice it then, but it was a completely white stripe.

“You only have this opportunity because your heart is still human, please try to keep it that way.”

“A human heart. So that means the rest of my body is truly daemon? Not just my blood anymore?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying you dimwit. I don’t know how else to convey it. Literally only your heart remains human.”

After hearing him talk down to me like that, Mother slapped him in the back of the head lightly, telling him to reflect on his actions, without actually telling him.

“Noctis, what your father is trying to say, is that you need to cherish the part of you that remains human, because it’s all that you have left of mine.” What a scary woman. I never would have thought that anyone would smack him of all people so casually.

“You have work to do. Only by fighting will that baby spirit grow.” Wait. Not this again. “Yes you guessed it!” Not like this “Good luck! Don’t die!”

“Stay safe, my dear Noctis. And take care of Lux when you get a chance.”

I was once again thrown into hell by my parents.