I like apples. ‘Thought I’d let you know. Onto the chapter.

“GIRO!!! Emergency!!! I lost the scroll… I think it was stolen while I was sleeping…” Yalanaga says, screaming from the distance, running up to Giro as he turns around to look at her, deciding his sungazing isn’t worth an emergency such as this. He equips two of the last lethal weapons on his body; he’s out for blood.

The weapons in question, you ask? Just his heavy bolt-rifle, and his flayer hive. Ejecting the buzzer hives on his shoulders, he was ready to beat the next ninja he saw with a brick.

In other words, Giro was displeased.

“G-Giro… I’m sorry…” Yala calls out to him, as he marches forward as quickly as he can, slamming his stampers into the ground at high speed as he tears through snow. “I never thought they would just DO something like that!” She calls out, the snow making her struggle to keep up.

“You forgive me, right?” She asks, after having jumped next to him. Yala was fed up with trudging through the snow. Giro does not respond, just weapons at the ready for anything that decides to gamble its head. “Those weapons look pretty mean, Giro… Are those buzzer hives?” She asks as she is still uncertain…

They WERE mean, Giro wasn’t kidding about being out for blood. He has his mission, no emotions are going to get in his way. “Why do you even want to go up there? Why are you so obsessed with the sun?” She asks, jumping over the snow as Giro’s emotions do the exact opposite of get in his way, and instead FUEL him.

“That won’t be possible if you hurt someone, they’ll never trust you then!” Yala tells him, raising her voice to finally make him stop… “I see I have your attention. You automatons are all the same. You know that? So hyper focused on your missions…” She continues, as he stands there and thinks about how he’s going to beat his enemy to an inch of their life.

“You kill whoever gets in your way, so uncaring about who they were, what they meant to other people…” She says, as he looks at her, genuinely angered that he really WAS going to kill one of HER people.

“I was ordered to destroy you, Giro, because you’re a machine.” She finally tells him, not thinking she WOULD have had to tell him. “But then you tried to give me a piece of yourself. I didn’t realize at first, but then my friends realized it meant something to you.” Giro was unable to move, not at one point did that ever cross his mind…

“Then you gave me this. I saw a bit of myself in you, really. So hyper focused on our missions. I was hoping I could relax around someone like you, be myself.” She says, brushing her hair to the side and looking away, before focusing on him again. “I was wrong, I don’t ever want to be someone like YOU. Let’s go get your message back.” She says, dropping the spear and walking away through the deep snow as it dawns on Giro how conceited he let himself become…

Giro puts away his weapons, retracts his Buzzer Hives, and picks up the spear in his right grasper. The first time he’d used his right arm for anything other than a weapon in a while. “Giro?” Yala asks, as she turns around to look at him.

He was standing there with the spear in a single, mechanical hand, before turning around to look at the girl… He walks up to her, his weapons sheathed, aside from the spear, but he wasn’t taught how to wield it with a hand- That doesn’t matter.

Well technically he wasn’t taught anything- Giro quits this line of thought, gesturing the spear to Yala again as she stares at him. “Are you… Sorry?... Do you promise you won’t hurt anyone?” Yala asks, once again unsure of who she thinks Giro is.

Giro nods, just as he WAS taught, he realizes. “Alright, fine. You’re forgiven, let’s go before we run out of time.” Yala says, making Giro curse his lack of any ability to talk. In all honesty, he was kind of in a blind rage from letting his guard down so easily.

He DOES NOW trust these people, he sees no reason as to why they wouldn’t deliver his message for him anyways. He’s fully content to just go to the Winter Cade’s priest and confirm they got the message, before returning to the Autumn Cade to accept his prize…

But, Giro supposes that’s karma. A real force at work in THIS world, one that punishes you with pain and misery for negatively affecting others. Anyways, they head out together once more, carrying Yala on his back the whole way with a blanket as she guides him to one of the Winter Cade’s hideouts.

“They construct these when the blizzards are too hard to see through.” She explains, as he steps inside to find a polar bear lazily snoring away on a couch. “So you decided to give chase.” A man suddenly says from behind, as Giro’s blanket shoots off of him, surprising the strange man as Yala jumps off Giro’s back and behind the man.

“I’m a warrior of the night too, buddy.” She says, as Giro spins his torso around and adjusts his arms and legs on his kinetic orbs. “The Priestess has denied visitors for the moment, I’m trying to help you.” He says, as Giro charges his Pulse Cannon.

He reaches two guns sitting at his sides… “Gauzzy, wake up!” He shouts, awakening the Polar Bear as Giro grabs him and jumps through the roof to escape the polar bear. Giro did NOT want to risk combat against a trained polar bear. There is a VERY big difference between animals running on instincts, and ones that have been taught how to learn, and finally trained in combat…

He slams his right arm’s battering ram into the face of the offender, sending him flying as he rushes forward like a bull, ready to return the message for HIM to deliver. Nevermind, it’s MY mission! He thought to himself, realizing he would never be content to let someone ELSE complete his quest…

The man jumps off the ground, as bullets fly out of Giro’s Pulse Cannon, a few even managing to hit the guy as he fails to outrun Giro… Finally, the battle comes to an end as Yala throws Gauzzy at the man, knocking him out, having managed to DEFEAT the polar bear.

“That thing did NOT go easy…” She says, huffing as Giro launches the large thing off the man’s body with his leg’s launch pad. “Here we are…” Yala says, as she finally retrieves the scroll from the man’s bag, checking its contents to ensure it was the right one-...

She’s stunned, she was not supposed to look at its contents… “Giro… We can’t deliver this…” She says, as Giro gets ready to throw the polar bear at HER… “Giro, please… Believe in me… This is NOT the way of our people, Giro… They’ll understand…” She says, pulling at Giro’s now VERY present heart strings…

Giro nods his head once more, drops the bear, and decides he really will give Yala this chance. “We’ll speak to the priestess of the Winter Cade, and have my priestess removed from power. Come on.” She says, before they rush off. Yala could tell right away that this message was a trick, to convince the other cades to fight…

They would fight between each other, before the Autumn Cade would swoop in to finish off their leaders, and the priestess of the Autumn Cade would be free to fill in the power gap… “Giro and I both promise to rush to the rest of the summer and spring cades as fast as we can, before we head home to stop our priestess…” Yala explains. Her disloyalty to her home cade just now dawning on Giro.

But hadn’t she said she was JUST-LIKE Giro?... Shouldn’t her loyalty be absolute, then?... “We are well aware, child. Jewel has been at this game for a while, you see. Please do not concern yourself any further. I’m sure it must have been stressful…” The priestess explains as Giro continues to stare at Yala.

“I… I understand… Is there anything I can do to help?” She asks, practically BEGGING to betray her masters… “I… Suppose… Tell Jewel I said hello, and that she’s not as clever as she thinks.” The old priestess tells them, and Yala folds her arms.

“Great… Worried over nothing… Come on, Giro-” She said in reply, interrupted by Giro’s fixed glare… “Y-You okay there, Buddy?” She asks, a little nervous as he comes to his senses and walks out of the room, his mission now complete. It was finally time to indulge in his prize…

“Man… As soon as I think I have you pegged, you surprise me all over again…” She says, chuckling to herself, as they make a good distance outside the village. “I guess that’s more reason to share a little more of myself… Huh?” She says, leaning against his shoulder as he turns his head vaguely in her direction, to tell her he is listening.

“At first I thought I wasn’t cut out for this emotional stuff… Then I saw you genuinely express yourself, and it actually really struck me, Giro… You had a name, you were damaged, but you were chugging along, only asking to see the Phoenix Perch…” She explained to him, and he took it all in.

“I’m still not even entirely sure WHY you want up there so bad… But when you gave me your spear, it told me just how much you were willing to sacrifice to achieve even a small goal such as that. So I knew I had to help you see it through.” She continues, as they stare up at the stars together…

“I guess… You brought out another side of me, I thought I never had…” She says, looking at him from the corner of her eye, before kissing the right side of his head. “Don’t look too much into it, let’s just go already, dude.” She says, running through the snow as Giro sits there, finally given something of someone else’s...

Something physical, specifically. Their stories were more than enough for him! It’s just, he was never given something as personal as THIS… He quickly followed Yala, all the way to the Autumn Cade.

They were greeted by Yala’s friends, the ones Giro knew so little about, but thanks to Yala, had a newfound respect for… They had the armor removed from Giro, granting him his freedom again. He of course went over diagnostics, performing a jump just to make sure, and maybe revel in his returned liberty-

“The Winter Priestess finally.. told us to tell you… You’re not as clever as you think you are…” Yala says, as the two eyes narrowed, glaring at her until they calmed again. “I’m smart enough to not shoot the messenger. Automaton, come. I’ll show you to the Phoenix Perch.” She commanded, before the eyes disappeared once more, and her door opened before him.

“Go on, buddy. It’s finally your chance!” Yala cheered, as Giro looked at her again, giving her a hug as his gesture of thanks, before running through the opening… “O-Oh…” Yala muttered to herself, a little taken aback by his sudden action…

Giro spots the Priestess… She’s a young woman with hair made of fire, beautifully formed into feathers, most likely as some sort of headdress… “Do you know why they call it the Phoenix Perch, Giro?” She asks, as she takes his hand. Her hands are surprisingly powerful, so much more so than Giro’s own.

Just from the way she gently held up his arm with them, to her he must have been made of paper mache’. If she made any mistake, his arm might even come clean off… “It’s because they saw me perched up there one day, and asked me to protect their little village…” She explained, as she guided him up the mountain…

“At first I wasn’t all too sure… But then Alcade spoke to me, and convinced me otherwise. Nowadays I just pull pranks on my fellow priests.” She tells him, as they finally arrive at the top, to a large pond, with steaming water and a single massive tree sitting over it, with a perfect branch for perching…

Jewel looks down upon The Machine, as Giro looks up to The Legendary Phoenix…

She transforms back with a brilliant flash of light, sitting gently on the branch… “I never made my enchanted lake to heal MACHINES… But you seemed so determined, so I felt I had to let you try…” She explains to him as he walks around it, surprising her.

“Are… Are you not interested in the lake?...” She asks, as he stands at the highest point of the mountain, staring up at the sun, basking in all its radiant glory, as its golden light washes out what’s left of Jewel’s presence for him… Praise the sun… He thought to himself, ready to accept its gift, ready for: Attunement!

Giro had sat there for days, weeks, months… Half a year would go by, with NOTHING happening… Had the sun forsaken him? Had he chosen the wrong thing to believe in? Or was it not capable of attuning itself to him in the first place?...

Was it Giro’s fault? Was he not good enough? Giro lowers his arms for the first time, exactly one year from when he began his meditation… “Oh, Giro. Are you done starin’ at the sun?” Jewel asked, not having caught on to what he was doing… Going so far as to tease him this whole time, while he persevered to stand stock still, baking his retinas with the sun… (Don’t bake your retinas with the sun, that is a very bad idea.)

Giro turns around, and walks around the lake and over to Jewel, as she watches him… “I hope you found what you were looking for, Giro.” She told him, as he walked past her, downtrodden from his failure… Giro did not blame the sun, he knew better than THAT, at least…

Giro supposed he had gotten his hopes up too high, and dained to move on, deciding it was finally time he left the Four Cades… Giving his goodbyes to his closest friend, he was flown to the other side of the Cade Territories, just outside their borders, and dropped on his feet.

Feeling his launch pads catch his fall so easily. The Phoenix landed next to him, her eyes glowing Yang’s brilliant yellow… “You know, this place is a lot harder to find than you may think. It places a spell on the minds of travelers who wonder too close. It simply guides them out through whatever means necessary…” She explains, speaking to Giro through telepathy as she turns around to look at it.

“I’ll have to ask Galrou to rework it, make sure it works on automatons like yourself too…” She says, her voice less than pleased, before she looks at him, and her eyes grin. “Safe travels, my little friend! Have this, in memory of me.” She says, before swiping a wing over Giro’s head.

It’s a feather, the feather of the phoenix… Now Giro COULDN’T go without giving her a gift of his own- He ejected a buzzer hive, almost scaring her for a moment, before tearing it out of the socket, and walking up to her to give it up as a gift.

Giro no longer had any use for such horrible weaponry, so he decided this lovely lady would make better use of it in his stead… “A Buzzer Hive… Where did you get something like this? Who made you?... Wait… Is it for ME?” She asked, already having gone from scared to confused…

Giro nodded quickly, knowing how valuable a feather like this could be. “I see now… You’re better than I thought you were, my little friend… I accept your gift, Giro. Until we meet again.” She finally says, flying away in a flash of light before disappearing in the distance…

Legendary Creatures were VERY powerful, even the newborn children of krakens were known to lift and throw buildings during temper tantrums. Giro moved on, having made the next friends to be met wait too long for his arrival, and that just could not do.

Giro knew better now, he would never ever again take the people he met for granted…

End of Chapter: 7 “Rebirth.”

Thank you for reading.

“Right, thanks. Now let me get back to work. Damn kids-”

“Alright. Thank you, dears! You all have a good day now. ‘You hear me?”