“All right, that about does it.” Karl zipped his duffel bag close and put it on a chair. His GDF uniform was neatly folded on top of his desk by the window beside a telescope with mismatched colours. A couple of knocks resounded before Luna’s voice came from the other side. “Mind if we come in?”

“Come on in,” said Karl, before the door opened and Luna came in, Zephyr in tow.

“Are you done packing?” Luna sat on the edge of his bed.

“Yup,” Karl nudged his head towards his duffel.

“Hold out your hands,” said Zephyr. Karl did so, and he put a bottle of colorful gummies, a small box with miniscule pouches with clear liquid inside, a couple of puffers, and then another bottle of pills.“Your vitamins, refills for your nebulizer, extra puffers, and cold medication, since you tend to get sick with sudden changes in temperature.”

Karl blinked owlishly at his younger brother. “Zeph, we’ll only be gone for a few days.”

“I know, but you always forget these things. Did you actually pack any of them?” Zephyr narrowed his eyes.

Karl grinned sheepishly “I... uh... always have my puffer with me?”

“Exactly,” his younger brother ruffled his hair.

“Mother Hen,” Luna snorted, rolling her eyes. She walked closer to Karl and wrapped her arms around him. “You’re on a solo mission this time… Promise you’ll come back safe, okay?”

Karl hugged her back. “I will, I promise. Besides, I’m not going alone. Rywa’s going with me. More like, it’s the other way around. We have another lead to the documents we’re looking for, so Rywa wants to look into it. I’m just his escort.”

Karl’s thoughts drifted to the ambulance after they put out the fire around Tokyo Tower.

*******

Zephyr was checking his vitals while he still had an oxygen mask on when the back door opened and Chris hopped in.

 “Captain!”

Chris motioned for Karl not to sit up. “How are you?”

“That’s my line. Captain, are you okay now?”

“I’m okay. I just needed to recharge a bit, using magic consumes a lot of energy after all.” He turned to Rywa and nodded. “Thank you, Rywa. You saved all of us today.”

“That’s what I said,” Karl elbowed Rywa who was sitting at the edge of the bed.

Rywa shook his head. “It’s what anyone would have done.” 

The ambulance door opened once more and this time, it was Tala. “Captain, there’s someone looking for you. It’s Dr. Perez.”

When they got back to base, Chris announced to the team that Dr. Perez had agreed to meet with them. However, Karl was told to stay behind as his fighter was still under repair.

After the meeting, Karl ran after Chris to ask him outside of everyone else’s earshot. “Captain, if you don’t mind me asking, was there another reason I was taken out of this mission? If it was just my fighter, I could hitch a ride with you and the others.”

Chris turned around to face him, but neither confirmed nor denied. Instead, he held Karl’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t look so glum. There’s something else I’d like you to do.”  

*******

“Dinner’s ready!” Mrs. Lyle’s voice coming from the kitchen snapped Karl out of his thoughts.

“Smells good,” said Karl as the mouth-watering smell wafted to his nose while they made their way to the dining room. Zephyr reached for the plates on the higher shelves while Karl set the table and Luna scooped steaming hot rice from the rice cooker into their bowls.

“We’re having Luna’s favourite tonight,” Mrs. Lyle said as she set down a cast iron pan on a thick cloth mat, a golden block of tofu still sizzling in the middle. Little plates of salt for dipping and side dishes were neatly arranged around it. 

“Ooh, tofu steak!” Luna grinned from ear to ear.

“Yep. Yun said it’s from Tsukishiro-san, fresh from his visit to Eiheiji Temple this morning,” Mrs. Lyle chuckled.

As they were enjoying their meal, Karl spoke. “By the way, Mom. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did Dad go to Canada around thirty-five years ago? I came across a clipping from their newspaper, about graduate students who uncovered ruins of an advanced ancient civilization there. And I think I saw dad in the picture.”

Mrs. Lyle shook her head, “I’m sorry, sweetie. That was before I met your dad, so I can’t say for sure.”

“I see… Thanks, Mom.”

“Karl, look,” said Zephyr, eyes fixed on the TV screen in the living room adjacent to their kitchen and dining area. “It’s those guys from before. I zoomed in on their faces when I took that video so they can be identified.”

“You’re right,” Karl confirmed. Judging by their outfits, it was the poachers he shot at.

The text at the bottom read ‘Breaking News’ as the video showed a group of men being arrested in front of a building engulfed in raging fire in the background, while a police officer was speaking to the media.

“According to our intel, those cages had been holding animals for illegal trade. Two of those men were under investigation after a concerned citizen reported them. We have video evidence where they were filmed in the act of trying to shoot hawks. 

One of the poachers told us that when he came back to the warehouse from the convenience store, he saw the hawks flying out. They went in to check what was going on and saw that the locks were melted and all the cages were empty. Not long after, the building went up in flames.

But they said there was no one else there. And according to the firefighters, it would require extremely high temperatures to melt those locks. And what’s more puzzling is how fast it was done. Once we’re cleared to go inside, our team will conduct a thorough investigation.”

Zephyr and Luna exchanged skeptical looks, while Karl sighed in relief.

“Thank goodness... The hawks are all free now.”

“Sounds like something a M.A.G.E. operative could pull off, but I don’t think we have anyone in GDF who specializes in fire,” Luna tapped her chin with her index finger.

“We do have a real fire mage staying with us,” Zephyr turned to Karl.

“You mean Rywa?” Karl asked.

“I doubt that,” Mrs. Lyle shook her head. “I got a message from Yun saying he had just delivered their GDF endorsements and travel clearances to Rywa and his companions. In fact, he had just left since they invited him in for tea. But whoever is responsible for this— M.A.G.E. operative or not— is indeed someone highly skilled with fire manipulation.”

-

Since Karl’s fighter was still under repair, Rywa offered to give him a lift. At the hangar, Karl’s eyes gravitated towards a majestic crimson fighter beside two identical black fighters.

“Wow...” He gazed with childlike wonder in his eyes. He had not noticed his mouth was hanging open until Rywa spoke from above, prompting him to look up.

“That reaction is a little late, don’t you think? You’ve seen my fighter before.” Rywa jumped down.

“Not at daylight. She’s gorgeous! She must look like a fiery bird in the sky...” Karl sighed dreamily, caressing the cold metal.

Rywa chuckled. “That’s quite accurate. You’ll be happy to know her name is Firebird.”

“Speaking of fire...” Karl thought back on the news he saw last night. He stared at Rywa but shook his head and continued to admire Firebird.

Rywa could only grin at the sparkle in Karl’s eyes. “Would you like to hop in?”

“Of course!” Karl hopped in and took in every detail from the metal walls, the pilot and passenger seats, the cargo hold, all the way down to the panels, levers, and buttons. “Wow… She’s a real beauty inside and out. But more than that, the ship is squeaky clean and so well-maintained. You take such good care of your ship, she must be really precious to you.”

Karl’s face glowed with marvel as he tenderly ran his hands through the dashboard, which was still turned off.

“The panels aren’t that much different from the ones in ours. Except where there’d be numbers on our dashboards, yours has runes. It also feels a little more simplified. I feel like this would be easier to maneuver. And this doesn’t have any fuel indicators. I guess you fly your fighters with magic too, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Amazing,” Karl shook his head, smiling.

“On the contrary, I’m the one astounded at how your people are able to launch your fighters all the way out to space without incorporating the use of magic,” said Rywa.

“Do you use magic for everything in Zirka?” Karl asked.

“Yes. We’re quite dependent on it for most things; from our trivial everyday tasks, to the more complicated and massive projects. As someone who was born in that kind of world, I cannot imagine what life would be like if we did not have the ability to wield elements.”

“Is this the latest model?”

“Not quite. Lord Vlint showed me the designs when I was younger. He wanted to build a fighter that would suit my combat style as well as my own taste, and it was meant to be a gift for my coming-of-age ceremony. However... he died before he could fulfill that promise.”

A look of pain flickered in Rywa’s eyes for a moment.

“Since I had the final blueprint, the leader of the Shadows had the unfinished prototype completed for me as a token of our alliance. On the day of the handover, I found this.” Rywa opened a small compartment by the pilot seat and took out a small book with thick binding held close by a belt lock.

He pointed to the only runes written on the first page. “These first two are the runes for ‘sun’ and ‘love’. Used together, it is the name of Solara, the floating city. Once a prosperous empire, their ancient people believed the Sun looked down on them with favour.

But what’s more interesting is the rune beside it, ‘flint’. A fitting name for the man who sparked so many changes in our world— Lord Vlint. Vlint von Solara.

This documents his journey from the day he left Mira. The planets, the galaxies he visited. His last stop was Earth, where he says he found the answer he had long been searching for.”

He put the book back and closed the compartment.  

“Being given this fighter marked the start of my mission. It’s been sixteen years since then, and she’s gone through many distances, battles, and trips to the spacecraft mechanic. And yet here she is, still my ever reliable partner.”

“Sixteen years ago?!” Karl gawked. “We’ve faced all sorts of fighters in and out of our galaxy so I can say for sure that even now your fighter is still way ahead of its time. I know you’ve said before that he’s your top scholar and all but now I’m beginning to see that…”

After Rywa completed all his pre-flight preparations, they took off.

“It’s been so long since I sat on the passenger seat. The last time was when my dad was teaching me how to fly.” Karl’s voice was laced with nostalgia.

“Your father taught you? He must be a highly skilled pilot.”

“He really is. He could fly anything, even without a manual.” 

En route to their destination, the fighter flew over a majestic, snow-capped mountain that caught Rywa’s attention. “It’s beautiful…”

“It’s Mt. Fuji. No matter where we go in and out of our world— our galaxy, even— every time I see her on the way back, it makes me feel like I’m really home.”

“A beacon of home… It reminds me of the Vermillion Bird’s Nest. It’s a volcano at the edge of the Miran desert, and it’s sacred to our people because it’s where the guardian spirit of fire is said to slumber.”

“Slumber? Aren’t they immortals who embody the elements in your world?” Karl tilted his head to the side.

“That’s right. You remember. It is said that during times of peace, the guardian spirits watch over and communicate with the people through their elements. That is what we mean by ‘slumber’. They’re immortal, after all. In times of need, each of them have the ability to manifest into a human form and live among mortals, or turn into their physical manifestations— the vermillion bird of fire, the giant golem of the earth, and the wise old sage, a turtle, of water.”

“And wind?”

Rywa shook his head. “The windwolf… Out of the guardian spirits, he is the only one who no longer possesses any physical form.”

“Why? What happened?”

“It has been thousands of years since anyone saw the guardians spirits. Their last sighting was during the great war, which was when they last walked the mortal world their human forms. And as time went on, the stories came to have as many versions as the lips that spoke them.

Some say he betrayed the pact of loyalty and was killed by the backlash, others say he died for his fellow guardians, others still say he sided with the people and was defeated by the other guardians. One thing is for certain, Zirkans look to the guardian spirit of wind as their protector.

The guardians made an oath of loyalty to the king of Mira during the great war. It was then that the scepter of the covenant was gifted to the king at that time, made with steel imbued with the power of the guardian spirits, and crafted by the most talented blacksmith in the sacred forge made of the giant golem’s own rocks and the vermillion bird’s flame.

The scepter has the power to summon all of the guardians, whose loyalty they had bound to the Miran king. Should they go against that oath, the backlash they will suffer would be unfathomable.”

“Wolves are fiercely loyal to their pack. I wonder what happened to make him turn against the other guardian spirits…” said Karl.

“The events surrounding that are shrouded in mystery as if the pages had been torn out of our history books. Even Mira’s royal family has been kept in the dark for generations.”

Bleak silence followed their conversation, each keeping to their own thoughts as time passed. Looking out the window, the colour of the sky as it changed from dusk to early evening was reflected in Karl’s eyes.

Karl looked at the map on his watch showing their flight path. “Oh look, we’re almost there. We’ll soon be entering Canadian air space. According to the lead Bianca and Hogan, Mr. Echizen managed to snap a photo of documents with mysterious symbols that went on display briefly at GalaCon— a conference organized by fans of alien pop culture in New York—before it was stolen by unknown parties just minutes after it went on display. He suspects it’s alien language, and according to his sources, those documents were found somewhere in these remote islands.”

“Bianca sent us the pictures, and though most of it only showed corners or at most a quarter of the sheets, the text written on them was unmistakeably Zirkan,” said Rywa, as he gradually lowered his altitude. “ I’m glad our flight has been pretty smooth, despite flying in an alien spacecraft.”

“GDF secured clearance for our flight so we’re good.”

“Good to hear. Though I have confidence my fighter can withstand most offensive weapons, I’d rather not get shot down when I have extremely precious cargo.”

Rywa met Karl’s eyes through the rearview mirror and gave a little wink.

“Don’t jinx it.”

As soon as he said that, the fighter was violently jolted. Karl felt as if he tried to unplug an electric appliance with wet hands before he blacked out.