It's been an entire week ever since the incident on Earth.
Castle, the director of the Newcastle Foundation, was receiving large amount of reports and questions from the Union Council.
When the Orbital Cannon under the frozen surface of Earth fired, the bright missile travelled all the way past the edge of the solar system.
It left a trail of light that was visible from all the planets, this got some reaction from each Hybrid race. Some are in awe, some are wondering, and some are concerned.
The Half Reptile director was sitting on his desk, checking on the many news article that popped up about the incident.
An omen of the end of the universe? secret weapon testing? A sign of true love?
Castle was somewhat amused of the many articles about the incident, but he knows the truth.
He laughed a bit, as the truth it at least as interesting or even more so than what the public thought.
Then, a young Half Bird Hybrid girl with short brown and little wings on her back entered his office.
Castle didn't recognize her even though she was wearing the Newcastle outfit. For safety reasons he place his hand on the handle of hidden gun under his desk.
This isn't the first time he had to this and most of them ended with a stained carpet.
The young girl was walking towards him, and clumsily tripped and fell onto the floor.
"Ah!!" She yelped, holding her knees as Castle tried not to chuckle. He looked down and saw the girl.
"Wow you may be the worst assassin," Catsle said half jokingly.
"Ah!" She yelped in surprise this time, and fell once more.
She looked around and finally noticed Castle, who was sitting behind his desk and with mild confusion on his face.
"What are you doing here?" Castle asked the girl. The girl got up slowly, and walked towards her boss after collecting the pile of papers on the floor.
"Erm... I'm here to send you reports on the funding... err... Sir!" The young girl said nervously.
"Eh, thank you "He said as he slowly grabbed the pile of papers from her hand, "I've never seen you before, are you new here?"
"Uhh... Yes!" She answered, "My name Aquila! An honor to serve sir!" She saluted him.
"We're not in the military, you can relax," Castle smiled, eyes glancing at the reports and back at her.
She looked somewhat familiar to him.
"Well then, I'll be on my way sir!" She said before trying to make a hasty exit.
"You look familiar... have we met?" He asked.
Aquila stopped and slowly walked back to him, "Umm... No sir," she answered, "But you may have met my big brother!"
"Brother? who?" Castle asked curiously.
"Sparrow," She answered.
Castle was quite surprised to hear this, mainly because Sparrow never mentioned any family.
"Sparrow is your brother? He doesn't look big to me," He joked .
She giggled and replied, "He may be smaller than everyone but he has the biggest heart!"
Castle chuckled softly at her response, but he could see something in her eyes.
Something sad, almost... regretful.
"So have you been seeing him? since you two are working at together now," He asked.
She laughed nervously and answered, "Not really... he is... busy..."
"You do know he's not doing anything," Castle remarked, "He's just in the infirmary,"
"Err... yes but... he's busy healing!" She replied.
Castle noticed how evasive the girl seemed to be, but decided against saying anything else. It wasn't his business anyway.
After the young girl left, Castle continued with his work. When afternoon came, he was about to leave to have his lunch break when suddenly he received an urgent message from the Union Council.
"Interesting," he thought after reading the message.
He then stood back up and left. As he walked past the crowds of Newcastle Agents, his pace slowed after reaching that on part of the ship.
A long window hallway that overlooked the clouds. The sky was a brownish colour due to the amount of dust particles in the atmosphere, but it still looked beautiful as it is.
"I wonder what it looked like if it was blue..." Castle sighed.
After a few minutes of slow walking, he went to the cafeteria and got a sandwich.
He looked at the television screen on the corner of the cafeteria, it was mostly about the same incident he was reading earlier.
He left with his sandwich and headed straight towards another room, a very large on in fact.
As he entered he found a pretty secluded spot, a few metal crates stacked onto each other. He sat on it and looked forward.
This wasn't just a room, it was large storage compartment. And inside of it, was the Orbital Cannon that they excavated from Earth.
It took them a long while to get it inside the ship, as it was almost as large as the ship.
While enjoying his sandwich he noticed a familiar face approaching. A Half Dragon Hybrid woman with silver, a pair of black horns pointing up and a silver tail.
"Oh hey Xel'Ryah," Castle greeted, "You seem exhausted, but then again you always do look like that,"
Xel'Ryah sighed and shrugged.
"Anyway, what bring you here?" He asked as he ate the sandwich.
"I was just checking on the Orbital Cannon," She answered, "We're lucky to have found it intact,"
"Yeah... intact..." Castle mumbled.
"You don't seem too excited," She said, "Is there something wrong?"
Castle looked up at her and gave her a smile and replied, "No... not at all..."
Xel'Ryah frowned for a moment but just let it be.
"Hows the rest of your team?" he asked.
"Sparrow is doing fine... he's still cracking jokes every now and then," She answered, "Kel'Zal is still mostly the same," She continued, "And Alysia... I don't know... she's been unconscious for a while now..."
Xel'Ryah felt some guilt over what happened to Alysia, she decided to change the topic to get rid of this feeling.
But before she could say anything, Castle just got another message.
"Looks like I'm needed in the Primordial cell," He said.
"Have they found anything?" She asked curious, "They never shared any of their findings,"
"Either they didn't find anything or they are not sharing anything," Castle answered, "Usually it's the latter..."
He got up from the metal crates after finishing his sandwich, "Well then I'll be off," leaving her alone.
Xel'Ryah stood silently as she turned her gaze to look at the Orbital Cannon.
She still couldn't fathom how large this thing actually was, and how destructive it could do.
She let a sigh of relief, believing that it is now in safe keeping of the Newcastle Foundation. For now anyways.
After a while of walking, Castle entered the room where the Primordial was contained.
It was, thankfully, still frozen in ice. Scientists from every institute under the Union Council's funding was all around it.
Papers, scans, files and machinery was placed all around, outside of the cell.
He was walking towards one scientist, a Half Dragon Hybrid woman with black hair, horns and tail.
That was Jyll'Hyr, a friend of Castle and the one of the few Union Council worker that he tolerates.
"Alright I'm here, what's up?" He greeted her.
"Oh, hello Castle," she greeted back with her usual low voice, "I... need to talk to you,"
"Is this a confession?" He joked.
"W-what? oh, very funny," She chuckled a bit, "But in all seriousness though, we need to talk to about the Primordial,"
"Finally found something?" He asked as he looked inside.
"We need to have it transported to Saturn," She said
"For what reason?" he raised an eyebrow, "If it's dangerous we can just shoot it off to space,"
"That's not it," she responded, "Some of the scientists have been acting strange lately,"
Castle was curious, but now has his full attention.
"Strange how?" he asked.
"Lately, some of them said they felt disturbed... frightened even," she answered, "And some feel unconscious..."
"Is it because of that thing?" he pointed towards the Primordial, "Should I be worried about you too?"
"I'm not sure..." she answered, "Even I feel... off sometimes,"
"But anyway we should get permission from the Union Council to go to Saturn for a further research on it," She explained, "You... kind of have some leeway with them,"
"Funnily enough, they just contacted me," he answered, "They wanted me to get this, the big cannon and the floating ball back to Saturn,"
"Well that's good," she sighed in relief, "Let me know when we can depart,"
And with that he bid her farewell and left the room.
He wondered for a moment, can a creature, frozen in ice, be able to influence the mind of others?
Is that why the Union Council wanted them to go back so suddenly?
Only one way to find out, a trip to Saturn.
it's just going to be a long trip...
ns 18.68.41.177da2
