"Ronix?" Aronesis mumbled.
"In the flesh, old friend." Ronix smiled.
Aronesis embraced him.
Ronix stumbled back from the hug, surprised as he didn't know what to do. But slowly, he returned the embrace back.
Aronesis pulled back, looking him in the eyes.
Ronix knew his friend saw it in him, the tiredness and everything that had happened during his absence. Perhaps it was best not to mention those times.
"Goodness, you're real.." Aronesis muttered.
Ronix forced a smile, he wanted to comfort his old friend, even if it meant bringing his old self back a little, because the old one knew what to do.
"And why would you think I'm an Illusion, Aron?" He asked.
He shook his head, "I'm just being sure, because Argonux isn't a kid, nor was Storms. Seriously, why are they acting like kids?" He chuckled to himself.
Ronix furrowed his brows, how could he not know? Oh... Right, he was absent for those times. Innovation had declared Goons would be trapped for how long as she sees fit, because he had killed The Night. Her sister.
"I'll spare you the long story," he said, going into an old habit as he walked forward into the market area, a commanders habit that eventually, everyone learned to follow you, "Order's proposal was approved, I'm assuming you know that."
Aronesis nodded, his scepter disappearing. It appeared mostly when he wasn't confident about himself or he needed to assert dominance.
"You killed one of the Council for rejecting that, I heard." Aron said, "did it really?"
He nodded, "Though it wasn't just one Council. Argonux, Storms, and Power kept raiding the Council's home planet, so the harassing never stopped, until they folded and Order's proposal went through instead of ours."
Aronesis mumbled something Ronix couldn't hear, the man himself liked to do that out of habit when he was contemplating about something deep. Not like he cared, that was long past him now. He was a different Celestial now.
"In short, they didn't like the idea of us Lesser Celestials to have the same system as them," he said, turning to an intersection of the market that led to a tavern up ahead, "So, with Order's new found system, Higher Celestials would remain on top with nothing changed, but thanks to Order, a better system was offered to us."
He knocked on the tavern door, it opened revealing a room full of unknown Celestials he barely knew. Some of them were wearing old uniforms, some were former enemies and others allies. Aronesis recognized one of them, It was Flowers. She was the one who usually was at the back-line of every planets healing every mortal soldiers to push a campaign they fought so Valiantly.
He urged Aronesis to sit with him, and told him despite the many years of the campaign, and despite having a mind of a Celestial. It didn't help to communicate with another being, all those people wanted was silence and something to distract themselves from the darkness.
Aronesis found this odd, Celestials don't think like that, only mortals do because of their finite mind. Curious, it looks like he wasn't affected by Innovation's designs it seems.
"You're lucky," Ronix said, "that you didn't get to experience Innovation's anti-Celestian machine." He laugh wryly. Ordering two bottles of Divine Moonshines.
Aronesis took one of the bottle and raised a brow, putting the bottle to his lips as he pretended to drink.
"Anti what now? Ronix, what are you talking about? Not to sound rude or anything, but you sound... Insane."
Ronix winced.
"Hey, I'm the Celestial of Mercy for a reason," he said, drinking half the bottle in one go, "I feel their pain, their own weakness as they struggle everyday to find strength in it."
"Nonetheless, Flower shouldn't act so... Melancholy." He watched over his shoulder, Flower was still drinking, "what really happened? Please tell me..."
He breathed in, his shoulders tensing as Ronix remembered the terrible days of seeing his comrades fall one by one within Innovation's attacks. Standing there in the heavens, looking down at them to remind them that Higher Celestials would crush them if they continued the war.
Those eyes of Innovation's were like fire, reflecting the same hellish thing back then in his home planets as his people cried out for help and mercy.
Then, he exhaled. The memories becoming soft and his pain lessened. The moonshine in this tavern was good at that.
"She found a way to make light and sound against us." He said, the memories didn't hurt as much as he remembered now, "I remember it so clearly, a massive machine in the sky that suppressed the light and released a terrible sound that caused us to overload in our minds, it was so much..." He turned to Aronesis, "no, it's not related to you. Just somehow, when the light carried a sound, it forced our physical bodies out of that realm and into the divine, locking us in a prison. Then, killed half of our race's population and made us feel their pain... It shouldn't be possible, I don't know how." He chugged the drink on one go, and ordered for another one.
Aronesis swirled the alcohol in his glass, studying it with a frown as he looked up to him.
"I take the isolation fared you well?" He forced a smile again.
Aronesis smiled back, "A few thousand years is nothing, I had illusions to company me and... Planning on what happens after I was free." The silence stretched on, then he sipped the wine hesitantly. He coughed, spitting some of it on the floor, "sorry... That's strong stuff."
A janitor, unknown Celestial came in and mopped the Violet liquid that seemed to burn the floor, smoke rising a little.
Aronesis slid the glass of wine to him, to which he only added with his. It was free, all of this. Anyone could come here at any moment and order the highest quality or lowest by choice, only if you knew to ask what type you wanted.
"You still haven't told me," Aron folded his arms, his fingers tapping in his arm rhythmically, Ronix stared at that but forced himself away, "What's the new system for lesser Celestials now? Is it good?"
"Order proposed that Lesser Celestials could be reborn again," he didn't need to look at Aronesis's face; shock and disbelief, he was too at the beginning, "but their memories wiped, so those with no followers wouldn't have to die again, but only getting reborn. And they'd have to wait out in the divine realm to be in the physical world until a new race worships them."
"That's... Okay I guess?" Aron pondered.
"Better than anything else, we protested for equality with higher Celestials. It's amazing, even with our divinity, we divide others through the lesser force of nature." He drank the wine, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, pain fully gone, "Anyways, I need to go. Aron, I have to do something."
Aronesis was about to say something, but Ronix just left giggling like a child and out back into the market. He watched him vanish from the intersection, weirdly. What was that giggle about?
"You're affected." Flower said from across the room.
Aronesis turned his gaze to her, her back facing him. Her skin seemed to ripple, thorns, grass, plants mixed into her skin with flowers as a crown in her head. She had skin as a soil, and when she turned to meet his eyes.
He felt unnerved. Those eyes seemed like a black hole, same as Ronix. But hers seem to shimmer with light, as if there was hope.
"Innovation cursed us with Madness," the entire tavern grunted, "Some of us are broken, Aron. That's why Argonux, Power, Storms, and the rest have decided to be reborn instead of suffering."
She turned back to her table, staring at the glass of wine that hasn't been touched ever since he entered.
He approached her, hand in her shoulder. She wouldn't budge, even when he turned to meet her gaze, she was muttering something incoherent.
'Orders... What is happening with you all?'