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A long, long time ago, a young spirit named Artemis spent her afterlife in a forest that was forever cast in a perpetual night. Although she loved her forest, and all the creatures in it, Artemis had always held in her heart a special dream: to visit the sky. The heavens had always looked so empty and lonely to Artemis, and even before her passing she had hoped to one day climb into the sky itself. Finally, after much deliberation, Artemis decided she ought to pursue her heart’s desire. How hard could it possibly be?


It took some searching, but Artemis eventually managed to find the tallest tree in her forest. It stretched upward as far as her eyes could see -- surely it reached the sky itself! And so Artemis set about climbing the tree, carefully hopping from branch to branch as she slowly made her way higher and higher.


Artemis made it to the top of the tree, but even if she stretched her hands out as far as they could go, they simply never came anywhere close to the sky. But Artemis wasn’t discouraged! From her new tall perch she could see a mountain in the distance, its pointed peak scraping the bottom of the clouds. And so Artemis climbed back down the tree and found her way to the mountain. This had to lead straight into the sky! Artemis steeled her nerve and began picking her way up the mountain, determined to make it to the very top.


The top of the mountain was higher than Artemis could have ever imagined! She’d climbed past the clouds themselves to get to this point. Surely she could visit the heavens now! But no matter how high she jumped or how much she tried, she couldn’t seem to make it into sky. Feeling defeated, Artemis made her way back down the mountain and returned to her thicket. To her surprise and horror, however, a doe had been wounded while she was gone. Although Artemis tried everything she could to save the deer, the poor creature eventually passed on. Artemis was devastated. She hadn’t been there to watch over her forest, and as a result the unthinkable had occurred. Heartbroken, Artemis and the other creatures of her grove buried the doe in a peaceful meadow. Artemis planted a single seed there, a sign of her sorrow and respect.


As Artemis mourned by the deer’s gravesite, she heard something strange: the sound of soil shifting. She opened her eyes and stared in wonder as a massive tree, bigger than any tree she had ever seen, suddenly erupted out of the ground before her. It grew, and grew, and grew -- it never seemed to stop! Its branches formed a gnarled staircase that spiraled around the trunk, all the way to the very top of the tree. The tree reached so high she couldn’t even see the top of it anymore, and its massive crown of leaves seemed to glitter with a comforting, twinkling glow. Artemis gaped, too stunned to react. Was… was she supposed to climb it?


Gathering all her courage, Artemis hesitantly placed a foot on the first branch. She began her long climb, ascending higher and higher. After a while, Artemis realized she felt… strange. She had always glowed a little bit -- most spirits do -- but now her aura of light was dazzling to look at. When Artemis made it to the top of the tree she was positively alight, a halo of luminous brilliance surrounding her. Smiling, Artemis settled in amongst the sparkling leaves and clouds, watching her forest from her new perch high in the sky, bright and beaming, the land below her bathed in a pale, soothing glow.

The boy seemed thrilled that she liked the flowers and admitted she had missed him. Before thinking, he simply blurted out, “You mean… you’re not breaking up with me?”

His demeanor visibly relaxed after realizing he wasn’t about to go home brokenhearted just to beat himself up further internally. Gale looked extremely distressed and Zach immediately sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her form. “Hey, babe, what’s going on? You’re in trouble? What happened?!”

Was she hurt? Zach couldn’t find any visible injuries but he certainly didn’t want go about trying to find any. That wasn’t very gentlemanlike. “Did somebody hurt you or somethin’? Gimme their name and I’ll take care of it, okay? I promise!”

The desire to protect her was almost overwhelming, similar to his immediate gut reaction to run in the direction of Denebola’s distress signal… which may have caused all this trouble to begin with.

Zach leaned back to wave his hands before him - a gesture of no! “Nah, nah i-it’s not that at all, babe. I just…” Well now he’d gone and made her even more upset. Great. “...ya know, there was this distance an’ I thought maybe… ya know, I did something wrong? I sure as hell don’t want you goin’ anywhere, Gale.”

The boy leaned in close, his lips in her hair. “I mean it.”

The mention of Stella made Zachary’s body stiffen. She was that Negaverse agent who, no doubt, charmed and tricked Gale into doing things she wouldn’t normally do. The Negaverse was full of people like that, or so Zach thought. Why else would they do half the inhumane things they were doing? He’d heard stories about everything from robberies to kidnapping to straight-up murder.

He held her close as she clung to him, mind racing to unravel the solution to fixing this. Only the Negaverse would stoop so low as to threaten civilians’ lives just to meet a quota.

“Starseeds… those are people’s souls, aren’t they?” He breathed softly into Gale’s brown hair, tracing faint abstract patterns into her back to soothe her. “...buncha bastards. Scrapin’ the bottom of the barrel… why can’t they offer their own energy for whatever they gotta do?! Why they gotta threaten my girl with all this s**t…”

He clenched a fist behind Gale, swallowing the fury he felt building in his gut. Cetus had mentioning killing as a last resort, but Zach wasn’t sure he could sleep at night knowing he’d snuffed out a life with his own hands. Cetus might have been comfortable with it, but Zach wasn’t. “He’s usin’ you because he knows you care about other people. I mean, you’re not gonna be a nurse for no reason. Look, Gale.”

Zach leaned back just slightly, enough to give the brunette a good view his face and hands when he’d pulled them back. With a flick of his write, Zach produced his newly-upgraded henshin stick - one that match Kari’s in its star shape. “I ain’t gonna let this a*****e get away with this. I’ll fix this, Gale. I’m not gonna let this Epidote assface threaten people’s lives jus’ cuz he’s got some quota to fill. That’s his problem. If he wants to threaten my girl, he’s gotta answer to me.”

“Well, I still need your help, Gale. You’ve been in this longer than me, and you still got better shoes. I mean, mine got a lil’ bit of an upgrade but I’d still prefer boots or somethin’. They make your butt look good. I’m sure as hell think so.”

Zach dropped her a wink.

A quick flick of his wrist and the henshins stick had disappeared to it subspace pocket again. Holding her close, Zach toyed with the ends of Gale’s hair. “‘Ey, babe, don’t you worry, okay? This Epidote punk ain’t got nothin’ on Chicken McNugget back there.” He jerked a thumb behind his shoulder, indicating the power plant where he’d sustained those injuries that hospitalized him. Never before had he seen a youma of that size and power.”

Gale admitting to wanting to go to the meetings, if only to spare the threatened lives of innocent people, made Zach’s grip around her tighten just slightly. “No, Gale, I don’t want you goin’ to meet this douche on your own. Who knows when he’ll start demanding more. They’ll keep takin’ and keep threatenin’ until somebody comes over there and teaches ‘em a lesson. Consequences. I ain’t lookin’ for trouble - I know who he is. I just gotta know where he’s at.”

Zach clenched a fist in determination. He was not about to let Epidote scare Kari into compliance, especially since he didn’t trust a Negaverse agent as far as he could throw them. First it would be energy, but then what came after that?

He couldn’t help the slight blush and sheepish smile when Gale asked him to stay over. “I’m not gonna turn that down, babe, but… isn’t this the part where I buy you dinner first?”