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“It doesn’t make sense.” Marucho mumbled to himself, sitting alone on the floor surrounded by pages and pages of calculations and wild scribblings, “We knew about Mercury, we knew about it thousands of years, the fucking Sumerians knew about it, but Mira claims Mia-Beta only vanished a few centuries ago? That doesn’t add up, it was unmistakably Mercury in that picture but the dates just don’t add up.”
The whole gang was here, sitting in the living area of the Base, each having their own private meltdowns after the revelations of tonight’s bonfire. Mira had yet to say a word, laying down with her head in Baron’s lap, keeping her breathing carefully deep and even, keeping herself calm.
“What do we do?” Ace asked, his arm around Baron’s shoulders, watching Dan and Shun speaking softly with troubled expressions. With the humans on one side of the table and the vestals on the other, the gulf between them had never felt so wide.
“What can we do?” Shun said quietly, “I mean… really, what can we do?”
“Not much.” Dan muttered, curled into Shun’s side, instinctively seeking comfort, “Not freaking much.”
“Exactly.” Shun exhaled shakily, “Ergo… there’s no point in obsessing over it. Let’s just… move on.”
“Move on?” Ace echoed confusedly, “What do you mean ‘just move on’?”
“Process what we’ve learned.” Shun said, “And move on. Why be driven to ruin by something we can’t control?”
“What, you want us to just… just ignore it?” Baron asked a little hysterically, “Just go on with our lives like we didn’t just learn a massive fucked up secret about the universe!?”
“What’s the alternative?” Shun asked, eyes lifting to look at them, “What would you suggest?”
“We should-We gotta tell someone, or something!” Baron exclaimed, “We can’t just sit on this information and do nothing!”
“Baron-“
“Think about that course of action for a second.” Ace spoke up, terse and conflicted, “We tell someone, scientists or diplomats or the media. Word gets out that there’s a race of aliens in the black between the stars that resemble imperfect copies of vestals, and these aliens are currently in possession of multiple planets that were stolen from our galaxy, and these aliens, as Marucho said, won’t be particularly inclined to give them back. How do you think that will make humans look? How do you think that would end?”
“…War.” Mira croaked, her first words in hours, “Annihilation.”
“Therefore.” Shun said regretfully, “We put it out of our minds. We forget about it.”
“How?” Baron asked, eyes misty, “How are we supposed to just ignore it? How can you?”
“You just… do.” he sighed, letting Dan press closer to him, “You put it in the back of your mind and go on with your life, and occasionally it’ll hit you at random times and you’ll have a mini freakout but then you’ll be fine again.”
“You say it like it’s so simple.” Ace asked, a little snippy, “Is that something you can do? Because it’s really concerning if you can.”
“It’s called repression, Ace.” Marucho said from his little nest of papers, eyes trained on a thesis about Mercury’s discovery, “Or maybe suppression, I’m not sure.”
“Compartmentalization?” Dan asked, but Marucho shook his head.
“No, that’s more for internal conflicts, like conflicting information.” he clarified absently, “To avoid cognitive dissonance.”
“Ah.” Dan said, and didn’t seem to have much to say after that. There was quiet for a moment, an awkward silence built on revelations no one could contemplate. Ace’s mind still whirled, images of the lost planets humans called moons, called theirs, flashing across his vision. Mia-Beta, stolen from Neathia’s sky, its unfinished cities seared away by Earth’s sun. Zetli, a massive planet meant to be the future home of countless gundalians, now covered in liquid methane and orbiting a planet large enough to render it nothing but a moon. Heldorah, Heldorah, a thriving world now frozen under miles of ice, an epicenter of trade and life now dark and silent. All of them claimed and beloved by humans who never even suspected they were stolen.
It was enough to make a man scream.
“Hey Shun.” Dan broke the silence with a humorless little laugh, pulling Ace from his spiraling thoughts, “What if I hypothetically suggested we call up Old Gehabich and ask him to use his transporter doohickey, have him send us to the stolen planets to see if we can glean anything from them?”
“I’d probably say something like ‘what in god’s name makes you think that’s a good idea’.” Shun responded to the hypothetical question that didn’t actually seem hypothetical, ignoring the confused looks of the vestals as Dan tilted his head thoughtfully.
“Okay…” Dan said slowly, “But like, what if I suggested we all go together and bring the bakugan with us?”
“I’d probably ask how exactly you plan for us to explore entire planets by ourselves.” Shun snorted, “And I’d inform you that we have neither the equipment nor the training to explore a possibly hostile extraterrestrial environment.”
“And if I found a way to get the equipment?” Dan prodded, “And if I dared suggest that we don’t really need training because how hard can walking on an alien planet be, especially with the bakugan to help us?”
“Then I’d remind you that the gravity on both Titan and Europa is significantly less than that of any planet we’ve ever been on.” Shun said pointedly, “Which is a bananas thing to think about, that we’ve been on multiple planets. And that even short-term exposure to zero-g can have all sorts of effects on our bodies. Not to mention the fact that Mercury is literally right next to the sun.”
“Alright, but if I said-“ Dan continued on, hypotheticals upon hypotheticals, Shun matching him easily. Ace watched the baffling exchange as they argued back and forth, never openly saying what they meant and instead hiding behind postulations, seeming to have two conversations at once in a way that confused and irritated Ace in equal measure. There was the overly-poetic Earthly manner of speech, and then there was whatever this was, and he was so tired of not understanding things.
“Why are you doing that?” he finally cut in, breaking up the budding debate as both Dan and Shun turned to look at him.
“Doing what?” Dan asked.
“That.” he gestured between them, “That… hypothetical thing. ‘What if I said this, what if I said that’, just speak plainly.”
“We… are?” Dan exhaled sharply, “It’s just a conversation, Ace. We’re being playful, it’s not that deep.”
“Why can you never just say what you mean?” he snapped without really meaning to, “Why is it always a metaphor with you? Or a rhyme or a saying or a starcursed roundabout way of approaching a simple subject, just say what you mean in a way everyone can understand-“
“Ace-“ Mira started, but Shun’s voice cut her off.
“Do not take your fear out on us, Ace.” he said lowly, and Ace bristled.
“I’m not afraid-“
“You’re terrified.” Shun spoke over him, his calm voice like black ice over a raging current, “You’re terrified and you’re helpless and you’re lashing out because it’s the only thing you can do. I understand, I really do, I’m fucking terrified too.”
“Well you’re certainly not acting like it!”
“What do you want me to do, fall to my knees screaming in existential terror?” Shun snapped, “What purpose would that serve? What would that change? You want me to start sobbing and tearing my hair out, I can do that if it would make you feel better.”
“We’re scared too, Ace.” Dan was scowling at him, still curled into Shun’s side like Shun was a shield against the world, “This whole thing is fucking scary. But let’s not let it drive us nuts.”
“Oh right, I forgot, you guys think we should just forget about it.” Ace sneered, and Shun rolled his eyes.
“I didn’t say forget it, I said that it’s useless to obsess about it since there is, again, nothing we can do.” he stressed, “Therefore, literally all we can do is move on with our lives.”
“How can we possibly do that?” Ace demanded, “How can you?”
“Easy.” Shun replied tonelessly, “Repress, repress, repress.”
“Agreed.” Marucho stood abruptly, looking exhausted and more than a little annoyed, “I’m done trying to logic this out for tonight. I’m gonna go take a nap, does anyone want to take a nap with me?”
“I do.” Shun said, “I need to sleep the horror of tonight off.”
“Eh, I’ll join you.” Dan stood up and stretched, “The world is always brighter after a good nap, right?”
“Pancakes for breakfast?” Marucho asked, rubbing his temples in a way that indicated a growing headache.
“Sounds good.”
Ace and the others watched, slightly stunned, as the humans slunk off to their nest with their shoulders tense and their energy dimmed. Not for the first time, Ace envied their ability to just… turn off. Just fall unconscious and ignore the world for a few hours, to let their subconscious handle all the difficult stuff.
“Dan’s sleepwalking tonight, isn’t he?” Baron asked tiredly, and Ace groaned at the reminder.
“If anything was gonna stress him out enough to trigger it, this would be it.” he muttered bitterly, “Great. Another thing to worry about.”
“Do you think Dan was serious?” Mira asked softly, curling more into Ace’s lap, “They might know a way to visit the lost planets?”
“If he was, we’ll explore the possibility.” Ace said, dropping his hand onto her shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze, “Maybe we can gain some insight into… all of this.”
“Do you think they’re actually going to forget about this?” Baron asked, worried eyes trained on the door the humans had left through, “Was it another weird human figure of speech or were they being literal?”
“I don’t know how they could just ‘move on’ from something like this.” Ace scowled, “Maybe dreaming helps. Or maybe their minds are more fractured than we thought.”
It was a simple enough explanation. From what Ace recalled from half-listened to stories about ‘space madness’ and ‘sea madness’ and ‘isolation madness’, humans seemed… mentally fragile. Like the slightest push could shatter their minds like glass, like the human psyche was always just on the brink of insanity. If a simple thing like loneliness could allegedly drive a human insane, what else could?
It worried Ace, even on the best of days, how easily it seemed his human friends might break. It worried him how easily they spoke of simply pushing certain knowledge from their minds, as if on some subconscious level, the human brain had adapted to protecting itself that way. He recalled Marucho’s reaction to learning about the After, how even now he refused to acknowledge it, insisting that the vestals were mistaken and that no one could truly know what comes after death. As if the knowledge would be too much for him. Strong bodies, fragile minds.
The rest of the night passed in uneasy silence.