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It had been a day after the very wonderful and absolutely normal dinner that the Astral Express crew and the Stellaron Hunters had enjoyed together aboard the Tatalov on Penacony. It had also been an entire day since Stelle had been taken by the Stellaron Hunters for whatever nefarious deeds they needed her help with. At least they were nice enough to ensure the Astral Express would not be left with a member short, as Caelus had opted to remain with the crew to ‘become Stelle’ as he put it when he showed up in the Parlour Car with Stelle’s fiery lance after the Astral Express crew returned from Penacony.
(He was also immediately banned from using the lance after he scorched the floor of the Parlour Car.)
“But that doesn’t explain why you’re wearing your sister’s clothes,” March pointed out.
“I need to be in-character,” Caelus said, which explained nothing at all.
“Are you also wearing her undergarments?” March asked, only to interrupt Caelus when he opened his mouth to reply. “On second thought, don’t answer that.”
Dan Heng sighed, massaging his temples to ward off the incoming headache. “Did Stelle give you permission to raid her wardrobe?”
Caelus nodded. “Yup, we traded clothes before we left Penacony. I wanted to borrow her bat as well, but I couldn’t use both the bat and the lance at the same time so I just borrowed the lance instead.”
Well, if Caelus had gotten Stelle’s consent then it was probably fine, Dan Heng thought to himself before frowning. “How long will you be staying here?”
Depending on how long Caelus planned on taking Stelle’s place with the Astral Express crew, Himeko and Pom-Pom would need to reshuffle the schedules and party members. Dan Heng hoped that he would be able to convince them to allow him to bring Caelus around the Xianzhou Luofu so he could show the Stellaron Hunter the beautiful sights the place had to offer.
Caelus shrugged. “I don’t know. A week, maybe? Kafka didn’t mention how long. She did tell me to enjoy my vacation though.”
Himeko sighed, looking annoyed at the mere mention of Kafka’s name. She then looked at Caelus and smiled. “Welcome aboard, Caelus. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
“Passenger Caelus, you came aboard at the right time,” Pom-Pom happily said. “We were planning to help set up Passenger Stelle’s room!”
Caelus could only stare dumbfoundedly at Pom-Pom once he realised what the conductor said. Pom-Pom, seemingly unaware, continued to explain, “Stelle kept procrastinating on setting up her room so Pom-Pom decided that enough was enough and graciously stepped in to help. Everyone on the Astral Express crew agreed as well.”
“Wait… Stelle didn’t tell me any of this. When did you guys discuss this with her?”
March laughed awkwardly. “Uh… we didn’t. Because if we let Stelle decide when to do it, she would never get around to doing it.”
So he and Stelle were pretty similar. Caelus supposed it made sense, since he was a copy of her. Anyway, back to the topic at hand… “Then why not wait for Stelle to get back?”
March stared at him with a raised brow and it took a second for Caelus to realise why — It was simply because Stelle would just go back to procrastinating.
“Okay, I guess I can help,” Caelus said with a shrug. “It can’t be that bad, right?”
March let out a laugh, a monotonous one that contained all the exhaustion of one who had seen far too much. Pom-Pom led the way, showing Caelus where his sister's room was. The moment he stepped inside, Caelus fell to his knees in despair. Large cardboard boxes were piled everywhere, and a thick layer of dust covered the floor except for where footprints led up to a very sad bed made out of compressed cardboard boxes.
“How… How does she live like this!?” Caelus exclaimed in dismay. Sure, a cardboard box was comfortable and he occasionally slept in them, much to Blade’s disappointment and disgust since he was the one who happened to always be the one to find him sleeping in them, but Caelus had standards and would never rest in a place like this for a long period of time.
“She just sleeps in one of our rooms, the guest rooms, or in the Parlour Car,” Himeko explained.
“We helped her clean up her room a few times, even putting away a few cardboard boxes, but a lot of things happened after we left the Space Station,” Welt added. “Stelle also insisted that she would clean up her room by herself but, well… as you can see…”
“And that’s why we decided to put our foot down and help her clean up her room today!” March cheerfully exclaimed.
“...Until I ruined it by switching places with her,” Caelus realised, looking downcast at the revelation.
Himeko stepped forward, placing a hand on the Stellaron Hunter’s head to soothe him. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
“Sometimes, plans change. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing,” Dan Heng said, making Caelus smile weakly at him.
“Dan Heng’s right!” March said, throwing her hand over Caelus’ shoulder. “Besides, we’re Trailblazers! Since when have our plans ever gone properly anyway?”
Dan Heng sighed, even as the corners of his mouth quirked into a smile. “It would help if you looked before you leap.”
“Dan Heng! Not in front of Caelus! I have an image to maintain!”
Caelus burst into laughter, making March pout at him. The three continued with their antics while everyone else fondly watched them.
“Okay, let’s get back to cleaning or we’ll end up procrastinating like Stelle,” Pom-Pom said as they cutely wiggled their ears. March and Caelus saluted and immediately dove into the pile of cardboard boxes, kicking up dust everywhere, much to the conductor’s chagrin. “March! Caelus!”
Welt shook his head, amused. Today would be a long day, but that did not seem to be a bad thing.
At the Stellaron Hunters’ base, Stelle yawned and stretched. Her brother’s bed was soft and comfy, immediately luring her to sleep the moment she threw herself on top of it. She had been too weak to resist. Was this what it felt like to wake up after sleeping on a proper bed? Perhaps she should have stopped procrastinating on renovating her room. She had half a mind to lay back down and go back to sleep, but the incessant knocking on the door snapped out of her thoughts. The door creaked open and Silver Wolf stuck her head into the room, looking bored.
“Oh hey, you’re awake,” the hacker said as she stepped inside. “Did Cae lend you his weapon?”
Cae? Caelus? Stelle giggled. It was a cute nickname for her brother and she was definitely going to use it on him next time she saw him.
Stelle nodded, taking out the weapon to show Silver Wolf. The heavy black metal gauntlet fitted well around her hands thanks to Caelus’ last minute adjustments before they parted ways on Penacony. If only she could say the same for his clothes. The jacket and shirt were too big, though the pants fit strangely well on her. She had no idea why Caelus insisted on switching clothing and weapons, but she agreed only because she thought it would be funny if her brother showed up on the Astral Express wearing a short skirt.
(Except he pulled off the look really well, and Stelle was both very impressed and slightly jealous at how easily he did it.)
Silver Wolf led Stelle to the meeting room where all the other Stellaron Hunters were huddled around a large meeting table. Kafka smiled at her before turning back to look at the three-dimensional map in the middle of the table. Firefly gave her a friendly wave as Silver Wolf sat down beside her, while Blade gave her a fleeting glance before closing his eyes and ignoring everything around him. Elio (the cat), meowed at Stelle as she settled into the first empty seat she found. Elio (not the cat) smiled at her, all mysterious, but Stelle knew from her brother that the Stellaron Hunter only did that because he enjoyed unnerving people.
“Stelle, thank you for joining us,” Elio (not the cat) said as though Stelle would choose staying in her brother’s room and putting up with Silver Wolf playing audios of trumpets on loop through the sound speaker until she emerged over attending the meeting and potentially getting to have fun by robbing a bank or two. “We were about to assign roles to everyone.”
“The mission is simple,” Kafka said as she zoomed into a specific location on the map. “We are to retrieve a storage device kept in a vault. Silver Wolf will open the way for us, Blade will be on distraction duty with SAM, and you and I,” she said as she turned to look at Stelle, “will be doing the most enjoyable part of the mission: retrieval.”
Stelle stared at the map, as well as the many red dots indicating the guards that would very much prefer to shoot on sight instead of talk it out.
“What would Elio be doing?”
Elio (the cat) meowed and rolled onto its back as though it would be doing anything else but lounging about in the Stellaron Hunter’s base for the rest of the day. Elio (not the cat) smirked. “I am the contingency plan for if things go south. So let’s hope it does not come to that.”
“What’s in the storage device?”
“Sorry, but that’s classified information,” Kafka answered, which made Stelle narrow her eyes in suspicion. Then again, if it was really something that would get her into major trouble, the Stellaron Hunters would not have asked her to join the mission in the first place.
(She still had her role as the Trailblazer to play after all.)
“Oh yeah, Stelle,” Silver Wolf called out to her just as Stelle was about to leave to prepare for the mission. “You’ll be ‘Caelus’ for this mission.”
“Oh… I expected that when you asked me if my brother lent me his weapon, but why?”
She smirked, mischief written all over her face. “No reason, just thought it would be funny.”
(Somewhere on the Astral Express, Caelus felt a shiver go down his spine.)
Caelus was in the middle of forcing a piece of cardboard into an overstuffed garbage bag when he felt a chill go down his spine. He stopped what he was doing and frowned. Was Silver Wolf plotting something again? The last time he felt a strange chill, he returned home to Silver Wolf filling his room to the brim with colourful balloons.
Before he could ponder any further, the too-full garbage bag finally decided that enough was enough and exploded. The flattened cardboard boxes that Caelus had painstakingly stuffed into the bag as well as other miscellaneous garbage went flying all over the sparkling clean floor that Pom-Pom had spent hours on sweeping and mopping, undoing three entire system hours’ worth of work.
“Whoops,” was all Caelus said before he dropped the cardboard he was holding and made a run for it before Pom-Pom could so much as scream.
Of course, that did not stop the conductor’s cries of despair from ringing throughout the Astral Express.
Caelus ran towards the Archives, his long legs outpacing Pom-Pom’s tiny ones even though he was having trouble running with heels. How Stelle managed it was beyond Caelus’ understanding. Surprisingly, running with a short skirt was a lot more freeing than his usual skin-tight pants and Caelus had no idea why. He did not slow down even after he lost sight of Pom-Pom, only coming to a stop once the door to the Archives slid shut behind him. The lock activated and only then did Caelus breathe a sigh of relief. He would apologise to the conductor later… when they were no longer furiously screaming his name.
“Caelus? Did something happen?”
The Stellaron Hunter was already pulling out his borrowed lance at the sound of his name and pointing the tip at Dan Heng instinctively, who looked shocked. Maybe his sister was right, Kafka really was rubbing off on him if he was this trigger-happy with potentially-world-destroying weapons.
“Whoops. Sorry, Dan Heng,” Caelus apologised as he lowered the lance, letting the weapon disappear in a shower of sparks.
However, despite the apology and Caelus’ terrible attempt to play it off, Dan Heng still looked alarmed.
“What happened? Is someone chasing you?”
“Just Pom-Pom at the moment.”
Dan Heng did not seem at ease, but Caelus assumed it was because his boyfriend had already witnessed first-hand several instances when someone accidentally angered the conductor and had to hide in the Archives… like right now.
“Stay here for now,” Dan Heng said as he gently led Caelus to where the interface for the database was. “You can keep me company.”
He showed Caelus how he organised the entries in the database, sorting them based on locations, date of entry, and alphabetical order. Caelus paid close attention, stopping Dan Heng a few times to ask questions about his job as the Astral Express’ archivist. The Stellaron Hunter thought being stuck in a library would make for a boring job, but the way Dan Heng explained it to him had piqued Caelus’ interest.
“Would you like to give it a try?” Dan Heng asked when he noticed Caelus’ look of fascination.
Caelus nodded and Dan Heng moved aside, allowing Caelus to take his spot in front of the digital interface. He copied what Dan Heng did for the first few entries, sorting them into various locations in the database according to how Dan Heng did it. Caelus glanced at Dan Heng often, always checking to see if he was doing the right thing. And as he grew more confident, the frequency slowly lessened.
(He never noticed the fond smile on Dan Heng’s face.)
It was an hour later before Dan Heng called for a break. Caelus yawned and stretched. It was a productive hour, with most of the data entries having been sorted.
“Take a nap, I can finish up the rest by myself,” Dan Heng suggested with a smile, gesturing towards his bed.
Caelus grinned and gave a thumbs up before strolling to the bedroll on the floor and snuggling into the covers. Sleep came over him quickly, mostly from the exhaustion of the events earlier in the day. As his eyes closed, Caelus wondered what his sister was doing. Was she having fun? Hopefully Silver Wolf did not convince her to rob a bank like she did to him.
“Stop, criminal scum!” the officer shouted behind Stelle as she continued to run down the streets with her ill-gotten goods.
She really should not have robbed the bank, especially when it was not where the item the Stellaron Hunters were supposed to steal was located. However, Silver Wolf had goaded her into doing it when they passed by the building on the way to the actual location, and Stelle was never one to ignore a bet even if the odds were against her.
On the bright side, she had experience with criminals — by virtue of having a brother who was one, a second family in all but blood who were one, and a few friends who were probably one. On the down side, Caelus would never let her live it down if she gained a bounty higher than his. Stelle halted without warning, spinning on her heel, and punched the officer chasing her as hard as she could with her gauntlet. The officer flew and crashed into a vehicle, setting off the alarm while passersby screamed and ran away. Stelle smirked when the officer stayed down and remained where they were, slumped over. However, as she turned to make her getaway, a hovercraft descended in front of her.
“You are under arrest! Do not resist!” a loudspeaker boomed from the hovercraft.
Spotlights aimed at her, and several hovercrafts descended from the sky to surround her. Stelle raised her gauntlets, preparing to fight her way out if need be. At the same time, she could not help but wonder how many years she would be grounded for if Himeko caught wind of this.
“Need some help?” Silver Wolf asked through the communicator in her ear.
Now, a smart person would have accepted the help without hesitation. After all, when one was surrounded by an entire army, one should accept any form of backup if only to get out of it alive. However, Stelle, who although was a smart person and could present an entire thesis on the sentience of garbage cans which would have been regarded highly by the Genius Society, was also extremely cocky when cornered with the odds stacked against her.
“Nah, I’m good,” Stelle replied before throwing herself at the nearest hovercraft.
Silver Wolf sighed. The two siblings were far too alike sometimes. Her hands flew over the keyboards as her eyes darted quickly between the many screens displayed in front of her. Stelle might have declined her help, but that did not mean Silver Wolf would just leave her to fight an army by herself. Walls of code flew past the screen, incomprehensible to many, until finally, Silver Wolf pressed down a single key, and every single weapon in all of the hovercrafts simultaneously stalled. Stelle did a whoop as she swung her gauntlet down on one hovercraft, sending it crashing down into the streets before leaping off the nearest wall to take down another.
“Rules are meant to be broken!” Stelle shouted as she grabbed a hovercraft and threw it into another, causing the two vehicles to explode when they collided.
Silver Wolf sighed fondly. The two siblings were really too alike.
The hovercrafts were easily dispatched after they lost the ability to shoot back. However, before Stelle could take out the last hovercraft, Silver Wolf’s voice flooded the communicator in her ear.
“Not that one. That’s our mount.”
It took a few seconds before Stelle understood what Silver Wolf meant.
“The others?” Stelle asked as she stepped inside the hovercraft that Silver Wolf hijacked after the Trailblazer threw out the occupants.
“On their way,” Silver Wolf answered. At the same time, closing the doors of the hovercraft and steering it away from the carnage Stelle created. “We’ll be meeting them halfway. Good job on the distraction, Caelus.”
It took a few seconds before Stelle realised Silver Wolf was referring to her. She frowned. Hearing her brother’s name be used to refer to her was… strange and she did not like it. Next time, she would demand a proper codename instead of using her brother’s name.
Wait a second…
“Did you goad me into robbing a bank for a distraction?”
“Nope. The original plan was for you to cause a scene downtown by flipping all the parked cars there, but I thought it would be funny if you robbed a bank like your brother did.”
“I thought I was on retrieval duty with Kafka.”
“You were until I saw the bank. Blade and Sam didn’t mind taking your place.”
Stelle crossed her arms and pouted. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”
“Don’t be like that. You did get away with a gold statue of Tatalov, didn’t you?”
She was right, but still… “I can’t believe you tricked me into robbing a bank, and you’re not even here,” Stelle complained.
“Focus. Enemy reinforcements are on the way. You might want to familiarise yourself with the weapon controls before they get here.”
Stelle pouted, but obeyed anyway. She hoped her brother was having more fun than her, or at the very least staying safe and far away from anyone associated with the law.
Caelus was sweating bullets. Of all the days when the IPC wanted to visit Herta Space Station, it just had to be today. He should have stayed on the Astral Express. Alas, he wanted to help out by volunteering to go with March to pick up the supplies from the space station, only to stumble into a group of visiting IPC officers.
“You look familiar,” the IPC officer said as they scrutinised him. “You look like that Stellaron Hunter… The one with the grey hair…”
Caelus backed away from the officer, and March stepped between him and the officer. “You have her confused with someone else. Stelle’s a Nameless, not one of those criminals,” March said, trying her best to draw the officer’s attention to her.
However, her efforts were in vain as the officer continued to ignore her.
“You!” The officer snapped their fingers at the closest soldier to get their attention. The soldier saluted, back straight with textbook-perfect posture. “Bring up the updated wanted posters of the Stellaron Hunters.”
Caelus continued staring at the officer with his sister’s signature blank look. However, internally, he was cursing and swearing. How was he to get out of this? Should he beat them up and make a run for it? But that would cause trouble for Stelle and the Astral Express. With no time to consider his options, Caelus decided to act first and think of the consequences later.
The moment the soldier pulled out a small tablet device, Caelus snatched it out of their hands and shoved it into his mouth. Everyone stared at him in confusion… until they heard an audible crunch and gulp.
“Cae-Stelle! Did you just eat their tablet!?” March exclaimed, shock and horror dawning on her face.
Caelus, in his infinite wisdom, blanked out and immediately denied ever eating the device despite eating it right in front of everyone. “Nope,” he said with a wide-eyed look.
March slammed the palm of her hand into her face and groaned. “Come on, let’s go see if it would kill you,” she said, taking Caelus hand into her own and leading him towards the medical room, leaving the dumbfounded IPC officers behind.
Miraculously, the officers did not follow them, and Asta somehow managed to convince them that it was Stelle they met and not Caelus. It was also miraculous that eating a miniature tablet belonging to the IPC was also somehow harmless… but only to Caelus.
“Your stomach acids have been enhanced by the Stellaron, allowing you to eat almost anything. How fascinating,” the scientist said, making Caelus back away and hide behind March. It was not that he was afraid of the creepy scientist, but he felt it would be better if he placed himself further away from anyone he disliked and was not allowed to punch their face.
…Maybe he needed this vacation more than he thought if his options for solving problems automatically included violence.
“That doesn’t mean you should try eating dirt though,” March pointed out and Caelus nodded silently, not wanting to bring up the fact that he did in fact eat dirt once and Blade banned him from ever doing it again after he found out.
“Does that mean Stelle has the same ability too?” Caelus asked and March groaned.
“Is that why she survived eating that box of detergent?”
“Did she say if it tasted nice?”
“She said it tasted disgusting even though it smelt nice… Caelus… Don’t you dare,” March warned as she turned around to glare at Caelus. “I’m telling Dan Heng. Only he can talk sense into you.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
“You ate an IPC communicator because they were going to blow your cover.”
“Okay. That’s fair.”
Hopefully, Stelle was not eating anything that was scientifically classified as inedible right now.
Stelle sneezed loudly. She frowned, sniffling as she wiped the snot off with the back of Caelus’ gloves. Was someone talking behind her back? And why did she feel a sudden and inexplicable urge to pose a retort to her brother right now?
“You okay?” Silver Wolf asked through the communicator in her ear, and Stelle nodded, knowing that the hacker would be seeing her reply through the hovercraft’s internal sensors.
“Don’t force yourself if you’re tired,” Blade said, even as his eyes remained fixated on the path in front of him. The hovercraft was steady under his guidance, even though Stelle remained sceptical of his ability to drive. “The last thing we need is someone pushing themselves to prove a point again.”
“‘Again’?” Stelle asked, and Blade glanced at Kafka for a second.
“He thinks he must prove himself even if it means deliberately putting himself into harm’s way,” Kafka answered, all traces of amusement gone from her face.
Stelle understood what Kafka meant. Even though she had only fought by her brother’s side a handful of times, she noticed that he would throw himself into danger if it meant he could take an attack in her place. She never confronted him about it, but perhaps she should reconsider.
“Why?” She had an inkling, but nothing solid that confirmed her theory. “Is it because of back then? Because I forgot even though he saved me?”
“It wasn’t you.”
“But I was part of it, right?”
The deafening silence was the only answer Stelle needed.
“He doesn’t blame you,” Silver Wolf said through the communicator.
“He never blamed you,” Elio said, making Stelle jump at the sound of his voice. She did not know that the leader of the Stellaron Hunters was listening in on this conversation. “And as you said, you may be a part of it, but we are the ones who deserve the most blame.”
The interior fell silent again, and Stelle turned her gaze to the city outside. The hovercraft was still speeding away in the sky, and though a few military hovercraft were still in pursuit, they were a fair distance behind.
“...He considers all of you family,” Stelle said a few minutes later. “He likes telling stories about all of you when we meet up.”
Silver Wolf snorted in amusement. Even Blade looked happy, with the corner of his lips quirking into a small smile. “Is that so?” Kafka said, a hint of mirth in her voice.
“Blockade ahead,” Sam’s robotic voice came through the communicator, drawing everyone’s attention back to the current mission. The Stellaron Hunter was right — an electrified metal net blocked all the exit points, and Blade could not fly the vehicle any higher, not unless they wanted to crash through the barrier protecting the city from the vacuum of space outside. “Engaging.”
And Sam was off like a light, thrusters sent into overdrive, sending the armoured suit crashing straight through the enemy blockade like a battering ram. The soldiers screamed in terror as Sam easily cleared a path for the Stellaron Hunters, making Stelle shudder at the overwhelming display of might.
“All clear. Resuming escort.”
And yet, even with the cold exterior, Stelle knew Firefly was one of the kindest people she ever met. Mission-focused, that was how Caelus had described her the first time he talked about the Stellaron Hunters.
“We live in a cruel and unfair world,” he told her back then as well.
She agreed back then. Yet, she could not deny that it was also this world that brought everyone together.
(Though it was also the same world that saw fit to make her forget.)
Blade crashed the hovercraft into the military headquarters, scaring the clerks who unfortunately had to come to work that day. As the people continued to scream and run away in fear, the Stellaron Hunters and Stelle calmly exited the annihilated vehicle and made their way to the conveniently opened portal that Silver Wolf created. In a blink of an eye, Stelle found herself back in the Stellaron Hunter base, slightly singed, and her stolen statue of Tatalov safely stashed in the confines of her brother’s jacket.
As she was about to walk away to hide her loot, Kafka asked, “Did you have fun?”
Stelle hummed, before smiling. “Yup! I had a lot of fun today! I can’t wait to go out again tomorrow.”
Elio (the cat) meowed as if in agreement, and Elio (not the cat) strode out of the shadows, failing to scare anyone. “I’ll take note,” he said before gesturing to the door leading to the main hall. “Your brother’s waiting for you in his room.”
Caelus was lounging on his bed, game music loudly blaring from his phone speakers. Yet, his mind was not on the game on his phone but on his sister. He had returned to the Stellaron Hunter base temporarily to check up on his sister before he returned to the Astral Express, but found that she had yet to return from the mission. Elio (not the cat) had assured him that his sister was doing fine and the other Stellaron Hunters were keeping her safe, but he was still worried. After pacing around the main hall for an hour, Caelus finally decided to wait in his room. It was also because Elio (the cat) got tired of him walking back and forth in front of it and decided to smack him in the face.
He jumped when he felt his Stellaron warm in his chest. He placed a hand on his chest, feeling the vibration — a hum of content. Stelle was back! Caelus grinned and leapt out of his bed, carelessly letting his phone drop on the covers. He opened the door to his room, impatiently slipping through the crack as soon as the opening was wide enough. A few steps forward, and Caelus almost crashed into his sister.
“Stelle! You’re back!”
“Caelus!”
The siblings shared a hug, the warmth of their Stellarons twining together. It was only when Caelus let go and found himself instinctively chasing after that warmth, that he realised that his Stellaron had been trying to guide him toward his sister all this time. Was the reason why he felt a certain tug just now? He frowned, concern and worry evident on his face, but purposefully kept his expression hidden from Stelle’s view. He knew Stelle described the pull before, but he had never personally felt it before. Was his copy of his sister’s Stellaron evolving? He set aside his worries. There would be time to contemplate on the significance of this change later.
“Did you have fun?” Caelus asked when the siblings pulled themselves apart.
“Yup! I can’t wait for tomorrow! Are you staying for dinner?”
Caelus shook his head. “No, sorry. I promised Dan Heng we would explore Belobog together when I get back. He wanted to take me to the Xianzhou Luofu, but everyone made me promise not to go there. Not sure why though.”
Stelle knew why, but she remained silent. If the Stellaron Hunters were trying to hide it from her brother, then there must be a reason.
“What about you?” she asked in an attempt to change the topic. “How was your day?”
Whether or not he noticed, Caelus took the bait and began regaling her with the tale of how he almost set fire to the Astral Express with his borrowed lance and how Dan Heng taught him how to organise the data bank on the Astral Express.
When Caelus finished telling his story, his phone started ringing. He looked at his sister apologetically as he went to answer, walking away to the corner and whispering softly so that Stelle could not overhear the conversation. He returned, face full of guilt as he returned his phone to his pocket.
“Sorry Stelle, I need to go. Asta needs me over at Herta’s Space Station, since the IPC won’t leave unless I show up.”
The IPC? Was his cover blown? “Do you want me to take your place?” Stelle offered but Caelus shook his head.
“I don’t want to bother you on your vacation. Besides, everyone from the Astral Express minus Pom-Pom will definitely be there to help me scare them off. We’ll be fine!”
Stelle did not like the way her brother seemed to think himself less important than others. Nonetheless, she let him go, bidding him farewell and wishing him good luck in humiliating the IPC officers. Caelus grinned, promising that he would do her proud.
As the door slid shut, Stelle dropped on top of her brother’s bed, sighing. It had been a long and tiring day, but a fun and fruitful one. She really meant it when she told Kafka she could not wait to head out on another mission the next day. For now, though, she was going to crawl under the sheets and not come out until dinner.
It was then that her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shriek from her brother. “Why did my bounty increase by a hundred million credits!?”
Perhaps she should find a place to hide instead.