Falcon's gaze swept up as the door to his holding chamber slid open. Four soldiers with rifles drawn stood on the other side and stared him down. He considered punching his way through them and making his escape, but something held him back, something he couldn't put a finger on. 

When the nearest soldier beckoned him out with a jerk of his head, Falcon rose to his feet and followed with a bowed head. The men eyed one another with raised eyebrows, their gazes constantly shifting back to him. Finally, they descended the ramp and closed it behind themselves. 

After several minutes of threading through the crowded marketplace, they came to a residential section of the city. Two of the soldiers led the way, and coming to a certain house, they ascended the steps onto the porch and knocked on the door. 

The entryway swung open, and a brown-haired man stepped out. Falcon's blood boiled at the sight of him, and he lunged forward to throw a punch. The man's eyes widened at the movement, and he ducked just in time. With a grunt, the soldiers grasped Falcon's collar and yanked him back. 

Two men grasped each of the brawny man's wrists and held them back behind him. He gritted his teeth and strained against them, his furious gaze fixated on the man, who now positioned himself in a martial arts stance. 

"Civil words ought to precede savage punches." the man stated calmly, "If you have a dispute with me, I'd like to hear—" 

"You're Baird Amergin! Murderer of Emperor Pietrovo!" Falcon spat. 

Baird dodged the flying spittle. Then he narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. "That's me, alright. And who might you be?" 

"I'm Falcon, god of vision—" 

"And perception. Yeah, we get it by now." one of the soldiers interrupted. 

"You're not convincing me to believe something like that. Come on, we're all civilized men here...right?" Baird asked, making strong eye contact with Falcon. 

"I'm no man." Falcon growled. 

Baird rolled his eyes. "Listen, whatever authority you may have elsewhere, it doesn't carry over here. So if you try to pull anything more, I'm calling the police." 

Falcon stared at Baird for a long moment, a multitude of thoughts churning in his mind. Finally, he nodded and ceased his struggle with the soldiers. His piercing gaze lingered on the man as he stepped over the threshold. 

As Baird shut the door behind everybody, Falcon spotted Hannah. His eyes drifted down from her face to the sapphire gem hanging from her neck. He hurried his footsteps and stretched out his hand to grab it. 

Baird unsheathed a sword and leapt into the bigger man's path. "Woah, hold up, what're you doing?" 

"It's one of the artifacts!" Falcon snapped. He halted and crossed his arms. 

"Artifacts?" 

"That's what I said." 

Hannah rose to her feet behind Baird. "What're artifacts?" 

"They're...vessels. They contain the power of the gods." 

Baird rolled his eyes again. "You mean to tell me that the power of twenty-six gods, is all contained in one little gem?" 

Falcon frowned. "I never said that. That's the artifact of Jay, god of beauty. Give it here, now." 

Hannah slowly removed the necklace and took a step forward, but Baird blocked her with his arm, his sword still in hand. "Why should we do that? You're not Jay." 

"No, but we need to find all the artifacts. The Flock is in on this together." Falcon held out his hand to Hannah. 

"Have you found your artifact yet?" Baird asked. 

"I haven't." 

Hannah narrowed her eyes. "But you've been sayin' this whole time, that you're in fact a god. If ya don't have the power of Falcon, is dat really who you are?" 

"You're right. For simplicity's sake, I've omitted that detail until now. I must find my artifact to attain true divinity." 

Baird raised an eyebrow. "What's your artifact?" 

"The Immortal Eye of Ithrahaim." Falcon replied in a recitative manner. 

After lowering his sword, Baird hurried off to another room. "I'll be back." 

Falcon grunted acknowledgement before taking another step closer to Hannah. "Please, give it to me. We may not see eye to eye, but believe me, I see more than you do. This is necessary." 

"Nah, let's see what Baird's goin' to do." 

He took a threatening step forward, but the click of guns drew his attention back to the soldiers. Falcon sighed and retreated a few feet. Then he turned at the sound of Baird's returning footsteps. 

Baird held a small wooden chest in his hands. "I wasn't sure what this was, but now I'm curious." 

Falcon watched as he slowly opened the box, and a petrified eyeball with a gleaming viridescent iris stared back at him. His mouth gaped and eyelids widened as he beheld it. He snatched the object from its container. Then he bolted for the door, knocking soldiers aside as he went. Finally, he scaled the porch railing and sped off into the distance. 

******************** 

Aaron whistled as he traversed the hallway leading to the Sand Dollar's lounge room. Sila's metallic footsteps clanked behind him. 

He swung the door open and narrowed his eyes at Ace, who propped his feet up on the coffee table. The dark-skinned man either couldn't take the hint, or refused to, but either way, his black boots remained on the tabletop. 

Aaron blinked and brushed the issue aside in his mind. "Well, we're here, guys." 

"Where's 'here', exactly? Forgot to grab an itinerary." Ace remarked. 

"You also neglected to grab a ticket." Aaron retorted. "Danlash." 

Wendy leapt to her feet with a hint of a smile on her face. Aaron smirked at the sight and led the way out the door. While Wendy strapped her armor on, Sila was handed a pair of knives, Aaron and Keira gathered their miscellaneous equipment, and Ace waited. Once they had all readied themselves, Aaron opened the exit hatch. 

They slid down a black rope and immediately found themselves surrounded by Danlashian soldiers. Aaron widened his eyes and tightened his lips at the sight before placing his hands behind his head. Wendy, Keira and Sila followed suite. Ace, however, rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and tapped his foot. 

The officer shortest in stature stepped forward. Though his height was minimal, the abundance of insignia sprinkled on his uniform compensated the shortcoming. He cleared his throat and craned his neck to meet Aaron's gaze over two feet above him. 

"You, sir, have just made an unauthorized landing in the midst of our military base." he stated dryly. 

Aaron smiled. "Oh, sorry about that, man, I had no idea—" 

"I should like to see your flying permit." 

In an instant, Aaron's grin vanished. He bit his lip and stuttered. "I...uh...don't have one." Should've thought that through, idiot. 

The officer raised an eyebrow. "Don't have one, eh? Then why're you flying?" 

Keira sighed. "What he means, is he doesn't have a Danlashian flying permit." 

Aaron tightened his lips and shook his head. "No, actually, I don't have one anywhere." 

Ace snorted. "Dude." 

The Danlashian officer coughed loudly. "Well, in that case, we must confiscate your ship here. Not only have you neglected to obtain a permit, but you've also intruded on government property, both of which incur their own fines." 

Aaron exhaled. "How much are these fines?" 

"Well, I intend to combine the two for our processing convenience. That'd be a total of 500,000 crowns." 

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? Crowns?" 

Wendy poked his arm. "Our currency. Good job, by the way." 

Now Keira tapped Wendy's shoulder. "Well, we don't have any. Do you?" 

"No, of course not! I haven't been here in years, and besides, what absolute nutter would carry 500,000 bloody crowns on their person?" 

The officer rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, you can't pay right here and now, that's fine. We'll store your ship for you until you can. And in the meantime, we'll transport you out of here." 

A pudgy soldier stepped forward and handed out gunnysack bags. "Put your equipment in here." 

Aaron huffed. "Are you stealing all our stuff from us?" 

"No, you'll get it back. We only do this for security reasons." 

With varying levels of disappointment, the travelers began removing their equipment from their persons and stowing it away in their bags. With that done, they handed the bags off to the soldiers, and then were led away to an armored car. 

"Injustice." Sila said in its robotic voice. 

Wendy glared at the black humanoid machine. "No, this is what happens when a daft pisshead goes ahead—" 

"Listen," Aaron interrupted as he slid into the back seat of the vehicle, "this isn't too bad. We're getting a ride out of here, and safe storage." He jerked his head and turned to Ace with a smirk. He lowered his lips to the man's ear. "You said you were stealthy, right?" 

"I did." 

Aaron's eyes conveyed a silent message as he held his gaze on Ace. With a slow nod, Ace affirmed the unspoken question. Aaron smirked and fist-bumped him before looking straight ahead as the vehicle jetted forward.

******************** 

A/N: Well, some interesting things there, I hope. We got to see Falcon and Baird meet which...yeah, was pretty tense. And then now I guess you're probably beginning to see why I labelled this as fantasy, with the introduction of those artifacts. There's gonna be a lot of drama surrounding those things, so buckle up and prepare for the ride. 😂 

Anyway, please remember to vote and comment if you enjoyed this chapter. It really helps me out. 

Okay, so one thing I'm a little curious about is, with our two quests going on simultaneously, do you find yourself gravitating toward caring more about one or the other, or both equally? And if there is one clear winner, can you put a finger on why? 

(No judgement, just a curiosity on my part. 😁) 

For a random question, yesterday I asked about your greatest strength. So now I'll ask about your greatest weakness, and again, you can take that however you want. 

(I think my greatest weakness is I get distracted easily. And it's not that I'm easily bored, just my brain likes [unsuccessfully] trying to multitask. I swear, it's often that I'm writing, and I hop online just to look up a word, and five minutes later, I'm like, "How'd I end up replying to comments on Wattpad?" 😂  Anyway, I think it's just a con of me having multiple interests in life. My brain hardly prioritizes them, just tries to juggle thoughts about all of them at once.) 

And with that, I go to get some reading done myself (after replying to yesterday's notifications, that is)! I hope you have a marvelous weekend, and I'll see you in six days. Chapter 6 will be quite a doozy, in my opinion, and certainly gets a certain ball rolling. 😆 

Until then, falcon out!