Crying filled the vast hall, a faint sound interrupted by intermittent sobbing, and words barely escaping between tears:
"Stupid... stupid..."
Phobos opened his eyes slowly. He was in a huge transparent capsule filled with a multicolored liquid. Yes... he was in the Castipas room. But when he saw a familiar face, he couldn't prevent a small smile from sneaking onto his features.
"D... Deimos..."
He was there, standing before him after a long absence. Mixed emotions swept through Phobos, but before he could process them, Mars approached him with a calm smile and said in a warm voice:
"Welcome back at last... we've missed you."
Phobos breathed deeply, trying to contain his agitation, then replied in a tired voice but full of gratitude:
"Thank you, Lord Mars..."
He quickly looked around to find the other planets present as well, their eyes fixed on him as if they were waiting for something.
"Heh... what luck! The Lord Leaders are here too?"
"What happened?" Phobos asked, trying to understand the situation.
"We're the ones who should be asking you that question." Venus's voice came firmly, as if not accepting evasion.
Phobos hesitated, frowned slightly as he tried to remember, but he felt a terrible weight in his head, as if his mind refused to cooperate.
"I... don't remember anything..." he lowered his gaze slightly then added in a faint voice: "I just want some rest."
"But..." Venus tried to object, but a hand was gently placed on his shoulder.
"Alright, we'll return to you soon." Earth said in a calm voice, placing his hand on Venus's shoulder, as if asking him to back down. "We hope you'll be well by then."
Phobos nodded slowly without answering. He didn't have the strength to face everyone now. One by one, the leaders began to leave, leaving the room behind them in heavy silence.
Mars remained, but he was about to join them when Phobos's voice came from the Castipas:
"Lord Mars..."
Mars turned to him and asked calmly: "Yes?"
"Please..." Phobos's voice sounded hesitant, as if revealing a weakness he didn't want to admit. "I... can't stand having all the leaders looking at me... it's kind of embarrassing."
Mars smiled slightly and said in a reassuring voice:
"Rest assured, only Earth and I will return."
Then he turned to Deimos saying:
"Deimos, please take care of him."
Deimos nodded without uttering a word, as Mars left the hall with steady steps.
Silence was now the master of the place, but Deimos had no intention of allowing it to continue for long, so he asked in a dissatisfied tone while examining the capsule in which his brother was confined:
"What was that?"
Phobos raised his gaze to him, surprised by his tone of voice.
"What are you talking about?"
"The moon considered one of the strongest moons in the solar system needs rest to gather his thoughts about something that happened to him? I don't think that's right!"
Phobos immediately furrowed his brows, but before his brother could continue speaking, he replied dryly:
"I've told you repeatedly, don't call me that."
Deimos moved closer to him, touched the crystal of the capsule, his tone became sharper, but he wasn't angry, rather closer to someone trying to uncover a hidden truth.
"Listen to me carefully, you may have deceived the leaders, but you haven't, and won't deceive me and Lord Mars."
Phobos stopped breathing for a moment and stared at him with eyes full of tension.
"Why are you saying such things now?" he asked in an almost whispered voice.
A slight smile appeared on Deimos's face, but it wasn't mockery, but something deeper than that... something that had been engraved within him since a distant time.
"Because I am your cosmic twin."
At that moment, Phobos retreated slightly, his eyes flashing with sudden realization. The words weren't strange... no, he was the first to utter them.
Suddenly, a flood of memories swept through his mind, as if an old box had been opened after remaining closed for cosmic years. He went back to that moment, in a distant time, when he first met Deimos:
---
"Wh... what? Who is this that looks like me? Is it a reflection?"
Deimos bombarded Mars with questions who hadn't explained the situation to him yet, then his lookalike said in a confident voice:
"Reflection? How much do you even know about reflections? I am Phobos, Lord Mars's moon..."
Deimos fell silent and didn't comprehend what he said, turned to Mars trying to understand the situation but found the latter already leaving. He didn't hesitate to stop him and ask:
"Huh?! Lord Mars's moon? But I thought I was your moon!"
Finally Mars opened his mouth and said:
"That's right, you are my moon and Phobos is my moon... you are both moons of the best leader in the universe."
"So there are many besides this ugly one..."
Deimos wanted to provoke the other moon but he received a sentence that made him think more than once before provoking him:
"You just said, who is this that looks like me? So we are similar in ugliness, you idiot?"
And amidst that charged atmosphere, Mars spoke sensibly (for the first time):
"So, approach each other slowly and extend your hands and shake hands..."
They didn't disobey Mars's request... rather because it was an order. Deimos extended his hand and when Phobos did the same...
To be continued...
Heh no no I'm joking, Deimos released something crimson red from his left hand, something red and familiar but it disappeared in the blink of an eye...
"Wh... what? How?" Deimos said, surprised by the disappearance of the thing he had attacked the other with.
And in the blink of an eye, Phobos opened his hand and pressed his index finger with his thumb and suddenly the Dinko descended rapidly on Deimos. But the latter, with an agile movement, hit it with the bottom of his foot, changing the Dinko's path towards Phobos, and before it reached him, it exploded with force.
[The Dinko is the crimson red thing]
"Nice, this is an example of what we'll talk about now..."
Mars said after separating them because if the battle had continued, it would have destroyed Mars's headquarters, and if Mars's headquarters had been destroyed, we wouldn't be talking about Phobos and Deimos now.
Then the leader of the fourth planet continued:
"Well, Deimos, this is your friend Phobos, but from this Kai you will call him brother, and the same applies to you too, Phobos. Now introduce your abilities to each other."
Phobos spoke, explaining his strange ability:
"My ability is to extract Kindo from my hand...
[Kindo are small things resembling nails on planet Earth, being spiral and sharp from the front with a color closer to pink]
I can use them to attack the opponent regardless of their size, large or small. When the Kindo touches anything, I can do what I want with it by applying my fingers..."
He hadn't finished his explanation yet when we find Deimos deducing:
"So that's how the Dinko exploded and disappeared..."
And he continued looking at Phobos with interest:
"I can extract Dinko from my left hand and control its shape."
But Phobos stopped him saying:
"So you're the cautious type... I've already analyzed your ability when you attacked me. Your ability is to absorb anything from the opponent with your right hand, then attack him with the same thing with your left hand as if it's yours. As for that Dinko, that belongs to Lord Mars... if it were truly yours, you would have controlled it to defend yourself."
Deimos couldn't believe what he heard and said, talking to himself:
"Damn... when did he analyze all that? I couldn't see his Kindo. If he had attacked me directly, I would have been among the dead..."
Then Phobos continued, fixing his gaze towards Mars, and said in a quiet voice but carrying a hidden weight:
"Also... Lord Mars told you to attack anyone who stands before you and claims to be your moon, didn't he?"
Deimos's features froze, and his thoughts trembled:
"No... does this person read minds?!" he wondered inside, before speaking with confusion:
"How did you know what transpired between me and Lord Mars?"
Phobos looked at him for a moment, then smiled slightly, and answered simply, as if it were obvious:
"Because he did the same thing with me."
And thus began the friendship journey of Mars's two moons, but it wasn't that strongly bonded at the beginning, as the phrase "my cosmic twin" was mentioned in a great war, a great cosmic war, where everyone in the solar system faced absolute darkness... faced a nightmare whose damages still hurt more than even Pluto's expulsion.
———⟡ ☽ ⟡———
Pluto sat in his dark, snow-covered headquarters, staring at the star map before him. The leaked information wasn't ordinary, but detailed specifics about his movements and plans, information known only to his closest moons. He had no choice but to interrogate them all.
He stood before them, his hands clasped behind his back, his voice as cold as Neptune's ice:
"One of you betrayed me."
Silence prevailed. No one moved, none of them showed disturbance or concern. Each was confident, or pretended to be confident.
Pluto didn't leave the matter to chance, as he began investigating individually a crime that, for him, deserved execution...
There was nothing in the hall but a faint blue light, casting sharp shadows on the moons' faces. Every breath audible, every movement calculated. The pressure was enough to make any traitor collapse…
---
First: Charon, Pluto's largest moon and closest to him, the first moon acknowledged by his master, therefore titled Pluto's First Moon.
He was calm as usual, looked at Pluto confidently saying:
"I've been with you almost the whole time, when would I have been able to leak something? And also.. this is the first time you've doubted my loyalty to you.."
Pluto looked into his eyes, searching for any spark of lie, but found nothing. He wanted to keep his emotion aside this time and didn't respond to his first moon.
---
Second: Nix, the clever moon and skilled planner. Pluto knew that Nix doesn't do anything without reason.
But when he asked him, he answered directly:
"If I wanted to betray you, would you have realized it this easily? Let's analyze how the information leaked and we'll see it was done in naive and stupid ways."
Pluto smiled sarcastically. This wasn't a confession, but it wasn't a denial either. His moon's intelligence had indeed exceeded its limits and removed suspicions from him..
---
Next: Hydra, the warrior moon, and Pluto's third moon.
He was the angriest about this investigation, hit the table with his hand saying:
"I swear I didn't do it, and I won't do it! We fight together against the entire solar system, why would I betray you? Or rather why would any of us betray you?"
The honesty was clear in his voice, but Pluto wouldn't allow emotion to deceive him.
---
And finally but not least, Kerberos and Styx, Pluto's smallest and last moons. The fourth and fifth now under investigation.
They were the least likely to betray, but Pluto excluded no one. His questions to them were simple, their answers clear. And lucky for Pluto: nothing suspicious.
---
The pressure was enough to make any traitor collapse… but... nothing happened, or this is what Pluto wished had happened...
So the latter wondered, trying to find a loophole to help him solve this problem:
"What if the traitor wasn't among them?"
Pluto sat thinking. If there was a traitor, he would have acted differently, would have been nervous, would have avoided looking into his eyes. But none of this happened. Either the traitor isn't among them, or he's smarter than he thought.
---
For the first time in a long while, Pluto felt a shadow of doubt creeping into his mind.
What if that unknown was raving? What if his intelligence had failed him this time?
Many questions haunted him. Then, Pluto understood something terrifying…
The traitor might be someone he never suspected.
Then he smiled and said in a voice barely audible:
"Nix, you scoundrel..."
So has Pluto really found the traitor?
— End of Chapter —