BOOK 1 - Destiny (Shonen Anime Style)

Chapter 22: Black Market

After quite a long time traveling through space. The guardian duo and their ghosts were finally coming out of hyperspace.

"Amazing!" Ravi claimed as he and Leah immediately gasped in shock at the view.

The edge of the Solar System was very different than anywhere else they had ever been. It was a total vacuum illuminated by an intense purple/violet light that seemed to come out of nowhere. Such space was filled with lots of nebulae and asteroids, and as they went deeper and deeper, they noticed there weren't just asteroids around them. There were also giant pieces of junk... Junk that seemed to once have been part of many different machines: spaceships, armament, satellites, etc.

"It's almost like a... ship graveyard" Wire said a bit weirded out.

"This is kind of scary" Cybel added in the same manner.

Some time later, 2 ships who were hiding among the junk started following Ravi and Leah closely while trying to make contact with them.

"Attention! Unknown ship!" A firm female voice began talking through the ship's intercom. "You are entering the Reef territory"

"Oh no" Leah muttered with concern.

"Identify yourselves and state your business"

"Now what?"

"Well, It would be better to play along with their game for now" Ravi replied, after which he pressed the intercom button to let his voice go through. "We are voyagers from planet Earth, and we are here to meet the queen of the awoken"

There was no reply for several seconds, and tension invaded both guardians and ghosts as they were sweating and getting ready to escape in case it got to that. But then...

"Very well, follow us and don't deviate from course" the unknown female voice said through the intercom, surprising everyone as they sighed in relief at the fact that they weren't blown up immediately, which was a good start.

After this brief exchange of words, they followed the 2 other ships to what seemed to be a hangar inside a very... VERY big asteroid. The whole place had a really weird and junky theme. The walls were of a dark purple and black rusty color, and it was also quite a mess inside. After landing and coming out of their ship, they were escorted by a pair of female Awoken guards through a long tunnel that was at one side. And at the very end of such tunnel, there was a pair of worn out curtains covering something.

"Not many outsiders are allowed here" one of the female guards said, coldly. "You should consider yourselves lucky" The guard opened the curtains revealing an extremely wide area.

The huge asteroid in which they were was in fact more like a gigantic cavern the size of an entire city. And the extremely big area in which they were now was the inner part of such cavern. One would think that there would be no illumination, but that wasn't the case at all. There were several HUGE holes, each with the size of a skyscraper, from which the purple light from space could come in. Also, many of those same holes served as entrances for many cargo ships. But that wasn't all... The place was one giant outpost filled with many different stands: food stands and bars, rare material stores, unique weapon shops.

It was then that Wire and Cybel finally realized the true nature of that scary place. "It's... a black market!" Both ghosts claimed in disbelief.

The female guards chuckled a bit at the droids' innocence. "Not just any black market" one of the guards said. "Welcome... to the Vestian Outpost"

'The Vestian... Outpost?' Ravi thought without a clue of what that was. Then, as they kept on following the guards from behind, he began asking questions about such place. "Hey, Leah... Have you learned something about this place in class?"