Brilliant Man/Vir Clarissimus (Latin)

Chapter 28 The Wrath of Zaphyrion

The instant Ozwald stepped through the door, Hirashita awoke from his sleep. While booting up, the heater built into his mechanics switched on, and after fully booting, he groggily observed these unusual guests, found Ozwald, then showed a bright, pixelated question mark on his stomach's display.

Hirashita and Ozwald converged in the middle of the icy room, man and machine struggling to grasp their words. After seeing firsthand his condition, Ozwald understood their reality: had he not won, him and Alicia most certainly would have died. While in Hirashita's arms, his mouth grew dry as tears began streaking his cheeks, quickly glaciating into frost.

Blue, pixelated tears fell onto Hirashita's question mark, chipping it away until only a pool of black pixels remained. Next, a bronze, pixelated sun cleared this rain, illuminating its glow onto the black pixels, and they animatedly rose into a wonderful, pixelated exclamation mark.

His throat congealed, Ozwald moaned "I missed you" before more tears spilled onto his face.

Hirashita nodded, the exclamation mark representing both his gratitude and their victory. He buzzed, saying, "So do I, companion." After rebooting, his old, generic monotone left him, replaced by a newer, more personable computer-generated voice.

And as if their reunion couldn't get any better, like paper, Alicia's confines and mouth-gag miraculous broke off her.

She leapt to Hirashita's side, joining he and Ozwald in their tearful reunition as a trio. Or as Garfield christened them, 'The Aritifici-Flavorists.'

Then Alicia faced Ozwald, grinning as she said, "Good moments like these can only be documented with one word."

"You bet!" he laughed. The pair developed this celebratory gesture; their left arms extended far out while their rights tethered just beside their right ears, appearing almost like a salutation to the stars.

Then...

"Excelsior!" they exclaimed synchronously. Alicia laughed, putting her arm onto Ozwald's shoulder while he collapsed to his knees. Miystro joined their reunion, his laughter, jokes, and reminiscence drawing their minds from the cold room to their residency days in study, speeding, making friends, and dating. While inside Alicia's arms, Ozwald grinned at Hirashita.

"I owe you one," he nodded.

The android smiled.

"Alright now!" Zed interrupted. "I bet you all are just as excited as me to leave this place! Our next stop is Saturn; to the Hawkings Awards Ceremony!"

~

After entering the Maudeline, their flight to Saturn began. The distance between Polaris and Saturn was only an hour, however - unbeknownst to Zed – a wonderous development was set to occur. Forming within the dark world was a zaphyrion storm; standing together, Alicia, Ozwald, and Hirashita observed through the dome-glass blue, red, and other unusual colors illuminate Space in the likeness of the Northern Lights.

Nevertheless, in all its exquisiteness, this was still a storm. The lights were a pretty result of invisible fibers and magnetic forces at war with each other; caught up in this clash, they knocked on the walls of Zed's vehicle, resulting in loud, shockwave bouts of energy, or the equivalent of a ship being bombed and saltwater drowning half its crew. The thrilling, billowing storm was so much that it often threw them off course.

Despite her situation, Maudeline endured, expertly steering through the clutter of asteroids; this took only rough sailing, praying they would not die, and the aid of Hirashita's digital maps and Zed's direction of their drivers in the cockpit until they arrived at a glittering planet.

Saturn. Over nine times the size of Earth, the lemon-marinade planet spans nearly 73,000 miles in diameter, a number doubled by its rings. Despite this, it is only the second largest planet of the Solar System, a fact ensured by Jupiter; remembering size was key during space travel, where approaching any planet made one feel miniscule. Ozwald frowned, but – unable to change this himself – soon forgot the emotion, resolving the creator of this existence had reasoning for Saturn's particular size.

Nonetheless, their entrance was thrilling, as this was the only planet Ozwald hadn't been to. Alicia was once offered a business trip there, where – every day across the two weeks – for an hour she would laugh at him for not having her same opportunity. Most interesting, though, was Saturn's rings, distinguishing the planet from its orbiting siblings; as they approached, Ozwald noticed vague, sequence-lights appearing near the old wings.

Scanning the observatory, Ozwald found a telescope. After wiping down its lens, he zoomed into these buzzing, firefly subjects. "Ah... Ring Defense Force," he said. RDF is a Saturnite government agency which oversaw the safety of entering and exiting Saturn; its officers wore luminant, chromium suits and are equipped with Jehros plated in the same gold material as their outfitting.

About a half-hour later, Maudeline perched in a Stardock. This was followed by a taxi driving into Saturn's capital, Yphaious, a brave modern world.

Scattering the city streets were the same straight-faced, chromium-suited officers Ozwald had come to know well. Indifferent to intersections, highways, or passing lanes, he started an interesting game with Hirashita where they identified at least one of these armed men within the flock of pedestrians. However, his interest in Yphaious wasn't only limited to these clandestine agents; Ozwald also enjoyed looking up to the tall, slick city buildings they passed. Similar to the guards, they lined every street, avenue, turn and were even built into the middle of intersections! With all these interesting features, thereby increased tourism, Saturn's colateral roads help to accommodate the surplus of people in its metropolis.

They briefly kept to colateral roads before traffic began to appear. After this, they transferred to flight, crossing the skies while various other stuttering vehicles passed them. As for those below, vehicular brawls began. Thankfully, they left the air just in time as aerial trouble arose.

~

Apollo Highway, 7th Avenue branches off to cities Apharadetus and Yphaious; this showed on a hovering street sign when in the air.

They turned right for Yphaious, its glassy skyline assembled by hundreds of tall, bright buildings. A mellow, sedona-orange colored the skyline while colateral roads all converged to this point in the inky horizon.

Here was Saturn's electrifying capital, the site of their flavorist celebration.