Master Jet and him soon found their way into a private room. The things they were going to talk about were a rather sensitive topic.
Sunny was not sure what his cohort had been up to, but he was pretty sure that returning as a Master was not going to go unnoticed.
Nephis had returned more than a year after the final battle for the crimson spire, her return had been the talk of the whole world.
'Changing Star of the immortal flame has Returned!'
'Sleeper to Master, Changing Stars miraculous return!'
It was everywhere, the government propaganda machine had spun it into a tale of heroics and valiance. Sunny had left the hospital earlier using Shadow Step, so he did not hear the things people were talking about.
He also had no communicator currently, which he was sure Jet was about to change. Until then, he had no way of knowing what the wonders of the internet had done to him.
He was pretty sure his name would be plastered on a few headlines, he just hoped it was not too bad.
As they entered the room, Sunny sat in a comfortable lounge chair.
'What a meager chair, cannot compare to my shadow chair!'
Sunny was still a little upset that he was unable to weave as a sleeper.
'How wonderful would it have been to bring my bed back.'
He was of course talking about the bed in the priestess quarters; he had tried to make the most basic weave, but even with serpent's help, his essence was simply to rough and unstable to weave with.
Jet shut the door behind her and took a seat opposite him.
She pulled a small box out of who knows where and sat it on the table.
"This is a biometric scanner, it is tuned to you already. Put your finger on the sensor."
Sunny did as she said and with a small click, it opened.
Inside was a small brand-new communicator, there were a few other odd things, but Sunny did not know what they did.
Jet grabbed one of the random objects from the box, it was a small metal cube with no remarkable features. On one side was a blue glass plate, on another was a small slit.
She sat it on the table with the glass up.
"Put your finger on this."
Sunny put his finger on a random sensor for the second time, had this not been Jet, he might have refused.
It hummed for a few seconds before a small chip slid out of the slit.
Jet grabbed it and put it into the communicator, then she tossed it to Sunny.
"Congratulations, Ascended Sunless. You are now officially a citizen. Of the seventh rank, no less."
Sunny realized this was the same process he had done once before, well, he remembered doing it.
"I thought we agreed to drop formalities, feels weird being called an Ascended."
He was not lying, his memories were a little jumbled with his past and future, but he had either been known as the Lord of Shadows in the future or called by less favorable names in the past.
Being called an Ascended like it was a title was just not for him.
Jat laughed as she waved her hand.
"I was just doing protocol, I will drop it now."
Sunny just smiled and slid the glass plate into his pocket.
"So, what does the government want with little old me?"
Jet just smirked.
"What gave it away?"
Sunny chuckled.
"Well, I have been back less than an hour and not only have multiple specialists arrived here, but the Master who welcomed me back from my first nightmare was sent too."
He adjusted in his seat.
"It is pretty obvious they want something."
Jet smiled.
"I was right, you really are smarter than you look."
He frowned.
"I look just fine thank you very much, much better than whatever old dudes you are into."
Jet stopped smiling and leaned forward slightly.
"Are you calling me old?"
Suddenly Sunny was feeling a bit cold, with an awkward chuckle he spoke.
"N-no, I uhhh... was saying how... how your preference might be old dudes, yea that is it."
Sunny was fighting his flaw through every word of that, but in the end he prevailed.
Jet just smirked.
"You know when to switch your tune, that's for sure."
"Anyways, the things we are about to talk about cannot be discussed with anyone else. That includes those friends of yours."
Sunny just nodded as he swapped into 'serious' mode.
Suddenly, Jet's face turned grim as she began.
"Do you know the name of this city?"
Sunny nodded.
"It's called NQSC if I'm not mistaken."
Jet smiled.
"Good, since you know a little about this city, tell me what you know about the state of the planet as a whole."
Sunny was confused why she was asking this, but he obliged.
"Humanity is split into roughly four parts, we call them by their cardinal direction, North, East, South, West. North in the city we are in and is in Asia, East is between Africa and Australia, South is Antarctica, and West is in South America."
Jet looked pleasantly surprised by his answer.
"You know a lot for an outskirts kid."
Sunny nodded.
"Julius taught me a lot, gotta be ready for anything right?"
This was not quite a lie, Julius did teach him a lot, just not about earth and its quadrants.
Jet just nodded.
"Glad the old fossil could help."
After a small chuckle, she continued.
"Well to put it simply, those four parts you were talking about are about to become three."
Sunny was shocked, he knew Antarctica was going to fall soon. But it was supposed to be a year or two away at least.
Jet seemed to understand his reaction, even if it was for the wrong reason.
"Do you know about the Obel scale?"
Sunny nodded.
"It is what predicts gates and the like."
Jet nodded back.
"Yes, currently it is not functioning like it should. This has happened only a few times before, one such time was when a category-five Nightmare gate appeared in America. That was not long before you were born actually."
"Well, it is happening again, but it will not be the same. Over the last few years, it has gotten less and less accurate and we think we have found the reason."
She pulled another one of the small trinkets from the box on the table and sat it down, with a tap on the top, a holographic map of a familiar land appeared.
'Antarctica.'
He knew it from a glance, this was where he had lost almost everything, then more.
His face darkened.
"This is Antarctica, and we believe that in the next year, hundreds of nightmare gates will open all across it. At first, we thought it was a part of the issue with the Obel Scale, but now we believe it is the cause."
Sunny's face was grim as he nodded.
"The government is planning to send aid to the Southern Quadrant in the form of armies, Awakened, and even a few Masters and Saints. They were supposed to set out in about six months, they wanted to arrive before the gates begin to open."
Her face turned solemn.
"That was until about a year ago, it was roughly the same day all the dreamers of the Forgotten Shore returned. On that day, the rate at which the gates started to open accelerated at an unprecedented speed. The operation we thought we had years until it even started was now less than two years away."
Sunny realized something.
'That was the day I got memories of the future.'
It was not hard to guess with his knowledge that it was not the dreamers that had started it, it was him.
'Just what happened to me?'
He still did not know how the memories of the future ended up in his mind, all he knew was they started from the moment he was enslaved by Nephis, and ended at...
He did not know.
The memories of the far away future were foggy, the only memories that were perfectly clear were till around the time he claimed Spirit weave.
Before he could dwell on it, Jet continued.
"The government is planning to send its first batch in less than a month, and conveniently you happened to return right as the roster was being made."
Jet gave him a professional smile.
"How about it Sunny, wanna go to a dying continent and try to evacuate over nine hundred million people?"
Jet's tone was joking, but he knew she was serious. This was her way of asking him to leave everything behind and join her. It was all too similar to the way she had done so in the past... or future.
Sunny's face turned contemplative.
He knew he wanted to go, no, he needed to go. He had multiple reasons to, one was that without Nightmare or the Marvelous Mimic, his current power level was lacking.
Fiend was a perfect Shadow, he did not need memories to evolve, all he needed was to devour material. Sunny already knew the best material possible, and their just so happened to be an entire giant made of it.
But Sunny also knew that he needed to stay, he needed to teach his cohort the essence refining method. He needed to somehow find his way into Rain's life.
He had many things he needed to do.
After a good few minutes of thinking, Sunny came to a conclusion.
"Alright Jet, consider my interest peaked. I have things I need to do before even thinking about leaving to another continent, but if I am done by the time the ships are ready to set off. For better or worse, I will come along."
Jet's smile became beaming.
"Good, the higher ups will be happy to hear that."
She paused for a moment before asking.
"I am not asking this as a government worker, I am asking as a fellow Ascended, and a friend. Will you be able to make it, or should I take this as a no?"
Sunny just smiled.
"It depends on how hard of a time I have. But I would not lie to you, I am the most honest person in the world after all, two worlds even!"
Jet just chuckled.
"Alright, I will hold you to that."
~~~
The rest of the conversation was very self explanatory, she told Sunny about all the things he was intitled to and had access to as an Ascended.
The only thing of importance that happened was him getting Jet's number. She said the same stupid joke too.
After that, Sunny was tested on like a lab rat. They waved machines over his body, poked and prodded him with needles and weird sensors.
They were even interested in taking a small piece of his skin for testing, which he firmly declined.
Only after almost four hours of testing was he allowed to leave the torture chamber they called a hospital.
One of his arms looked like he fought some kind of porcupine creature, whatever that is.
Honestly, he was incredibly tired and just wanted to sleep.
At this exact moment, he remembered that he currently had no home or and money.
"Oh... I am poor and homeless again."
Sunny was not exactly homeless, he could get the academy to provide him with a room. But he was reluctant to do that, he would not be here very long after all.
It was around five in the afternoon, so he decided to message Jet.
(Can you get me a place in the Chained Isles?)
(The Chained Isles, why there?)
(That's where my chores are.)
(I guess, give me a few hours to arrange everything.)
(Alright.)
Just like that, all he had to do was wait for a few hours.
He had just the way too. His meal had been rudely interrupted earlier, now he would fill his face to his hearts content.
~~~
'Ahhh, that was nice.'
Sunny had just finished his fourth plate of food into two hours. He was now thoroughly satiated.
His mind wandered.
What was his first objective?
Well, he wanted to visit Shipwreck Island to see if the Mordant Mimic was there. It was probably already slain, but Sunny was hopeful that it was cunning enough to leave when the fire keepers arrived.
The second thing he wanted to do was check if he could get Nightmare as a Shadow. He was not going to be able to enter the Nightmare in Hope's tower, but there was an island in the Chained Isles that had the same white flowers as the island Nightmare lived on.
It was a long shot, but Sunny was hoping to get at least one of his trusty Shadows back.
As he stacked the plates and called for the automated server, his communicator dinged.
(I have gotten in contact with the representatives of the White Feather Clan, they have agreed to give you a place in the Sanctuary of Noctis)
(Great, what is the ETA on that?)
(Saint Tyris will arrive in the Academy within the hour.)
Sunny smiled.
"Looks like I will find out soon enough."