Marlo had been a skeptic since day one. Even after a life altering event, and a near death experience, Marlo Xanis firmly thought that his magic was the result of some scientific force yet undiscovered by modern science. Magic just didn’t exit. Things just didn’t happen for any reason. He was trying to rationalize it all. Make it logical and work and fit into those neat little boxes called normalcy. Sadly, as hard as he tried, (and he did try), Marlo was finding his excuses falling short and lacking. People placed faith in the great unknown for thousands of years, citing all imposing figures who rules over one thing, or all things. What made senshi so different? Why could he not place blind faith into what Elzo and others called magic?

The cold truth was that he didn’t want to accept it. The very idea that something unforeseen lurked outside of human knowledge and understanding scared him. The nightmares of Tartaros had tested and chipped away at his faith in the normalcy he had all but forced himself to see for such a long time. He’d been happy to accept the idea it was all a terrorist plot, the work of something logical and rational. But magic? Blind faith in someone he’d never heard of? Elzo sounded like a brainwashed fanatic with the way he’d talked of Serenity. Marlo couldn’t buy it. But when he called out to the ‘powers’ they answered. How could explain his clothes? His attack? The way he could feel the darkness now lurking at the edges of his vision. The simple fact he was moving, jumping, healing all at rates a normal human would never be able to replicate?

Tonight he’d done as his brother requested, Marlo had ‘powered up’ and hidden himself in his safe house. Sitting on the couch, he listened, searching for a ‘song’. Bullshit he’d said, pure imagination. Yet it had been there, the notion it was the truth, he had to stop fighting it or else he’d never be able to know for sure. Sitting there, alone, and it was like a distant cry. The second it came Pollux jumped to feet, wondering where the sound had come from. It sounded like the clash of steel, of things shattering and screaming. Yelling obscenities in a language he didn’t know and couldn’t identify. But when he tensed it faded It was a game almost. He’d relax, and it would come again. By the third time Pollux felt a pulse in his body. Like a tiny jolt of electricity in his bones. That jolt was just enough his finger twitching, hitting the right button on his phone and then-

Everything changed.

One second he was in the room with his old couch, a desk and some random s**t, the next, a land encased in blue ice, winds howling as the cold stole his breath. Blue eyes shot open as they danced at the sights before them. A castle on the horizon, across a plain of vast frozen nothingness. Looking up, the sight sent him reeling. Twin moons. His earth had on one. He was no longer on earth, Elzo hadn’t lied. The senshi could go into space, they had their own worlds, their own planets and stars and lives.

Pollux was terrified. He was in space. There was no gravity in space, one misstep, one jump and he’d be flung into the abyss. There was no air, no pressure, he was going to die, the vaccum of space was going to kill him. Dear god. There was no atmosphere, radiation was seeping into him, each cell in his body subject to mutation, to sudden death. In space no one can hear you scream. Which was good for Pollux.

Because he screamed.

Scrambling he was lost on the vast ice, how come he wasn’t dead? What had he’d done? How could he get home? Under his feet a sound of something sliding against a smooth surface. He didn’t see it, he heard it, and the only instance he had was to run. Run towards the castle covered in ice. Civilization. Everything was lost in a sea of confusion. The sound came again and Pollux kept running, until he heard it. A very loud crack. The ice under his feet showing a visible spider web of damage. Pollux’s heart raced. Something was wrong. Before he could try to think it came out. Ice flung skyward with chilling cold water pouring from a hole and raining down in a shower. Like deer in headlights, Pollux couldn’t look away and he felt the droplets hit his skin and fuku. A thick deep blue tentacle reaching up from the gaping hole in the ice.

Gripping his phone the button was pushed by his death grip and Pollux found himself back in his safehouse. Fleck of ice and water soaking his clothes. He’d gone home.

And he’d just barely survived.