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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 2 of 2))
Perhaps it would be best to recall that team and send them somewhere else. It was a shame that so much time will have been wasted, but it was better safe than sorry.

The biggest worry of all was no doubt if Atreya would somehow get drawn into this larger conflict. At the moment, that didn't seem likely, since there were only nine nations involved in total, but Hector had a feeling that more would be joining in soon. He didn't consider himself to be very knowledgeable when it came to geopolitics, but he doubted that all the other countries in each region were just going to sit back and watch.

'...H-Hector?' came a silent and familiar voice.

'Garovel,' he said calmly. 'Welcome back.'

'What... what the hell happened?'

Before Hector could even answer, the others all began to stir as well. He didn't annihilate all of his iron immediately, but he did bring the orbiting to an end and made holes for the reapers to let them out. He wasn't sure if they would feel safer inside their iron confines, so he felt that this was a decent compromise.

As expected, everyone was terribly confused.

And Hector, being the only one who could explain, did not have a very easy time of it.

"What in lakefire are you talking about?" said Diego Redwater.

"Check your phones. News of the war is all over the internet."

"H-hold on," said Diego. "I mean, that's--agh, that's insane, too, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the part where you met a giant telepathic bird."

Hector sighed. "I know how it sounds. But that's why you have a gap in your memories, and that's why you're wearing armor, right now. I made it and infused it with my soul in order to shield your minds from him. The effects took a while to wear off."

'And where is this Sparrow now?' said Diego's reaper, Yangèra.

Hector did his best to explain again.

This continued for a bit longer, with even the reapers apparently having trouble understanding what he was saying, until at length, Lynnette chimed in.

"He's telling the truth," she said. "I remember as well. I couldn't speak or move, but I saw and heard everything just as Hector did."

Wait, what?