Sin-Ni rested her head on her hand as she stared out of the ice cream shop.

Three more months had passed. They had been a lot less grueling than the previous three months by herself, and it was all because of Joe, Elliot, and Seth. Sure, they had been using her to complete quests they would have never taken up otherwise, as well as hoarding the lion's share of the rewards. But she had been living a lot more comfortably while traveling with them, so she did not mind.

Her free hand rested on her abdomen subconsciously. Soon, she would be in Boston. Soon, she would join the Dawn Avengers, and ask the powerful mages there about opening up a portal. And then soon, she would be back home.

As her drowsy eyes trailed along the road outside the window, she caught sight of a sign on the cafe opposite her. She jerked up.

The sign read, 'Voted best hot chocolate in Wisconsin!'

Wait a minute...

She spun her head around. The three idiots were grabbing a large bowl of ice cream, arguing over who would be getting the first scoop.

"Joe."

Joe did not even bother lifting his head. "Sup?"

"Why are we still in Wisconsin?"

The three questers stopped their bickering. Joe's face was unreadable, Elliot's head was averted, but Seth's expression gave it all away.

Anger welled up inside her. Had they been lying to her this whole time? Had they been tricking her, making her travel around the same place, earning money for them, for three entire months?

"I trusted you, Joe..."

"Listen, Sydney," Joe said, "Wisconsin is a very, very big state, so it takes a while—"

"I've seen the map. It's not that big compared to other states."

"Okay, okay, let me explain. H- Have you heard about the Mercator projection? So because Earth is round, the map we see actually makes places near the ends of the world look a lot smaller than it actually is. So, Wisconsin is like, actually a lot bigger than it looks like on the map, it- it's actually the biggest state in America..."

Sin-Ni did not know much about this country, but even she knew that that was untrue.

"Don't lie to me anymore," she muttered. "I'm sorry, but I'm leaving the team tomorrow."

With that, she left the ice cream shop and hurried back to the motel.

✿∅✿∅✿

Sin-Ni woke up to loud thuds on the door.

Heaving herself up, she squinted at the window. Streaks of golden rays seeped through the shades, casting spotlights on her bed, flickering every so often as if a group of people was running across the corridor.

She frowned. The three questers she had abandoned at the ice cream store would never bang on her door like that.

"Is there a Sydney Yen in the room?" a low voice bellowed from outside.

That did not sound friendly at all.

Sensing danger, Sin-Ni grabbed her backpack and crept towards the door. She peered into the peephole. There were about a dozen men outside her motel room. At first glance, they appeared to be normal, but she had had enough experience with law enforcement to recognize the hand-sized Nerf-gun-looking blasters holstered at their waist. Those were the standard weapons the cops had in this world. Instead of bullets, those things shot out tiny balls of fire.

She unlatched her wristwatch and tightened her grip on the backpack. After taking a deep breath, she kicked open the door, threw her watch-turned-five-mini-hammers out, and knocked out five men as well as demolished five other blasters into smithereens.

The rest of the men stood frozen in shock. By the time they reacted, spinning around and scrambling for leftover weapons, it was already too late; Sin-Ni had dashed across the street and darted into an alleyway.

Left, right, right, left, through a mall and back out the other end, left, right again, then under a tunnel.

Sin-Ni ran for her life, without looking back, without a second thought. After what seemed like forever, she settled inside an unattended garage, crumpling on the ground and gasping for air.

Why were the police outside her room? Her heart was beating so loudly she could barely hear her own thoughts, and she ripped open her backpack. She needed something to calm her down; she needed her phone.

But her phone—and her entire purse—wasn't there.

Wait. What?

She was sure that she had packed everything she ever owned into the backpack last night! Frenzied, she emptied the contents of the backpack on the floor. A few passersby glared at her from the sidewalk, but she ignored them as she ruffled through every pocket in the bag.

Her purse was gone.

Her phone. Gone.

The buzzing in her ears increased in volume, slowly drowning out the pounding of her heart, slowly taking over her hollowed mind.

Her phone was gone.

Then, she exploded.

Throwing her backpack to the ground, she left everything behind as she bolted out of the parking lot. She ran as fast as her petite legs could take her. She ran even faster than when she had been running away from the cops. She ran while inspecting every shop she passed, every alleyway, every nook, and every cranny. She ran, and ran, and ran.

Finally, she found them.

"Joe!" She pounced on the man, yanking him by the collar and thrusting him into the wall. Before the two other questers could do anything, she threw out her wristwatch and pinned them both to the wall, sharp-blades-through-shirts style.

"Where! Is! My! Purse!" Sin-Ni yelled like she had not used her voice in years, smashing Joe's body into the wall at every sentence.

"How... How are you still here?" Seth asked meekly from the corner. "And... And not..."

"And not what? Detained? Did you three steal my purse and then send the cops after me?"

"Cops?" Joe tried to chuckle, but it came out like a guttural whimper. "N- No! Never! It was... It was just... You know, you've been talking about missing home and- and wanting to go home, so we helped you, you know, contact immigration..."

Sin-Ni was too angry to listen to anything they were saying. "Doesn't fucking matter!" she bellowed into a cowering Joe. "Where! Is! My! Purse!"

"We threw it away!" Elliot screamed, tears already washing his face. "W- We thought you were keeping some extra cash in there so we stole it. But there wasn't any money so- so we tossed it!"

"Tossed it?" Her shaking hands let go of Joe as she turned to Elliot. "Where?"

"I- I don't know..."

"Then find it, you idiots! Now!"

"Okay! Okay!"

The three of them scrambled around, with Sin-Ni closely behind them, as they searched through each and every trash bin for her discarded purse. It was probably a strange sight to pedestrians, watching three men dumpster dive while a petite girl screamed at them. But it didn't matter; nothing did.

She just wanted her purse back. They were the only items she had brought from her homeworld.

She just wanted her phone back.

They finally found the purse by nightfall. It was tattered and stunk of rotten cheese, but at least the phone was safely kept inside.

As the three questers ran away from her, never to be seen again, she clutched the purse to her heart, collapsed onto the floor, and sobbed into the night.