The group of people looked down at the woman, sitting there stunned in front of Gus’ store. Kain waved a hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her trance. She snapped her head up to Kain and recognition flew through her eyes, “You… You’re from Earth, right?” she asked.

Hearing his home world mentioned, Kain was taken aback, but made an effort not to show it on his face. He studied the woman over, but found nothing unique about her —aside from her robotic right arm, “How do you know that?” he asked, glaring at her.

Before she could answer, an orb of red sprung from her neck and whipped itself around to face them. It was made of solid Ether, and had two red eyes and a mouth, “That’s because of me. Nice to meet you… Harold?” it asked, “I’m Abe. I heard you speaking English and knew that you were from Earth. How did you get here?”

Kain stared at the orb, blinking in confusion, when Ythane drifted over and examined the ball with a critical eye. Abe almost shied away from her scanning eyes, but stayed put. Eventually, a small circle of Ether appeared in front of the duvalad’s face and pulsed, making a dull red light emit from her eyes, “Fascinating… To think this is possible…” she muttered.

“What is it, Yth?” Kain asked as Luna poked her head around him and at Abe.

“Well, somehow these two have done something that should be physically impossible. The soul is a delicate machine, but they somehow dismantled this one’s soul, mixed the parts into her sentient energy, and it still works. It would be like taking a car apart, dropping every component into a swimming pool, and the car still somehow working. It just should not be possible… If I could…”

Luna walked up behind her and lightly knocked her on her ethereal head, “No. You can’t do anything to their souls. Besides, it sounds like Abe is from Earth and wants to meet with us!” she exclaimed, “So! What’s your name, miss?”

The woman blinked her eyes and regarded the girl with rabbit ears in front of her, “Ah, I’m Mary… what’s yours?”

“Luna! I’m a rabbit! Er- was a rabbit. Now I can change my shape to whatever I want. Like this!” With her excited words she pricked Mary’s finger, drank a drop of her blood, and changed her form into an exact copy of Mary, startling the woman, “Like this!” she said, smiling, in Mary’s voice.

“That’s… freaky,” Abe stated. Luna shrugged and turned her form into her human form with rabbit ears.

“Anyway,” Kain interrupted, “Is there a specific reason you two wanted to find us or are you just looking for someone to talk to about Earth with?” Just then, three men appeared from an alleyway across the street. They wore somewhat normal clothing, but carried long rifles with bandoliers of ammunition draped across their chests.

“Hey! What the hell are you people doing!?” the leading one asked in anger, “Also, why in the void is that building growing!?”

The group turned back to the metal building that sprouted from Gus’ shop and found it spreading its pipes to the nearby buildings, trying to grow metal panels off of them. “Forgot about that…” Kain muttered. Raising his hands, a sigil just as large as he was formed in front of him. He pushed a great amount of Ether through it, draining the area and panicking the men with guns. The sigil glowed and a massive force flattened the building without as much as a moment's resistance.

With the building flattened Kain drew it into his amulet, stunning the guards even more, “I do not see anything here, friends. Perhaps you should simply move along,” Kain said, feigning ignorance. Terrified, the men nodded and quickly left without another word. “Now,” Kain began, “Unless you two are staying here or have a way off this island, I think I’m just about done with this…” he groaned, lacking the energy to speak formally.

Mary slowly nodded, “Yeah… We planned to leave after meeting you guys; we hid a small boat near the docks. Do you want to come along?” she asked.

“Please.”

“I would”

“Sure!”

Mary nodded, standing and turning to the other demi-humans, “I’m assuming you three want to join? I couldn’t imagine wanting to stay here…” Valerax, Buck, and Zlea broke from their stunned silence and quickly nodded their heads. “Alright then. This way,” she said as she started towards the docks. The extradimensionals and demis shrugged to each other and followed along.

The way was fraught with near-constant battle just a few streets down and they were all alert. Only a single other group approached them on their way, but Mary convinced them that she was bringing the group to safety. After a few dozen minutes, the group came upon the docks. They had somehow gotten past the Purity Union’s lines and had not been accosted by any enforcers along the way, “Alright, the boat should be right over there,” Mary said as she pointed to a particularly run down part of the concrete docks.

Just as she spoke, a voice came from the shadows behind them, “I don’t think you will be leaving, Ms. Grant.” They turned, finding a man in crusader armor standing there, a sword in one hand and revolver in the other, “You have personally caused me a headache and I refuse to let you live.” With his point made he aimed the gun at Mary and fired, a bang sounding around the docks. Kain summoned his sigil and Ythane cast a shield around the woman’s face, but they did not need to bother. A mass of yellow Ether appeared in front of her, blocking the bullet with a dull thump. A surge of Ether flooded her body, channeling into her neck. A dozen large balls surged from her neck and arms, connected to Mary by a tail. Only one of them had eyes, but the rest had massive mouths to compensate.

The crusader stepped back in shock, “What in the name of-” Before he could finish his words, the orbs attacked him. Half of them aimed for his limbs, snapping them off of his body like twigs while the other half went for his head. He was able to slash a single orb before he was disabled, but was killed in short order afterwards.

Mary stood in shock at the mangled body of the crusader as the orbs of Abe fell back into her body, leaving only one. It coughed and hacked, “Augh… that was disgusting… Why do I taste things?” he asked.

As Mary turned and patted him on the head, Ythane’s eyes widened and she dashed to him, “Wait, you can taste things!?”

Abe tilted his head, “Yeah? You can’t?” Just as he finished saying so, Ythane floated down to the body of the crusader and gingerly lifted a severed arm.

Kain, facepalming, moved over to her, “Yth, you can’t be- Oh god dammit…” Before he could get there, Ythane had taken a small bite into the arm and let the blood flow into her mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened, but she soon widened her eyes, “Ah! I can taste things!” she cheered, turning around to see the disturbed faces of the others, “What? I’m not going to eat him. Besides, what else am I going to try it on? The ground?” Her words, while having valid logic behind it, still disturbed everyone other than Kain and Luna.

“I guess, but please don’t do that again —you may not be human or the like, I think, but we prefer not seeing something like us being bitten into like a candy bar,” Abe said, earning nods from the other demis and Mary. Ythane gave a serpentine shrug and nodded, following them. With the crusader dealt with, the group moved on to the boat. It was a small thing, not much larger than a fishing boat, but it was stocked with enough food, water, and supplies to make it to their next destination.

As they were about to board, Mary stopped them for a moment, “So, where are you guys heading? I was aiming for Vitat, but anywhere other than here is good.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s where we were planning on going as well,” Valerax, finally breaking from her silence, said.

“Ah, that’s good,” Mary replied, ushering them all onto the boat, “Then we’ll be traveling together for a while.” Just as she finished, she noticed something from the corner of her eye and whipped her head to look. Standing next to the dead crusader was a man in green-ish armor, followed by a woman in a mask and white robe. They took a look at the crusader's corpse and tore their gazes away, walking towards the boat, “Huk. Fuel. I suppose this is where you say your goodbyes?” Mary asked.

The man in the armor nodded, taking off his helmet to reveal his red skin and metal implant, “Yeah. I know you weren’t in this for long, but… thanks for helping us.You saved a lot of people, in spite of our usual methods. Just… thanks. And good job killing that bastard. It’s about damn time.” With his peace said, he waved to the woman and walked away, followed by the woman named Fuel. She turned away and stared out to the horizon, starting the boat and driving it out into open water.

They were all silent for a long time, no one daring to break the silence. Eventually, Zlea spoke up, “Thanks for your work. Seriously. Killing the Order Leader will put them in a bad situation,” he said. Mary did not respond, so they remained in silence.

After a while, Mary turned to her passengers, “Alright, we’re near the submarine blockade. We’re either going to drift over it and try not to make a sound, or we can blast our way through. Who’s for what?”

“Yth and I can just make a silence bubble, you know. It’s not that difficult,” Kain offered, Ythane nodding along with his words.

“Ah, if that’s the case, then sure. It makes the trip just that much more calming.” The two nodded and got to work. After a while the silence bubble was up, and they made it through the blockade without any trouble.

“Shouldn’t that be harder than that?” Luna asked, “It’s supposed to be the iron wall of Olsvania or something, but we just slipped through the cracks like nothing!”

“It’s because of our misadventures,” Abe replied, “We stole some materials they were going to use and they couldn’t close that gap.”

“Ohh… that makes sense,” Luna said. Silence returned for a while, and soon the sun dawned in the sky, bathing the ocean in fiery orange.

“Hey… can I ask a question, Kain?” Abe asked. The man turned to the orb and nodded.

“Of course.”

Abe took a deep breath and sighed, “Is there a way back to Earth?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah. It’s quite simple to get back, actually.”

“Wait, what!? How!?” Abe demanded. The others gave him wary looks, but Kain shrugged.

“Well, how do you think we got here? Honestly, the whole reason why we’re here in the first place is because we were outrunning some big monster thing that almost killed us. Were it not for that thing, we would already be on Earth.”

“Oh…” Abe sighed, “Is there another way back?”

Kain thought about the question for a few moments, before shrugging, “Maybe. The only problem is if my idea is right. Does this world have places of higher Ether density?” Abe tilted his head and Kain sighed, “Mana density?”

Abe nodded, “Oh, yeah, a lot. There’s one not too far from here, actually. Out in the warring kingdoms in fact.”

“Then yes. There is a way to get back to Earth without having to deal with the big monster. We just have to find another red pillar and we’ll be there no problem,” he confirmed.

The demis and Mary tilted their heads, “What’s a ‘red pillar’?” Buck asked.

“A big rock!” Luna replied, “It’s like a place that tells you where another world is. You go up to it, do some magic, and you can go to the other world.”

“So that means that wherever there’s a high-mana zone, there’s a red pillar to match it?” Mary asked.

The extradimensionals shrugged, “We have not been to enough areas to confirm that,” Ythane noted, “We have only been doing this for a few weeks in total.” The others muttered and nodded their heads.

“If that’s the case… then I have a request. But first…” He trailed off as he turned to Mary. After a brief exchange of glances and nods, he turned back, “Can we travel with you?”

Silence reigned on the boat for a few moments while the extradimensionals exchanged looks. “We’d love to have you,” Kain agreed, “Welcome to the team.”

*=====*

Alright. Bad news. I’m putting this story on temporary hiatus. In all honesty, I have come to dislike the current state of the story. 83 main chapters, 17 side chapters, and 3 lore chapters, and everything feels… wrong. I tried to figure out why by writing a new story, Boneclock (Only on RR), and figured out why: the pacing, characters, plot, everything is all f-ed up. I began this as a side activity that I would do just to see if I could actually write worth a damn. And I think I can. As long as I start from a strong position. So, because writing WA has become not fun and annoying for me, I am putting it on hiatus. If you love the story, then I’m sorry. Maybe one day, I’ll finish the story and connect the dots, but for now, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.