Shadowbane

"A halo doesn't fit your theme, Rei. Even if it is red like your eyes and black in the center." Lindon said as he cut up his steak.

"Even if you say that, it's still my ability... And not some random one I unlocked, but one that anyone connected to the black god is supposed to have."

A waitress walked over to our table, placing a large pizza and a fancy glass bottle of soda in front of me. I put a few slices on Ishar's plate while he poured a little soda for himself. "This 'Pizza' looks delicious, but why is the liquid bubbling?"

"That's called carbonation... I think? Don't worry, you'll get used to it, and trust me, it's amazing."

For the most part, everyone stuck to what they were used to eating, but they did at least try the soda. While I had expected everyone to love it, Markus and Keith literally spit the soda out and swished liquor around in their mouths to get the taste out.

"I can understand not enjoying it, but to have that extreme of a reaction..."

Greyson laughed, "Nah, that's a normal reaction. Carbonation is hard to get used to at first. Also, those drinks are way too sugary for some people."

"You've drank soda before? Oh wait, that's right... You did say something about 'returning' from another world when we first met."

"I'm surprised you remember that! Indeed, I had attempted to find the location of all the other werewolves who scattered after the Tengu killed the Kitsune god. Most of us were still well hidden inside the forest next to Thule, but our people were too freaked out after the loss of our greatest ally. We were unable to reason with them, and so as a result we could only watch as they left to find a new home. Somewhere the Tengu wouldn't be able to find them." Greyson said before taking another sip of his wine.

"Hmm, I saw a few in Jericho, and I swear I read something that mentioned werewolves living underground near Kellog... But I can't remember what it was that I read?" Suddenly I remembered Teifa, and that's when it clicked, "Never mind it was actually a Teifa. They're uh, Goblin girls who can speak our tongue and send souls to the afterlife. Also a bunch of other things but the point is, she spoke of werewolves briefly when we met."

Greyson nodded, "We were on friendly terms with the Goblins. They loved our peanuts and timber, so we traded them for other types of food they grew underground."

"Did you see the Goblins on your way to Jericho, Rei?" Keith asked.

"I didn't. I wanted to stop by Euphemia's manor and grab some supplies before checking in on the Goblins, but the obelisks were still there in Kellog. It would've been too risky to do anything in that nation. And the last time we saw the Goblins, the Xerath were encroaching onto their area. The best-case scenario would've been both the Goblins and Merman forgiving their previous grievances and forming an alliance so they'd have a better chance of surviving, but I had no way of knowing whether that happened or not without actually going underground. I didn't want to risk dying down there when I still needed to find you guys."

"You made the right call, but..." Keith put his fork down, "It... It would have been nice to know that someone had survived on Urza."

... True. That's a major reason I wanted to check in on them, but I never brought it up to Arkaios. I didn't want to hear him telling me I could go if I wanted, because if anyone had pushed my back like that, I probably wouldn't have been able to stop myself from risking death just to see if they were still alive.

Ishar looked around the room and chuckled. "These people are only projecting two emotions. Disgust and curiosity."

We're currently eating in the entrance... Or lounge area? Whatever the hell it's called. The room is filled with people, and a large amount of them keep glancing over at us. Our party is rather weird though, so I suppose it makes sense.

"You and I are still wearing the armor Rei made for us, so that isn't helping much," Greyson said.

Markus wiped his mouth and looked at Greyson, "Did they not offer you new clothes? As you can see, everyone except me is wearing the clothing of this nation. It might be considered rude, but I don't feel comfortable being out of my armor in foreign places."

"Oh they offered, but this armor of hers is way too damn comfortable once you get used to it. And being able to control its temperature is a godsend for someone like me covered in fur. I can't return to my human form anymore after... Well, I just can't. So I'm not taking off this armor until someone destroys it damnit." Greyson replied.

Before him and Aresa I had never put much thought into the temperature part. But when I actually think about it, being able to warm or cool your clothes at any time must be quite convenient for the living.

"They're coming," Shana said.

I looked back and saw two men and one woman walking straight for our table. Ahh, they're definitely here for us... One man is in power armor while the other two look like the kind of people nations send out to be diplomatic with foreign leaders visiting their country.

The man reached our table first and immediately bowed, "I apologize for interrupting your breakfast everyone, but we would like to begin as soon as possible. There were some... Problems, at the gate last night."

Gate? Does he mean the portal?

Markus stood up and walked over to the man before removing his gauntlet and shaking the man's hand. "May I ask what the problem was? I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to guns, but you had a lot of them, and the Tengu Lord stayed behind. Very little of what we saw in the Abyss should be flagged as a 'Problem' before a force like that."

"Ahh, I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Markus." Markus and the new arrivals looked at me. "From the moment I entered the Realm of the Abyss, until the moment we left it, I could tell it was changing. Just like how the splinters of those Gods were becoming stronger over time. I think everything over there is... Hmm, I'm not quite sure how to word this. It's almost like everything is slowly waking up. I assume it's because of what is happening with the God of the Abyss."

The man looked back at the woman and smiled, "Looks like you were right."

"Why didn't you say anything until now?" Markus asked.

"I didn't fully understand it when I was down there the first time. And while I slowly figured it out later on as we ran through the Abyss, it's not like we've had time to really talk about it until now. Everyone passed out the moment we reached our rooms last night."

Markus chuckled, "Alright, fair enough. You're right."

The woman stepped forward, "We'll let you folks finish eating, but once you're done please tell Frederick here that you're ready." She motioned toward the man in power armor, "We'll be waiting for you in the counseling room."

The nicely dressed duo left the room while the man in power armor followed them until they disappeared into a hallway. He stopped there and put his back against the nearby wall before closing his eyes.

"This is so good..." Shana said before biting down on another slice of my pizza. The look on her face is priceless... She is loving the food even more than I am. I don't know where we are yet, but if we're not on a moon owned entirely by Viktor, I'll be able to show her all types of other food in a safer location.

We spent another ten minutes eating before standing up and telling Frederick that we were ready. He nodded and proceeded to lead us to another area that looked exactly like the lounge we were just in. Excluding the front desk of course.

The man stood up from the couch he was sitting on. "Welcome everyone! I apologize for rushing you, but we really do need any information we can get, and preferably sooner rather than later."

The duo then walked over to another couch and sat down, but they left a human-sized gap between them. The girl looked at Shana, "Now then, we'd like to start with you. Can you please sit right here and invite us into your soul realm?"

Shana seemed taken aback at being singled out first. Instead of moving toward the duo, she looked around at us in confusion.

The woman saw this and merely tilted her head. "Why are you surprised that we're picking you first...? What's left of your garb suggests you're a ninja, so you're the most obvious choice here. Next, we'll pick the red-eyed girl there who mentioned being in this 'Abyss Realm' before everyone else."

This argument seemed to persuade Shana as she looked much more relaxed after that. She immediately walked over and sat down between the duo. "Um, why aren't the other ninjas here? We haven't seen them all morning."

The woman's eyes went wide. "Goodness, you weren't informed? The hotel staff was supposed to tell you that your friends were taken to the healing center. We're fixing their limbs while they show us their memories. And after the two of us are done here, we're going to convene with our colleagues and put together what we found."

"Assuming there isn't anything in your recent memories that could suggest you'd be a danger to our nation, we'll be letting all of you leave tomorrow morning. We're kind of in a bad situation here, so the sooner you're gone, the better. No offense intended." The man followed up.

"None taken. I'd want any outsiders gone too if my city was currently being invaded." Markus replied.

It didn't look like a bad situation last night, so it must be related to whatever problem they hinted at before. Also, so long as everyone here only shows them memories related to the Abyss we'll be fine. After all, I can't imagine anyone in this group being dumb enough to show them the conversation we had about Viktor last night.

Plus, I'm more than happy to teach them about the Abyss realm, even if this is Viktor's nation that I wholly want to destroy. Any information I give them won't make much of a difference in the end, if any. The beings there are becoming increasingly more powerful and there might be several more Gods waking up over there even as we speak. Actually, isn't this great for me? Hopefully they have more than one portal into Viktor's lands. And it'd be even better if the information we give them makes them think they should invade the Abyss realm.

The woman looked at us as she grabbed Shana's hand. "You can all rest on the couches for now. I'm sure you know this will be a long process unless time moves slower inside your soul realms?"

Only Nisha, Markus, and Albel responded to her. So those three can control their soul realms to that degree huh? I tried to achieve the same feat back when I lived in Xelba, but I failed miserably. All I did was unlock an ability that turned out to be the halo, so it was definitely worth it in the end.

I walked over to a couch and sat down. The others followed suit, with Markus being so heavy I thought he was going to break the part he was sitting on. Assuming nothing goes wrong, we'll be leaving long before Vi's Dad shows up. That's the one thing I've been worried about, and I still kind of am for one specific reason. That ring she was wearing. I've never seen an artifact that powerful before, so her dad must be unbelievably rich... Or powerful. Probably both? Meaning he's most likely in a position where he can drop everything to come see his daughter right away. Ugh, I wonder if they'll let us leave tonight...

"Thank you very much, Miss Shana." The man said with a smile.

His words woke everyone up. Literally everyone but me and Albel had fallen asleep. She wasn't kidding when she said this was going to take a while... Did they watch her memories like they were a fucking movie? Absolutely no skipping? So much for leaving tonight...

Shana came over to our group and sat down on a nearby chair.

"Hmm..." The woman said, looking down at her notepad as she wrote.

"'Hmm' indeed... It's not like I didn't have any ideas of what may be invading us, but this is..." The man replied.

A few minutes later the woman put her pen down and looked at me. "Miss, would you mind being next?"

"I'm fine with it." I stood up and walked over to the duo before sitting down between them. Immediately they each grabbed a hand and rested their heads against the back of the couch. I did the same and entered my soul realm, pulling the two in with me.

"Oh my! Do you also love the Xerath?!" The woman said, wide-eyed as she scanned the land around us.

"... Something like that." I continued, "Now where did you two want me to start?"

The man looked at the woman, "I was tempted to ask her if we could speak to the Tengu God, but now that I'm here I'm having second thoughts..."

The woman narrowed her eyes at him, "And you should be! Our souls are connected to hers right now, which means we don't want him to be aware of us. I'm already worried enough that he can pop in at any time he wants..."

I wasn't sure if Shana was going to show them that part, but it was kind of hard to avoid. Obviously they'd want to know why there is a Tengu Lord with us.

"Can you show us why he's connected to you? Please understand, it's very strange for you to have direct access to the Tengu God if you're not a puppet of his." The man asked.

Ahh shit, this is a problem... I don't want to show them the part where I absorbed that guy in Kellog. And uh, didn't I talk about Viktor with the Tengu God back then? I definitely can't show them that...

"That would reveal very pertinent facts related to my abilities, more so than anything you'd see in my memories of the Abyss. So can I please decline?" Might as well ask. Obviously we're not in a position to say no to anything, but the Tengu should be the least of their concerns right now, so hopefully...

"Of course Miss, I apologize if that sounded forceful. We're really only here to learn of the Abyss after all, but I'll admit my curiosity is eating away at me..." The man said.

The woman saw that and laughed, "I also want to know, but like he just said, we really only need to know about the Abyss. So please show us what happened after you were split up from your party. That day when Arkaios rewound time but you were underground."

Looks like Shana did all of the heavy lifting for us. Now they'll only need to see parts that happened when she wasn't around, which didn't happen too often when I think about it?

I replicated my memory of leaping through the tunnel until I reached the God of the Abyss' area.

"... My god." The man said as the two of them marveled at the multitude of arms reaching out from the dark Abyss below.

"Can you please zoom in on one part of his arm? It doesn't matter where. I want to see what is glowing up close..." The woman said.

I did as she asked by enhancing the view until the glowing symbols were right in front of us.

"Is there anything you found down here that gave you a clue as to what these symbols mean?" The man asked.

"No, but it looks like it's the same written language that was used here. Do you see that large white building on the pillar below? They have books with words in them but I couldn't read any of it. The words were all symbols like these."

The man looked down at the building. "I see... I was going to ask about that building, and while I'm glad to hear you went inside of it, I'm more surprised to hear that there were books inside of it. Was it a library? An area of knowledge pertaining to their god?"

"If I had to compare it, I'd say it was more like a Museum...? Honestly, that's the only really important part of my memories. You won't care about much of anything else after you've seen what's inside of there."

The woman peeled her eyes away from the symbols and looked at me, "Oh? Now you've really piqued my interest! Please take us there then."

I fast-forwarded the memory until I was standing outside of the Marble building.

"The way you control your memories is fascinating... How are you able to manipulate them like you would a VCR?" The man asked.

"You guys can't do this...? I figured everyone who knew of TV's would control their memories like this."

The woman laughed while shaking her head, "Dearie no! Most memories are shown through stitched-together images. Very few have such delicate control as you do. It takes a large amount of skill and practice at viewing memories to pull off this level of control."

Oh wow, that's the first time someone has told me that... Maybe it's because of my ability to take other people's memories? I did do that a lot in Xelba after all, so I had plenty of practice.

I restarted the memory and both of them freaked out when the monster girl appeared.

"Heh, nice to see I wasn't the only one scared by her."

"What is that? It has a petite human girl's frame below the creepiest head I've ever seen in my life..." The man said as he circled around the girl.

"I'm not sure, but you'll see she was shockingly friendly. I think she's a protector of the museum? I went in with an attitude to learn while treating everything with respect, so in return, she was kind to me."

The woman tapped her chin and hummed, "She's wearing a dress I've only seen in civilized parts of human society, but everything I saw in Lady Shana's memories suggests this is an ancient civilization that has nothing to do with humans?"

"I found that part strange too, but maybe you'll glean something from the information inside of the museum because I couldn't tie anything of it back to her. At most, all I can say is that she had the same aura as the armored monster that was attacking us above ground."

"The one who appeared through the fog and crushed your friends?" The man asked, then continued, "Come to think of it, she also appeared out of nowhere..."

After that, I proceeded to show them the mural and all of the books. When we got to the part about the minor gods I wondered how I was going to handle it, but it went the same way as the Tengu God conversation from earlier. They found it fascinating that I had a connection to this place and wanted to know more about it, but they were far more interested in seeing the rest of the book depicting the minor gods.

"Ah..." The man said when the memory of me flipped to another page. I paused it and looked at the two of them.

"You both recognize this God? Is he related to your 'Problem'?"

The woman sighed, "He is..." She continued, "This abomination appeared through the gate a few hours after your group was led away to the hotel. While he had come with several powerful monsters, the main problem was him. We have recordings of a couple of our men who suddenly began to speak incoherently out of nowhere, and soon after that they began firing on our forces instead of the monsters."

"It was already a problem in itself that our foot soldiers were firing their rifles at their own friends, but the biggest problem was that one of the men who went mad was in charge of targeting the railgun on our airship. He was able to wipe out half of our forces at the gate before they were able to restrain him." The man followed up.

Holy shit... That's definitely not a minor problem.

"What happened after that with the God depicted here?" I pointed toward the illustration in the book.

"He disappeared... We lost sight of him after the dust from the railgun's attack settled. And now we have reports of people in town acting violent, or descending into some form of madness." The woman replied.

The man leaned down toward the book. "I expected as much, considering what we've seen up until now, but we can't read any of this..."

"But we did get what we came here for. We'll show this memory to the inquisitors and hopefully they'll be able to glean something from this." The woman said.

"Won't that be months away from now...? It sounds like you have a problem that needs to be taken care of right now."

The woman put her hands over her eyes and sighed, "It can't be helped... No one can find the fuc---Ahem. No one can find the God, so we're scrounging for information."

"And with that, I think it's time we took our leave. The sooner we relay this to the others, the better. Not that this information is a game changer, but it's still more than the nothing we had before." The man said.

The woman agreed with him so I exited my soul realm. Immediately the three of them said goodbye and told us that an escort would show up around breakfast to lead us to the train station. They also left us with one extra bit of information before they left.

"Looks like we're on your homeworld, Rei," Markus said.

"I was honestly shocked to hear that we are currently on Aetheria... But that also means we can go see Aresa and the others."

Shana looked at me, "Is that what you're going to do? It's what I want to do..."

"Hmm..." I glanced at Ishar, "It depends on what our soon-to-be-retired Crotian wants to do. Want to come with us for a little detour so I can visit your home with you after that?"

"Well shit, I didn't know you'd want to come with me! My tribe would welcome you with open arms, so hell yeah I'll visit the little lady first before heading home. The rookie should be there too, right? So she'll be able to teleport us back to my tribe when we're ready to leave."

Oh right, I forgot about Alicia... That's even better then.

"Isn't everything advancing a little too smoothly...?" Greyson asked.

"That's because of Arkaios. Without our Lord, we'd all be sequestered and watched twenty-four-seven while our memories were fully scanned... Honestly, the list of things they'd do to us would be endless." Nisha responded to him before tossing another cookie into her mouth.

Yeah, I figured we'd be fucked without him here. Thank god we didn't lose the artifact on the way...

Just as we were preparing to leave the doors opened up and Vi rushed through them. She practically tackled me with a hug and looked up at me with the biggest smile possible. "Great news, Rei! My dad arrived in the city an hour ago and he's on his way here! I wanted to spend more time with you guys, but I know you have to leave, and looks like I do too, so let me give you my number so you can call me sometime. Please do call me, okay?!"

Ahh shit, so the thing I was most worried about is actually coming true... All I can do now is pray that the fact that I saved his daughter will be enough to calm any resentment he will still feel toward me. Then again, my hair is black, so if I could get my hands on some eye contacts... That girl in Jericho spoke of them, she thought those 'contacts' were the reason my eyes were red, so they must change your eye color.

"I'll definitely call you Vi, but uh, do you happen to know if they sell contacts anywhere in town?"

"Why...? Oh, you want to hide your eye color from him? Won't he recognize you anyway...? You have a very pretty face and elf ears, so even if you change your hair and eye color, I know I'd still recognize you right away. I'm sure my dad will too!"

I looked back at the others and they mostly agreed with her.

"... Truly, Vi. I'm begging you here. Can you meet your dad somewhere else? I really really don't want to meet him. He can thank me another day." Somewhere safer that won't lead to all of us needing to battle our way out of a kingdom that will be tracking us with airships and 'Railguns'. Whatever the fuck those are.

"But that's not my decision to make...? I know you don't want to meet him, Rei. And I would never force that onto you. But my dad he... He's not the kind of guy the mayor can say no to. He said he wanted to meet with all of you and reward you handsomely for saving me, so that's what is going to happen. Nothing I say would stop that... I'm sorry."

..............

I sighed and walked over to the couch and sat down.

"You heard her. Whatever happens, happens... I just hope that my past doesn't come down on all of you too..."

Ishar slapped my shoulder and laughed, "Oh calm down already! I know of your past, but there's no point in worrying about it like this. And look? You're scaring the pup half to death."

I looked at where he pointed and saw Greyson nearly shivering. "J-Just making sure, but her 'Dad' isn't going to be a man named Viktor... Right?"

"What?"

Viktor... A father? Him? Women obviously threw themselves at him because he was the ruler of Xelba and annoyingly good-looking. And that was on top of the fact that he was able to control monsters with an unknown ability. But despite this attention and adoration, he never once put his hands on a single woman. If anything, he looked at them with complete disgust... So I just can't imagine him having a daughter. That's why the possibility never even occurred to me until now. But... But what if he did find a woman he actually loved in the fifty or so years since I last saw him? It's been a long time after all, and people do change in different ways over time...

"... Vi, what is your Father's name?"

The doors behind Vi opened up as two men in artifact armor entered the room. They both sighed with relief when they saw Vi.

One of them turned around and yelled through the open doors, "She's in here!" He then looked back at Vi, "Oh thank god you're safe Miss Vi... We thought..."

The man looked like he was about to cry as his partner walked up to our group and knelt before Markus. "Thank you... Truly, thank you...!"

God damn, just how powerful is their armor? I can feel them both radiating from here.

A man quickly ran into the room and spotted Vi. He swiftly picked her up and hugged her. It should have been touching, especially since they were both crying, but...

"He has elf ears..." I heard Greyson whisper.

My mind was racing. Time itself seemed to slow as I tried to decide whether turning invisible and hiding in the corner of the room would be a good or bad idea.

They've already seen me, and he might not recognize me... Plus, she already told him about me, so... Shit... Shit, shit, shit!!!

The man put his daughter down and rubbed her hair while talking to her. It was only a glance, a simple glance in our direction, and I immediately knew that the man recognized me just as I had recognized him. Viktor's face took on an emotion of complete disbelief and confusion as he stared at me. His eyes flicked between my hair and eyes a few times before he whispered something to his daughter.

I could tell that my allies had already picked up on my ever-increasing panic, and now even Markus was starting to look a little worried. There are three windows behind us, we can easily escape through them, but then we'll have to pray we find a place to hide so I can slowly map out an escape route for us from there.

That's our only option at this point. Because there's no way in hell he's about to forgive me... Even if he did sire a daughter that he much to my surprise loves, I know for a fact that he can't risk letting us go now that he knows I'm alive. Actually, it's made even worse by the fact that he now has a daughter he loves... I'm sure he remembers all of the horrible shit I did for him, so he'll think of his daughter as a potential target, and... We're fucked. All we can do at this point is flee.