The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon on that cool morning, bathing those that were now running out of their homes in its warming light. The New Malstronians traditionally slept late on the seventh day of the week, dedicating the other six to the building up of the new city. The screaming, however, was enough to wake even the soundest of sleepers, Natalie and Darren included.

The gathering was focused at the center of New Malstron, where a young blonde-haired maiden stood, pointing and screaming at some spectacle obscured by the crowd. Both Natalie and Darren pushed their way through the crowd, intent on seeing what the fuss was all about. Natalie was the first to finally get through -upon realizing what she was seeing, her hand immediately shot up to her mouth.

The good news was that the two ninjas that had gone after Kaiser Dark the night before had returned.

The bad news was that both were suspended upside down from one of the trees, dead.

Darren finally made his way through next to her, and quickly fell silent as he saw the bodies. "Whoa," was all he could manage, his gaze locked on the gruesome display. Natalie reached out and grabbed his arm, breaking his trance.

"Darren..." Her voice was low, but steady. "I have to talk Neil."

Her friend nodded. "He's probably still asleep, but I'll take you by his place..."

"NOW." 

Unlike the vast majority of his associates, Neil didn't consider himself a heavy drinker. He recalled the events of the previous night quite clearly, in fact, and remembered that he had only had a few shots of some Kalikarin brandy with a few of his friends after work. His head felt strangely clear, he seemed to be in his own apartment, and as far as he could tell, he hadn't been involved in any drunken fights. Slight headache aside, all signs pointed to him being sober.

Considering each of these factors, it was no surprise that Neil was a little caught off guard when he woke up staring into Natalie's bright blue eyes. If that wasn't enough to confuse him, however, the fact that she was sitting on his chest, was.

"'Morning Neil," Natalie greeted. "We gotta talk."

Neil blinked a few times before shifting in his bed. As his eyes began to focus, he started to look around his room. He shared the apartment with several of his friends, most of whom were leaning on the walls of the room, laughing. Darren was among them, who waved and muttered a quick apology. After being on the receiving end of one of Neil's harsher glares, the room cleared of unnecessary persons in a hurry. With a light groan, he managed to sit up some in the bed. "Hi Natalie," he remarked. "You'll never hear me say this again, but could you please get off of me?"

Natalie rolled off and stood beside the bed, her arms crossed at her chest. "Who's Kaiser Dark?," she casually wondered.

Neil paused for a moment, casting her a quick one-eyed glance. "That depends on who you've talked to," he remarked. His demeanor had noticeably changed at the mentioning of the name. He was listening a little bit closer and didn't seem nearly as groggy as before. "Last I heard, he showed up last night, harassed a couple of the locals, and was chased off by a patrol." He yawned. "Why?"

"Because those locals were me and Dietra." Natalie began to tap her foot on the wooden floor lightly. "And that patrol is dead, by the way."

Neil froze in mid-yawn. "What?!" He didn't wait for Natalie to repeat her answer before reaching for a pair of baggy gray pants lying beside the bed. Taking care to keep himself covered with his sheet in the presence of a lady, he managed to get them on before stumbling out of the bed and grabbing a dark blue shirt on his dresser. "Are you two OK?," he wondered outloud as he quickly dressed.

"We're fine, just a little shaken up." Natalie hesitated before deciding to ask again. "So who exactly is this guy?"

"I've heard a couple of theories, but if this guy took out two Shadow Ninja without a problem, I'm leaning towards my own," he began. Neil groaned. "If Baptiste doesn't listen to me now, then he's even denser than his father..."

There was suddenly a knock at the door to the room. It was already wide open, so Natalie had no trouble seeing a large, yellow-skinned young man with dark hair standing in the hallway, a rolled-up parchment in his hand. "Hey Neil, a courier just dropped this off for you," he commented, waving the scroll in his hand.

Still half-dressed, Neil stumbled towards the doorway and took it. "Thanks Jimmy," he said, quickly unrolling it as he recognized the crest on the outside. "Speak of the devil," he casually remarked, half to himself, but loud enough for Natalie to hear. He paused for a moment to glance over the letter, and an instance later, was smiling broadly. Natalie raised a brow.

"That's none of my business, isn't it?," she wondered.

Neil nodded. "Yeah, it's from Prince Baptiste." He grinned. "But I'll read it to you anyway."

"How generous of you," Natalie answered, smiling.

Neil cleared his throat. "'In light of the recent events that have taken place within New Malstron, I have agreed to your previous proposal. You, along with a small team of your designation, are hereby authorized to return to Second Realm to gather equipment to aide you in dealing with this before it becomes a situation. You are to exercise extreme caution as you leave this realm, because we cannot afford the risk of stuff, stuff, yada, yada...'" He looked up from the scroll. "You and Darren want to tag along?," he wondered, a grin forming at the corner of his mouth.

In her mind, Natalie was jumping around, dancing, and doing several backflips at the prospect of realmwalking. Ever since she had been on Haven, she dreamed of traveling to some of the many realms the inhabitants called home before the whole Martosa episode began years ago. Evandalis was high on that list, but Second Realm also held a pretty respectable position. Natalie took a deep breath to regain her composure before answering. She had to be dignified about it, as she didn't want to seem too anxious.

"You bet your sweet ass we do!" 

When Neil finally stopped laughing twenty minutes later about the suddenness of Natalie's answer, he left out of the room to find a few of the friends that would be making the journey with him. Natalie took the opportunity to inform Darren about the situation, who also nearly lost his mind at the prospect of realmwalking. While he didn't shout nearly as loud as she did, he certainly danced a lot more.

About an hour later, Natalie, Darren, and three other young men were sitting around the living room of the apartment, waiting for Neil to get back from having a few quick words with Prince Baptiste before departing. Darren was currently engaged in conversation with two of the guys, who seemed to be discussing everything from Ardonian politics to martial arts. The first one was the massive yellow-skinned young man that had been introduced to her as Jimmy, who was wearing a light chestguard, and had a disturbingly large axe lying down on the ground next to him. The second, Narek, was a green-skinned reptilian young man who Natalie recognized from the pictures on Darren's wall back in Ardonis. He was almost as large as Jimmy, but didn't seem to be carrying any weapons of his own. If he wasn't smiling as much as he had been, Natalie would have found him slightly intimidating.

The third guy arrived just a few moments before, waving to Darren, Jimmy, and Narek as he stepped inside the room. He was dressed in a pair of black baggy pants and sleeveless shirt, and had a black rag tied about the top of his head, which hung down to about his shoulders. A dark katana hung at his side, and he moved with almost a catlike grace. Rather than come into the middle of his friends' conversation, he quietly sat down next to Natalie. The two made eye contact, and the young man smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. "You must be Darren's friend," he began, to which Natalie nodded. "I hear this is your first realmwalk."

Natalie nodded again. "Have you been around much?"

The young man scratched his chin, pondering the question for a moment. "I wouldn't classify myself as a Realmwalker, per say." He grinned. "Realmhopper perhaps, but not quite 'walker'." He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back some in his chair. "So tell me, should I just refer to you as 'Darren's Friend', or is there something else you like to be called?"

Natalie raised a brow, and could help but smile as she looked the stranger in his eyes. "Natalie," she introduced, extending her hand.

The young man shook it and nodded. "Mani."

The door suddenly opened and Neil came rushing inside, hastily closing it behind him with a gentle slam. He made his way into the room and stood for a moment to make sure that he had everyone's attention. Which was a moot point, because everyone was staring at him when he slammed the door. "Sorry that took so long," he apologized.

"No need to explain, we know Baptiste," Narek commented, to which Mani and Jimmy laughed. "So can we go, or does the Prince want to have us chaperoned?"

"Nah, but he wants us to swing by Malstron and pick up a few things from his dad." Neil snickered. "We should leave now though before he decides to send one." With that, he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small gold medallion. A blue gem was fastened in the center of it, which Natalie swore was glowing. Both Mani and Jimmy produced medallions of their own, which also seemed to be glowing. "Jimmy, grab Darren, Mani snag Narek, I'll get Natalie," Neil quickly ordered. Natalie made her way over to Neil and raised a brow.

"Don't tell me that you have to carry me," she teased.

Neil shook his head. "Nah, just hold on, and please don't let go."

"What happens if I let go?"

"Have you heard of Limbo?"

"Yeah..."

"You wanna go there?"

Without another word, Natalie wrapped her arms around Neil's waist with a grip that probably could have crushed stone golem's spine. Neil didn't think that it could get any tighter, but when the glowing blue aura from the medallion enveloped the two, he found that he unfortunately was quite mistaken. 

"Natalie... you can open your eyes now..."

Even in her current state of disorientation, she knew the voice belonged to Darren. Regardless of the request, her eyes remained shut for the time being. She could feel a cold wind blowing against her skin, and her ears could pick up light, melodious sounds of some sort over the light howl of the wind. Taking a deep breath, she slowly began to pry open her eyes.

The first thing she realized was that she was still clutching Neil's stocky frame like he was Breenie, the Imp stuffy she had when she was three, back on Sukata. Slowly letting go, she began to take in her new surroundings. Darkness had overtaken the area, plunging this part of the world in a cloudless, star-filled blanket of night. Two moons -one full, the other a crescent -adorned the sky high above, unlike just about anything she had seen before. Several sand dunes surrounded the area, and judging by the coldness of the air, Natalie assumed that they were in the midst of a desert, which would not doubt be scorchingly hot in a matter of hours. About a mile away, she could see the spires of some great city in the distance. Darren put his hand on her shoulder and gently turned her around to face what looked to be their destination.

Natalie gasped as she caught sight of the structure standing before her. A silver, rounded citadel stood some distance away from the six, with several towers at its sides. The tops of each of the structures looked dangerously pointed, as if designed to impale some giant that came too close. Even in the darkness, it exuded an almost natural glow. Several strange looking vehicles were parked outside the place. Natalie slowly turned towards Neil, her eyes wide with wonder.

"Welcome to Avalon," he greeted, stretching out his arm.

Darren stood close by, and summed up his feelings as best he could. "Damn," he managed. Natalie reached out and touched his arm.

"I couldn't have put it better myself..."

Mani, Narek, and Jimmy looked about the area, smiling. "I think we actually got past Tara's defense perimeter this time," Jimmy remarked proudly.

Neil nodded. "Perfect. Let's say hi." 

Waiting for just the perfect part of the music, the doors to the inner chamber where kicked open by both Neil and Jimmy just as what sounded like an entire brass section began to play loudly inside the room. Both Natalie and Darren elected to stand back for a moment as the four natives made their way inside -upon hearing a multitude of voices respond in various greetings, they decided to cautiously make their way in.

The chamber wasn't nearly as packed as the noise indicated it was. In fact, Natalie could hear a band playing, but for whatever reason, could not see them. Most of the sounds seemed to be coming a strange black box in one of the corners of the room. She paused for a moment and listened to the music -she had no idea what a Zoot Suit was, or why it was causing a riot, but she had to admit that the song had a very nice sound to it.

"OK, who's been sneaking music out of Earth again?," Neil cheerfully asked, to which the others laughed. Besides their own group, there were about ten others inside the room engaged in a modest party. Most appeared to be young humans, not much older than herself, and various other species scattered about the room. Neil made his way over and made a friendly gesture of putting his arms around both Natalie and Darren in a comical drunken fashion.

"Now, if you guys can act like civilized human beings for a second, I'd like to introduce a few of our new friends to you," he declared to the group, getting their attention. "This is Darren Mason, and this lovely young lady is Natalie Firebrand." He made a motion out towards the partygoers. "Now, there's too many of them here for me to introduce to you all, so you can call them all the Filthy Skanks if you'd like..."

Neil was forced to take cover as a barrage of cups began to pelt him from all over the room.

Natalie was too busy laughing to notice a young man approaching her from the side. After detecting a presence, she quickly turned and found herself facing a grinning figure, his blonde haired tossed about in a somewhat erratic matter, as if half wanted to lay one way, while the other half was undecided about standing up or leaning back. He wore a baggy red shirt that was opened a few buttons down at his collar, and a dark pair of boots and trousers. "It's nice to know someone's keeping an eye on these guys in Haven," he remarked with a quick laugh.

His quick laugh was replaced with an even quicker yelp as Jimmy snatched him in a headlock from behind, mussing his hair even more. "Don't tell me they left you in charge here, Jeremiah!," the massive axe-carrier taunted, delivering a noogie unto his friend. "No wonder there's a party going on here! So where are you hiding the dancers, ya' pervert?!"

Half-laughing and half-calling for help, Jeremiah was aided by one of the partygoers, who promptly proceeded to leapt upon Jimmy's back before being slung off by Narek. A few other individuals got involved, and before anyone knew it, an impromptu wrestling match had broken out among sides.

Natalie and Darren both thought it would be a good time to try and blend into the crowd and find some relatively saner company. 

"You mean they're here, as in, they're inside of Avalon?"

Neil shook his head slowly as Jeremiah nodded. The blonde-haired young man had pulled him aside shortly after the drunken wrestling match had ended in order to give him some news that Neil was sure he didn't want to hear. "I take it David and Naomi don't know about this," he assumed.

Jeremiah nodded again. "Kind of strange, considering that the King's courier dropped that little package off as soon as they had left."

"Strange my ass. 'Convenient' is more like it." Neil growled to himself as he punched a nearby wall. Apparently, not only was King Baptiste ignoring advice given to him earlier, he was putting Avalon and everyone in it at a terrible risk. "Where are the gauntlets now?," Neil wondered, taking care to keep his voice down.

Jeremiah made a quick motion towards a rather large pouch hanging at his side. "I'll be damned if I'm leaving these things lying just anywhere," he quickly explained. "If it comes down to it, I'm not above using an Artifact to get us out of here."

"Who dealt with Wargod last?"

"A group of Ebon Knights were massacred by it near Darg Kai, last I heard."

"Did we know any of them?"

"David was friends with a couple, and they were all out there on Baptiste's orders. Which means that if our theory about Wargod is correct, then there's a good chance that it knows where the gauntlets may be heading."

"Shit."

Jeremiah sighed heavily. "I've already asked Tara to set up sensors as far as the range will allow. If that thing comes calling, we'll know about it."

Neil shrugged. "Yeah, but what then? I didn't see Raider out there, and we can't just go riding into Destratos if Wargod's right on our tail."

Jeremiah grinned slightly. "We've got a few spare aircycles in the hangar, charged, armed, and ready to go. We'll make a b-line towards Paradise Isle and have someone with Raider meet us there. At least I won't feel so bad if Wargod follows us there. Queen Vesta's been on my shit-list for a while now," he added, his grin becoming a full smile.

"Good looking out," Neil declared, clenching his brother in arms by the hand as they patted each other heartily on the back. A flash of remembrance came across Neil as the two released. "Oh, I almost forgot why we came here," he made known. "Dude, I need some weapons and vehicles."

Jeremiah smiled slyly and nodded. If there was nothing else he was good at, he could always get some weapons. "Recreation or self-defense?," he teased.

"Possible demon-hunting."

Jeremiah nodded. "Come with me." 

"'Who's your daddy? Yes I am...'"

Natalie groaned loudly as she caught herself singing again. "Gah! I can't get that damned song out of my head!," she shouted, holding her temples. She and Darren were sharing one of the many rooms within Avalon, finally turning in after spending several hours with Neil and his friends. Natalie stood at the mirror, attempting to put some kind of order to her extremely long hair before going to bed, while Darren, who had no such hair to deal with, was already in his own bed. Natalie cast a quick glance over her shoulder, watching her friend's slumped over form. "Hey Darren, are you woke?," she wondered.

There was a brief pause. "No," came the groggy reply. There was some shuffling under the covers, and Darren was sitting up facing her. "What's up?," he replied, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Natalie stared at her reflection in the mirror for a few moments. She gently reached up and began playing with her hair, pulling several of the strands into a braid. "Do you think I should cut my hair?," she asked.

Darren blinked. "Come again?"

She shrugged. "I dunno, I've just been thinking about doing it for a while now... I just wanted to try something different."

"I like you hair though," Darren made known. "Besides, I don't know many people that have it coming down to their butt. It's kinda unique."

"It's also a pain in the butt..."

"Then cut it."

"I'm not sure if I want to do something that drastic though..."

"Then don't cut it."

Natalie snickered. "You're a lot of help," she teased.

Darren smiled as he ducked back under the covers. "Such is the price I pay for being a man."

Before she could respond, there was a light knocking at their door. Natalie had barely said 'Come in' when she saw a familiar form poking his head inside the room. "Hey Mani, what's up?," she wondered.

The young ninja quickly made his way into the room, shutting the door behind him as he came in. There was an obvious bit of anxiety in his eyes, and Natalie quickly noted that he seemed a little rushed. He held a bag over his shoulder with one hand, his dark katana present in the other. "We have to leave," he quickly explained. "Right now." His demeanor was deadly serious, too serious for it to have been a mere joke. Without another word, Natalie reached for her belongings, as Darren rolled out of his bed and hastily redressed.

Seconds later, the three were running down the corridors of Avalon, belongings cradled in their arms. Several of the doors along the hallway were also opened, and the occasional person could be seen scrambling out into the hallway, also taking off in sprints. "What's going on?," Natalie finally asked, taking care not to slow down.

Mani cast a quick glance over his shoulder. "Several of the perimeter alarms just went off," he hastily explained. "Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't just abandon the base like this, but this is far from normal circumstances..."

"You must have some pretty dangerous enemies around here," Darren interrupted.

Mani stopped running, which caused both Natalie and Darren to come to a sudden halt. "It's a lot worse than that," he explained. He took a deep breath.

"It's Wargod. And we've got less than two minutes before it gets here."