CHAPTER THREE: THE VISIT
I: Satyr looked at Beth as they walked down the road. She couldn't believe that, after all this waiting, it was finally time. The shackles would be thrown off and they would ascend, away from here, something Satyr had been waiting to do for quite a while now.
"It is glorious that it is finally time, don't you think?" Satyr asked Beth, who shook her head.
"It is simply the first step on a long road, Satyr; plenty of work is required before we can bear fruit" Beth replied, Satyr sighed and nodded.
"I know, I know. But still, we are setting out on the long road after such a time of waiting, there is just something about that start that...Just...Mmm" Satyr ended with a noise, rather than a word since she didn't have a word for it.

"That is true dear and I am rather ecstatic, but it is not like anything we have faced before. Three walls - that we know of and there might be more. The first has already been broken and the second has a plan in place, but the third…" Beth trailed off, staring at the sky. After a while she shook her head. "But, we are at the start and that is something. Better than what was before" She finished. Satyr nodded in agreement. The two girls then began to speak about more mundane things, like the weather and how much they liked Eliot's newest Kitchen experiment, until they arrived at a rather large house. It stood out from all the others with its ornately carved statues of a woman wearing a dress made from leaves and holding a globe that, on further inspection, looked very similar to the Earth. The way the statue's eyes where carved made it seem as if the holder owned, or had created the orb.

Satyr had seen it a few times and knew what it represented, but little other people did. The rest of the house was made from equally large - both in length and width - quarry stones that looked distinctively fresher than the rest of the street, which made it stand out from the rest of the red - brick houses even more. There was a feeling that this house had not existed for very long, or at least not as long as the other houses on the street.
"Never could blend in, could he?" Satyr asked rhetorically as they opened the gate and walked up to the door, pushing it open without so much as a knock.

The Inside of the house was devoid of practically everything, there were no tables, or clocks, or chandeliers that someone would have expected, seeing the outside. There was not even any boxes that would explain the bareness, it was simply an empty hallway, stretching on until it reached a set of stairs, the stairs then went up to another bare hallway, this one dotted with several, unpainted doors. Beth had seen it before, it was obvious considering the owners favourite pass - time. As she walked through the hallway, her footfalls light and hard to hear, she heard a thudding sound, as if something very heavy was moving on the second floor. She smiled and looked up as a bare - chested mountain of a man - easily thirty stone and topping six and a half foot - his muscles where so large that his bare - chested appearance was justified, since there was no shirt or jacket he could wear without his monstrous girth ripping it in half.

His muscles where mainly around the top half of his body, but his leg muscles where well developed as well, if not to a clothes - ripping extent. To most people, the man would be terrifying to an extent that they would probably run and hide from him. Beth, however, had grown used to the bulk of the man and was not bothered by it, much. There was still a wariness of him, but it was suppressed.
"Hello Glee, is Niall in?" She asked, Satyr stayed close to Beth's side, she was considerably more wary of Glee, as she was to everyone or everything that could crush her skull with a single hand and little effort.

"It's Mr. Glee, not just Glee. And yes, he is in, what do you want with him?" Mr. Glee asked.
"I want a book" She replied, obviously not planning on giving much - if any - more than that.
"Fine, follow me" Mr. Glee said with a sigh. Beth and Satyr headed up the stairs and followed Mr. Glee along the hallway and into a room, as bare as the rest. Niall was sat on the floor with two women who were standing, the man was tall, six foot easily and has well - toned muscles, or though they were nowhere near the size of Mr. Glee's. Beth explained it to Satyr the first time she asked as concentrated strength, the muscles could exert as much strength as Mr. Glee's, but where a lot smaller. Niall wore a t - shirt and had hair that reached the middle of his back which was the opposite of Mr. Glee's bald, bare - chested look.

The two standing women were vastly different to Mr. Glee and Niall, one of them had blonde hair that was in two ponytails at either side of her head and each tail was platted, however both tails where so long that the sprawled down to the bottom of the girl's back. The dress that the girl with the extremely long hair was wearing was one of amazing detail and Beth couldn't help smiling as she saw it.

The long haired girl had a ribbon wrapped around her neck and the top part of her chest was bare, it also had very short arms, not even coming down to her elbows before cutting off with a frilly pattern. The top of her breasts had a frilly fabric look to it but this just made the dress all the better. It then carried on down to the stomach area where it was plain and fitted tightly to her, it looked to be offering support for the rest of the dress by the way it hugged her. The actual light brown dress started around her waist and the sides had the same light brown fabric that with overlapping layers that the rest of the dress was made out of but the front appeared to be a separate part of the dress and was made of silk rather the taffeta the rest of the dress was made out of. Roughly ten tiers of this pink silk ran down her waist part of the dress, each tier getting wider until it reached the floor.

The dress was so long it covered her feet but from the sound she made when the girl came in she was probably wearing some sort of flat shoes with the small but wide heel on them. Such work must have gone into the making of that dress that Beth wondered how much it would have cost. It looked very expensive, the extensive use of silk alone would have made the dress expensive, but the rest of the material, the design and the needlework that was required would make the dress something with such a large price tag that most people could not even think to afford it. Beth smiled, she had seen this girl before, her name was Chiyo and she had lived in this house with Niall since it was built, but what she never knew was why.

The second girl however was significantly taller that Chiyo, possibly a foot taller and her hair was a lot shorter as well, while Chiyo's hair ran down her back and stopped at the edge of her spine the girls hair barely reached her shoulders.
The clothing she was wearing was not as flashy as Chiyo's dress but it was still rather grand. The headdress she wore was a dark black and it, like the rest of her uniform, seemed to mesmerize the observer with the sheer depth of the darkness.

She had a frilly collar that ran from her chin to her collarbone. The bare opening was a lot smaller than Chiyo's dress as it was only a short a small portion of the chest area as opposed to Chiyo's completely naked upper chest area. The opening was decorated in a frilly pattern and just below it was the same look as Chiyo's dress, a crinkly look to the uniform made it look good but it did not seem to offer much support, that came from the two dozen laces that kept a corset like thing closed.

The arm sleeves where plain and short, cutting off just above the elbow, but they ended in the same frilly pattern the chest opening was made from. She was also wearing frilly cuffs tied with a single lace to keep them from falling off, one of the laces was pointing outwards but the other one was pointing inwards. She had a pure white apron over the bottom half of her uniform that ended in the same frilly pattern that was predominant in the rest of the uniform.

"Well now, I have seen you wear some fancy things before, Lady Chiyo, but that one has to be the most fancy" Beth told Chiyo, the use of the honorific made Mr. Glee rather annoyed.
"So you get hers perfectly good on the first try, but you miss out mine completely?" Mr. Glee looked like he was going to saw more and it looked like it was going to be rather unfriendly as well, but the woman in the maid's uniform looked over and spoke softly.
"Do use such a tone with my Mistress, Mr. Glee" She told him, Mr. Glee looked as wary of the maid as Beth did of him, which was slightly confusing for Beth. She had not seen him wary of anything. A man that size didn’t need to be wary of a herd of stampeding rhinos.
"Sorry, Lilly, I just was annoyed" he said, straightening himself up as much as a person of his size could. Niall took advantage of the lull and speak, in a very strong, but not bass - deep, voice.

"Beth, what brings you here?" He asked, it had to have settled the situation somewhat, but there was still a tense atmosphere.
"I need a book. A very specific book. It is time" She told him and Niall needed no more. Mr. Glee looked more alert than he had before and even Lilly had a rather pleased look on her face. The only one that was confused was Chiyo, but she didn't let anyone see it, because she didn't like someone knowing that she didn't know something.
"Finally. Been a while, eh?" Niall asked, getting up and heading for the door. "Sorry Lady Chiyo, this is immensely important, I will assist you further when I am finished with this" he apologized, before exiting the room, followed closely by Beth and Satyr, leaving Mr. Glee to explain.

"It is part of his - “ Mr. Glee stumbled over the word for a while before picking on out that suited him “ - religion, the one they have been waiting for is finally here and now they must prepare against the ones that would not want her to reach her full potential. It's all very complicated and I stay out of it as much as I can, so that is really all I know" Mr. Glee explained, to the best of his knowledge at least.
"I never knew Niall was religious, he doesn't seem the type" Chiyo said, before shrugging. "Well then, Lilly and I shall retire to my room until Niall returns. Thank you for the explanation Mr. Glee" Chiyo said, before heading to the door herself, Lilly followed with an odd smile, the same smile that a child has on Christmas when he knows presents wait for him downstairs.

Mr. Glee sat in the room for a few more minutes, not really sure what to do until Beth and Satyr returned, Satyr had a large book under her arm and Niall was rather more hyped than he had been for a long time, it was rather odd to see Niall being so…cheery.
"Goodbye Niall, I will see you later" Beth told him, waving and heading down the stairs.
"Goodbye, Beth." He replied, smiling and then heading back to Chiyo's room to continue their rather interesting discussion.

II. When the girls got back to the house Eliot was playing cushion to Avrion and Nehvna, it was so cute to see him being a cushion but it was ruined a second later by Beth and Satyr barging though the door, jolting the two girls awake.
"I'm up" Nehvna squeaked as she sat up, Beth and Satyr went upstairs without saying anything to anyone and ignored all the curious looks. However, everybody followed the two up the stairs after only a few seconds of debating. But when they arrived at the bedroom that had been used to keep Jane's unconscious form - twice - in there was nothing understandable to be nosey at when, Satyr was sat reading the book and Beth was looking at her, the book had a lot of names followed by strange symbols that Jane had never seen, Satyr did not seem to pay them any mind so Jane simply ignored them, passing them off as unimportant.

Satyr flicked though the book for a few minutes before pointing to one of the names, Jane did not see it before the book was passed to Beth.
It was at this point that Jane noticed a paint pot next to Beth, a few seconds where spent wondering what she was going to do with it or even where she got it from before she took the brush out and began painting the symbols Jane saw on the book. When Beth had finished painting the last symbol they glowed with a bright light before a holographic woman appeared, but it was a fuzzy quality and Jane couldn't make out any details other than she was a woman.

Satyr however didn't seem to need any detail and said something in a rather confusing tongue that Jane had never heard of. The woman nodded and the symbols stopped glowing, then the woman disappeared.
"You see? Nothing to worry about" Satyr told Beth, Beth looked rather on edge about the whole thing but relaxed when Satyr comforted her.
"I was worried that we would get the wrong one" she told Satyr before standing up and seeing the confused looks on everyone's faces.
"We made a phone call" she said simply before heading past them. Jane and Silverfang looked at Eliot who simply shrugged.
"You expect me to know what she means?" he asked so they all followed Beth and Satyr down the stairs like a game of follow - the - leader. When Jane asked Beth what she meant Beth stared looking rather annoyed.
"You use phones to call people. That is why it is called a phone call" She said, annoying Jane.
"Fine, keep your secrets" Jane said in a huff, returning to Silverfang who had sat on the couch.
"Sorry about your party idea" she said, snuggling into Silverfang.
"Don't worry about it, today has been much more exciting" He told Jane, relaxing so that he would be a more comfortable pillow.
"Yea and much more painful" she said, looking at the bruise on his chin from her vantage point.

While Jane and Silverfang where snuggling Eliot had not given up on finding out what Satyr and Beth had been doing.
"Tell me who you were calling" He said, giving up on asking for the content.
"Rose, I assumed that since she was the one in use then she would be the one handing things around here" Satyr told Eliot, ignoring his gormless look.
"Rose? You mean Scarlet Rose? How can you just call her?" Eliot asked, throwing several questions at Satyr who was beginning to look annoyed.
"Yes I mean Scarlet Rose and I can just call her because I got the phone book from Niall and that allows me to call any Familiar registered." Satyr said to him, shedding light on what she had just done.

"So you are saying that with that book you can call any Familiar in the world?" He asked to which Satyr simply shook her head.
"No, only the ones registered, Familiars are registered by default but people can opt to unregister them so people can't contact them, don't ask why though." She said before heading into the kitchen, an obvious sign that the conversation was over.
"This day keeps getting weirder." Eliot said, scratching his head.
"Give it time, the best is yet to come" Beth told him before following Satyr and leaving Eliot with a befuddled look.

After a minute Eliot gave up and walked back into the front room, flopping down on one of the chairs. "What is with Satyr being so cryptic?" he asked, rhetorically but Jane answered all the same. "Because she has a secret and you know how she is with secrets". Eliot was not expecting an answer so it took him a second to realize that Jane was talking to her.
"But she has never been so…secretive" Eliot told her, sighing heavily, Jane - for her part - simply shrugged.

"Satyr and Beth, are extremely greedy for knowledge, they are the kind of people that would destroy half the world if they thought it would give them the secrets of the other half" Silverfang told Eliot like he did not already know.
"I know but that does not mean I am not annoyed about it" Eliot replied.
Jane looked at Eliot and Silverfang before smiling, she had no plans to return after what her father did to her. "So do you want to retry your night or do you think someone is going to interrupt it again?" she asked, the cheeky grin giving more weight to her words
"Well since we are expecting Satyr's guest whenever I guess we should just wait and not try anything that is going to get interrupted in an hour or so" Eliot explained so Jane simply shrugged and snuggled into Silverfang again.

III - 2 Shadow's face screwed up as his last wound was stitched up.
"I can't believe you got beat" the man who was stitching him up said with a slight amused tone. "Watch it Doc or you will be your next patient" Shadow growled but this did not stop the man from chuckling slightly.
"I believe we have not given this man the attention he deserves" the doctor said, cleaning the blood off his hands and leaving for the door. He opened it and turned back to Shadow.
"I think you are going to need a better sword, or a new partner, before you go up against him again" the doctor told Shadow who smiled an evil smile.
"I was thinking both actually and it has already been taken care of" his voice had taken on a dark undertone to it.

"So I am to expect an addition soon then?" The doctor asked to which Shadow nodded.
"Always good" the doctor said, leaving the room.
Shadow stood up and rubbed the large shoulder stitching before picking up his tattered coat. "Working for a runaway to chase down a legend. How far can I fall?" he asked himself before leaving the room. This place was a nice haven for the unwanted people of the universe, the only question ever asked around here was 'how much will it cost' and even that one was not really asked that much, questions around here tended to get you on one of the beds, or in the morgue. Shadow liked that about here. As he walked down the hallway he saw the man he was going to be working with now, he had that same feel, that same aura around him as the man that had cut his chest open and that was one of the reasons Shadow was working with him, but not the only reason. He wanted revenge and power and the opportunity to kill people. With this man, he would have all that.
"Any leads?" Shadow asked, putting his coat on.
"One...you shall investigate" The man - Shadow was not sure it was really a man, just had the look of a man - growled. Shadow nodded and headed towards the main entrance, he wasn't treated with the respect he wanted, but it was better than being with Mark. Here he wasn't underestimated and here he had freedom, to an extent.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE ARRIVAL
I. Jane woke up. She didn't know that she had fallen asleep but she must have done, you rarely wake up without falling to sleep. Upon waking up she saw a new person in the front room, the hole in the wall had been fixed over the course of her sleep which made her ask how long she had been snoozing.
"About an hour" Silverfang informed her before catching the questioning look. "That's Scarlet, she came down about ten minutes ago and has been talking quietly with Beth and Satyr for the past nine and a half" he told her, glaring at them, it was so bumming to be left out of a secret conversation. Jane looked at the new girl for a few seconds before she remembered something.
"Where's Nehvna and Avrion?" she asked Silverfang scratched his head.
"They are asleep somewhere, they told Eliot they were tired and so probably crashed on one of the beds, not sure which one though" Silverfang told Jane. She was satisfied with this answer as she laid back down on Silver's lap.
"So this Rose? She isn't Scarlet Rose is she, Sean's Familiar?" Jane asked rather sceptically, not believing that she would come here. However, she did seem similar to that hazy woman Satyr and Beth where talking to.

"Probably, I don't know. It was just 'Scarlet' so it could be Rose, or it could not be." Silverfang replied so Jane simply shrugged and snuggled back into him.
"Wake me up when they let us in on the conversation." Jane said with an underlying grumpiness before going back to sleep.
Jane was awoken half an hour after she went back to sleep.
"They are involving us now" Silverfang told her, Jane was groggy but interested.
"I have talked with Satyr and she tells me that you are the one Shadow tried to kidnap" Scarlet said, looking at Jane.
"Yea, he is my dad's Familiar and so he tried to drag me back home" Jane explained, Scarlet simply shook her head.
"No, I'm afraid Shadow is no longer your father's Familiar because your father no longer is. And he did not take you for your father, he took you for himself" Scarlet said in a neutral voice, but with a slight tone of pity.
"Ohh, well then he was my father's Familiar" Jane reiterated, seemingly unperturbed by the announcement of her father's death, she was a bit confused as to what she meant by 'for himself' but she didn't really care to know the answer. "So, who offed the old….can't find a good word for him really." Jane admitted.
"Actually it was Shadow that killed him" Rose informed them casually, as if it was common knowledge that Familiars could kill their partners. The look of confusion on everyone but Beth and Satyr's faces however, told Scarlet it was not.
"But I thought Familiars couldn't be here without a partner, so killing their partner would immediately cause them to disappear" Jane said, stating everyone's question.
"They can if they have a new master before killing the old one" Rose replied, this did nothing for the confusion however.

"Familiars can change partners?" Silverfang asked before Jane could.
"Ahh, I forgot that humans and their Familiars where largely ignorant of the way in which Familiars work" Rose said with a slight smile, she looked as if she was going to speak but was interrupted by Silverfang.
"You make it sound like humans aren't the only people that have Familiars" He said sceptically, unsure if this Rose was trying to trick him or actually though that people where really stupid.
"You're an idiot" Rose told him, unintentionally answering his question. "The Orion–Cygnus Arm holds a lot more than just this system. And then there is the rest of the galaxy and then the other galaxies beyond that. The universe is a big place, so incomprehensibly large that only a half dozen beings have true omnipotence within it and you are trying to say that you are the only race to reside in it? Humans really are some of the densest sentient beings around" Rose told everyone, sighing slightly with vexation, she then spoke quietly to Satyr for a while, ignoring everyone else, before leaving.
"He's coming soon" Silverfang heard before Rose left. Silverfang then approached Beth and Satyr with a rather un-amused look. "I have a few questions for you" He said with a strained voice, dragging both of them upstairs despite Satyr's protests that she needed to wait downstairs.

"Right, stand there a second while I work out where to start" Silverfang told Beth as he dragged her into the guest room.
"Start on what?" Beth asked, genuinely confused for one of the first times.
"Probing you for answers" he replied, but before he could think of a question a voice came from the doorway.
"Is there a problem?" it asked in a rather calm voice that had an underlying tone of such seriousness it would make the most prude man's voice seem silly.
"No thank you Eliot, we are fine" Beth said before noticing that the voice was completely different to Eliot's, however when she looked over at the doorway there was no one there. Forgetting Silverfang for the moment - and he did not seem to mind being forgotten as he followed Beth - she walked over to the door and looked around. There was no one in the hallway or on the stairs. With her curiosity now at extreme levels Beth headed downstairs.
"Has anyone come in yet?" Beth asked with a confusing scanning of the room.
"Your Rose friend left only a minute ago, why would anyone be here yet?" Eliot said, answering her question with a question of his own and looking at Beth's confused face with his own face of confusion.
"He has a point; it's not like Rose is even where she is going yet. And people can't just appear in houses with such a large group without anyone seeing them." The calm, serious voice said, but the speaker was gone by the time Beth had looked around.
"This is not just me going nuts it is?" Beth asked but the looks on everyone else's face indicated that was not the case.

"It wouldn't be the first time you have gone nuts" The bodiless voice said, a hint of amusement entering its voice. This time the voice spoke, a look of recognition crossed over Beth's face, quickly followed by a look of extreme annoyance.
"I'm going to feed you to some dogs, kill the dogs and then feed them to some bigger dogs. Then kill them dogs and burn their remains" Beth threatened.
"Scary" The voice replied with no deviation from its normal tone. "You don't mind if I draw on these walls do you?" It asked and obviously didn't wait for a reply because a second later a very realistic drawing of a Giraffe appeared on the walls. "Giraffe is such a strange name, but then so is Hippopotamus" the voice mused in a tone that was getting increasingly amused. Beth had already walked over to the cutlery drawer and was currently picking out a dozen knives.
"I like Dobermen, them massive dog - bear - things, the only problem is that things tend to get really hairy around them" the voice said, laughing at its own joke. Jane and Avrion also forgot the strange events for a second and laughed while the boys just stood with confused looked on their faces.

Beth then stormed over to the spot she was standing on and threw the dozen knives in the direction of the drawing. Several of the knives thudded into something and the knife part turned red quickly, a sharp "Ow, that hurt" rang out, the only one without a look of shock and confusion was Beth, who simply had an annoyed look on her face. "Et tu Bethee?" The voice asked before a thud rang out and the knives moved downwards, near the floor, but floating in the invisible man.

Beth waited for a second before walking over to the area where the knives was and looking down. "Now stop pissing about" she said in a commanding sort of voice.
"Trust you to ruin my fun" The voice said as the knives flew up again and pulled themselves out of whatever it was lodged in. The knife spun one and then it was devoid of any blood that stained it, however the blood was not on the carpet or the surrounding walls, it had simply vanished.

"You're not seeing me though, I need to make my dramatic entrance, talking of which, is nearly here. Put the kettle on, I want a cuppa tea" The voice said and a couple of seconds later the knives lost their fight with gravity and plummeted to the floor. Beth then proceeded to pick up the rest of the knives and did her best to ignore all the confused looks she was getting from Eliot and the rest of them.

"Wha?" Jane asked as Beth gathered the last of the knives and began to wipe them one by one and put them back in the drawer. She then filled the kettle up with hot water and started waiting for it to boil. Seeing that she would not get an answer out of Beth she turned to Silverfang. Nehvna and Avrion came down the stairs, yawning and stretching.
"What was with all the noise?" Nehvna asked, but whatever reply she would have gotten was cut off by an extremely loud roar of an exceptionally powerful engine that came from outside, it was so powerful that things in the house started vibrating from the intensity of the noise. The noise sustained for a few more seconds, and then cut off.
“Bloody ‘ell, he could wake the Kabals with that racket” Beth muttered as there was a knock at the door.

"I’m not getting that, I remember what happened last time I answered the door" Eliot said, making Beth chuckle a bit as she opened the door.
"Hello" the man at the door said with a smile before Beth punched him in the face.
"Somehow that looks familiar" Eliot said, watching her punch the man.
"You have a very strange way of showing your affection, you know" he said, rubbing his nose.

"Yes well you are just very strange Sean, so I am allowed to have very strange ways" Beth told him before letting him inside to the ogling people. Nehvna gasped as she saw who was at the door, and moved close to Jane's ear to whisper in it, not wanting the others to hear.
"I've got a crush on him, he is so scruffy in hair and clothes but he pulls it off so well he looks better than he would in a suit. He devilishly charming and the most chivalrous person I have ever seen, there is just something about him that makes me feel all gooey when I see him, even on the T.V, so him being here in person is...It's just...Ohh" Nehvna devolved into a squeal and was a hairs breadth away from jumping up and down. Jane looked at Nehvna with a smile before whispering back.

"Nehvy, that just makes you like every other girl on the planet" then adding with thought 'except me, I can't fathom what the others see in him' she thought. Sean had walked into the middle of the room in the time between Nehvna and Jane's conversation; he then looked around at the people and bathed in the awed looks.
"Everyone loves me, everyone thinks I am awesome, everyone - "he began but Beth cut him off sharply.

"Don't make he have to stab you again you egotistic maniac" She said handing a cup of tea to Sean and sitting down, ignoring the scowl she was getting from Nehvna.
"Well it seems I have won over the women around here, now all I need to do is win over you" Sean told Beth who scowled at him.
"I seriously will stab you if you carry on" she said, taking one of the knives out of her sleeve to prove it. Then she thought for a second on what he had just said. "Does that mean you don't think I am a woman?" she asked, brandishing the knife rather dangerously for Sean's liking.

"I’m just saying you're the only one not won over" He told Beth, pacifying her, as the knife vanished back up her sleeve. Sean took a sip from his cup of tea and then looked over at Jane, smiling like he was going to cause some mischief.
"Awww, I want her as my sister, we could have so much fun" Sean said, causing Beth to throw the knife at him. It sunk into Sean's head and forced it to roll back before it returned to its original position. However, he didn't slop any of his tea and the rest of his body was unaffected by the knife.

"Dammit woman, stop throwing knives at me. It’s a party trick only “he said, pulling the knife out of his head.
"How..? How..?" Jane asked, her questions just trailed off to nothing.
"Well this is a book, so I can do anything I want" he told Jane with an "I know more than you" type of smile before holding up a book.
"How does that help you pull knives out of your head?" Jane asked again.
"It doesn't. I wasn't even talking about this, I just thought it was a good book and decided to show it to you all" Sean told them before lowering the book, it disappeared from his hand after a few seconds.
"Then what book are you referring to?" Jane asked, Beth was right; this day was getting weirder and weirder. Sean looked like he was about to say more but a very stern glare from Beth made him silent.
"Well enough about that, I guess I should get down to why I am here. And to help me I have brought someone you might know" he said, nodding his head to a man stood with a good posture. He was the polar opposite of Sean with straightened hair and a posh suit. Even his body language was different, the new man was standing serious and looked "to the point" sort of person while Sean's stance was a lot more chill and, as he had just demonstrated, looked to be the person to have some humorous banter before getting down to business.

"Balance, stop being a stiff" Sean said, taking another - this time larger - sip from his cup, Nehvna made a slight squeal as she found out who the new person was.
"I am, by nature, a stiff. I am the serious person, you are the bantering person. Together we make the team" Balance told him, there was the memory of his words but no memory of him actually having spoken.
"Stop showing off Balance, we can all do that, we just don't because showing off is only good if the crowd will appreciate it." Sean told Balance, his words made it appear that he was annoyed but his tone and body language showed that he was not.
"My apologies" Balance told Sean, this time it was a normal way of speaking. He then looked at the people in the room. Five of them where looking bewildered, one of them was looking annoyed and one of them was looking bored.
"Are we going to get to the Shadow problem yet?" Beth asked, she had heard then banter a hundred times and it was highly annoying.

"Ohh yea, the Shadow problem. He took out Mark so he must have a new master, Shadow is not the kind of person to do such a thing unless he thinks it will get him further that staying with Mark but then let's face it, Mark is a dweeb and there is a billion people on this planet alone that could get him further than staying with Mark, so it is a bit of a redundant statement" Sean said, stroking his chin to make himself look like his thoughts where more deep. Silverfang picked up on the stance and smiled.

"I do that as well" Silverfang said, which caused Sean to smile as well.
"It is an awesome thinking pose" Sean replied, draining his cup before catching Nehvna's eye. "Why is there some shy looking beauty staring at me?" He asked. Nehvna's face quickly turned bright red and soft squeaks escaped her as she clung to Jane for support. She had never been called a beauty before and it was Sean calling her that as well, she couldn't handle this pressure, it was all too much. She wanted to stop the embarrassing squeaks coming out of her mouth but she had no control over them at all. Jane spotted how Nehvna was feeling and so decided to step in, to salvage the situation while she still could.
"She is my sister and she can be shy at times, so please be nice" Jane told him, giving Nehvna a hug to comfort her.

"Hmm, If I marry her then I could be Jane's brother in law" Sean said with a scheming smile, Nehvna's squeaking doubled as the prospect of marriage entered it and she buried herself in Jane's chest, not wanting to be seen by anyone, now that her cheeks rivalled the sun for brightness.
"Sean. Focus" Beth told him, making two separate words and adding a large amount of emphasis to both of them. He spun round and spoke in single words.

"Yes. Shadow. Right." He then returned to the use of proper sentences "From what I have seen already jumped ship, took him long enough as well. I'd head to Klass directly but I need to pick up a very important someone and such a jump would be hard to do undetected" Sean told Beth, plastering the over used look of confusion on everyone's faces.
"Who is Klass" Eliot asked, Jane had apparently let him do the speaking this time.
"Ahh, Klass, an old friend. He used to be a planet hopper, going from one planet to the next gathering holidays and festivals while spreading the holidays and festivals from the last planet; he takes about two, gives about two and then leaves for the next planet. He does this because he is a Thaui, a being that draws strength from being known. It is similar to Celestial style but require simple knowledge rather than prayer. I met him after one of his visits to a new planet and invited him into a…." Sean failed on the word and simply repeated "a" until Beth spoke.

"You are simply making more questions with your explanation" Beth told Sean.
"Yea that sort of happens a lot" he replied, looking at all the gormless faces, the only one that didn't look like their brain had jumped ship was Beth, but she had heard it all before.
"He is a friend" Sean said simply, he disliked such simplicity but it was necessary for these people.
"Try keeping on track, Shadow is bad, tell us your plan" Beth told him, he glared at her before speaking again and keeping it simple.

"He has gone, I'm going to find out what he is up to and I want you to take them to Klass' place, that is why I brought him up" Sean told Beth, but Jane piped up with a question.
"If Klass if a planet hopper" Jane spoke the word strangely, as if it was hard to comprehend herself saying it "Then where would his 'place' be?" She asked, fully expecting an answer she couldn't properly understand. Sean nodded, rather impressed, Jane had taken the knowledge rather well and was thinking laterally as well. He decided to voice his approval, because he was like that.

"That is a very good question. He settled down after a while, I could tell you where but you would not understand where it was" Sean told her, it was not as confusing a reply as usual but it still shocked everyone.
"So, this off planet is…actually leaving the planet. That…sounds…unique" Silverfang said eventually, finally managing to get the words out. "So, how are we going to get there?" He asked.

"That is also a good question, as I don't have a space - ship stuffed down my pants, despite what people might think" He said, a rather lewd smile spread across his face before Beth glared at him.
"Umm, sorry about that, well just watch the birdy for a second" Sean then lifted up his empty cup of tea and everyone was drawn to it, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. It was Jane that first noticed the different surroundings. He then dropped the cup on the floor and it vanished as soon as it touched the carpet.

"Why have the walls changed?" She asked, causing Sean to smile, he looked like he was going to go into a massive explanation when Beth starred at him and made him give the simple one.
"We changed houses. And islands, we are now in Ireland, I moved with a certain amount of subtlety since I want to stay relatively under the radar for now." Sean explained.
"And what radar is this?" Jane asked, she didn't know there was radar for people instantly changing islands.
"The Radar. Explanation would be confusing." Sean replied, hating how he had to keep so brief.

"Is that how we are going to go 'off planet' then?" Jane asked, it was not in any way how she though planet travelling would be like. The others had made Jane the 'Question Asker' as everyone else was staying silent.
"No, same planet travel is nice and quick but going to other planets requires a bit more, especially when you move with the subtlety that I am moving with" He explained again, he was doing a lot of explaining but then he liked explaining so it was all good.
"So what does this 'bit more' look like then?" Jane asked, the only person not completely stunned by the change of surroundings, but then she was a lot like Beth in that respect, she liked to know what was going on all the time.
"Well it is going to look like the insides of your eyelids, since you are all going to take a nice nap while I set it up" Sean replied, as he finished Jane yawned, she had not felt tired a minute ago but now her eyelids where so heavy and hard to keep open. Everyone around her started yawning as well, Jane was uncertain if they looked more confused or tired but she herself was too tired to think about that.

"What's happening?" Jane asked in a slurred voice, hardly pronouncing the words. She felt like she hadn't slept for a week and would like nothing better than to lie down and close her eyes but she kept them open with sheer force of will to at least get the answer from Sean before she crashed.
"I simply suggested that you should take a nice nap while I sorted the whole planet thing out. You are the ones who are now heeding my suggestion and taking a nap." Sean said, his smile made it blatantly obvious that he was lying though his teeth but Jane could not stay away any longer stay awake. Several thuds where heard in rapid succession as everyone collapsed from extreme exhaustion. Beth, Sean and their respective familiars where the only people left standing at the end of it, he smiled in a satisfied manner and turned to his sister.

"Mind giving me a hand? Planet travel is easy enough but when you have to cart such a large group of people around it gets slightly more difficult to move subtly" Sean told her, she shrugged and got up.
"You know you didn't have to be so forceful with them, it was even affecting me with the force you put into that." Beth replied. The feeling of tiredness had gone from her body but everyone else was sleeping soundly, it would be nearly impossible to wake them up with the fatigue they were feeling.

"Well I don't really have a guide to tell me what her resistance is, so I erred on the side of caution" Sean explained, kicking the carpet. A small obelisk, roughly 5 foot, rose out of the ground with four sides; each side had a space carved specifically for a person's hand. Beth, Satyr, Sean and Balance all put their hands on the obelisk and it glowed two different colours, A deep, lush green for Sean and Balance and a shocking violet for Satyr and Beth, The obelisk shone the two colours for about a minute and then the walls changed again and the whole atmosphere felt different, even the air smelt different and flowed down your throat in a different way to the air on Earth.
"Well, now that that is done I'm going out. Watch the kids" Sean said, heading to the door. The obelisk sank back into the ground, its job done.