To say the ride through the vortex was straightforward was a straight up lie. It was painful. It burnt. It tore her essence to shreds. And it tossed Amneris right out the other end like she was nothing. Amneris crashed onto the dark dirt, groaning as she rolled onto her back, struggling to move any further than that. A face came into view over her. A blurred face.

Nephthys leaned in closer with a frown. "Didn't think you'd make the jump."

Amneris, somehow, manage to lift her hand and raise a finger at Nephthys. Her voice rasped as she said, "Fuck you."

Nephthys clapped her hands together cheerfully. "That's more like it."

The woman helped Amneris to her feet. Her legs shook with the strain of standing, her body still repairing. Amneris glanced at Nephthys. "Why don't you look damaged?"

She laughed. "I've been waiting here for an hour!"

Amneris stared at her dumbly. "An hour."

"Well, it felt like an hour." She shrugged. "Time is strange here. It passes as it pleases with no set rhythm or speed. Time runs wild."

"You know, I heard that phrase once in some TV show on of my Courtiers is into. Quite the literal turn."

Nephthys sighed, her pride gone. "Oh, daughter, you know Time is a real force, just like all the other Primordial forces in Creation. They all exist somewhere and they can all take on forms to recognise and communicate with us."

"I know." Amneris stretched, the pain throughout her body dissipating. "Where do we go now?"

Nephthys pointed ahead. "Onwards."

* * *

Amneris and Nephthys walked in silence across their new terrain, leaving the violent vortex behind them. Much like the other worlds they walked on, this one was covered in the same black-grey dirt. Unlike the others, there were still some signs of life – the occasional withering tree or shrivelling flower. Amneris wondered if this was one of the newer worlds to fall into the Void. She leaned down to pluck a deep purple flower from the ground. It crumbled instantly in her hand. Look, don't touch, Amneris thought. Things here were fragile.

It was the sky that really caught her attention. It was different from the others. Newer. What looked like a giant rift was above them, creating a night sky filled with a few stars. They lit the way for Amneris and Nephthys as they walked, though neither dared take flight to have a closer look. It didn't have the right feel to be a rift. Then again, nothing her felt right. If it really was one, Amneris thought, it would be pretty fucking stupid to not go through it to get back home—

"Don't even think about it."

Her head snapped around to Nephthys who was looking at her with a disapproving frown.

"It's an old rift," she explained. "They look like new ones here, but you won't get through it. You'll hit some sort of mass and fall to not even the Gods know where."

Like when she first arrived in this place. Amneris had tried to fly back through the rift the Void Beasts pulled her through, but it had been solid. "I see," was all she could say. Amneris shook away her thoughts. No time to start losing hope in getting home. Instead, she asked, "Do you have any idea where we are?"

"None whatsoever," Nephthys helpfully answered.

"What about that box thingy you used to find the vortex?"

"No longer active," the woman sighed. "Knowing my luck, it was damaged in transit."

So there was no way to have any idea of where they are, if there were any other vortexes, or if there was anything of interest in the area. Brilliant. Because that was exactly what they needed. More trouble. Amneris muttered to herself, "Honestly, how could things get any worse."

A Void Beast crashed down in front of them, kicking up a storm of dirt. Amneris and Nephthys raised their hands to protect their eyes. The Void Beast roared, revealing its many layers of teeth.

"Oh, you just had to say something," Nephthys snapped.

"I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth," Amneris moaned.

"Are you recharged?"

Amneris glanced at her hands. She tried to summon her power. "Still nothing. I'm open to other suggestions." Nephthys pulled a blaster from her coat. Amneris said, "I thought we established those things don't work."

Nephthys sent her a withering glare. "I would rather go down fighting."

"You know, running is always an option."

Neither of them could consider the option. A new voice came from above. "Meteor Strike!"

A ball of stone and fire smashed into the Void Beast, throwing Amneris and Nephthys from their feet. They watched on in awe as a Star-Weaver woman put herself between them and the Void Beast. But the Beast wasn't injured, only stunned. It pushed up on its tentacles and made to attack the girl—

"Ra's Lightning!"

A flash of light so bright no could look into it smashed straight into the Void Beast from somewhere above. A man landed beside the Star-Weaver woman. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at Amneris and Nephthys. "Hey, mama."

"Horus!" Amneris exclaimed.

"Love to catch up," her step-son said, turning back to the Beast, "but we got a little problem here." He said to the Star-Weaver, "Where are Jax and Jinx?"

The Star-Weaver woman—Selina—said, "They were right behind us, I swear."

Horus groaned and facepalmed. "Fuckin' hell. I said 'grand dramatic entrance' not 'slow, boring entrance'."

Two more voices came from above:

"Tornado!"

"Tidal Wave!"

The combined power of water and wind slammed into the Void Beast, pushing it off into the distance. A red-haired Fae and Water-Weaver-Dreama woman with blue and black hair ran up to Selina and Horus.

"Sorry," The Fae—Jax—panted. "Landscape here: Weird."

"We got a little lost," the woman—Jinx—said.

Horus made an annoyed noise but said nothing. He jogged over to Amneris and hauled her to her feet. "Okay?"

"Been better," she admitted. Amneris glanced over at his three friends. "So, this is where you lot ended up."

"Void Beast attack," Horus said. "They dragged us in here when they were taking out a nearby system. You?"

"Attack on Lyriumia. I got grabbed." Amneris pointed at Nephthys. "She's been in here for seven-ish years."

Jax whistled. "Explains the burn."

"Matter scarring," Nephthys muttered as Jinx helped her to her feet.

Horus frowned at the woman, then swung an arm around Amneris' shoulders and led her away from the others. "Is that—"

"Yep."

"Didn't you—"

"I did."

"Huh." Horus glanced back at Nephthys again. "She must be strong to 'ave lasted seven years."

"Frustratingly." Amneris shook her head. "Never mind that, are you guys okay?"

"Shaken," Horus admitted. "It's not every day you get dragged into a realm where the rules are wrong and everything is trying to kill you."

"Really?" Amneris asked, surprised. "Average day for me."

"You're a Balance Keeper with anger issues and too much power, mama, of course it's a normal day for you." Horus crossed his arms. "We're not the only ones to be dragged in."

Amneris grimaced at the thought of the many remains she'd seen in her short—short? —time in the Void. "You don't say."

"I don't mean the bodies."

"Oh?"

Horus quickly glanced to where his friends were talking, Nephthys lingering nearby, before saying, "Those Raider people are everywhere, and we've found a few others who got dragged in and are lost. Some of them set up a camp nearby." He nodded in the direction Amneris and Nephthys had come from. "You probably know about the rift."

Amneris shivered. "Bad idea. Don't recommend."

"A few people have come here through it. Some of them have been long enough to burn—scar."

"Concerning." Amneris braced her hands on her hips. "You have a base camp there, I assume? Head there and exchange notes."

Horus smiled. "Sounds good." He called, "Yo! We're moving out!"

Jax and Jinx groaned while Selina cheered. Nephthys merely looked done with the group.

* * *

The group moved across the landscape, all of them armed as they kept an eye out for stray Void Beasts. They didn't swarm here, Horus had explained. Something to do with the vortex nearby. Apparently, it scared them off. Amneris and Horus walked at the front of the group, Jax, Jinx and Selina behind them. Nephthys lingered at the back, though showed no signs of suddenly trying to kill anyone.

Eventually, a small cluster of stones appeared on the horizon. Not stones, Amneris raised as they got closer, but another one of those ruined villages. This one was different. There was clearly life still in it. Small figures moved between the stones—houses. There even seemed to be a parameter guard wandering systematically around the outskirts. The guards were armed. There were many different species, all of them in different states, all of them looking lost.

Selina flew ahead, careful not to go too far above the ground in case she got dragged into the weird sky. "We have two more!"

Several people hurried to the edge of the village to meet the newcomers. Amneris recognised some of the faces while others she had never seen before. Most of them, unfortunately, appeared to recognise her. They stared on in varying states of shock and awe. Amneris resisted the urge to wave.

Horus led Amneris through the small crowd, Jax and Jinx flanking them. Nephthys disappeared somewhere among the people.

"There are some people who I think you should see," was Horus' only explanation. He led her into one of the houses where a small group of five people—two men and three women—were sitting around an open fire pit.

"Finally!" one of the women cried. She had tan skin, brown hair streaked with red tied into a low bun, heavy black eyeshadow and red lipstick.

Amneris recognised her from the video she and Xix had seen in the video back at the broken Terpolite monitor station. "You're Ali." She turned to the two men – the one on the left was white with bright red eyes, and short hair split into black and white sides. The one on the left was brown with dark red eyes and short black hair. Amneris pointed to each of them. "You're Finn and Xen."

"Yeah," Finn said, surprised. "How'd you know."

"Camera still worked in the monitor station."

"Huh." Finn leaned back with distant eyes. "Well, isn't that convenient."

Amneris turned to the other two women. She hadn't expected them to be here. The first had brown skin, pale blue eyes, short white hair and black angel wings which came with the Fallen Angels. The second was a brown woman with red eyes and long, dark brown hair streaked with red. "Nora and Nash, right?" The two women nodded. "How'd you end up here?"

Nora's wings ruffled. "We rounded a corner while coming home from date night, then here we were."

"Not the way we expected it to go." Nash joked, lightly bumping her shoulder against Nora's. The Fallen Angel smiled softly.

"A lot of people walked in by accident," Jax said, taking up a set beside Xen. "It sounds like there are rifts everywhere."

"There were when I left." Amneris wrapped a strand of hair around her finger. "It's probably a lot worse now."

Ali clasped her hands in front of her hopefully. "You're the one with the strongest magic here. Surely you can get us all home, right?" When no answer came, she urged, "Right?"

Amneris tugged that strand of hair. "Honestly, I don't know."