"Where did you pests go?!" Havel beckoned, walking through the thickly wooded area around him. He tapped glass eyepiece over his eye, changing the numbers over it. "Pesky power. They can't stay in there forever though. Even though they can't be starved out like on earth they still have to breath at the very least."

In the darkness were three girls in hiding. Their enclosure was a completely black dome, hardly big enough for all of them to fit in. The dome didn't let any light pass through it at all, just like a black hole.

Two of the girls had an almost identical appearance. They wore traditional red chinese dresses that went down to their shins, but were somewhat open on the sides. They both had short black hair and both had a particularly long lock of hair next to their faces. One of them had it braided next to her left cheek, and the other had it beaded on her right side.

The third girl wore black and grey fur clothing which was striped in certain places such as around her neck. Everything from her boots to her hood were furry, and her moonlight grey eyes hid behind it all.

"If you won't come out, then I guess I'll just have to strangle you out!" On his command, the plants around him grew rapidly, constricting movement everywhere but in a given radius of him.

Inside the dome, plants started sprouting out of the ground.

"You forgot to seal the ground!" yelled the girl with the braided strand.

The eyes of the other twin-ish girl widened when she saw her mistake, and she tried to seal up the ground the best she could in a panic. Many of the plants had already grown past a manageable point though, and were slowly taking up the space within.

The last girl couldn't do anything but cower in a fetal position, terrified of what was to come.

They were running out of space quickly.

In a last ditch effort, the dome suddenly disappeared and one of the red girls created a small, pitch black dot in the air, and her lookalike flicked it. The dot shot through the plant matter and in a lucky shot passed right through Havel's eyepiece, shattering it.

He looked at the broken shards on the ground and the plants stopped growing. "Are you kidding me?! That's the second one this week!" His anger quickly converted to confidence. "Oh well, I saw some familiar soul signatures on my scanner to the north a second ago, so I should probably leave anyways. Don't think that you'll get away, though." He faced the general direction that the black dot came from, scaring the girls. "I'll be sure to finish the job regardless of where you run off to hide."

He pounced somewhere else in the blink of an eye, leaving them shaken and enclosed in the jungle like area.

"I-is he really gone?" asked the hooded girl, looking up from over her knees.

"Looks like it," said the braided girl, "but I don't think that he'll be gone for long. We need to find safety quickly. Rin, are there any good vantage points around here?"

The girl with the beads nodded. "There should be one not too far to the north."

"Alright, let's head there. Sounds like our pursuer didn't like a group of people heading this way, so if we can find them then we'll surely be in good hands." She stopped and looked at her friend in the fur. "Does that sound good, Catherine?"

"But Ren," she cried back, "even if we find them will I be safe?!"

"We can hope so," Ren replied. She scooted over to her and comforted her with a hug. "We can hope so..."

-----

"No, I can make the loudest noise!" yelled Ariel from atop the rocket couch.

Please no, we're all within a few feet of you, Ariel.

She spun around in her seat and focused really hard with her hand held out behind her. In the next instant, a small bubble came out of her hand and grow at an alarming rate. The air resistance made it float back behind our ride, but the bubble got bigger and bigger as it did. Ariel was biting her lip, trying to keep herself focused.

I don't think I've ever seen her keep her eyes in one place for so long.

The massive bubble got to be more than ten feet in diameter before it broke apart behind us. We could feel the shockwave of the explosion rattle through us and the sound pierce our ears. It sounded just like the kind of explosion that I was used to hearing and not at all like a bubble popping.

After it was done Ariel was left grinning ear to ear. "See?!"

Bishop was sitting on his rocks as they zipped through the air. "I will admit, that was louder than my Rock Concert."

After that we were all quiet for a few minutes, then Ariel interrupted the silence.

"Let's land for a few minutes! It's boring on this thing!"

"I thought you liked riding on this," said Buddy with a frown.

"I did for at least the first few times, but now I'm just used to it."

"Fine."

We all landed for a short break. Strangely enough Ariel ran around for a very short amount of time before hopping on a bubble and floating around in the air again.

She just wanted a change of pace I guess.

Our break was coming to an end, with Bishop recollecting rocks to fly on, when a group of three girls came out of the woods. I suspected that they found us because of Ariel's entry into the loudness contest.

Kayson immediately waltzed over and bowed. "How may I help you, young maidens?"

Catherine ran over to him and fell to the ground, grabbing onto his ankle. "Help us, please!"

Everyone's eyes shot over to the new group.

"Woah, woah, slow down." Kayson peeled her off of him and helped her up. "What's wrong?"

Catherine shook from the thought of it.

Ren spoke up. "She's being hunted by a very reckless man right now, and is currently fearing for her life."

"Why is he after you?!" he asked the young girl directly, but he was answered by yet another.

"She doesn't seem to be willing to tell us," said Rin. "She's normally a very open person, but when it comes to her past she's dead silent."

"It's rare for you to talk that much," said Ren back.

"I'm just worried."

"What is this man like?"

We all gathered around and listened to their descriptions of what had happened just hours before. Two among us knew that description too well.

"Havel," said Buddy in a hushed tone.

My memory raced as I recollected Ariel and Buddy's tale of what had happened while we were separated. "Wait, the guy that came to take Fantasia and Sandra away?!"

The Defenestrators were struggling to keep up, but seemed to be getting the gist of it all.

Buddy nodded. "Looks like these girls were exactly what we were looking for." He turned to them. "Whatever it may be, we will help you out."

The girls seemed overjoyed, Catherine especially.

"Really?!" she said, jumping up and down. "B-but, it'll be super dangerous!"

"What isn't these days?" I said.

Marion agreed. "You couldn't keep us away from this if you tried."

"Thank you so much!" She ran around and made sure to give every one of us a hug.

"One problem," pointed out Buddy. "We certainly don't have enough space for the three of them on the couch."

"The couch?" asked Ren with ears perked up.

"You heard right! I pilot a rocket couch!"

"That's so cool! Don't worry though, we can fly as well." She gestured to Rin.

Rin understood and waved her hands out in front of her for dramatic effect. On the ground in front of her she made a disk of the pitch black material from before.

Ren jumped onto it and the disk began to fly. "Rin here can make this substance. It doesn't let light nor sound or really anything else pass through, and it's completely unmovable normally: the perfect barrier. My power, though, the power of animation, lets me override this and combine our powers into the perfect combo!"

Bishop seemed impressed. "That's pretty legit. So are you two like twins or something?"

"Nope! I'm her mother!"

Our jaws dropped.

"But you two look identical! And what even are the odds of meeting a family member here anyways?!"

"Well I met Arlen here," I said.

"Good point."

Ren laughed. "Rin has actually been here longer than I have. And I came to Insomnia Wake before I had her, so to me she's actually older than me."

Rin held out a peace sign, as if to confirm.

What kind of logic is that?!

Buddy didn't seem to be convinced. "If you didn't have her before you got here, then how do you know she's your daughter?"

"We met and noticed each other's looks, so we talked for a while and found out that we had the same relatives. Then she said her mother's name was my name and it all made sense."

"Well alright then."

With our chit-chat done, we all boarded our vehicles and went flying, now only running towards our pursuer.

-----

We were flying as usual, the air roaring against our bodies, when out of nowhere Bishop yelled at the rest of us.

"Watch out!"

All of our vehicles swerved out of the way just in time to dodge Havel as he hurtled towards us.

"Everybody land!"

We practically abandoned all of our vehicles when we took our rough landing. We immediately regrouped and surrounded Catherine, ready to defend from any side. Not for a second did we take into the difference between our powers and Havel's.

He stepped towards us, the trees casting random patterns onto his face. "Let's clean up the battlefield real quick, why don't we?" He crouched down and touched the grass, which seemed the writhe and grow from his touch alone.

Vines shot up from around his hand and flew outwards, several of them racing past our faces before we even had the chance to react. A cold sweat broke out on all of our bodies as the vines wrapped around the trees in our vicinity, pulling up on them and uprooting them. The vines threw the trees away and lost their vitality, falling to the ground lifeless.

Havel grabbed and uprooted all the vines from their sources then swung them back. He had effectively cleaned up a field for fighting and made vine whips in the same action. "Shall we begin?" A wicked grin broke out over his face.

None of us moved. He was clearly playing with us. He could've already killed us if he chose to.

My perpetual feeling of helplessness returned. What am I supposed to do now?!

"Just go!" yelled Ariel, jumping out of formation and running towards our opponent.

"Don't just do that, you idiot!" I yelled, chasing after her.

"Everyone charge!"

Everyone but Catherine abandoned our places and ran towards Havel.

"Now that's more like it!" shouted Havel. He swiped at us with his whips.

"Tower of Bubble!" shouted Ariel, forming a wall between us and the whips. Most of the bubbles popped, but the whips' momentums were cancelled by a hair.

Buddy formed a sword out of his shirt and sliced through the whips in a blink of an eye.

Havel wasn't nearly out of tricks yet though. He clapped his hands together. "Thistle Missile!" Thorned plants grew out of the ground at the same time as a large white bulbs did. He kicked the bulbs, causing them to explode. The popped plants sent the thorns flying towards us.

Rin managed to protect her mother and Catherine with her barrier, but most the rest of us had several needles pierce into our flesh.

I personally had a large thorn dug into my shoulder. The pain felt almost paralyzing to my arm as silver blood like liquid mercury dripped from my wound. Wait, we bleed in this world?! I had never seen a wound that would lead to bleeding before in this world, so this was the first time I had seen it. I pulled the oversized thistle out of my shoulder. One thing was for sure: it hurt.

Havel smiled as he saw the damage he caused. Out from around his feet erupted a giant blade of grass which he ripped out of the ground and held like a sword. He prepared to run forward to attack us.

Then it hit me. I suddenly noticed something about Havel's power. I can see a way out!