The landing of the ship in front of the Ununquadius household brought Hazel a sense of joy and excitement. She had only been away from it for a couple days, but she had missed it more than she had missed Earth. Sprinting and tripping her way out of the ship and arms flying carefree behind her, Hazel burst open the front door, running to her bedroom to take a well-deserved break from everything. Elise, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, watched in what was at first befuddlement but quickly became excitement and recognition.

"Hazel! You're back already?"

Hazel grinned, sitting up on her bed to give her stepmother a quick hug. She gratefully ranted to her about everything that had happened on Vasion, the trapped empress, the destruction of the Seventh Universe and Vasion, and her concerns for the empress. The whole time, Elise listened with ears wide open, just glad to hear her stepdaughter's voice again.

"I'd be careful about leaving her in the library if I were you, she might end up hurting herself," Elise warned Hazel.

"She'll be fine, I think. As long as we keep an eye on her, there'll be nothing to worry about," Hazel said, shrugging off her stepmother's warning.

"If you really think so, I guess."

The front door swung open again, Anatoly coming inside the house and Rephana sitting alone outside. He greeted Elise with a hug and asked where Nredoza was.

"She's in the library with Daniel. They both realized that their plan of building something from scratch wasn't going to work, so they're just doing a little bit of renovation," she explained, pointing out the door.

Rephana glared through at the three Exans, just wanting to be alone for some time. She looked nervous, and as if she wanted to say something. When she got no response from her angry looks, she cleared her throat. That too had no effect. On her last nerve, she shouted something about getting Aphos to deal with them if she was not allowed to speak. That, on the other hand, worked magnificently.

"Aphos is gone, Rephana. You know this," Hazel said awkwardly, not knowing how to properly go about this.

"There needs to be two Higher Vasioners if we want enough power to repopulate whatever universe splits off here," Rephana explained, ignoring Hazel's comment, "and I just needed your attention for a moment."

"Well, there's only one now. What do you plan on doing about it?"

"I told you on Vasion, I can give my abilities to certain species of Exans. You're the only two I trust, and I may have just enough mental energy left to give my blessings to two."

Hazel cringed slightly. This was unexpected and out of the blue. She turned to Elise for help, but she had ran off as soon as Rephana had shouted. The one time she really needed another opinion, it was out of the question.

"Why are you doing this all of a sudden?" Hazel asked concernedly.

"Don't worry about it, just take the offer before it's too late. Plus, it might not work if you're not the right species."

Too late? Hazel started to understand her stepmother's concern for the Vasioner. She wished she knew how to help her, but something told her that she was just trying to be helpful. Her gut told her not to believe that, and that something was genuinely wrong. Hazel took in a shaky breath and accepted Rephana's offer. Anatoly was hesitant, but he accepted as well.

A cold energy flew over the two of them, piercing their skin like knives. Between her shoulder blades, a sharp and unbearable pain took over, almost numbing her. However, within a few seconds of the blast of energy, it suddenly dropped. Rephana was curled up on the floor, clutching her forehead in pain. The pain sunk back into Hazel's shoulders and the icy knives came out of her skin.

"I guess it doesn't work on Ex-Pians," Rephana said, standing up and brushing dust off of her skirt.

"Maybe we don't need another universe with natural life. It can be a place to colonize and to harvest resources from," Anatoly said, pitching in a possible idea.

"Aphos would have wanted a biologically diverse universe!" Rephana said, raising her voice menacingly.

"Aphos doesn't matter anymore! He was not the angel your mind has painted him as."

"But he was, he was the embodiment of perfection. The most powerful man in the multiverse, and he was my husband."

"I wouldn't call being imprisoned being married," Hazel groaned, rolling her eyes.

Rephana's eyes twitched in anger. Her face lost any and all emotion before she flew off into the nearby rainforest. Anatoly and Hazel watched her disappear in awe, their jaws dropping at the strange sight. All they could hope for was that she would just be blowing off some steam and she'd be back soon enough. Hazel still felt uneasy about letting her go without some supervision, and ran into her father's hangar to grab a small personal ship.

The ship she took opened and functioned almost exactly like a car. She opened the side door, buckled herself in, and slammed her foot on the gas, lifting up on the wheel to angle the ship upwards. No matter how much of a head start Rephana had, the ship would travel fast enough to catch up in a matter of seconds.

She kept her distance as she tailed the empress, not wanting to startle her or let her know that she was being followed. Hazel focused on not losing her as Rephana began to descend and weave through trees, keeping close the whole time. Hazel's heartbeat increased, tension rising as the trees became more and more densely packed.

Somehow, with all of the noise coming from branches and leaf-like structures of the trees hitting the ship, Rephana did not budge. She seemed oblivious to the sound, as if she was much too focused on her goal to care or understand that someone was on her tail.

As Rephana descended further towards the ground, Hazel prepared for an emergency landing. The empress' wings plastered to her back and then out again to slow her fall to the soil. She took a deep sigh and leaned up against a ten meter wide stump, hugging her knees with all four of her arms. Something told her that if she secluded herself, maybe she'd be able to recollect her mind and, one day, return to Vasion. Maybe she imagined Vasion's destruction. It couldn't have happened so quickly... yet, it did.

Parking the ship in a bare patch of dirt and twigs, Hazel stepped out and slammed the door. The ground crunched beneath Hazel's clunky platforms and her gown tore from the sharp spines of some more dangerous flora. Her breath shuddered, nervous to be possibly caught. Rephana may have been slightly estranged at the time, but that didn't mean she couldn't gather enough strength to hurt Hazel if she saw her as a threat. With the height difference and strength difference, Hazel wouldn't stand a chance.

Though she made an attempt to be as silent and cautious as she could, Hazel still managed to step on and snap a branch, which echoed throughout the whole forest. Rephana jumped up in a panic, searching for the source of the sound. After determining the direction in which it came from, she moved closer and closer to Hazel, who instinctively hid behind a tree.

She was only a few meters away. Right next to her. Hazel felt extremely lightheaded as Rephana bent down, hearing Hazel's shaking breath. Contrary to Hazel's fears, Rephana scooped her up with her tails, bringing her to where she was previously sitting. When she sat down, she released Hazel from the clutches of her tails.

"Why have you come to follow me?" she asked, picking Hazel up with one of her hands.

"Ana- I mean, I, was worried that you might hurt yourself," Hazel admitted.

Rephana laughed as if to dismiss Hazel's suspicions.

"I think I know where your fears come from," Rephana said, "and I'm sorry I cannot word things the right way sometimes."

"Alright, then, do you want to tell me what you meant by 'before it's too late?'"

"I'm weak, Hazel, and I'm not getting any better. My body is deteriorating and necrosing from the inside out. I've had too much exposure to the toxins I've been collecting over the years, and it's finally starting to hurt me," Rephana explained sadly.

Hazel jumped off the empress' hand, sitting on her lap gently.

"I wish I could do something," Hazel replied, unable to produce much emotion.

"It's only a matter of time before it'll completely render my brain useless. I can survive in any environment and in any situation, but my brain has to be working and connected to everything, and even still, if I were to be beheaded, all that would need to happen is for my head and body to touch and I'd be alive and well as if nothing happened."

"That's strange," Hazel said, unsure how to respond well to that utterly strange fact.

Rephana shrugged, not used to that not being common knowledge. She sighed, leaning her head back onto the top of the stump exhaustedly. Hazel struggled to climb up to the top, but managed it with some effort. There, she pulled up Rephana's wavy gray and black hair to get better access to it.

"What in the name of Aphos himself are you doing?" she asked defensively, though not reacting other than that.

"You'll see in a moment," Hazel replied.

Relaxing, Rephana pushed her hair up onto the stump, letting Hazel do whatever it was that she wanted to do. Hazel felt like a kid in a candy shop. She took a sharp rock that was sitting on top of the stump and cut off what felt like an elastic band from her dress and put it around her wrist. Like an artist perfecting his masterpiece, Hazel twisted and braided two sections of the empress' hair, connecting them at the back center of her head and securing it with the elastic. She then took the flowers from her flower crown and intertwined them within the braids.

Hazel remembered one of her favorite memories of her mother doing her hair that exact way before the yearly memorial on her father's birthday which the family did. It had so much meaning to it, and Hazel thought that it would, in some way, help Rephana get over the loss of Aphos. She still couldn't understand how she had fallen so deeply in love with the man that kept her locked up and abused her, but she knew that she would help her acquaintance's struggle through every moment she needed.

"Come on, let's go back to the house. You can see what it looks like in the StrataNova's chrome," Hazel said quietly, hopping off the stump and leading Rephana to her ship.

"I won't be able to fit in there," she mumbled, pointing to the obvious small size.

"I know, but you have wings and I don't."

"That's true..."

Hazel led the way back to the Ununquadius household, weaving through branches until she was high above the rainforest, taking in every detail she could see. Rephana stayed close behind her, attempting to keep up with Hazel's steadily increasing speed. Forest became plains and plains became desert until they finally arrived at the hangar, which, surprisingly, was large enough that Rephana could sit comfortably.

Anatoly greeted the two as he burst into the hangar, ranting on about how he was so worried something might have happened to either one of them. This made Hazel feel rather uncomfortable, so she ended up telling him to screw off and to get Nredoza over to them. He grumbled the entire way back to the house, but obliged.

A few minutes later, he came back, dragging Nredoza by the collar of her labcoat. She had finally changed her shirt to some kind of sweatshirt-like garment, which must have been infinitely more comfortable, but she still refused to remove that coat.

"Screw off, man, I gotta get back to my wo- oh hi, Hazel- and you're certainly- Hazel!"

Nredoza's confusion and recognition of her closest friend made Hazel giggle a little bit. She had seriously missed her throughout the past few lonely days on Vasion and in the depths of the void, and just hearing her pissed off voice made Hazel's heart soar with happiness and relief.

"It's nice to see you too, Oza," Hazel said, running to give her a hug.

"I've missed you, Haze."

"I know you have, I can tell by your weird reactions to my presence," Hazel said in a tone clearly mocking Aphos.

"I just have to say one thing. Dymo's coming. He found you and wants to continue testing."

"Oh, for fuck's sake..."