No . . . it can't be! He was crushed to death! Sophie's mind screamed. Could this be a prank? A trick? Or a distraction?

And what really threw her off was the perfection of his face. It seemed like not a scratch or scar was marred into his face. Since when did the Neverseen have such abilities to heal such wounds? That was impossible right? Despite the Lost Cities having technology more advanced than the humans, they didn't have the ability to heal or create fully functioning body parts of a damaged body. She'd seen it happen with Terik.

The Brant-face person stared at her as if he recognized her as well. His brows furrowed, knitting closely together as if it seemed like he was trying to place who Sophie was in his mind. And then, his eyes widened slightly—enough for Sophie to see the recognition of shock—as his lips parted, a single word escaping his mouth.

"Sage?"

Sophie tensed. Her name wasn't Sage. It was Sophie Foster and Sophie Foster alone. Maybe he was hallucinating. Or maybe she was the one hallucinating.

Maybe I'm going crazy. I mean there's no way these people are from another 'world', right? Sophie wondered to herself. Or maybe . . . they are who they say they are.

She fell back, moving off of him. But she couldn't take her eyes off of him, a million questions running through her head.

"Brant, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead!" Sophie said, disbelief in her voice.

Brant-face tilted his head in confusion, his brows knitting together. "Dead?" His voice came out in a soft whisper, unlike the raspy, bitter voice Sophie was used to.

Which flared anger in Sophie. They couldn't dare toy with her like this! "What sort of trick are you playing on me?!"

She started shaking her head, questions and emotions blurring and raging all inside her. "You can't be real, this is just another illusion. Another trick from the Neverseen just to throw me off my game."

She felt a hand press onto her shoulder and she turned around to find Keefe giving her a gentle squeeze, as if he was making sure Sophie was okay. She realized she was shaking and the warmth in his eyes comforted Sophie, feeling a wave of calmness flow through her as she stopped shaking. But then his eyes fell on the Brant-face member, growing wide with shock and disbelief. And dread started filling her stomach again.

Sophie looked around to find that the rest of the members of the "Everseen" restrained. To her relief.

Fitz had knocked out the vanisher, who laid unconscious on the ground next to his feet, Keefe seemed to have taken out the clone of his mom using his ability to manipulate the body by making her legs asleep, and Dex and Biana were able to bound the psionipath with a strange silky rope Sophie had never seen before.

She turned back towards Brant-face who threw his hands up in surrender, his face clearly stating he did not want to fight. Sophie was tempted to go ahead and knock him out with her inflicting, but Keefe's voice whispered into her ear, "Don't." And she backed down, pushing her conflicted and raging emotions aside.

After a moment, they were able to drag the other members together into a small group near the Panakes. Sophie led Brant-face person over to the group, to which he earned a lot of shock and questioning looks, the same reaction Sophie had as well. Especially Fitz, who narrowed his eyes, clearly ready to go full on Cognate-mode on him to see if it was truly Brant. But Sophie shook her head at him, signaling this was not the time and place for it. Much to his dislike and impatience, he reluctantly backed down and turned to face the more pressing matter at hand.

They waited a second for the shock to wear off their leader to whom Mr. Forkle stunned before they could start with the questions. The glazed over look in off-brand Fintan wore off as he shook his head, glancing at his defeated teammates before looking up at Sophie and the rest.

But before Mr. Forkle or Grady could utter a single word, Fitz spoke first, wasting no time in interrogating them. "Explanations, now. I—we—want the answers and understanding why you are here, and why we are looking at that." He pointed to Brant-face standing off to the side, who's expression did not change, but offense burned in his eyes at the insult.

"I am not an it." He spat, his voice that oddly soft whisper he spoke in earlier. Which startled everyone, Fitz's eyes widening for a second.

Brant-face looked like he wanted to say more, but off-brand Fintan shook his head, taking control of the conversation. "Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. I am Faye, leader of the group for this mission. This is Roan," he said, nodding to his accomplice next to him who squirmed in his bonds.

"That is Lady Greta," Faye nodded as Greta lowered her hood to reveal the alternate face of Lady Gisela. Sophie dared a glance at Keefe, worry for him building in her. She could tell that he wasn't happy and was trying hard not to lunge for her. She could see him flexing his jaw as an attempt to control his emotions she bet were raging inside of him. And Sophie also felt conflicted as well at seeing this "alternate" version of Lady Gisela. But the more she stared at her, Sophie could see those hard edges that Lady Gisela had, Lady Greta did not. In fact it was almost like an older female version of Keefe.

"Beck." He acknowledged in the Brant-face person's direction and Sophie felt a little relief flow through her and it helped eased a bit of her panic.

"Verity." She lowered her hood as well, revealing her face as the alternate Vespera.

"And Alvin," Faye nodded at the unconscious body on the ground, who was the vanisher of the group. Fitz was about to say something when he froze, the name and realization breaking through to him. He looked down at the unconscious vanisher, bending down and pulling back the hood. And Sophie could see how the emotions exploded in him when his eyes landed on the face of Alvin, Alvar's alternate twin.

He fell back, away from him and clung to Biana for support, gripping her sleeve hard as if a way to control his urge to kill him then and there.

"Like we said before," Faye continued, drawing the attention back to him. "We are part of the Everseen. Come from another universe. We mean no harm, like I said before. We are only here on a mission. One . . . that we can bring back to our world."

"Such as?" Sophie inquired, drawing the attention to her.

He hesitated, making eye contact with Verity as if they were hesitant to say the reason for their mission.

"We have been looking for a special element known Arcalne. An extremely rare unknown power source that has been rumored to have unique and strong powers and abilities. It is unlike the primal sources. There is an old myth, stating that arcalne may possess abilities to unify things. We didn't know if it would have the ability to help unify our world, but we were willing to take the risk. It is also stated that in order to get the unusual source, you needed to find a special flower known as the Stumarlight flower. Our world is too broken and devastated for us to find and the gadget we used to help locate this flower led us here to this universe. So this is where we are hoping to find what we are looking for," Verity explained, her dull eyes lighting up a little. "And it may appear like we will need your help as well to navigate this world and help us accomplish our mission."

"But why our help? Can't you just bring someone from your own world to help you? And why is your world so broken?" Biana asked, confusion written across her face as everyone else's'.

"Our world is . . . a mess. In turmoil. It is divided, the evil corrupting our world, our leaders, our government, our people beyond anything that one could imagine. The citizens are afraid, too scared to trust or hope for a better future or even believe in something good, too scared they will be exiled or murdered. And we are not a welcomed ally to society there, especially to the Council. Our mission is to find a spark or a sign of hope that we could bring back into our universe to prove to the citizens that peace is possible to accomplish for our world." And the way Faye stared at her, the sadness and defeat in his eyes, Sophie felt a feeling resonate within her at his words. Like she understood what he was saying and she felt herself believing his claim of coming from another world, another universe, to search for a sign of hope that they could bring back to their world to bring peace.

A silence followed after that.

Mr. Forkle spoke first, breaking the silence. "If you really are who you say you are and not the Neverseen playing tricks on us, that what you are searching for as a way to help your own world, then we will believe you."

Faye breathed a smile of gratitude, joy, and relief. "Thank you."

They untied Roan and woke up Alvin, who was bewildered at the situation he was surrounded by.

"Come on in, I think it's best if we start solving this problem inside where we have a place to sit and also eat." Grady urged, gesturing the whole group to the house.

Sophie and her friends agreed, starting toward the house, but the Everseen group stayed behind.

"Are you coming?" Sophie asked when she noticed none was following.

Lady Greta started shaking her head violently, her face pale as if a realization had hit her. "We need to evacuate the property now. Is there any place we can all light leap to?"

"Wait, why? What's wrong? Why would we need to?" Sophie asked, confusion on her face. The comment had thrown her off and the others stopped and turned back, intrigued as well.

Lady Greta turned to Faye, who nodded his agreement like he knew too. "If I'm correct, they will come here." Faye murmured, the other three Everseen members' eyes widening.

Lady Greta's face turned a new shade of white when she looked to the sky. She turned to Sophie, her eyes pleading and filled with worry. "We need to leave now. There's no time. We don't want to be here when they arrive."

"What? I don't understand." Sophie said, shaking her head, trying in vain to get sense of what they were talking about.

"They are ruthless and will kill you with no hesitation. They do not play games nor play around. They mean business and we need to light leap now before they can do anything damage to you or your friends if you want to keep your lives." Beck said in a louder voice than his soft one earlier. One with urgency and terror. Almost like they were afraid of this group—whoever they were.

"I don't get it, who's they?" Sophie demanded.

The ground rumbled and shook, causing that same earthquake like earlier. Except this one was much more violent and shakier. Some of Sophie's friends had to dive for cover as the sky turned dark and thunder sounded, lightning flashing and catching a pasture on fire. A crack in the sky opened, revealing that same swirling vortex of flashing colors.

"We have to go!" Greta yelled at Grady and Mr. Forkle, who both nodded, pulling out leaping crystals.

"Who's they?!" Sophie demanded once more at Faye.

He stared at her when he said, "The White Swan."

A/N: So sorry this took me forever to write and get out! I'm sorry, I was lacking inspiration on where to write this and then got it. Also you notice how the Everseen members' names are different from the Neverseen members' names and the white swan people names with be alterante from the black swan people's names because I didn't want to keep saying Keefe 2.0 or alt Keefe all the time so it made sense. Just saying. Also this probably is my worst writing chapter, but we'll fix that bridge when we get to it :D Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter and can't wait for the next! And Spoiler: The real fun and action begins >:) Get excited!