'Why do these humans glorify close combat?' Lepochim muttered to himself while traversing the basement of The Anima. 'Most of them aren't ever going to do any real fighting.' Lepochim had been privy to information on the hierarchy and Lisa's plan to have society break up into peaceful and war divisions. Under her framework, the vast majority of people wouldn't participate directly in warfare.

'Especially with these absurdly overpowered biological mutations,' Lepochim sighed to himself. 'And I thought the Sigenolf-74 special technologies division was fairly close to the pinnacle of biomanipulation outside of the Core.' The squirrel in front of him suddenly came to a stop outside of a door.

"The bats?" he asked out loud. The squirrel chattered its teeth in response, then fluffed its tail. Emotionless, Lepochim opened the door and entered the room. Since the bats were quasi-sapients, they technically had a huge complex to live in that stretched from far beneath the Earth's surface to the height of a typical Basalith residential building. Like most quasi-sapients, the bats' numbers totaled around 2000; considering their size, and diet, they needed all the space they could get.

"Bats," Lepochim bellowed as he announced his presence. "Send your leader to chat." Not that Lepochim could control dragonleaf to have a conversation due to his debilitating seal, but he did have a translation chip. Though, based off of his conversation with the leader of the squirrels, Lepochim was really starting to doubt the chip's advertised body-language reading abilities.

He heard the creenings of bats from all around, echoing off the cave-like interior of the room from who knows where. The room was small, empty, clearly a foyer to the real living quarters beyond. After a minute, a large bat dropped into the room from the ceiling, walking across the floor on its two back legs.

Lepochim had seen native Earth bats, though hadn't paid them much notice. Despite his lack of experience, he could tell that these "bats" were really something else. Bath had taken more...liberties with some species than others. Perhaps the least changed, aesthetically, were the wolves; the most changed were undoubtedly the wasps.

While Lepochim recalled thinking that normal bats looked awkward and unbalanced, the bat before him looked anything but. It walked forward confidently--swiftly--on its two short legs, its wings stretched out behind it on the sides. Lepochim had the distinct impression that if the bat needed to move quickly, it would make much better time on all fours.

He had no doubts the bat would be more than adequate at transporting the kursi by air. He carefully regarded the bat before him, the one that he would almost certainly take as his own mount. He was giving a training session on riding the bats today, in a few hours; first, he needed to figure out how to ride himself.

'How hard can it be?' he scoffed silently to himself. 'After all the training I've gone through with various different vehicles and weapons system...' Lepochim didn't think Bath would make bat-flying so difficult that the lowest common denominator of the kursi wouldn't be able to succeed. Being, of course, of the highest common denominator, Lepochim had an absolute confidence in himself.

The bat stopped in front of him, standing at just around 6 feet. Lepochim was able to discern many more details about the bat than he'd noticed initially, particularly its large ears and upturned, devilish nose. The large, spiked, dragon-like wings and tail were also fairly obvious, along with bat's numerous curving horns.

"What do you call yourselves?" Lepochim asked. He nervously hoped the translator would work.

The giant quasi-sapient exhaled in a surprisingly human gesture. Then spoke: "Devilbats."

Lepochim's eyebrows rose as he heard the deep, raspy voice. Clearly a male, if its vocal register was anything comparable to that of most sapients. Lepochim hadn't been aware that Bath had made some of his quasi-sapients...more "sapient" than others. The squirrels, for instance, seemed particularly...dull. The mystery behind how they knew where to appear and where to go frustrated Lepochim to no end. This species was sapient enough to actually be capable of speech.

"So you speak."

"We do. Our Creator, the Dragon, gave us translators, so that we may converse with others."

Lepochim's eyes narrowed. 'Did he find a way to create biological facsimiles of the translator chip?' Lepochim dismissed the idea. 'Impossible. He must've found a way to translate their own bat language directly into English.' That was the only way that could explain why even now Lepochim's translator was working.

"How fortunate. I'm sure your species' future companions--my kursi--will enjoy having conversation partners."

"Perhaps." The devilbat's enormous frame seemed to loom over Lepochim, even though Lepochim was slightly taller. Despite their high average height, deepthinks were naturally slight of figure, something starkly obvious now as Lepochim faced the hulking figure before him.

"What do you call yourself?"

"Olm. And yourself?"

"Lepochim."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The two stared at each other for around a minute, clearly sizing each other up. In the end, Lepochim spoke first. "I'm here as the representative of the kursi. Seeing that you're the representative of the devilbats, it's only naturally that we become partners and pave the way for mutual collaboration."

"Working together is the end goal of the Dragon. Seeing that he's placed a modicum of faith in you, I consent. Let us form a bond."

Lepochim shook his head. "No need to form a dragonleaf bond. My ability to manipulate dragonleaf has been sealed." He'd even tried utilizing land-shaper boons, to no avail. The seal on his mind manipulation clearly blocked out far more than Lepochim had originally thought. However, Lepochim felt he was an expert by now at turning nuisances into advantages. "In all honesty, forgoing the bond seems a much more equitable way of starting our relationship."

Olm cocked his head. "Interesting. This proposal to have a bond based on trust rather than mental connection. I'll accept it eagerly." Despite his words, Olm didn't sound particularly eager, an unfortunate consequence of his foreboding appearance and inability to properly inflect his voice. Then, the devilbat continued: "We should go to the aviary below. We have some flying obstacle courses set up for practice."

Lepochim nodded, then fell in stride behind Olm, wondering just what the difference was, in this case, between "quasi-sapient" and the real thing.

---

The flight back to Alens had been quite the experience. Bath had insisted that Lisa first try out her new boon by "hitching a ride.". It had been no doubt one of the coolest experiences in her life, even when compared to visiting other planets, confronting aliens, and making her own theocracy. Hitching a ride essentially consisted of Bath (somehow) generating a magnetic field, which then she could latch onto from the outside. In that way, despite Bath's incredibly rapid speed as he returned to Alens, Lisa could stay stationary relative to his form. Due to all of her defensive boons, she was able to survive the high-speed trip and quickly heal off any sustained damages as soon as she landed.

She'd never imagined that flying over the Earth could be so...painful. On the one hand, she was concentrating the entire time to make sure she stayed aloft next to Bath. On the other, she was constantly squinting her eyes and spitting things out of her mouth as various bugs and atmospheric particles crashed into her.

Despite that, the view afforded to her, seeing the world at Bath's side with her own eyes, rather than just through a window...she couldn't wait to do it again. She hoped that eventually, she wouldn't even need to hitch a ride on Bath to fly next to him.

Lisa particularly marveled over how she and Bath moved faster than the sunrise. As they shot through time zones, eventually arriving at Alens at dawn, they had been constantly enveloped in the light of the sun rising from the East as they traveled West. As the flew, the day seemed to temporally regress as they drew farther and farther away.

Because the desert area where they were practicing had about a 6 hour time difference from the East Coast of the United States, to arrive at dawn on Monday actually meant that they needed to leave before noon.

When they arrived back at Alens, Lisa had been a little overwhelmed by the huge amounts of electromagnetic noise on the ground. As she walked, she felt as though she was passing through endless, hair-thin streams of magnetism; so small that they were inconsequential, but by now her magnetic sense was such that she could still detect them.

Upon arriving, as Bath had instructed her to do, Lisa concentrated about half of her magnetic sense into her feet and legs, with the other half mainly concentrated in her torso. This way, even if she didn't properly control her magnetic sense, she wouldn't start flying away. If Alens were built out of sand, she'd likely start sinking down; however, being a prestigious university, Alens was primarily built out of hardwood and marble. It would take much more force than Lisa could apply accidentally to break the floor.

Another reason why Bath told her to keep her personal magnetic field concentrated into her lower body and torso was so that it wouldn't leak out into her surroundings, expanding beyond her body and inducing a current in nearby objects. Lisa's magnetic field had the ability to fluctuate rapidly, which really would spell disaster for many nearby electronics. Even her nonfluctuating magnetic field would ruin computer hard drives or other magnetic storage devices.

"Thank the Dawn you're a liberal arts major," Bath snort-laughed as they walked to their residential building, Ellis.

Lisa ran up against his side and slapped him on the arm. "Thank the DUSK you're..." Lisa trailed off, a frown coming over her face.

"You can't even think of anything to be thankful for," Bath cracked up. "How ungrateful..."

Lisa glared. "Thank the Dusk you're such a gluttonous, omnipotent-within-a-3.6-mile-radius, black hole."

Bath tilted his head, then shrugged. "Can't argue with that."

Lisa rolled her eyes and wrapped Bath's arm in her own. "It's so strange how nobody is awake. The sun's up, after all."

Bath gave her a dubious look. "Before I gave you the boon to reduce your need to sleep, you never woke up willingly before noon."

"But you'd think there'd be someone, athletes or adults or something."

Bath cocked his head, then looked around. "Hmm..."

"What?"

"This is awkward."

"What?"

He gave her a sheepish look. "I stopped spreading out my essence while we were in the desert, so I didn't realize it when we arrived. You're right; nobody's outside. We must have missed something important, an announcement."

"Well, my phone died two days ago," Lisa replied. "Let's just get back to the dorm--"

"Wait, someone nearby has their TV on." So not everyone was asleep; they just weren't outdoors. Bath quickly sent his essence into the dorm in question, forming essence eyes and ears in an instant. As he listened, he relayed to Lisa what he learned.

"Apparently, the U.S. government has called for a state of emergency," he said slowly. "To deal with the Virginia Terrorist Threat."

"Wow, seriously?" Lisa asked, not in the least perturbed. "They're actually going to try to do something?"

"Because of the state of emergency, the government released an announcement two days ago that all citizens within 200 miles of the state of Virginia should stay inside starting Monday until further notice. Everybody should suspend their jobs and plans and stay inside, with the exception of necessary professions like police, firefighters, doctors, etc."

"What? Why?" Lisa's expression now grew rather excited. "They're actually going to move against Basalith?"

Bath shook his head. "The news broadcast isn't saying anything more. I'm also curious as to what they're planning." He didn't know why the 200 miles was necessary. Did they plan on luring Basalith's fighters to the surrounding areas, instead of waging siege warfare against the city itself?

"Do you think we should head back?"

Bath gave her an amused grin. "They'll be fine."