Back at Ruiria's motorhome, the downpour of the petering rain slowly dried up, allowing the stars to break through the displacing clouds. Zalina poked her head out of the motorhome's side, gazing up at the starry sky. The worry on her face was palpable as small traces of pink dust escaped her tails, filling the motorhome with the fragrance of sweetness. Zalina tapped her little tails against the sofa, sternly fixed in place as she silently awaited Zalroth and Chronia's return.

"You doing ok?" Ruiria asked, snapping Zalina out of her concentrated state. Swiftly tapping her cheeks, Zalina steeled herself before turning around and facing Ruiria with a noticeably forced grin.

"Of course, Zalina is, dummy" Zalina announced pridefully. Her voice was shaky, dampening the little believability her acting had. The young kitsune placed her fists against her thighs, mimicking the way Chronia would stand to give herself extra reassurance.

Ruiria slightly raised her hand for her head but stopped halfway before placing a hand on her hip, deciding that calling out Zalina's lie wouldn't be a smart move, the similarity of Zalina's defensiveness to Chronia's giving the half-sharkling and shibaru major danger signs.

"Geez...," Ruiria murmured exhaustedly. However, the two girls' connection to the floor was suddenly separated by a violent tremor that shook the earth, knocking the duo over and briefly raising two of the motorhome's wheels off the ground as many objects fell to the floor. Watching the other girl fall, Zalina's eyes twinkled at her chance before she dived over the sofa. With a goofy exhale as she belly-flopped on the floor, Zalina sprawled out her tails in glee, inadvertently catching Ruiria before she could fall any further.

"Thanks..." Ruiria uttered, grateful for Zalina's save. But when She turned her head, any appreciation Ruiria had turned to annoyance as she watched Zalina struggle to open the childproof cookie jar.

By the forest-swarmed sinkhole where the tremors were at their strongest, the ground trembled and shook under the force of a rising pressure as it caused fissures to form in the earth. Bits of earth fell into the sinkhole with each extra potent quake, a short pause of activity following before the pattern of tremors resumed. Although faint at first, the sound of rushing water began to enter the air, its intensity only growing as the fissure's growth accelerated.

Without a warning, the sinkhole, the clearing and a good portion of the forest surrounding it exploded into pieces, ripped to shreds by an eruption of water. The towering column of water dwarfed the size of a small skyscraper, the force of its appearance flinging pieces of gem golem ants into the rest of the forest and chunks of earth as it tore through it. Within the geyser, a flicker of pink persisted, rushing its way through the tower of water as it was tailed by the tower's rapid conversion to ice.

Blasting out the top of the tower before it fully cooled, a large sphere of pink keither[dense particle-like energy] hurtled through the air with Zalroth-and-co tumbling within it like clothes in a washing machine.

"I'm starting to see why Mother stopped me going in the utility room as a kid," Chronia remarked groggily, the force of the sphere spinning her going straight to her head.

"Pretty sure that was because that was your parents' candy hiding spot, not because they want to keep you away from the washing machine, end quote," Nola remarked passionlessly. Chronia gasped, the shocking revelation slapping all her queasiness out of her, and she turned to Zalroth.

"Zalroth can you believe that!" Nola exclaimed, her voice filled with betrayal. Zalroth blankly stared through Chronia, not even listening to her as he mulled over his performance against the dungeon boss monster. Lowering his gaze, he stared locked on his palm in disappointment with his expression turning into a scowl.

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"If it hadn't been for her Invert Azure... would I have been able to defend her?" Zalroth uttered mentally, balling up his fist as he felt a searing pain in the back of his head.

The pink keither sphere tumbled across the ice-covered ground and bounced against the terrain, dodging any jagged space as Lily searched for a safe place to land. Due to her indecisiveness, she eventually left the reaches of the forest, shooting past Ruiria's motorhome and bouncing right onto the road, popping the keither bubble upon contact. Zalroth landed on his feet, silently catching the disorientated girls with his Kitsune tails and placing them on their feet.

"I must say, Lily, that response was rather impressive," Malfaroth remarked cheekily, using his umbrella to slow his descent to the ground.

"Thanks, I didn't even know I could do that either.". Lily's nonchalant remark left Malfaroth at a loss for words, disbelief being the only thought crossing his mind as Lily looked at her hands, amazed at what they were capable of.

Falling to her knees, Chronia exhaled in relief while rubbing her cheeks and pulling at her face, grateful to finally be on the ground again. Zalroth scoffed indignantly before crossing his arms and retracting his kitsune tails.

"I guess that means you won't want me to carry you anymore-.". Zalroth couldn't even finish his sentence, the blur that was Chronia's finger reaching and pressing against his lips to shush him as Chronia stared at him with a genuine fire of seriousness in her eyes.

"Let's not go that far now," Chronia grumbled with a pout as she floated in front of Zalroth. She gracefully fluttered to the side before kneeing Zalroth in the side. The light jab forced Zalroth to jolt and involuntarily resummon his tails, for Chronia to saunter her way to and lay upon them at her leisure.

"Onwards, Zalroth; anime movie night awaits!". Zalroth rolled his eyes, rubbing his struck side as a faint sting permeated from it before he glanced back at Chronia unamusedly.

"Aren't you forgetting something?".

"Huh?" Chronia murmured quietly. Tilting her head, Chronia glanced around, still not getting what Zalroth was saying; she even glanced around, looking for any hint as to what her mode of transport was getting at. As Chronia continued to look for clues, Malfaroth-and-co inspected a chunk of ice.

"So... do you think our tents got washed away?" Lily asked as she brushed her fingers against the ice-coated ground.

"That or they're buried under the ice now," Malfaroth remarked as he tapped the tip of his umbrella against a section of the ice terrain encasing a metal tent pole.

"Oh...," Chronia uttered timidly. The pointy-eared girl nervously raised a hand and scratched her cheek, a sinking feeling settling in her gut at the predicament she had inadvertently placed her new friends in. Although initially troubled about what to do, a solution came to Chronia, a creeping smile forming on her face as the idea became more and more appealing.

"Say, how would you lot like to stay with us in Ruiria's motorhome?" Chronia offered while doing jazz hands to the motorhome. Lily moved her gaze to the motorhome and narrowed her eyes into an inquisitive stare, a thought crossing her mind that she couldn't go without asking.

"Isn't that an RV?" Lily asked. Nolazir panned her head towards Lily, staring at her with nothing but disdain at such stupidity coming out of the sharkling's mouth.

"Lily, motorhomes and RVs are basically synonyms," Nolazir grumbled disapprovingly while slapping at her ears, making them wobble like primed spring doorstops. The two girls continued to whisper about semantics, leaving Malfaroth to handle the responsibility of answering Chronia's question.

"We would be honoured to be hosted by you," Malfaroth stated, respectfully bowing with a perfected regal form. Chronia nodded before snapping her attention to the motorhome and cupping her hands around her mouth into a funnel shape.

"Hey, Ruiria; is it okay if Zalroth's brother's friends tag along with us?" Chronia asked energetically, to which Ruiria popped her head out the passenger-side window.

"Sure-sure, it'll at least give an excuse to put the table in bunkbed mode since Snake Boy up and teleported away after coming back," Ruiria stated disappointedly as her ears flopped to the side. Chronia slumped forward in disbelief, mildly annoyed at herself for believing Onix would've stuck around for more than a few hours.