While the man takes the boy and the cat back to the camp, the cat further inspects the man. His hair was orange and naturally slicked back, he wore a tattered red scarf and a brown coat with sewn patches of a slightly lighter brown. To her surprise, his black pants seemed fine until she looked down at his shoes, at which the pants became heavily scorched.

Near the camp, the roaring fire settled down as a blond man with a white undershirt and a yellow cloth wrapped around his waist. As the man carrying the two enters the camp, the blond man paces towards him with closed fists, sweating profusely, presumably from the heat.

“Next time, tell me you’re going to leave BEFORE putting out the fire,” The man lectured. “Do you have any idea how much soot I had to clean off my face?!”

The man deflects the blond man's accusations, “Well… look here, I found these two— wait no Jack, found these two outside the forest.”

“Stalkers? Unwise fellows perhaps?” The blond man asks, wiping sweat off his face. “Whatever the case, we have to deal with them later.”

The man puts the boy and the cat down to discuss with the two, meanwhile, the cat observes from afar. She looks over to the boy, faceplanted. She sighs and looks back at the three. Some odd details caught her eyes as she began to think to herself.

“That man named Jack… Did he get shorter?” She tilts her head in question.

Jack can be seen more clearly rather than in fear. He had a bulky composure with just a green tunic and ragged leggings. However, his height seemed only slightly higher than the man who carried them. She listens in on the conversation between the three.

“Why don’t we send them back?” Jack asks.

“I’m sorry, are you deaf? Crystal clearly said we can’t go through lest the portal close after a set time” The blond man quarreled.

Jack argued, “Could you repeat that? My ears were blessed enough to deafen the sound of your--”

“Alright enough! Your arguing’s giving me a headache…” The man demanded. “Roy’s right, we could only go in, and even if there is a chance that the portal won’t close, it would be a worthlessly risky gamble.”

The cat looks in astonishment, analyzing each word the three are saying. “The blond guy is named Roy. The lunk’s name is Jack… But who is he?” She asks herself.

The man sat down while Jack and Roy went across the camp. He sat with crossed arms and bounced one leg anxiously. The cat looked over to the boy in worry, finding him sound asleep facing the sky. Looking back at the man, she nervously approached him, immediately catching his attention.

The man looks at her in skepticism, continuously bouncing his leg. As she made her way in front of him, he looked around before bending down to reach for her. The cat jolted and immediately ran behind the boy, racking suspicion within the man.

“Is something wrong with the boy?” The man got up and approached the boy.

“Gah! This isn’t what I wanted!” The cat exclaimed, “He’s not gonna do anything weird right?”

The man inspects the boys, taking notice of his satchel. The satchels were a common design of brown with silver buckles. The satchel seemed unnaturally damaged, as well as his clothing. He presses his backhand against his head, feeling no signs of sickness or unwellness.

The man concluded that the boy was simply asleep, not before removing his coat. Hiding on his back was a necklace placed backward on the boy's neck. As he inspected it further, the necklace was in the shape of a crescent with a muddied gem underneath. He reached his hand out to reach the necklace, but unexpectedly for him, his hand remained atop the necklace, never touching it, before retreating back.

“W-What’s that?” The cat asks herself, “Did he know he had a necklace?”

The man places the jacket back on, fixing the position of the necklace, and walking toward the cat. Taken by surprise, she backs away but is swiftly swept and stroked on the head.

“Put me-- never mind, this is pretty nice,” The cat sighed.

Roy and Jack return to the man with many bottles, to which the man responds by placing them into the boy’s satchel. Without a word, Roy begins to work on fixing the satchel, not by much, but only to be able to hold the weight.

“We leave in thirty!” The man commands.

Jack places a crate of bottles beside Roy, walking back to the man. “How do you think we should do this?” He asks.

“Alright our main goal is to rescue our planner, then we have her give us a plan, got it?” The man explains.

A sudden strike hits the minds of Jack, Roy, and the cat. Their heads fall as they all begin to groan.

“This idiot doesn’t have a plan...” They groaned and sobbed.

“Okay!” He yelled, “I get it! Just… go with it, we got this!”

The sounds of bottles clanging and liquid sloshing awake the boy. He sits up to look at Roy who smiles in response. He looks down at himself, finding a cleaner bag and an odd necklace around his neck.

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“Good morning sleepyhead, we’re about to leave and we can’t leave you here,” Roy explained. “You’re gonna help us until we all leave together, capiche?”

The boy looked around aimlessly, stirring suspicion within Roy. Roy asks the boy questions about where he came from, who he was, and what was his motive. When he responded with silence, he grabbed the boy by the shoulder.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” He asked.

The man and Jack both look at him in uncertainty. The cat jumps out of his arms and runs to the boy who continues to stare at Roy. As she is by their side, Roy’s face scrunches into skepticism. In one last test, he takes off the boy’s satchel and in a heartbeat, suddenly flies into the air, holding the boy by the waist. As Roy expected, the boy looked at him without a single thought.

As he landed with the boy, the two asked Roy about the boy. Awhile the cat runs over to check on him.

“I have a theory, but we need Crystal to confirm this,” He said.

Jack looks at him, puzzled by the response, “My theory is that he was a slow learner, what’s yours?”

“You-- Ugh never mind. My theory was that this kid may have hit his head hard,” Roy explained.

The man looks at him in confusion, “What do you mean “Hit his head hard” I checked him and he was showing no signs of distress or illness.”

“I’ll word it better,” He said, placing the satchel back on him. “He might have some kind of amnesia or dementia, which would explain his lack of physical prowess.”

The man looks at the boy once more, pressing his hand against his head. The cat thinks to herself, siding with the theory that the boy has amnesia.

“I saw him facing those monsters without a sense of fear, thinking he was just crazy… Now that I think about it, why am I able to understand, move, and speak?” She asks herself, pacing around the boy. “Just like him, I have no recollection of anything before leaving that crater… How do I know what’s a crater?!”

“We leave in a bit, we're wasting time thinking here!” The man reminded, “Roy! Map the route!”

“Aye aye, sir,” He responded sarcastically.

As Roy leaves the camp, the man looks up to the sky with a hand shading his eyes. As he watches the unmoving sun, nestled in the sky, he is reminded of the role he took and the part he plays for the man that he forever admires. Seconds turned to minutes for him as he sat down to think of his next actions. Before long, Roy returned.

He makes his way to the man, “Alright, so I rough-sketched the landscape, marked areas with demous sightings, and all the possible paths and detours, and landmarks.” Roy takes out the sketch and hands it to the man. “Alright, what's the next move?”

“We’ll start to make our way in five, find a way to bring the kid without y’know, hurting him?” The man asks.

“Ahh, alright. Hey Jack!” Roy called. “The boss said bring the boy with!”

“Don’t call me that, first off. Second, good idea,” He responded. “Jack! Get ready, we’re leaving!”

Jack responds with shushes, causing confusion between the two. They walk over to him who is kneeling to the boy and cat.

Jack presses his hand on his chest, “My… name… Jack!”

“Is this what you’re doing?!” The two think angrily.

“Yellow hair… name… Roy! He phased, pointing at him.

The boy continues not understanding, meanwhile, the cat eats up the information unbeknownst to Jack.

“Orange hair… name… Flare!” He applauded in amusement.

The cat happily cheered as she got to know the names of all three, however, the boy suddenly pointed at Flare. Flare was intrigued, stirring him to respond back, pointing at the boy.

“Weird kid… name… yeah forget this I can’t-- wait why am I doing this?! Jack, we’re leaving!” Flare yelled bitterly.

The three laughed before Jack picked up the boy and carried him on his shoulders. Flare opens the map, stumped at the beginning route. The group begins their journey as soon as Flare turns the map right-side up. To begin their journey, their first location was another dense, rotting forest. The distant snarls and thundering battles being heard throughout the forests set the idea of how dangerous the area was.

“The place was recorded first, around 20 minutes ago.” Roy reminded, “The groups of Demous may have relocated,”

The cat thought in confusion, “Demous…? Wait, those pitch-black creatures?”

The group continue going through the forest. The red rays of the sun illuminate the path before them, grass remained green yet never growing, the shrubs remained healthy, however the trees above tell a different story, remaining white, dead, and ominous as ever.

As they walk, Jack pats the trees as they go, marking them in soot. To his surprise, when he knocked on the tree, they made a sort of metallic banging. The group stop to look at Jack, preparing to throw a punch. Before they could stop him, his fist made contact with the tree. The tree began to ring violently, the branches hitting other trees, causing vibrations that would reach deep within the group, causing them to groan in discomfort.

“Gah! What are you doing?!” Flare yells, covering his ear.

Jack laughed as he looked around the forest, “Hah! They’re like rods just stuck to the ground, how can these even be called trees?”

A sudden shift in noise causes caution within the group. As they huddle with their backs facing each other, they wait for the Demous’ noise to dissipate. With the situation over, Jack had his hands tied to Roy.

The group continues to walk down the path more cautiously now that the Demous are agitated. Not long they come across a crushed white column with a broken statue head. Roy opens a book and begins to write something. As the cat looks at the statue for a while, she notices a nameplate.

“Tae..? Of Prophecy?” The cat read. “I can read… neat? I guess?”

The cat looks over to Flare and Jack talking about the statue.

“So the statue belonged to someone?” Jack asks.

“I’ve heard of it… These statues belonged to the rulers of the old era, otherwise known as Gods.” He responded.

Jack tilts his head, “You mentioned before that you knew one of them--?”

“No,” Flare interrupted, “I was heavily taught this, so I know the background of the Gods.”

“And why were you taught this?” Jack asks, “I was taught they were traitors of sorts, meanwhile others argue otherwise. I, in all honesty, pay no mind.”

“It’s the reason I was crowned before you,” Flare points.

The cat notices Flare pointing up above him, and as she does so, she notices a dark crown somehow floating atop the back of his head. Surprised, she quickly glanced at the others who also had a similar crown but with a different regalia. Flare’s shape resembles an ember, Jack’s resembles a jewel, and Roy’s resembles a leaf.

“Wait is that how crowning works?! If I had studied I could’ve been crowned sooner?!” Jack yelled.

“No, moron I’m just messing with ya,” He corrects, patting his back.

Roy finishes sketching the statue, signaling everyone to start moving again. As they began to walk, the cat became more mindful about them, noticing that they’ve always had the crown above their heads.

The walk continues, seemingly, they exit the forest minutes after the statue. There, their location became more visible. Their eyes gazed upon a city of white stretched the distance. Its center displayed a massive tower with a cathedral resting below. The city, once so grand and beautiful, now turned to a gray hue as the corrosion and dismembered stone waterways will forever flood the city. These waterways once brought life from the Oasis to their city, now it has been left to crumble. As they walk, they come across a sign, posted at the beginning of a clearer path. “Welcome to the City of Atlantis!”

The group stares blankly at the city from afar, captivated by the thought of this city’s past and how much they would love to see a settlement that housed the gods. They continue to walk, forever unknowing, and forever disappointed.