Judd stood in the main living room of the middle-class home he shared with his parents and sister. Fiddling with the crucifix necklace around his neck, he stared at the image of the American flag that was posted against his wall.
"Are you at least going to have some apple pie with us?" his younger sister, Julie, asked him.
Judd shook his head. "I'm afraid I have to leave right away. I don't have time to eat dessert."
Julie gazed morosely at the ground, but responded seconds later with surprising vigor. "You're afraid of being late, of all things? I'm telling you, Judd, you don't have to go on this trip! What if something bad happens, like an avalanche?"
"It won't" he stated. "We'll stay within the bounds of the resort."
Judd's parents, a pious God-fearing couple who'd raised an equally pious, God-fearing son, stood in the home's entryway. "I trust you'll be safe there," his mother told him. "You can promise that, right?"
Their son nodded. "I will be safe."
Judd's father scratched his mustache. "Yes. Be safe and don't hit a moose."
After Judd cringed at that, he gave his sister one last hug and made his way out to the Chevrolet Trailblazer that was his personal vehicle. He'd selected this one from the dealership precisely because it was the most all-American, patriotic vehicle you could possibly drive. Surely that made it a perfect fit for Judd.
Although Judd lived in a state bordering Colorado, one important tip for those living in America's heartland (or west of it) was to remember how much distance existed between major cities. If your car broke down in the middle of nowhere, that meant trouble, because you were literally in the middle of nowhere.
It took more than several hours (several meaning seven) to drive from central Kansas to the Front Range of Colorado, and that was without traffic. The mountainous highway that was I-70 was rather slick due to the wintry conditions, and Judd knew he needed to have a healthy respect for it. He was well and truly in God's Country now.
When Judd arrived at the timeshare he'd rented with a few of his friends, it was getting rather late, but Stan, a guy Judd's age wearing a blue and red beanie, opened the door with a smile on his face and a slice of thick-crust pepperoni pizza in his hand. "This is for you," he told his friend.
"Stan, you're the man!" Judd exclaimed. "You know just what I like!"
"Don't worry about it" Stan responded. "That's what delivery is for - it took no effort to get it other than picking up the phone and dictating our order."
In the middle of the timeshare, an elegant wooden home that looked like it truly belonged to the mountains, Judd's other three friends sat at a table. Eric, Kyle, and Kenny were busy playing a tabletop card game that appeared to involve cute multicolored creatures. Pokémon, Judd realized.
"Okay," the red-shirted announced, directing these words at Kenny. "I'm going to use Onix here to get rid of your Pikachu. That's your last Pokémon, Kenny."
Stan gasped. "Oh my God, he killed Kenny!"
Kyle wagged a finger at Eric. "You bastard!"
Eric shrugged. "It's part of the game, Kyle. You can go for the gold - I'm living proof."
"Eric, the only thing you can go for the gold in is a pizza-eating competition!" Stan shot at the red-shirted man. "I've never seen anyone snort a pizza like you did. It was coming out of your ears, your nose, and there was sauce, and there was pineapple, and I was like whoa dude, slow down!"
Kenny mumbled something; behind his orange hood, this was almost impossible for Judd to make out.
"Well, I can eat as fast as I like," Eric stated. "It's my life!"
Stan raised an eyebrow. "We still reserve the right to make fun of you for it."
"Whatever" Eric muttered. "Screw you guys, I'm going to bed. I'll see you all in the morning."
Once Eric had left the table, the other four men looked around at each other. Then Kyle spoke up.
"I'll admit that I've never been skiing before," he said.
Stan glared at Kyle. "Why would you reveal that right now?"
Kyle sighed. "It would have been nice of me to say that ahead of time, I'll admit. But I honestly thought I could follow what everyone else was doing and still have a good time."
"Skiing's pretty simple, honestly" Judd told Kyle. "All you have to do is point your skis in the shape of what we just ate for dinner. Because if you french-fry when you should have pizza'd, you're gonna have a bad time."
Stan glared at Judd. "Why do I feel like I've heard that line before?"
"Because you have to admit, it's pretty solid advice" Judd responded. "What isn't 'solid advice' is playing Pokémon cards around my parents and church group. They kept telling me it was demonic."
"Judd, just because your pastor tells you something doesn't mean you have to take it literally" Kyle retorted. Kenny nodded as well, saying something virtually unintelligible.
"Why shouldn't I?" Judd responded. "It's the literal Word of God, after all."
Stan rolled his eyes, and that's when Judd knew he'd be wise to end this line of conversation right there. He knew full well that his friends were not as observant as he was, and Kyle wasn't even a Christian at all. It broke Judd's heart to know that unless Kyle was converted during his Earthly life, he would spend eternity away from Judd. (Later, after the trip went south, Judd would tell Lucas that his friends were all about the Lord, but this was a lie. What was even the point of lying to someone who knew so much about your life?)
Julie, I bet you'd cringe at this. They're playing POKÉMON CARDS. Isn't that insane?
As Judd polished off a couple slices of pepperoni pizza and washed it down with swigs of root beer, he reflected on how he'd been away from his sister, his best friend, for only nine hours. And yet he already missed her.
Whatever. It's only a week. I'm going to see her again at the end, and I'm sure I'll have much to talk about. Every day with Eric, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny is an adventure.
The last thing Judd noticed before turning in was that a two-liter bottle of Double Dew (Mountain Dew with twice the amount of caffeine) sat just outside the room Eric had taken. The bottle was almost completely empty, and if Judd were a gambling man in America's Sin City, he would have bet his all-American home that Eric wouldn't sleep well that night.
The January morning dawned cold and bright in the Colorado mountains. In fact, due to snow's high reflectivity (the quality his high school Geography teacher had called albedo), it was even brighter than it would have been otherwise, which made it even more important for Judd to cover his face in sunscreen.
Their first day of skiing was largely uneventful. Although Kyle claimed to have never been skiing before, he took to the sport surprisingly quickly. Within two runs he was done with the bunny slope and ready to move onto some of the more advanced blue pistes.
After every run, Judd looked up toward the heavens and thanked the Lord for the opportunity to go skiing with his closest friends. For they truly were friends, as dysfunctional as their friendship may have been. Additionally, the scenery surrounding the ski resort was downright spectacular, even if some of the region's natural evergreen forest had been cleared to make way for the pistes.
One memory from that first day stood out to Judd the most, which was when he and Kyle rode the T-bar up to one of the resort's highest elevations. This sort of lift required one to keep their skis straight to avoid an embarrassing spill on the lunar-seeming landscape above the tree line.
"Are you sure you're up to this?" Judd asked Kyle. "There are only hard blues down from here."
"I am," Kyle insisted. "And I don't need to pray to your God to have enough courage."
"Fair enough" Judd stated. Instead of Kyle, Judd himself found himself praying to the Lord above that his friend would be able to ride the T-bar perfectly to the summit.
Well, that didn't last long, as when the T-bar came around, Kyle lowered his rump too quickly and forcefully, causing the bar to collapse under him. Kyle himself fell in a heap, the bar hitting his helmet before continuing its journey uphill without a passenger.
Eric laughed. "What an amateur" he stated mockingly.
"Shut up, fat boy!" Kyle yelped.
"Don't call me fat, you…" Eric began, but he was interrupted by Judd offering Kyle a hand.
"One word of advice, Kyle," Judd told his friend, "is that you're not supposed to sit on the T-bar. You're supposed to lower your butt, yeah, but you shouldn't put all your weight on the bar. If you do it'll fall, and so will you."
Eric rolled his eyes. "That's exactly what just happened, but okay. Let's just get up to the summit."
Kyle failed to get onto the T-bar a second time, which meant he was told to return to the back of the line and wait his turn to try again. Consequently, Judd ended up sharing the ride above the treeline with Eric of all people, who at least knew how to keep his skis straight.
"I'm telling you, Judd, I'm sure you prayed hard that Kyle would be able to ride the T-bar up."
"I did," Judd admitted.
"Well, it clearly didn't happen. Does your God work in mysterious ways?"
"Yes, he does," Judd sighed. "He does indeed."
Although Kyle's failure to mount the T-bar raised a question for Judd, it didn't shake his overall faith to any significant degree. He figured that was yet another query to file away until such time as he met his maker. God had a plan for him, after all, and sometimes the plan didn't fully need to align with his human desires. That was okay, because again, God worked in mysterious ways.
I wish you were here, Julie. The sunlight is so glorious, especially when it's against the snow. It makes me feel so grateful to be on Earth. You would love to see this. But I'll have another chance to tell you about this, because I'll be back in a week.
Little did Judd know at the time that, while it was one thing to make such a promise, keeping it was another task entirely. He fully believed that he'd be able to speak to Julie again a week later, and that in the meantime, he would have the time of his life in God's Country.
After the runs had closed down for the day, and as the sun began to sink lower in the sky, Eric suggested that they hit up one of the apres-ski bars made of ice. He'd just turned twenty-one, after all, and he wanted to take full advantage of the imbibing privileges that his new age granted him.
"No, Eric" Kyle stated forcefully. "You're not going to get drunk. You're the designated driver, remember?"
Eric rolled his eyes. "Designated driver, shmesignated shriver. I'm not going to listen to what you three have to say."
"Eric, driving drunk is against the law" Stan muttered. "Even if there's only a trace amount of alcohol on your breath, you can still get prison time for a DUI. And I don't think you want that on your permanent record."
The red-coated young man looked longingly at the ice bar, then down at the snowfront. He clearly wasn't thrilled with needing to remain sober, but he also probably had the attitude of: If I go down, I'm taking you with me.
"If I can't drink at the ice bar," Eric muttered, "then none of you can either. It's either all of us or none of us."
"Then it's none of us," Judd replied simply. "Let's head back to the timeshare."
So Eric drove them along the slippery highway that was Interstate 70. Despite the potentially hazardous conditions, the redcoat floored the gas pedal far more aggressively than Judd's driving school would have advised. You needed to have a healthy respect for the damage a vehicle could do if used improperly, and Eric clearly lacked such respect.
By the time the group arrived back at the timeshare, the sun was setting behind the Rocky Mountains, casting even longer shadows across the ground. An idea occurred to Judd.
"I think I'll go for a walk around town," he told the others.
Eric frowned. "Could you get me a cinnamon roll?"
"Don't spoil your appetite for dinner, fat boy!" Kyle exclaimed.
Judd rolled his eyes. "I'll be back well before dinner" he stated, believing in his heart of hearts that this was true. Really, what reason did he have to think otherwise?
So Judd left the driveway of the timeshare and meandered his way around town. The town itself had a main street with an excellent view of the mountains, as well as numerous trails for both cyclists and pedestrians that worked their way around town in a labyrinthine manner. Every so often, Judd would see a rabbit or even a deer beside the path, a reminder that this place was truly wild. That he was in God's country.
Eventually, Judd had wandered his way well beyond the main thoroughfare, and then he started thinking about how much closer he found himself to the creator of the universe. To the deity who had molded the young man, even if through evolution, to make him who he was today. In the cold, thin mountain air, God seemed less distant than ever.
Judd tapped the crucifix in front of his Adam's apple. My Heavenly Father, thank you for providing me all that I've been given. Amen.
It was while Judd was on one of these pedestrian/cyclist trails, perhaps a mile or two from the nearest bakery (sorry, Eric), that the unexpected happened.
He heard a cracking sound, somewhat like that of a whip. However, the sound continued. For that matter, it wasn't nearly as dramatic as a whip would have been, nor were there any whimpers of pain from the victim of said lashes. In other words, nobody was getting whipped.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the cracking noise persisted, and Judd turned in its direction to find that a giant dark brown mammal was currently feasting on a few dead branches. This mammal had antlers that reached up to the sky with many branching "paths", and Judd pictured these antlers like the roots of a tree.
A moose.
If Judd had possessed all his mental faculties, rather than having been lured into a meditative state by the amazement of where he was, he might have recalled that moose were very dangerous creatures. If provoked, they could charge at their target with speeds approaching forty miles per hour. Even the most inhuman Olympic sprinter would not be able to outrun it, nor would an elite boxer be able to counter that moose in a fight. That fight wouldn't last long, and it could hardly be called a "fight", for that word implies that the victor would need to struggle to win.
No. In reality, if you ended up in a confrontation with a moose, you might as well accept that you were going to meet your maker. Once you were left in a bloody pile, there was no way the paramedics could get to you fast enough. And even if they did, a bloody pile could hardly be put back together again, could it?
But Judd didn't think. He let the thin air get to him as he called out, "Hey, moose! How's it going?"
The moose did not respond, instead focusing on its meal of dead branches. As such, Judd decided to take a photo of the moose. He'd send it to Julie with a caption, something like, Look at that! It's one of God's greatest beasts!
However, Judd's heart skipped a beat as soon as he'd snapped the picture. It did not matter that he'd turned the flash feature off - one way or another, the moose had noticed its photo being taken, and it did not like it. This was evidenced by the way the moose scraped its hoof against the snow, giving the unmistakable air of a predator about to pursue its prey.
Right then, Judd realized that he'd need to run away. Perhaps he was already too late, but he at least had to try to talk his way out of this.
He held both hands up. "I'm not going to hurt you!" he bellowed, though those words were caught in his throat and became painful to choke out.
The moose didn't seem to care, puffing out copious amounts of steam from its nose. But at least it wasn't chasing after Judd yet. (Running away would be futile, so all Judd could really do was stall for time until the moose was tired of staring him down).
"I swear to God, I'm not going to hurt you!" he exclaimed again. "Just let me get away. Please."
As Judd swore to God, he found himself gazing upward as though appealing directly to heaven. In a way, that's exactly what he was doing, hoping that the Lord above would send something down from the darkening sky, a comet through the approaching night, to take down that moose and let Judd live to tell the tale.
I might not see Julie again. Scratch that - I WILL NOT see her again if You don't help me now. I know You have many important tasks to perform, my Lord - running the universe has to be quite the undertaking. But if you can spare a lightning bolt or something to give me my life, that would be amazing.
However, no answer was forthcoming. The moose scraped its hooves against the snowy ground again, and Judd had seen enough to know that the giant mammal meant business. And it didn't matter how fast Judd ran. It didn't matter how delicately he tried to talk the moose out of eating him for dessert. The moose would eat him for dessert, one way or another.
So Judd turned around and calmly walked away. However, he didn't get far.
He heard a springing noise behind him, and before he could even have the presence of mind to pray, before he could even shout his sister's name, the moose had swept Judd off his feet and pinned him to the frosty ground.
Despite the winter's cold, the moose's breath was the temperature of a furnace. Indeed, during the colder months Judd sometimes liked to sit by said furnace for comfort and read the Bible, but this was not by choice.
"Get off me!" Judd all but wailed. "Please, get off me! I'll never bother you again…JULIE!"
All Judd could think about was how he was now going to be separated from his sister. She'd cross the boundary from her teens to her twenties, marry a devout man within the church, and possibly have children. She'd study to be a nurse, the sort of job she'd always claimed to want despite (or because of) all the stress it entailed. And she'd grow old in the presence of her husband before passing away peacefully, likely in her sleep, and being buried six feet under in God's country.
Meanwhile, Judd would remain frozen in time, forever young.
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Forever young.
As Sophie's body remained supine on her rigid cot, her mind drifted off into the land of dreams. Typically, she didn't remember what she had dreamed about, probably a sign from the universe that dreams weren't worth paying attention to. Sophie resided in the world of cold, hard facts, and she wanted to keep it that way.
On the night after Marie was talked out of leaving Jet Force Isekai, however, Sophie dreamed about the day when she had become "forever young."
It had started just like any other day, and there certainly seemed no reason to think it would be the last day of her life.
Sophie had woken up in her apartment that she shared with a few of her cousins. The housing market in British Columbia was incredibly tight, but she didn't care about that. It was better than having to pay for health care like those poor idiots south of the border did. Besides, when it came to living in the scenic seaside city of Victoria, you got what you paid for.
It was a warm, stuffy morning in the non-air-conditioned apartment, a prelude to a very hot day, and Sophie steeled herself for a difficult day of studies. In addition to her summer course in Physics at the local university, Sophie was trying to learn Finnish, a language that wasn't related to most other European languages. Just like one of the few decent American Presidents had said in a famous speech about space travel, however, she learned Finnish because it was hard, not because it was easy.
As Sophie ate her cereal, she listened to a video of two people speaking Finnish; her eventual task would be to decipher what the conversation concerned in terms as specific as possible. She did not use Duolingo for this purpose. She'd been told that if you actually wanted to become fluent in a language other than your native tongue, Duolingo was little better than nothing.
However, sweat poured down the bridge of Sophie's nose as she stared at the screen. It became increasingly difficult to concentrate with just how quickly the morning was warming up. Eventually, one of her cousins walked into the room.
"Good morning, Sebastian," Sophie said. "You know, I'm kind of busy right now."
Sebastian was twelve years old but already strong as an ox, built to play Canada's favorite sport of ice hockey (which was heavily superior to American football in numerous ways). It was not his broad shoulders that stood out that morning, however, but rather the pleading look on his face.
"What are you doing?" Sebastian asked casually.
"Trying to pick up Finnish," Sophie stated.
Sebastian curled his lips into a pout. "Planning a move to Finland?"
"Well, no" the cousin ten years his senior told Sebastian. "But even if it's only an official language of one country, learning it is still a very good mental exercise. You've got to stay sharp, you know?"
Sebastian sighed. "I just wanna play Fortnite all damn day. Is that too much to ask?"
Sophie rolled her eyes. "Of course it is. In fact, I suggest we head out to the river and go for a swim. It's too hot to stay in this stuffy old apartment all day."
Her cousin groaned. "Can I at least bring my phone with me so I can hunt for Pokémon?"
"Fine. You may. But don't bring it into the water, because then you'll break your phone - or worse."
After that, Sophie's brain cut off the rest of her memory. That's right - her subconscious was a product of her brain, not her soul or any of that jazz that the Americans liked to pretend were real. Her physical body was all that mattered; she was nothing more than a meat computer existing in a sack of flesh and bone.
Of course, snippets of the rest of that fateful day still percolated around her mind on a regular basis. How could they not when the events had been so consequential to bring her where she was today?
Sophie could recall the drive to the river, during which she was very happy to only see the national flag on a handful of trucks driven by the vocal anti-science minority. (But it was a small minority, 5 percent of the population at most, whereas the US' anti-science population was close to half.) She could also remember that Sebastian, like so many 12-year-olds in this day and age, was glued to his phone, constantly wondering aloud if he was about to catch a Shiny in Pokémon Go. And Sophie, of course, would remind him that Pokémon weren't real, and that it was best to focus on things that were real, such as the beautiful creek they were about to visit.
She remembered arriving at the swimming hole, where they'd changed into their bathing suits and relished the cool, clear waters of the creek. The trickle of the nearby waterfall, the bright sunlight filtering through the treetops, the scent of ferns…it was all present, and it was all natural, no God required to explain it.
Finally, she recalled the convoy idiot who'd pulled his truck into the parking lot, seen one of the bumper stickers on Sophie's own car stating I BELIEVE IN SCIENCE, and swiftly driven off, evidently determined to boycott that swimming hole like those Proud Boys had elected to boycott Target. And she'd had a good laugh at that, though Sebastian didn't seem to fully grasp the apparent irony in how the "convoy idiot" likely considered his older cousin a snowflake. He claims I'm too weak to handle acquaintances with different opinions, but he can't even share a swimming hole with me.
And then there was the vague recollection of footsteps lumbering through the old growth forest, screams from Sebastian (who now seemed fully alert rather than daydreaming about playing Apex Legends all damn day), and then determination on Sophie's part to protect her cousin. Whether or not they agreed with one another's life choices, they both had to accept that they were family.
In the end, it didn't matter how hard Sophie resisted the bear. She was no match for it, and even now, she wasn't entirely sure whether or not Sebastian had been able to escape.
Even after she'd woken up at Jet Force Isekai, Sophie had clung to the notion that maybe, just maybe, Sebastian was still alive. He never appeared in those ruins, so Sophie assumed that if he was dead, that was it. Even in this bizarre afterlife, she felt certain that for most people, when life was over, life was over.
As such, she wanted to hold out hope, because the alternative was too tragic to comprehend. Sophie needed to believe there was a chance, however slim, that Sebastian had escaped those woods and continued living his life. But in the last six months at Jet Force Isekai, no evidence to that effect had been forthcoming.
If Sophie were fully honest with herself, she would likely have admitted that she believed Sebastian might still be out there for the same reason Judd clung to his faith in Jesus of Nazareth. Even in the absence of evidence, she wasn't strong enough to admit the truth, that her beloved cousin was now in the void, eternal oblivion, the big sleep…whatever you wanted to call it, Sebastian Frey was no more. And just because Sophie had slipped the noose of religious indoctrination, just because she didn't fall prey to the same nationalism and flag worship that Americans espoused, that didn't mean everything she believed was rational.
----------------------------------------
Sophie woke early the next morning, sitting upright in bed. In fact, she'd had many early mornings in this drafty old cabin, because the stiff board they called a "bed" just wasn't comfortable. Besides, she wasn't the heaviest sleeper to begin with.
She looked around the cabin. Her three bunkmates remained dead to the world - Jessica seemingly slept the most soundly, because Marie kept tossing and turning and Judd's hands were clasped together even in his slumber.
We're not dead to the world. We're just plain dead, and so is Sebastian. It took me six months to accept this, but he's not forever young. He's just gone forever!
The stiffness in Sophie's joints protested against any movement, but she nonetheless got to her feet and started brushing her teeth. She knew it was very early in the morning, and she knew that because…she just could. After six months in this ruined land, she'd developed a sixth sense for how to operate her "body clock."
It's better to just start the day now. I know I won't be sleeping any longer, that's for sure.
Sophie donned her shoes and made her way out of Cabin Gemini. The light fog filled the air, drenching part of her tracksuit - for all she knew, maybe her last name or four-digit discriminator had become illegible as a result.
Sophie did not know how far she walked until she reached a veritable maze of pathways that led to the top of the ravine. As she peered through the fog, trying to figure out how many meters the climb would be (meters, not feet, for she was a proud yet not nationalistic Canadian), she couldn't shake the sensation that she was being watched.
That's ridiculous, she told herself. Nobody's watching you. You're all alone in this canyon - are you going to start praying like Judd does?
But those walls were just plain unsettling. Not because she felt particularly afraid of heights, but because something about them wasn't quite right. The stone seemed to glimmer every so often, with occasional flashes of light and hums. Maybe that was just Sophie's imagination, though.
Well, maybe it would be nice to get a bird's-eye view of this place.
Sophie began scaling the cliffs. For the most part, she was able to walk up the slopes rather than getting on her hands and knees. That being said, the slopes were steep, and by the time she reached the top of the ravine she was almost completely out of breath.
Wow, she thought. I can see for miles. I can even see my house from here, literally!
On the ground far below, however, there was a sight that made Sophie's heart skip a beat. Her breath caught in her throat as she once more peered through the thickening fog and was able to make out two forms on the ground.
One of the bodies looked like a rather squat woman, while the other was clearly a Lucario. The identity of the former wasn't terribly difficult to figure out - only one woman here would be walking with a Lucario at this ungodly hour.
Guildmistress Toriel can't know I'm up here. She just can't. If she finds out that I've snuck out of my cabin so early in the morning, I might get in trouble.
No. That'd be the height of hypocrisy, and Toriel won't engage in that. She'll just remark that I'm up early, ask if I can't sleep, or maybe say there's been a lot of that going around lately. Besides, there's only so much I can do when I don't have any Finnish textbooks with me.
"So the missions are all going smoothly, Lucas?" Toriel asked the other party to the conversation.
Sophie felt as though she'd been shocked with defibrillator paddles. She was lying down now, but she visibly flinched, which was nearly enough to make her topple over the cliff face and fall headfirst tens of meters to the ground. That would no doubt be the end of her afterlife.
"Yes, they are," the Lucario replied. Although Sophie could not see Lucas' lips move, she could hear his voice loudly and clearly, just like a bell at one of the churches in Victoria that virtually nobody under age 65 attended anymore.
Why is his voice so clear even though I'm so far away from him?
For once, Sebastian's knowledge, which was usually strictly limited to secrets about video games like Fortnite, actually came in handy for Sophie. Her decade-younger cousin had once mentioned that Lucario were able to speak using aura, which allowed their "voices" to reach their target even if said target was hundreds of meters away. The more skilled an aura user was, the further they would be able to project this voice.
"Wonderful" Toriel's voice, which was just as clear to Sophie as Lucas' had been, announced. "You'll be sending the banished away to the train?"
"Yes," Lucas responded. "Yes, we will. They're staying in the Halfway Cavern tonight, but in the morning we will have the Miner's Train ready for them."
Sophie tuned out the next part of the conversation, because another question occurred to her. If Lucas was speaking via aura, and that was indeed how Sophie was able to make out all his words, why would she hear Toriel as well? For that matter, Toriel was not a Lucario - she lacked the power of aura as far as Sophie knew. So how did her voice project just as far?
"A total of eight people were banished last night" Lucas continued. "We will have to make sure enough cabins are available on the train for them. That's why it is taking slightly longer than usual - last week we only had six."
"Why do you care how comfortable the cabins are?" Toriel responded. "The trip is only three days."
Three days is pretty long for a train ride. Why WOULDN'T you make sure the passengers are comfortable?
"Quite frankly, I don't" Lucas muttered. "But we have certain standards we need to live up to in the industry. I don't make the rules, Toriel - I just enforce them."
The guildmistress grunted. "And once they complete their journey, they'll end up at the Eternal Night Mine. We'll have to be in constant communication with Zandari - he needs to know when to expect his workers to arrive."
Sophie gasped, though she clamped a hand over her mouth afterward. It did not matter, though - if Toriel and Lucas had indeed noticed her presence on that sheer cliff face, then the damage had already been done. Even if she forcefully denied that she'd been up there, such a denial would have been about as effective as the "defense" inspired by that song "It Wasn't Me".
"Yes," Lucas replied. "Zandari is going to be pleased when he receives his tribute."
Tribute? Is this the Hunger Games?
Sophie didn't listen to the rest of the conversation, scurrying away from the edge of the ravine as far as she could. She didn't need to know what else was said, though, because she'd gleaned all the information she needed to know that Marie had been an idiot last night.
What is WRONG with that lady? Like, somebody needs to slap her and bring her back into reality!
A second later, Sophie felt sick to her stomach for even thinking that line. She didn't believe in God - certainly not a God who bothered Himself with what humans were thinking. Thoughtcrime was a foreign concept to her, the sort that only existed in dystopian novels. But that didn't mean she could let herself get away with mentally saying someone needed to "slap" Marie.
Marie didn't know what being banished entails. As far as I'm aware, she still doesn't know. It's hard to judge her too much, especially after she yelled for Clancy. But why would she yell for the guy banished last week when, in her eyes, he's probably just cannon fodder?
Because maybe he isn't cannon fodder, at least not to Marie.
In any case, Sophie kept jogging away from the ravine's rim. She didn't really have a destination in mind, other than putting as much distance as possible between herself and the authorities whom, she was now convinced, could hear her heart beating.
Did they know I was up there? Or am I just being paranoid?
Nonetheless, Sophie did not cease running until she was stopped in her tracks by an invisible barrier that she whacked her head into. Falling to the ground, Sophie didn't think she was seriously hurt - she didn't feel stunned or anything like that.
But that's still so weird! Why can't I go any further?
She couldn't see anything different about the landscape beyond said barrier - it consisted of rocky ground the same nondescript shade of purple-gray as the rest of Jet Force Isekai. A fine layer of sand covered the rock, but that was itself unremarkable. The only thing notable about the expanse of land in front of Sophie was that she could not access it.
Okay. This is really odd. There's a force field here stopping me from advancing. And I'd really like to know why.
A force field didn't just pop out of thin air. To the extent that a consensus existed among science fiction authors, it was that force fields existed as a result of technology that had been developed, technology far beyond what existed on Earth.
Somebody had created this force field and set it in place. Somebody didn't want Sophie, or presumably any of the other residents, to leave the area immediately surrounding this ravine. Somebody wanted this environment to be strictly controlled, with only select, approved individuals allowed in or out.
And when Sophie put it all together, everything suddenly made sense.