The walk through the forest is a quiet one. Drakthar and Gwendolyn follow Kali South, no one wishing to speak about the events that have just transpired. Just as the sun goes down and the little light they were getting through the trees dissipates, they arrive at the mossy hut that Lunette calls a laboratory.

Kali gives the door two firm knocks, the wooden door cracking a little upon impact.

The three are greeted by Kayde’s smiling face, “Hey you guys, good to see you didn’t drown”. Drakthar and Gwendolyn can’t return his enthusiasm, the agony of earlier today still hanging over them.

Their silence is telling, making Kayde notice that Xander is not there.

“Wait, where is Xander?” His question is met with even further pained expressions.

“Let’s take a walk,” Drakthar grabs Kayde by the shoulder and leads him into the woods in order to catch him up on what happened.

“Xander was captured, we walked right into their trap and he was able to get the rest of us out, but we couldn’t save him… there were too many,” Drakthar explains, frustrated that all he could do was carry Gwendolyn away.

“Anyway, best not mention him at all when you are around Gwendolyn, at least for a while,” Drakthar advises, not wanting her condition to get worse.

Kayde nods, “I understand… Do you think they are going to execute him?”

Drakthar is caught off guard by such a morbid question, but he responds honestly, “If I were them, yes. But maybe they prefer to torture him for information; that’s all we can hope for at the moment”.

“Okay, let’s go. We have to liberate him quickly,” Kayde suggests, already preparing his things to head out.

Drakthar grabs his arm, “Hold on, I don’t think now is the time. If they want him dead then it’s already done, we would only be putting ourselves in danger and undoing everything that he did to get the rest of us out of there. Plus, they know what Gwendolyn and I look like and are probably still on high alert. If we head back it is as good a suicide”.

“So what? We bide our time and hope they don’t kill him?” Kayde doesn’t like the sound of that option.

Neither does Drakthar, his rage starting to boil over at the situation they are in, but he doesn’t see any other way, “For now, yes”.

The two of them rejoin the others.

As soon as they get back Lunette comes out of her room and notices the new faces that have arrived, “Oh, these must be your friends. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Lunette”. She puts her hand out in front of Drakthar.

“Drakthar Borro’vaga,” Drakthar takes her tiny hand in his and firmly grasps it, giving two firm shakes before letting go.

“Woah, so huge,” Lunette looks up at the hulking man in front of her.

Lunette shifts her attention to the other person who is foreign to her.

“Hello, I’m Lunette,” she holds out her hand again. Gwendolyn looks down at the petite hand in front of her but doesn’t register the meaning of the gesture nor the introduction Lunette just made. Her mind is trapped wondering what she could have done in order to save Xander.

“She’s Gwendolyn. Don’t take offense, she is just shaken up right now,” Kali tells Lunette, not wanting her to think badly of Gwendolyn.

Lunette looks up at Gwendolyn’s distraught face, examining it, “I can see… she’s been crying”.

Lunette’s eyes dart down to the ring around Gwendolyn’s finger.

“Did something happen to her husband?” The others are confused by what she means.

“No… he is just…” Kali stops noticing the ring on Gwendolyn’s finger for the first time.

“How long have you had that?” Kayde asks Gwendolyn, knowing about Xander’s plans through Fore. Instead of answering Gwendolyn tries her best to hold back tears and runs outside, not wanting the others to see her cry again.

“I’m sorry!” Lunette calls out after her.

“At least you look pretty when you cry,” she adds much quieter, Gwendolyn is unable to hear.

“The guy who gave her that was just captured a few hours ago,” Kali informs her.

“Okay, but when did he give that to her?” Kayde feels comfortable asking now that Gwendolyn is gone.

“It must have been right when he was taken, I noticed him give her something, but I’ve never knew it was a ring,” Drakthar recalls that weird exchange from before.

“I’ll go talk to her, you guys wait here,” Kali tells the others disappearing outside the door.

“So you’re the one Kali was talking about,” Lunette comments awkwardly towards Drakthar. He just looks down at her surprised she is saying something.

“Maybe shelf that for another day,” Kayde suggests, not wanting her to anger Drakthar.

“Sorry… just trying to lighten the mood,” Lunette starts to whistle inconspicuously. Drakthar thinks to himself, great, now there’s another one.

Outside Kali finds Gwendolyn leaned up against the front of the stone hovel. Gwendolyn replays that moment in her mind. Thinking about Xander slipping the ring on her finger and disappearing. She tries to think of how she could have stopped Xander’s capture. As she remembers the final moments, tears finally escape her eyes.

She starts to think about how the last thing she and Xander did was fight. At the time it had been so important to her that she win, but now she can barely remember what she was so mad about. Whatever it was never really mattered and caused the last memory of them together to be a pointless argument. The regrets cause more tears to flow forth, and a slight sobbing to accompany them.

Gwendolyn spots Kali out of the corner of her eyes and wipes her face trying to hide what she’s been doing.

“No, it’s okay. You don’t need to hold it in for me,” Kali tells her, taking a seat next to her on the grass.

Gwendolyn doesn’t listen to her, trying as best she can to not cry, her eyes laser-focused on the ground.

“We will get him back, trust me,” Kali tries to comfort her the only way she can; but still, to Gwendolyn it means nothing. There is no way any of them can know whether he is still alive or not.

Upon seeing that she isn’t getting anywhere, Kali gives up, “Alright, I’ll leave you to it. We’ll be inside if you need us”.

The others see Kali come back, worry all over her face.

“She’s that bad?” Kayde asks, reading her expression.

“No, I think she will be alright, hopefully… maybe... I don’t know. I think she just needs time,” Kali gets less and less convincing.

“Well we have nothing but time for now; that is, until Lunette gets that device made for me,” Kayde mentions, not able to go inside the city until he can modify his appearance.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“About that, can you do the same for the rest of us? I get the idea that at least Drakthar and Gwendolyn will need one now and it wouldn’t hurt for me to have one either,” Kali requests, mindful of their situation.

“It will take more time, but sure, I can do that,” Lunette agrees, happy to finally have someone to make something for.

“I’m going to go train,” Drakthar mumbles, heading for the door.

“Can I train with you?” Kali asks, also wanting something to take her mind off of things.

“No,” Drakthar slams the door behind him.

Gwendolyn hears the loud thud from the entryway and looks down, trying to mask the tears from whoever exited now. Drakthar doesn’t look in her direction; instead, he draws his axe, his determined eyes locked on the trees in front of him.

Gwendolyn is surprised when she hears him declare, “Everyone that was in that plaza, the two priests, those guys in white armor and lastly the girl that tricked him, I am going to kill them all, I promise you”.

Drakthar continues walking, deep into the woods to hack at trees in anger. Gwendolyn doesn’t cheer up, but she appreciates what Drakthar said. She knows that he was trying to comfort her the only way he knew how.

“You know, your friends really seem distraught about losing this guy, he must have been something,” Lunette comments from back inside.

“He’s a good dude,” Kayde notes, trying to think what about Xander makes people gravitate towards him.

“I mean he must be really handsome to make a woman that beautiful be so broken up over him,” Lunette reiterates what she really meant.

“I guess moderately… Although I wouldn’t know, I mean I don’t really gauge how attractive other men are… Why is that? I mean I’m not human I should be attracted to whatever I want? Like other machines…” Kayde starts to philosophically question why he, as an android, is attracted to human women.

“This guy is great,” Lunette comments towards Kali starting to laugh a little at his internal struggle, knowing that she does the same thing all the time.

“Yeah, whatever, how long do you think creating those devices is going to take? Cause staying here longer is only going to make everyone antsier,” Kali asks, not wanting to stay in this environment full of sadness and insanity.

Lunette makes a quick approximation, “Probably a week or two”.

Three months later, Lunette is still working on the devices, coming across a wide array of complications she didn’t think of while initially brainstorming how the invention would work.

“I’m sorry, what is the problem again?” Kayde asks, like he does each day. Lunette ignores him, instead, spacing out, thinking about how she could get around this latest hiccup.

“Just let her be, you know how she is when she gets like this, just give it a minute then ask again,” Kali rolls her eyes, used to Lunette’s habit of dazing off.

They wait a couple of minutes and Lunette finally snaps back to the present.

“I’m sorry you asked something?”

“Yes, what is the problem?” Kayde reiterates, starting to lose his temper a bit at the combination of Lunette’s spacy behavior and the fact that they are still cooped up in her hovel in the woods.

“Ah, well you see, I kind of underestimated how easy it would be to replicate the movements and facial quirks people, so what I have right now looks off. They would be able to tell it isn’t real,” Lunette explains as best she can so they can understand.

“Would it be easier if you had living people to model them after?” Kayde comes up with an easy solution.

“Yes! Yes! That would be perfect. If you do get them, make sure they are about the same height and as close to the same body shape as possible. It won’t work otherwise,” Lunette starts to scribble, frantically calculating for having a living person to model the device off of.

“Great, we will go get those then,” Kali slams the door to Lunette’s room behind them.

“So?” Kayde starts to say.

“So what?” Kali asks, not sure what he means.

“So, only we should go get these people right? Wait, no, only me, because you look like that. You know because Gwendolyn and Drakthar were seen,” she explains, realizing she is going to have to kidnap all these people herself.

“Nah, I’ll go with you it will be fine,” Kayde assures her.

“No, you stay here, I’ll take Drakthar, and if we stay out of the city it should be fine. We'll just search for people in the smaller settlements surrounding the city,” Kali turns him down.

“If he will go with you,” Kayde points out, knowing Drakthar has been ignoring Kali a lot recently.

A frown appears on Kali’s face, “I’m sure he can take a break from his deforestation efforts to help, it will do him some good to channel his anger into something else for a while”.

“Maybe, those two have been such wet blankets… at least Drakthar is talking though, Gwendolyn still hasn’t said a word since we have been here,” Kayde complains, not a fan of diminished social interaction.

Kali looks down, worried and guilty she can’t do anything to help her friend feel better, “I know”.

“I guess the best we can do is get those models back to Lunette as quickly as possible,” Kayde smiles trying to keep things positive.

“You mean I; you aren’t going anywhere,” Kali corrects him.

“Sure, sure, good luck,” Kayde waves her on ahead.

Kali delves into the forest listening until she hears rhythmic thuds, knowing it is the sound of Drakthar’s axe cutting deeper and deeper into the tree he is focusing on.

She approaches him tentatively, scared he might be angry with her for bothering him, “Drakthar… uh, we have something to do”.

“What?” Drakthar stops, his sweat dripping down his body, causing the wood chips from the tree to stick to him.

“Lunette needs us to find four people that are about the same height as us to model the disguises after,” Kali explains.

She watches as Drakthar wipes the shavings off his body as best he can before telling her, “Fine let’s go”.

They head towards the city, making sure to take cover behind trees if they hear any noise, cautious not to run into any guards out on patrol. Instead, it is just the sounds of animals scurrying around in their home.

They crouch in some weeds once they reach one of the smaller villages on the outskirts of the capital.

“Okay, now we need to look for people who are around the same height as you, Gwendolyn, Kayde and me,” Kali reminds him of the plan. They spot a man around the same height as Kayde along a path in front of them. Drakthar looks from side to side making sure the coast is clear before darting out and knocking the man over the head before he can make a sound.

Drakthar throws the man over his shoulder and returns to Kali lying the man in the bushes.

While they continue to wait Kali looks down at the unconscious man next to her and comments, “Now that I think about it, how are we going to get all these people back? I don’t know if I can carry two”.

“It will be fine, I can carry three,” Drakthar shrugs off her concerns, knowing his own strength.

“Someone is trying to impress me,” Kali retorts without thinking.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Drakthar counters back, his actions never taken with the intention to amaze anyone.

Without too much time or effort they are able to find two women the heights of Gwendolyn and Kali and bring them to the bush they are hiding in.

“So that only leaves you… I don’t know where we are going to find a giant around here…” Kali trails off, not sure if someone as big as Drakthar even exists in this village.

“I would agree, let’s take these back. I can return later to find someone my size, but we should hurry so we can get these people back to their village as soon as possible,” Drakthar suggests, not wanting rumors to start to spread if these people are gone too long.

Drakthar and Kali arrive back at the lab by nightfall.

“Here,” Drakthar lays the three bodies he carried down on the floor in the main room. Lunette walks over to them and starts examining them, grabbing their faces and pulling on their cheeks, almost testing the elasticity to see if they are in fact human.

“Yeah, these will do… I’ll get started with the first one,” Lunette starts to drag the woman who is as tall as Kali towards the back.

“Hold on, don’t drag her,” Kayde gives her a hand, wrapping the unconscious woman’s arm around his shoulder.

“I’m going to go back out, I’ll be harder to spot at night,” Drakthar barely gives the others a warning before disappearing into the night.

“And he’s gone again, great… anything he can do to get away from me I guess…” Kali states weakly as soon as he is out the door.

Gwendolyn looks up at her friend’s heartbreak, contemplating comforting her, but it only reminds her of her own, causing her to maintain her silence.

The next morning Drakthar returns with a hulking looking man over his shoulder.

“Great! Now that you are back, you can return these three. Lunette finished scanning them through the night,” Kayde gives him another task as soon as he returns.

“Got it,” Drakthar doesn’t question it starting to pile the bodies onto his shoulders.

“Hold on! You’ve been up all night, let me at least take one,” Kali pleads, knowing he must be exhausted.

Drakthar grunts, giving in, “fine,” he leaves one person on the floor for her to carry.

“They seem happy,” Kayde comments to Lunette once they are gone.

“Come on, as much as I enjoy sarcasm, why don’t you help me get this big guy into the other room so I can scan him?” Lunette starts grabbing at an arm.

Gwendolyn gets up from the edge of the room and grabs an arm, helping Kayde and Lunette bring the hulking man into the back room.

“Thank you,” Lunette tells her, surprised and appreciative of the help.

Gwendolyn doesn’t respond, making sure to avoid eye contact with Lunette. By the end of the day, they have all of the people returned to the village without incident and Lunette gets underway with creating disguised for all of them.