“Atla?” he muttered with an eyebrow raised in confusion. Olivia saw his expression and followed his gaze.

“What’s she doing here?” she asked.

“No idea…” Eik said and got to his feet, patting dirt out of his hair. “I didn’t hear anything about plan to come to Earth.”

Atla raised a hand in greeting as they approached.

“What are you doing here, Atla? Did something happen?”

“No, no, nothing’s happened. Everything’s fine. Eik, can I have a moment of your time, please?” she asked with a toss of her head. “It won’t take long, I promise,” she said when he hesitated. While anything Atla wanted usually culminated in something that helped him or made him stronger, it also never failed to cause him a heap trouble, pain, or a healthy mix of both.

He followed her back toward the city until they’d put a bit of distance between themselves and his friends.

“What is it? Don’t tell me you let Menka Tokanami out again or something like that.”

She chuckled. “No, that’s all over and done with. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. But it does have something to do with her, kind of.”

“… Okay,” he drawled, not particularly liking the direction this was taking.

“I don’t know if I told you already, but ever since you found that mind skulk in that guy you killed, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve never quite been able to get over how strange Menka’s behavior has been. It was one thing to go crazy like she did back when she learned about her son’s death, but everything after that was just a little bit… much, I guess.”

“Alright, go on,” Eik pushed.

“The Moon Shall Swallow cult has attempted to get a foothold within the alliance for many years now. Not least with the use of the mind skulks.”

“So you think she had a mind skulk in her head?”

“I certainly can’t help but suspect it. It’s very uncommon for someone of her caliber to be successfully corrupted by one of the little bastards, but it’s not impossible under the right circumstances. But her behavior has been a bit more erratic that I would expect even from someone infected by a mind skulk.”

“So… what are you saying?”

She pursed her lips as she seemed to think. “I think your Profound Toxin causes the mind skulk to lose its mind somehow.”

“Yeah, I gathered as much. But I never fought Menka for real,” Eik said.

Atla grinned. “Maybe not, no, but if I remember correctly, you did spit a whole glob of that stuff right into her face, did you not?”

For a long while, Eik was silent as he chewed on that particular theory. It did kind of make sense if she really had a mind skulk embedded in her body. It might also explain why, back when they had visited her in her prison cell, she had been so much more aggressive toward Eik than toward his teammates who had arguably been just as involved in the rescue mission as he had.

“But why wasn’t the mind skulk expelled from her then?” Eik asked. “It only took a few days before it happened to Rock Fist Bart.”

“Bart was a low C-ranker, Eik. His body and its ability to withstand your toxin would have been magnitudes below what someone like Menka’s body is capable of. Plus, wasn’t Bart at death’s door by the time the parasite made its exit? That might have been a trigger as well,” she said, excitement growing as she spoke. “Who knows! I haven’t ever heard of an ability doing what yours seems to do to the mind skulks.”

“But how would she even have been infected in the first place? They come from Moon Shall Swallow, right? Was she fighting them actively or something?”

“I don’t know how she was infected, but to my knowledge, she had not gone directly against the cult in many years, so I doubt that’s how it would have happened,” she said.

“Didn’t you say the Tokanami family has been feuding internally for generations at this point? Maybe someone from the opposition worked with Moon Shall Swallow to bring down the matriarch,” Eik suggested.

Atla nodded. “It would not be good news that a member of the Tokanami family was in the cult’s pocket, but it’s certainly a possibility worth considering. But all of that is for after we ascertain the presence of a mind skulk inside Menka,” she said and clapped her hands.

“And how are you going to do that?” Eik asked, certain that he already knew the answer.

“Why, I’m going to use you, of course,” she said with a bright smile. “Mikla’s waiting at your house. He probably wouldn’t mind another few hours to cuddle with your car, but let’s just get this over with.”

They started back toward Eik’s friends. “Cat,” Eik corrected.

“What?”

“She a cat, not a car. A car is a motorized vehicle from old Earth. Cats are cute and fluffy. She’s a cat.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” she said with finality and upped her pace to walk ahead.

Once they heard that Eik had something to do for Atla, everybody wanted to come with them to headquarters. Eik readily agreed, and Atla didn’t seem to mind terribly either. She knew they were a package deal at this point.

When Olivia insisted on coming along as well, Eik was a bit more hesitant. His sister didn’t have the best opinion of Atla. What she had heard of the dangers Eik had faced at the alliance hadn’t exactly filled her with a sense of confidence in her brother’s safety.

“But Oli, you still have C-rankers to test, don’t you?” Eik tried. It wasn’t that he didn’t want his sister to come, but if Olivia saw the state Menka Tokanami was in, she would only grow more worried for him.

“Jake,” his sister yelled, catching the attention of the decked out fire caster who looked up with the fixation of a dog taking orders from its master. “I have to go somewhere real quick. Can you take care of the rest of my fights in my place, please?” she asked.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He nodded eagerly, holding high two thumbs up. “Leave it to me, Miss Valkiri! I’ll beat ‘em senseless for you!”

“No, just beat them to a reasonable degree, Jake,” she yelled back, and Eik could swear he saw sweat spring forth visibly from every single forehead in the C-rank group.

“Will do!” he said with an enthusiastic wave. “And nice to see you too, Eik! I loved your work earlier against the D-rankers!”

Eik offered a wave back as he turned away. “Okay, let’s get out of here, please. This is getting a little awkward.”

Back at the house, they found Mikla rolling on the floor, holding aloft an impressively bored cat as he swung her through the air. She couldn’t possibly have looked any less interested unless she had been dead. And maybe not even then. Maybe she had Awoken to an ability called Profound Boredom and taken it straight to X-rank.

Mikla looked over when they stepped inside. “Ah, there you are. You could have come at a more leisurely pace. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Atla said dryly. “Can you handle an extra B-ranker? Eik’s sister wants to come along.”

Mikla nodded politely to Olivia as he stood. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem,” he said with a longing glance at the feline who had taken the opportunity to escape to Eik’s bed where she was digging her way into a cave of blankets. “Are we leaving straight away, or do we have a bit of time to—”

“Let’s just get on with it,” Atla said as the others looked on without a word.

“Maybe a bite to eat while I—”

“We just ate before coming here,” Atla said. “Not even an hour ago.”

“I could eat,” Heath interjected. “In fact, I’m starving after those fights.”

“I’ll whip up something quickly,” Eik added, seeing a fellow cat lover in need. “Sis, can you get a fire going for me, please?”

Since time wasn’t of the essence, Atla yielded to the wish of the group and sat down for eggs and a special, non-Earth treat.

“Wait, is this brisik?” Michael asked with surprise as he tasted the first mouthful. At C-rank, any injuries sustained in the test bouts were not something he could do much about with his medicines and E-rank abilities, so he’d left the healing to stronger Awakened and decided to come along with them to headquarters. “How do you have brisik?”

Eik grinned proudly. “Damn straight, it’s brisik! I picked up a couple of kilos on my last visit to Gimleh’s markets. I had to pick up more alchemy ingredients anyway, so I figured ‘why not?' Pretty good, right?”

“This is really good, Eik,” Olivia commented while she chewed. “Is it alien meat?”

“Yep, the first thing I ate when Atla brought me over. I have this friend in Gimleh, Mogu’s his name, and he has a restaurant there. I’ve eaten there a handful of times now, and he taught me how to prepare it. Sweet guy, too. I’ll introduce you to him and his family later.”

“It kind of tastes like duck,” his sister noted. “but there’s something different about it too.

“Doesn’t it just?” Eik agreed with a nod. “It actually lives underground.”

“Dirt duck?” Olivia asked, looking at the meal on her plate. Atla and Mikla’s eyes rolled way back into their skulls at that.

“Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying!”

They ate, and Mikla got to spend a bit more time with a Mis who seemed to deem his presence tolerable if inferior. After half an hour, Atla insisted on leaving, and Mikla begrudgingly tore open a fracture at the foot of Eik’s bed.

Olivia stiffened at the sight. She must have seen fractures many more times than Eik, even after all the portal traveling he had done at this point, but that only meant she was even more familiar with what a fracture on Earth usually meant. Monsters driven to kill.

Eik put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He pushed her gently toward the fracture as Atla stepped through, the surface of the otherworldly portal shimmering and rippling at the contact. Mikla stood and waited patiently, well aware of what someone like Olivia must have been through.

“You might experience a bit of vertigo the first few times you go through one of these,” he warned her. “And don’t be alarmed if you feel a bit sick on the other side. That’s perfectly normal as well. It will pass quickly.”

“Yeah, we’re totally fine already,” Heath chimed in and shoved his arm in and out of the swirling fracture several times, sending rings dancing across it as if in a quiet lake. “Don’t worry and just see it as an experience,” he said and disappeared.

With smiles of encouragement, Michael and Sonja followed the tank through, leaving only Eik, Olivia, and the fracture specialist. Eik spotted Mis strolling through the garden outside, noting the lack of open doors and windows. Strange as always.

“I promise it’s okay, sis,” Eik said and took her hand. Without waiting for a reply, he pulled her through the blue veil.

The now familiar rush of inter dimensional travel pulled at his innards like a roller coaster, and then it was over. Not even the faintest discomfort remained as he looked around the arrival site. It was the same domed building of white where both he and the siblings had first been spat out.

Mikla sure had a preference when it came to first-time visitors. Not that Eik was complaining. It was a great place to take it all in, albeit overwhelming.

“Wh-What is…” Olivia gasped behind him, still clutching his hand in a grip that he feared might break his fingers. He dragged her outside into the sun.

At the foot of the steep hill, the city of Gimleh stretched as far as the eye could see, the furthest corners obscured by fog. Olivia drew in a sharp breath at the sight, headquarters rising high above everything like a divine palace.

Eik couldn’t hold back a grin as he watched her face. “Welcome to Gimleh, host of the Nidafjeld Alliance.”