When Sam finally blinked away the screen of information he saw that Yoko was trapped in the same state of marvel, zoned out as her eyes read all the Regalia had to tell.

The crucified Belua remained as it was, its grimy lips trembled hushed words. Everything in the room remained unchanged, except for the gap. Once shrouded in darkness, it now held a resplendent bubble, beckoning Sam as the way out of his present nightmare.

“Yoko!” He yelled, running over to gather his bag of glass. It was fortunate he’d thought to bring them into this room with the thrones initially, otherwise the only weapons and provisions they had prepared would have been as lost to them as Yoko’s clones were now.

She snapped out of the daze and wordlessly mirrored his actions, grabbing her backpack and gym bag. While Alex hadn’t prepared any food, provisions, clothes or footwear with Yoko in mind, she had prepared for a fight. Yoko’s gym bag was full to the brim with gun gear, Holy Bullets aplenty and even a bit fittingly, a Nuclei powered curved sword.

Sam had seen DSF agents fighting with Halberds so it shouldn’t be so odd and yet, it was, at least a bit. After the puzzle to escape a windowless death trap, a curved, even technologically edited was hitting the nail on the head a bit too hard.

This is...an adventure.

Yoko and Sam stood before the warbling portal, their faces lit up by its spectrum of lights, their hair went static from electric jolts. They shared once last look of uncertainty and restrained hope and stepped through together. The sensation of their spatial distortion was limited compared to the first time, but Sam still felt an urge to hurl the chips and nuts he’d chowed on while they brainstormed.

It was a gut feeling that worsened as Sam and Yoko took stock of their surroundings and found it to be as disorienting as the very sensation of being teleported.

The first thing they did was look behind them. Of course, the fleeting glimpse of a nebula splitting the sky and a belt of asteroids orbiting close to the stars spilling from the moonless night was captivating—but instinct took over.

There was no sign of the warbling portal, the room, crucified Belua or thrones but there was a Doom Tower, encased in a crater as vast and deep as the one back in Manila.

This one wasn’t surrounded by a forest of burning trees and existence erasing Tikbalang but it carried a different aura about itself, a matured one as the crystal veins the Doom Towers seemed to sport had grown out of it and into the very scorched and flattened earth around it.

In any direction Sam would see spires and pillars of cracking, growing, connecting crystals of a variety of colours. Some were translucent as he quickly found out walking towards the Doom Tower with Yoko in quiet trail.

They hadn’t landed far, so the walk was short, eerily silent as the night winds swept over the dirt. The Doom Tower glowed and thrummed with a vigour Sam knew was parasitic to the world. After struggling to find a clear spot, Sam placed his hand on the tower and received a prompt.

[Returnal Days:

Regalia Acquired: 1

Regalia Required: 2–5]

“We can’t return until we’ve each retrieved a Regalia and we can’t save Manila until we retrieve four.” Sam said and in breaking the silence his voice carried with an echo he didn’t expect. He sniffed, curious, “There’s hardly any sulphur here…”

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“Where are we?” Yoko asked, she had her eyes to the skies all this time, “It’s scary but…look at it, it’s beautiful.”

Indeed, it is. Sam’s amazed grin fell as the near weightlessness of his backpack made the privileged sight hurt. I wish Nyx got to see this.

It was a scene straight out of the science books he once flipped through just for the pictures. The galaxy unfolded like a wave of wispy space tendrils. Stars stretched along its form, while red, blue, and green gas clusters splattered the jellyfish-shaped divide in the sky.

The belt of asteroids rolled visibly, allowing Sam to track each rotation of the largest chunk. That alone was frightening. He couldn’t tell how far the belt was from the planet’s surface, but he knew some parts dipped close enough to be observed in sharp detail.

“That can’t be natural.” Yoko said, arms folded, head rolled back at the sky. She pointed, drawing a waving line as she tracked the path of the asteroids, “They would have fallen by now, nothing is keeping them up there.”

Sam shrugged, he’d be lying if he wasn’t growing numb to the bewildering things occurring on a daily basis of his life now but he summoned a practical response anyway, “Maybe gravity doesn’t work as well in this world as in ours? Like the moon and earth.”

She twisted her lip in thought, nodding along as she made it make sense, “Then…is it a moon?”

“What? Oh…” Sam realized that the strange asteroid belt might actually be the remains of a shattered moon. He had learned enough random science facts to know that a missing, broken moon spelled trouble for both the moon and its planet. If the asteroid belt was once the moon, then this world had a history of pain and death that the Doom Towers surely promise.

He shook his head and hefted the bags by hand. While he could use his power to lift the glass, running out of energy at a crucial moment had taught him a hard lesson. With only two bars left in a world forged by pain, Sam knew he had to make sacrifices to stay prepared.

“Let’s go. We’ll return here when we…accomplish our mission.” He said, channelling his inner Sergeant Alex.

Yoko rolled her eyes, “Sure, right after we become murderers.”

Sam didn’t— couldn’t answer. There was only so much he could deny, repress or look away from. A part of him, no, a large part of him was frustrated with Yoko for her self-righteousness, for calling him out every opportune time.

He didn’t know these people, these Regalia Wielders undoubtedly out in the strange new world he had strolled into. But he and Yoko had thirteen days to buy themselves a ticket back home or better yet, four to save it.

What’s the right choice? If Nyx were here she’d coo, lick his fingers and let him pet her, a small comfort from dire thoughts but yet another thing he’d been stripped of.

Crawling out of the crater proved difficult without the aid of a running engine. In the end, Sam was forced to use his Regalia on the sharpened glass lances Alex had prepared for him. They were made of tempered glass as the shields before them and didn’t budge or complain when Sam drove them into the edge of the crater so they could climb out.

“Oh fuck.” Yoko said, first to climb out and first to set sights on the true world that awaited them.

Sam hurried up and saw for himself. Where he would have expected a road, a city, a path, signs or really anything that would signal where to go next, there waited a horizon of desolation, purple glowing rivers and surprisingly, a forest that wasn’t on fire.

“Do you see that?” Yoko ran ahead, hands cupped into a poor man’s binocular over her eyes. “It’s a city, right on the edge I’m sure of it.”

Indeed, there was something reminiscent of a towering scraper at the edge of the horizon but only after miles of dirt, crystal and more dirt. Dead centre in their spectacled line of sight was the purple river and it flowed eastward into the forest— the only natural thing they’d come across thus far.

“I don’t think anyone will be living in cities, not in this world.” Sam said in a hush. It was so quiet his words couldn’t be missed even if he whispered, “The forest might have more luck with life, assuming it doesn’t want to kill us.”

Yoko nodded but looked unsure, “We’ll need water but that river...”

“We’ll work something out.” Sam said, truly worn and tired, “For now let’s get away from the Doom Tower, can’t predict what it will do to us. Plus, aren’t you dead tired? I haven’t slept since…since the flight to Manila.”

He wasn’t even sure how long ago that was not but his eyes, shoulders, neck and head were equating the cost all too well.

Yoko nodded, “Hope the DSF taught you a thing or two about camping cuz…I can be a doctor but I am no ranger.”

Sam groaned, optimism drained under a frighteningly beautiful sky, “We. Will. Work it out!”