Happy super-late-2017 all! I'm both happy and upset; happy because obvious, and upset because I wanted to completely finish this fanfic before 2018, but that's beside the point. When you read this, you're going to ask yourself, "Sara, why are you writing about this strange city? I've never heard of it before!"

Basically, the area that this chapter takes place in is actually a post-game area. You can only unlock it after beating the main storyline. So why are our main characters here? Basically, I really frickin' love this place; so much that I'm dedicating an entire chapter to here.

No, Venus is not an actual Mii in my game, nor is Priscilla a thing (as far as I know); I'm just changing stuff for story purposes.

Warning: I'm unsure if this constitutes as spoilers, you can decide for yourself, but to be safe, I would recommend that you wait until you beat the main storyline until you read this.

Chapter 6
A Long, Long Way from Home

Lisa had jolted awake in an unfamiliar place, only causing unneeded fear. The cold, hard ground that she was lying on was wet. Why was it wet? Oh, it was raining. That explained it. Lisa sat up, back sore from lying on concrete for an undetermined amount of time. The rain pelted her goggles; the sky eternally a dark, miserable grey, tainted by the storm clouds. Lisa's lab coat, once a snow white, was now stained by the mud and asphalt on the ground – she doubted it would ever truly be clean again.

Her teammates had lain limp around her; thankfully just unconscious. Lisa's surroundings burned her eyes; against the dark, melancholy atmosphere of the city, the acid bright advertisements and lights nearly blinded her. She could make out some of the things that they had printed on them, but the rest was all just a mesh of reds, blues and greens.

One by one, the other three came to, rain rushing down onto them. Eliza felt fear in the unknown world, but she felt better as she realized that she was with Lisa. However, she became afraid again as she saw Yeon; the memories of her outburst towards her were still fresh in her mind. Lisa hurried over to her best friend, asking if she was alright. Eliza smiled a bit and said she was, even though her head throbbed a bit.

"I've never been here before…" Lisa mumbled. "This isn't supposed to happen. Dark Lord Enigma was supposed to take Olivia's face, not spirit us away to a mysterious city –"

"Lisa, Lisa, calm down, it's going to be alright." Eliza reassured. "We're going to find our way out and defeat Dark Lord Enigma!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." A familiar girl snapped. Both Eliza's and Lisa's hearts sank as they realized that the girl was Yeon. She was shakily getting up to her feet, while holding Galleon's hand to get him up too. "This is all your fault, Eliza. You were the one who started all of this."

"W-what?!" Eliza gasped. "I-I didn't d-do anything! I don't understand!"

"You know what you did." Yeon snarled. Finally, Lisa had enough.

"STOP IT!" She shrieked, causing the both of them to turn to her. "We're not going to get anywhere by fighting, like in the Realm of the Fey. We need to stick together and find a way out."

"Yeah, Lisa's right." Galleon chimed in. "You guys're busy, goin' at each other's throats but we're still kind of lost in here." A low growl was emitted from Yeon's throat, but ultimately seemed to let it go for now.

The four of them started walking on the sidewalk. Never once did the rain stop falling, or the signs stop flickering and glowing. The roads were completely empty; and it only added to the eerie atmosphere. Lisa once lived in a city, and she still expected a car to whiz by her at any second, whipping her hair back and forth. A bright blue sign to the right of them stopped fizzing out long enough to let its advertisement scroll across.

WELCOME. TO. NEW. LUMOS.

"New Lumos, huh…?" Lisa sighed. "Never heard of it before."

"The Dark Lord has created this world for only the most sporadic of his monsters." Her guardian angel whispered. "It exists in another dimension, and sometimes humans will fall in by mistake."

A girl leaped out from the alleyway behind one of the abandoned buildings. Eliza screamed slightly and hid behind Lisa, but the girl didn't seem to be focused on the team, instead wildly swinging her sword around. Though she had an iron helmet on her head, a strawberry blonde ponytail could be seen, swaying to and fro. The girl snarled, jumping up and bringing her sword down, lightning-quick, on a monster.

"Get away from me!" She screamed. A pixilated aura surrounded her and exploded, causing her to grit her teeth at the pain. Without even thinking, Lisa dashed ahead, running a program on the holographic window that was pulled up, determined to help this girl.

It was just another day in New Lumos for me; poor old Venus. I expected nothing out of that day, just fighting off monsters and attempting to defeat Priscilla, the Demon's Daughter, so I could get out of New Lumos. It wasn't going well, that much I could assure you. I was off; fighting a Retroputer like always, when this girl with her hair tied up into a bun and wearing a dirty white lab coat came rushing in while holding some sort of flask.

"Unstable Concoction!" She shouted, adding chemicals into her flask. I could hear a fizzing noise and jumped out of the way as a green liquid was sprayed over the Retroputer. I could see it melting into a hot mess of red and white plastic, the screen going black before it became nothing. It was gone before we knew it.

"That's…strange." The girl to the left of me said. "This one didn't have a face attached to it."

"They're supposed to?" I asked in disbelief. She nodded, saying it all. "Well, I suppose that would explain why he needed to steal so many faces…"

"I'm Lisa, by the way." She extended her free hand, pulling her goggles up, where I could look at the rest of her face. She was, of course, not nearly as pretty as I am. I smirked and took her hand.

"I'm Venus; the best Warrior in the world!" I flipped my ponytail and stuck my nose up in the air. I could see Lisa smiling a bit.

"Nice to meet you, Venus. This is the rest of my team; Eliza, Yeon and Galleon. We're off to defeat Dark Lord Enigma." Lisa led the way to the other three. Eliza had nothing special to talk about, and neither did Yeon; so I'm not going to tell you about them. Galleon, however, is another story. I knew, from the moment we met, that it was love at first sight.

"Well, helloooo, there, cutie~" I purred upon being introduced to him. He seemed to have the "oh boy, here we go again" look in his eyes.

"…'ey." He mumbled. I could see Yeon trying to get a look at me at this.

"I heard that the four of you are off to defeat Dark Lord Enigma!" I laughed, before eyeing him up and down. "Though I'm sure you'd have no problem against him."

"O-KAY, that's enough from you." Yeon huffed. I glared at her.

"What's her problem?"

"She's kind of…already in love with Galleon." Lisa admitted. As much as I wished to make a comment, to put Yeon in her place, I simply said nothing and instead asked if they needed help getting out of New Lumos. It was quite a dangerous place, after all, and I've been living there for an undetermined amount of time, so I knew the ins and outs of the place. Much to my surprise, they accepted, and off we went, deeper into the city.

"We need to find a way out in order to be free from here." I started.

"I'd be a bit worried if we could be free without finding a way out." Yeon interjected. I told her to shut up, I was talking.

"Anyway, as I was saying before someone interrupted me," I stopped to glare at Yeon, "this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for Priscilla, the Demon's Daughter."

You see, Priscilla is the first monster that Dark Lord Enigma created; in the form of a little brunette girl. For a while, she was his most powerful weapon, and he could use her to steal the faces of people, but then she became unstable, crazy even. She lashed out against Enigma, and he created New Lumos, specifically to seal her away. Since then, she's been the gatekeeper of the city, and makes sure that any other dangerous monsters don't try to leave.

Unfortunately, that also means that yours truly and other humans who fall here by mistake can't get out; so the only way out was to win in a fight against her. Because New Lumos is mind-numbingly boring to literally the second most powerful being in existence, she had since proposed a contest, so that whoever could defeat her in a fight could go free from New Lumos. It went as well as you'd expect; no one had been free ever since what she announced. I explained this to Lisa.

"I've tried, every DAY, to defeat Priscilla, but even my strength has nothing on her." I harrumphed.

"Maybe it's because you're just fighting alone?" Lisa said. "I don't think this Priscilla can fight off five people at once. If we joined in, I think we would be able to win against her!"

"Yes, yes, I think so too." I nodded. "I'm in!"

"Me too!" said Eliza.

"Count me in." I smiled at Galleon's voice.

"Same." Yeon was last to join in on our quest to defeat Priscilla, the silly Pop Star. Before we could get any further, though, we were stopped by – of course – monsters.

It was all Eliza's fault. I never wanted to see her ever again, but alas, it was not meant to be. We were thrust into the city of New Lumos, where all of your nightmares come true, and then I met Venus. Though I hated Eliza, I knew that I would have to put my anger aside for now – for it was Venus that was going to be a greater threat to me; to us.

Three screens blocked our path – the outlines a gaudy mix of white, gold and red. On the screens themselves, there was mostly static, but I could make out a girl's face if I concentrated hard enough. What was strange about this girl was that I couldn't see her eyes. It was true; I could make out her entire outline in the static, but her eyes seemed to have no outline, giving her the appearance of a creature with blank skin where her eyes should be. In all honesty, that's really unsettling. I heard Venus's shrilly voice to the right of me.

"Those are Retroputers," she whined, "and by some arbitrary law, they're all required to have images of Priscilla on them. 's been years, though, and now their screens have broken down to the point where we can only see her silhouette."

"I don't think anyone cares." I informed her. She tried to hit me and I blocked.

"Save it for later, guys!" Lisa said to the right of me. I could see Venus smirking, knowing she got away with it. I pushed my anger down, deep inside of me, before letting it out on the Retroputers by screaming into my microphone in rage.

"Now watch how a real woman does it!" Venus cooed at Galleon. I watched as the squire girl swung her sword sharply to the left, going right through the computers. They fizzed and stuttered, and I could see the image of this Priscilla girl on one of them flinching. Venus dragged a finger over the edge of her serrated sword; a dark brown with red incantations written all over it, as if created from a dragon.

"And that is how it's done." Galleon didn't seem to react in a positive way. Good, I thought to myself. Venus did not need positive reinforcement. It would only inflate that ego of hers even bigger. Soon enough I spied an opportunity and took it. I readied myself, about to attack, until…

"HEY!" I felt a slender hand pushing me back, trying to make me fall. It was Venus. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than for her to get her just desserts; to make her see how much she likes being pushed back when it was her turn to attack.

Without even thinking, I slammed into her full-force with my shoulder. I knew it would leave a bruise on my shoulder for days, but I didn't seem to care that much. Venus screamed at me, but I just smiled, knowing I had gotten to her. I'll give her this, though: I hadn't expected to stand up and punch me, right in the face. I clutched where she had just hit me, and I knew, right then and there, that she had gone and screwed up.

I heard my other teammates, calling behind me and telling me to stop it, right this instant, but I didn't care. Venus staggered back from the punch I returned to her as she screamed that I was a psychopath. I couldn't help but laugh as I dodged the second punch, now prepped for it, before returning with a fierce kick to her shin.

"So what if I am? If nothing else, you're worse than me." I had her caught by surprise, and with that I threw her down onto the ground and kicked her sword away so that she couldn't fight back. I could feel myself smiling wide as I threw a punch down on her face. She winced, but I wanted to watch her scream in pain, so I punched her again.

And again.

And again.

I didn't remember how Venus screamed, how she said I was a monster, how Eliza and Lisa dragged me off of her or how one Retroputer's screen was strangely cracked and how it had her sword jammed inside of it. All I saw was Galleon. He looked at me with an expression I couldn't pinpoint, but I knew he thought I was crazy. He was wrong, though; I'm not crazy. Why would I be? I'm just in love with him.

Love will prevail.

It always will.

Venus sat up after our little scuffle, stumbling back and forth. I could feel her glaring at me, but after I calmed down, I tried to reason things. I really did; but no, I was put in the Safe Spot because apparently I was "too unstable at this point" All I could do was helplessly watch as Venus got closer to Galleon. I could have stopped her from taking him away from me, but now; she had a very good chance of stealing him away from me.

When the cage retracted back to the ground finally, the Retroputers were dead and gone. Venus glared at me, and I glared right back. My body was sore everywhere she punched me, but I kept on holding on. A part of me would say that it's because Venus was going to face off against Priscilla with the four of us and maybe then we could all get out of here; but really, I knew I was pretending like nothing was wrong, just to spite Venus, who tried to make me feel so much pain.

"…Come on." Venus spat. "The barrier is up ahead, and Priscilla always keeps watch there. I don't want to stay here any while longer."

There, the team stood, at the barrier of New Lumos. Beyond the roads and the flashy signs there was nothingness; just darkness as far as the eye could see. Lisa looked back at her memories, but saw nothing relating to the barrier when she first landed in New Lumos. Despite the overwhelming sense of helplessness upon seeing the barrier, the five of them were not alone at the edge.

A girl stood at the end of the road, her hair a burnt orange; a contrast to her dark blue dress. Her hair blocked a good majority of her face, the rest covered by shadows. All that could be seen now was her mouth and the outline of her nose. Venus snarled slightly at the sight of the girl, and at that moment Lisa realized that this girl was the Demon's Daughter, Priscilla.

"Hello, Venus." Priscilla's ears perked up at the sound of their breathing, her ears now trained to detect even the slightest of sounds. Her expression was blank, but she could feel a new emotion seeping into her cold, dark soul as she picked up the heartbeats of the four. Perhaps it was…joy? Why was she happy? She didn't care. She had been trained to push her emotions down; to be an emotionless killing machine. Priscilla was unable to control her emotions, though, and now she was here.

"I see we have our new friends with us. How lovely. I have been waiting for a fight for an eternity now."

"We are not your friends, Priscilla." Lisa said as calmly as she could. Deep down she was terrified, but she kept a stoic expression on her face, as to not give her enemy the advantage of knowing her fear. Priscilla seemed to ignore this, instead carrying along with her own little monologue. She was closer to Lisa all of a sudden in the blink of an eye – she was unsure if Priscilla had even taken a step.

"They locked me up here because they think I'm a witch." The girl whispered, leaning forward on her cane. There, Lisa could get a full view of Priscilla's face – or rather, most of it. Her eyes had gauze tightly wrapped around them, preventing even the slightest hint of light from entering her eyes; rendering her blind.

"But really, it's you four that are the witches." Priscilla let an icy smile creep across her face. She could sense the shock that jolted through the four of them as they heard her. "You remember things that you shouldn't. I can feel it in you. You've met each other before, and you just now know this. Am I wrong?"

"Remember things…?" Venus asked, growing warier of both Priscilla and the four. She ignored the Warrior and continued on.

"And in New Lumos, we deal with the weaker witches the traditional way." She tossed the cane away, where it clattered to the ground and broke in half, before raising her arms in the air. A pair of what looked like wings opened up on her back, but the wings were created by flames; changing and warping as they eternally raged on.

"Burn the witches." Suddenly a wall of fire rose up behind the team, blocking the path back to New Lumos. The rain did nothing to stop the fire; as it was created by dark magic, something that could not be extinguished by natural causes. There was no turning back now, they had to either fight Priscilla and win or be burned alive.

They chose to fight.

Lisa attempted to try and burn Priscilla with an unstable mix of chemicals; but she didn't even flinch. The acid was eating away at her skin, but she didn't seem to be fazed by it at all. It was as if she didn't have nerves; or her nerves had long since died. That probably disturbed Lisa far more than it should have. She already knew that Priscilla wasn't human, far from it, but it didn't stop the uneasy feeling from settling in her heart. Yeon seemed less unnerved than Lisa; perhaps it was because of her partial insanity, her ability to snap at almost will, but Lisa didn't care to find out.

She dashed forward at an almost breakneck speed, swinging her microphone forward like it was Venus's sword. The girl actually jumped back upon making contact with the sparkly weapon, damaged by the sheer strength of her swing. For just a second, her maniacal grin disappeared off of her face, replaced by a scowl far more terrifying than anything else Lisa had been up against in any of the resets. It did not matter, though, for Priscilla would go down either way, and then the four of them will be free to take down Dark Lord Enigma and save the world.

Together they thought and dodged Priscilla's attacks, and for the moment all rivalries with each other were temporarily forgotten. They faced a powerful opponent; far stronger than anyone else they had ever fought before. The team was sure that the only way that this battle would be topped is by fighting Dark Lord Enigma himself. Priscilla held her arm out into the air, extending it towards the bleak sky. The area became warm; dangerously warm, even. As a former Mage, Lisa knew what was coming.

"To-weeeer of Fl-aaaaame~!" Priscilla cried out in a singsong voice. Venus was launched into the air by a huge pillar of flames that shot up from the ground. When the geyser of fire finally ended, she fell back down to the concrete, sore and burnt. The ends of her ponytail were beyond singed, and in all honesty Venus was surprised she wasn't even more harmed than she was right now.

"…muh…" Venus mumbled, trying to get up. Her sword was just beyond her reach, and no matter how much she reached out for it, her fingertips just barely passed it. Without even thinking, Eliza tossed it to her, urging her to get up. Venus didn't need to be asked twice – she stabbed the sword into the ground and used it for support. Everything hurt, but with her sword she was able to get back on her feet, though she had trouble staying up.

"Ooh, someone's having problems staying on their feet~" Priscilla trilled. "This makes this all the easier."

"Just shut up and die for once!" Venus screamed, regaining her balance and started running at full speed towards Priscilla; determined to watch her fall on that very day. "Darkeye Slash!"

Her sword glowed with dark magic, before she suddenly snapped her fingers and pointed at Priscilla. An illusion of an eye, similar to the amulet across Dark Lord Enigma's neck, appeared. Venus's body was surrounded with an aura, similar to electricity bolts zapping everywhere, but it was dark, just so dark, and she brought her sword, charged with the magic, down onto Priscilla.

She screamed and fell back, clawing at her bandages. The once light tan fabric was stained with red, the stains growing with every second until it consumed the entire front of the bandages. Venus looked surprised, as if she had just unlocked a new power. Eventually, the pain faded away from Priscilla's body, and what was left was joy. Venus had finally become stronger after what had to have been years of battling, and now she and her friends were proving to be a real fight.

"Impressive." Priscilla smiled, taking her hands away from her bandages and started back up. From the way she could hear Venus's heart pumping, she knew that her rival was feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness. "It seems even the most stubborn of Warriors can learn new moves."

Venus felt strange, taking a compliment from a literal demon's creation. She had good reason to be uneasy; Venus soon learned. She knew what Priscilla was about to say somehow, but it still filled her with unbridled fury to hear her say it. The girl smiled and called out; "When you think about it, you and I aren't so different after all."

"I am far more than you'll ever be!" Charged with rage, Venus dashed forward again to attack. The girl jumped back, twisting and turning out of harm's way, and her smile widened.

"Oh, now you've gone and stained my bandages." Priscilla sighed, as if exhausted with her antics. "Perhaps I will need to cut them off."

At that moment, Galleon's dagger began to glow a bright orange, and became uncomfortably hot. Naturally he yelped and let go of it, where it crashed to the ground. Before anyone knew it, Priscilla held it in her own hand, unaffected by the heat, and with a swift move her bandages fell to the ground, tattered and torn. She laughed relentlessly.

At first, her eyes were closed, but as they opened, they revealed a lovely blue color; Lisa was reminded of the sea briefly. However, an inky black was filling her eyes up, drowning out any hint of the blue that everyone had seen. The ink pooled into her eyes and started to run down her face, like tears; truly the most terrifying thing that Lisa had ever seen now.

As they dripped to the ground, Lisa snapped out of it and dashed forward to attack. Priscilla looked up and straight at her in the eye, laughing maniacally. Fear spread through Lisa's system like a poison, and she was helpless to do anything. She could feel herself falling backwards, the world around her fading away until she saw darkness. It was darker than anything else she had seen in New Lumos.

She felt as if she were suffocating all of a sudden. Lisa tried to scream, but nothing came out and she gripped at her throat, feeling her airway tighten up. She felt…powerless. Lisa knew that she had been lured into a nightmare, and she couldn't do anything about it; couldn't wake herself up, change the dream to something more pleasant, nothing.

"Do not let yourself be trapped in this dream." Lisa could hear her guardian angel. "Fight Priscilla's dark magic."

"Wake up."

Suddenly Lisa jolted awake. Eliza was by her side, and without a word pulled her up to her feet, before exploding into a word salad; sniffling that she thought that Lisa was never going to wake up. Yeon and Galleon had teamed up together, his dagger having cooled off enough for him to grab it. Together they brought down powerful attacks upon the demon girl. Venus, meanwhile, seemed to be…resting. Yeon had screamed at her why wasn't she attacking, and Venus replied with that she was catching her breath for her next attack.

Priscilla, meanwhile, was laughing at every attack, knowing something that the team didn't. When she was created, Dark Lord Enigma put a failsafe into her, a powerful attack that she could only use on the brink of a battle loss. Her wings of fire twitched, and she could feel herself drifting in and out of consciousness. The pain was glorious to her, for no one had inflicted this much pain to her ever before. Perhaps this would be the first battle she would lose. By now, Lisa had gotten back up to her feet and was joining in on the attacks.

"You've all had your fun…" Priscilla smiled. "But now the game is over. This is the end of the journey."

With a burst of fire, Yeon and Galleon were knocked back, and instinctively Yeon grabbed onto Galleon's hand as tight as she could and held on to keep him from falling. That was all that was needed for Priscilla to launch the failsafe. Surely this would make her enemies fall finally. Priscilla launched herself high up into the air, using her wings, and extended her arms. The flames crackled and burned, before it swirled up into the air and to her enemies. The world became an inferno; burning all five of the fighters who stood before her.

It lasted for maybe three seconds at most, but to Lisa and her friends, it felt far longer. When the flames died down, she looked around, and to her horror she saw Venus on the ground, though she was not dead, instead trapped in a nightmare. Yeon had protected Galleon from most harm, so she was the most hurt of them all, just barely clinging onto life. Priscilla was preparing for another attack, one that would easily take Yeon out. She closed her eyes, accepting her fate and waiting for the pain.

But it never came.

Upon opening her eyes, she realized that Eliza had slid in front of her, acting as a shield for her. Eliza had taken the majority of the hit, telling Yeon not to give in. She had taken the pain for her; even though Yeon had hated her, thought she was trying to steal Galleon away from her, and hit her countless times. At that moment, she realized just how bad she felt for hating her for no good reason at all.

The blonde girl dropped to the ground, sufficiently knocked out, and rage consumed Yeon. However, this rage was not directed at Eliza, instead Priscilla. Eliza had sacrificed her consciousness in order to keep Yeon alive; the only thing left to do now was to avenge her. When she snapped out of her blind rage, Priscilla laid on the ground, unable to get up.

The flames melted away, and her wings of fire disappeared. At first glance, she looked just like an average little girl, with no powers or anything. If Yeon saw her now, with no context, the last thing she would have thought was that she was the Demon's Daughter; the first creation of Dark Lord Enigma. There was a small noise that gradually grew louder, and Lisa realized that Priscilla was lightly chuckling.

"…that was…" Priscilla panted, "…fun."

"You're sick." Yeon spat simply. Priscilla tried to get up, but Yeon kicked her down and held her there.

"…it was an honor…to battle such powerful fighters as you." Priscilla smiled. Her eyes were closed, and the tone in her voice showed that she was speaking the truth.

"I suppose it is only fair that I should honor my word all those years ago and let you go." The darkness at the end of the road faded away, and there the three who were conscious could see the Dark Lord's castle; which seemed like a pleasant sight after being in New Lumos. As Eliza and Venus woke up, the five said their goodbyes, and Venus started on her own path.

"…I'm sorry for everything, Eliza." Yeon sighed eventually. Eliza turned to her and smiled. Without even thinking, she had forgiven Yeon, and together the four of them were truly reunited.

So I'm adding another author's note here because I've actually got a lot to say. FIRST OF ALL, this is literally the longest thing I've written ever. Do you see what I'm doing for you guys? Second of all, don't worry. Believe in Mii might not be the last Miitopia fanfic that I make, but for now, let's actually finish this before we talk about anything else.