What should we do now? Where do we go from here- from that-

Easy. Let's head for the Box, Reaper suggested. There'll be more Talaporians living around it than Mobians, and maybe there's a way to find exactly who our parents are.

Silver wheeled Broom out towards a road and climbed on, hoping he'd be able to find the right highway to get to Elysia, and away from the ring of smoke that used to be Old Castle Town. He could feel the darkness emating from it, the death and the pain of it, all those dead Witches. It sent shivers down his spine and a dark cloud over him as he rode off, a heavy static weighing down him.

Selene woke up for the first time in at least twenty years, feeling misplaced or in a dream. In a hotel, for certain... there was a book on the nightstand that read "Experience the Allure of Soleanna." Her exposed fur stood on end from the cool air as she looked around for a clue of something, but then stopped when she remembered that she had been inhabited for sometime until last night and that it would only confuse her.

Katerina was gone for good, for one. Even passed on, a nice little bonus for Selene's morale. Got my body back, but it'll be like driving a car after ten years... She took a deep breath as she revelled in the feeling of her nostrils flaring and her chest rising and falling and the air filling it-

There was something she thought she remembered while she was sleeping but she couldn't count on memory's sake... she had felt a hand brush from her left temple to her cheek, her hair falling back to its place as it moved... the hand moving away... and then something warm against her other cheek. Slowly, as if shifting from Park to Drive, she moved her hand to the spot as if she could make it testify.

Split.

Yes, yes, as her brain was reconnecting from being someone else's, she remembered what was going on: Have to find the Splitter named Silver. He's after his parents who are dead but he doesn't know that. Have to find a way to preserve him before he Opens and dies-

But why am I doing that? She ran her hand gently over the warm spot.

Instinctively, she looked around the room again, and smiled a little when she saw the black hedgehog slumped in an armchair, asleep. He was still wearing his business suit and sunglasses, so he must of fallen asleep thinking or something like that.

Reaper Shadow Vengeance, she connected. Yesterday, or rather last night, the Wraith inside of his blood had turned him into a dragon he could barely control. Something fueled by rage, not justice. When he was the dragon, he was Shadow Revenge.

Yes, he'd come to her asking about Splitters because his godson was nearing Opening and he wanted to keep the promise he'd made with his best friend- she admired his loyalty and was fairly interested in them herself, so she agreed to help him.

The sleeping hedgehog looked like a child, tired out by something; Selene half-imagined the Reaper stretching and arguing, "I'm not-'' yaaaawn...- "sleepy..." some moments before he gave up the drowsy ghost. He looked very peaceful sitting there, without any Splitters running around in his head or feral thoughts seeping through every crevice of his thoughts...

She didn't want him to wake up and face the music, but they were on a clock. She slid her legs off the bed, very carefully, and readied them to support her. She wavered a little, and used the end table to inch her way to the sleeping Reaper.

"Hey..." she whispered, shaking his arm. He grumbled a little, willing his eyelids open. Through the green tinted lenses she could see the red eyes focusing on her.

"You're... awake," he mumbled, staring at her eyes. "Witch..."

"It's me," she assured. "Listen, I'd love to just get the hang of my body again and take it easy, but we don't have time for that. We have to-"

"Find you some clothes."

"Goddess, up here! We need to delay his Opening, understand?" Nonchalantly, the Reaper undid the buttons on his jacket and handed it to the Witch, who turned around to put it on. "Now, there's no medically sound way that I can think of to preserve his soul, but there may be a way to save him with some...unorthodox methods."

"You mean... with Magic?"

Straightening out the jacket, the Witch let out a small laugh. "No," she replied, then turned to face her accomplice. "With you."

"Your Grace, Operation Iblis has just been confirmed as successful. Our sources have reported about three thousand and seven hundred confirmed dead."

Owen Vespillo weighed the numbers in his head. "Were any captured, or escaped?" he asked.

"The reports estimate that less than forty had to be were unable to be eliminated with the weapons at hand, your Grace, so it was much easier to capture them than to deal with them then."

"I see," he mumbled, then, louder, "Why were there so few?"

"Not all Witches are able to attend the Gathering, your Grace. Some live in remote areas such as Holoska, and many others prefer to stay closer to Elysia-"

"What about the Splitter?"

"Your Grace?"

"The Splitter," he said, turning his head. "The hedgehog heading for the Gathering. Was he among the killed?"

"Uhm..." the attendant checked her papers again. "No, Your Grace. No silver hedgehogs among the dead, sir-"

"So he'll be heading for the Box," Owen hissed. "The Box which is still locked, somehow- where he might find the key to unlocking it." He whipped around with the fireplace burning in his eyes. "Do you have any idea what will happen if he does unlock the Box, which brought so much destruction and misery to our kind- and it's still LOCKED.

"Have all able members of the Third Continent Order be searching for the Splitter- stop him from getting to the Box," he hissed at the startled attendant. "We have to make sure nothing can stop us when we get to the last stage of our mission. Nothing," he spat.

"Y-Y-Yes your Highness..."

Along the sparse highway to Elysia, a forest area near the border of Soleanna followed the right side for a few miles before the trees began to get sparser, and when Silver was about to pass a formidable sized tree next to the road, a girl ran out onto the road waving her hand.

Braking and holding out his feet out, Silver came to a stop beside her. He tensed up a little, afraid she was running from Crusaders- Crusaders that burned Soleanna and all those Witches.

But when he looked up at her, the cold heaviness he had carried around since he saw the smoke was replaced by a warm, assuring feeling, like Mom's hugs after being spooked by lightning. She was a whitish-blondish hedgehog wearing a dark raincoat-like cloak, with brilliant blue eyes.

"Are you headed to Elysia?" she asked, hesitantly, as if remembering how to speak.

"Uh... well..." Silver averted his eyes, off-guard from when he got out of his spell. "Ye-yeah.." His hand fled to the back of his head to scratch something.

"Do you know how to get there?" she wondered, tilting her head, then folding her hands, "Because- I know how to get there. Um... if you let me ride with you, I can show you the way to-"

"Yeah, sure!" Silver agreed, hastily- why'd he do that- "Uh, what's your name?"

The hedgehog smiled, a little pink coming to her cheeks. "My name's Blythe."

"I'm Silver," he offered. "Climb on." After awkward pauses in her hurdling the bike her delicate hands were on his shoulders, sending a prickly jolt through his body and sudden heat to his cheeks. Girl on my bike girl on my bike girl on my bike-

"So... uh, follow this road until it intersects with the other highway going east-west," she prompted. "Then you'll want to get on that going east."

"Okay," Silver let out, starting up Broom again and driving down the road again, nothing but the wind in his hair and a very cute hitchhiker holding onto him.

"The Elixir of Life?" Shadow puffed as he walked with Selene down the streets of Soleanna's New City; an odd couple to Mobians. A dark hedgehog who looked like he should be catching the train walking just a nose ahead of a pale hedgehog wearing his jacket, barefoot. "Nothing can grant immortality, you know that."

"I said nothing about immortality," Insanity argued, calmy. "If you dilute it enough, it would be enough to raise the recently deceased."

"So you think- even if that were true, if he Opens, everything he is tears itself apart; there'd be nothing to apply it to."

"We can preserve his body before then, can't we?" She looked to her left, passing by the window displays of the high-end retail shops of the Third Continent, all very flashy and outlandish. Out of the corner of his eye Shadow could see her squinting at the outfits.

"See anything you like?" he huffed.

She puffed. "Contrary to popular belief," she began, "madness is not about incredible outbursts and crazed behaviors..." The Witch stopped in front of a window display and the Reaper ahead of her stopped as well.

"It's more about... subtlety.'

In the blink of an eye the Witch wore a dark red, wide brimmed hat tied with a white ribbon with black splotches, and from what he could see black dress pants covering boots with heels. With a flourish, Selene tossed his jacket back to Shadow to reveal her black one shoulder tank with opaque inserts- as if her upper torso was going to a club, her legs going to a board meeting, her head going to a tea party in the eighteen hundreds, all at the same time.

One other thing; the dress pants had been modified to have a cutout on the left hip, exposing to the world the charred "W" in her skin. She stretched and sighed. "Much better, don't you think?" she purred.

Revenge looked away from the Witch with a, "Humph. Do you even know how to make the elixir?"

"That's what I need you for," she retorted. "The elixir is something that only the alchemists of ancient times knew how to make. Its ingredients can only be found by those who see the dead. And it can only be brewed by one gifted in making concoctions with impossible effects."

He paused for a moment, also seeing the odd looks that some Mobians were giving them. If they weren't careful-

Shadow almost touched noses with the Witch as he whispered, "The alchemists... in Spagonia tried to make it," he recalled. "They were only able to prolong their lives, not bring back the dead or prevent it."

"I know," she replied calmly. "That was with the ingredients they were able to find. We'll need more... elusive herbs."

"So you're going to modify the elixir of life," he mumbled, "to bring back the Splitter, when he dies. To return from the underworld back to his body, still in one piece." He hummed. "Not a bad plan," he murmured, "but we'll need to move fast."

He took her hand and led her to the train station connecting New City with the rest of Soleanna and the Third Continent. "Go to Spagonia," he instructed. "Look for ancient castles, the towers or dungeons."

"I take it you're after the two plants I need?" she asked, crossing her arms. "The Acanthus and Acacia?"

"I know what you're after. They're the only plants I know of that are associated with the dead. What else would you need?"

"Little herbs I can find on my own," Selene replied. "I'm more concerned about the plants and the brewing process."

"You want me to buy you a cauldron?"