"I'm glad he decided to give us a break today." Naru panted as he fell to his knees in the scorching sand, watching as Althea did the same before falling onto her back and letting out a sigh.
"Me too." She said, her voice raspy from thirst. She looked down at the skin on her arms to see it bright red from the sun. That was going to be one hell of a sunburn when they were finally out of here…
"How are you guys doing?" Toran walked over to them, sitting on the other side of Althea from Naru.
"Tired." Althea smiled weakly, not even bothering to sit up.
"Maybe we should take more breaks while we walk." Toran said in concern, looking down at her.
"No, the faster we walk, the sooner we get out of this sand trap." Althea sighed and sat up, shaking her hair to get some of the sand out.
A loud explosion in the distance made everyone jump and look in that direction. It was followed by a joyous laughter.
"What was that?" Toran stood up, looking around warily, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
"I don't know. Where's Benett?" XIcro looked around for the bear-puma, but didn't see him anywhere in sight.
Toran let out a frustrated sigh before running up the dune, Althea and Naru scrambling after him to see what the noise was.
When they had finally climbed to the top of the dune they looked over to see a large crater in the sand at the bottom, and Benett laying on his back and laughing.
"Has he gone nuts?" Toran said in disbelief as Xicro let out a loud surprised yell and slid down the side of the dune. He looked into the middle of the crater and then down at Benett.
"Is this what I think it is?" He said, a broad smile over his face.
"YES!" Benett said happily, sitting up and looking back down into the crater. "It's what I've been looking for this whole time. Who knew the damn stuff would be in the desert? The one place I didn't look."
"What is it?" Althea looked to Naru, who shrugged.
"This is red crystal! It explodes on impact." Xicro said, taking a small sliver of it, and letting it drop to the ground. When it hit the sand it made a loud spark and small plum of smoke. "There's tons of it here."
"Sounds like gun powder." Althea said in wonder. Naturally made gunpowder… This could make the humanus a lot more powerful.
"What's gun?" Toran glanced at her curiously.
"A gun is a weapon we use back in my world. It shoots a piece of metal propelled at really fast speeds. If it doesn't kill you it hurts you pretty badly."
"Sounds like my kind of weapon!" Benett said from at the bottom of the dune. "How do you make one?"
"Oh... uh, I don't exactly know. Um… I know when you pull the trigger it snaps a hammer that impacts the gunpowder in the barrel, and the confined space makes the bullet shoot out. Nate would know exactly how to explain it." Althea said uneasily, remembering her gun-buff friend. She missed him, and all her other friends. What were they doing right now?
Benett started discussing excitedly to Xicro about confines, space ratios and metals that were best under impact. Althea sighed and looked to the ground uneasily.
"What's wrong?" Toran looked at her in concern.
"I miss my friends. They're all probably wondering where I am. Maybe they think I'm dead or something." She bit her lip uneasily, trying to keep back the tears that were burning at her eyes. Her life before this happened would never be the same.
Naru looked over Althea's shoulder to Toran, and the tiger watched Althea with a worried expression.
"I said I'd do everything I can to get you back to your world, right? I'm thinking maybe we can find something out in the Okami kingdom, since Xicro didn't know where the mirror that leads back to your world was. Maybe the wolves will."
"I hope so." Althea said uneasily, her voice slightly shaky.
"Althea! What are guns made out of?" Xicro yelled up the dune after pausing his discussion with Benett.
"Uh… iron, I think. And steel if you have that here." Althea said uneasily. "I don't really know much about weapons."
"That's okay." Toran said with a smile, trying to cheer her up. "Let's go back with the others and leave these two to their rocks." He hooked an arm around her shoulder comfortingly, letting go when she started walking back to their makeshift camp.
"How much farther until the Okami kingdom, do you think?"
"Can't be much further." Toran sighed. "The desert wasn't that wide on the map. Plus Umou is flying ahead. When he hits the end of the desert, he's going to turn back around and tell us how far."
"Oh." Naru said, looking up at the sky. He walked after Althea and Toran, glancing back at his tail and letting out a deep sigh when he saw how filthy the feathers were. That would be awful to clean out when they finally got to some water…
Toran walked beside Althea and Naru as the group continued their journey, the sand sliding beneath their feet. A loud screech from above made Toran look up and let out a long sigh of relief.
"It's Umou!" He yelled, smiling to Althea before running ahead to meet the general.
"Good day, your majesty." Umou bowed slightly. "The ocean is not much further from here. Perhaps a few miles. It seems the aquatics and are waiting for us there as well. I met one of them. I believe he said his name was Tango."
"Oh, he's there already." Althea smiled. "Ichi is probably still over by the Tora kingdom."
"Probably. Alright, this will be our last day in this desert. Do you want to go quickly, or slowly?" Toran looked at Althea before glancing to the rest of the group.
"Quickly!" Althea cheered. "But not running." She chuckled.
"Agreed." Naru smiled. "I want to get out of here and wash my tail. I feel like I'm dragging half the desert behind me."
"Alright, we'll do double time then. Come on everyone!" Toran motioned for them to move forward, and started walking quickly into the distance.
"OH GOD YES!" Althea spotted the water in the distance, her reddened skin prickling from the heat. She stumbled forward as she started to run toward the ocean, Naru following behind her as quickly as he could. She ran as long as she could before slowing to a quick walk, quickening again when she was just a few yards from the water. They splashed into the water, Naru sighing as a large pool of dirt swirled in the water around his tail. He shook the feathers out, looking up to see Toran let out a yell of joy before diving fluidly into the shallow water, splashing both Althea and Naru as he swam.
"I thought cats don't like water." Althea laughed as Toran surfaced, shaking out his hair.
"I'm a tiger. We love water." He grinned, his wet fur shining against his skin. "Don't drink the water- guys. Even though it looks good, it's salty." He called out to those around him. He looked up to Althea with a smile and it dropped to a frown as he blanched.
"What?" Althea said in concern, turning around to see several armed humans on horseback, and a small platoon behind them.
"Well what do we have here?" One of the men on horseback said. "Looks like some animals made it through the desert."
Toran walked over to Althea, pulling her so that she was behind him as he and Naru moved shoulder-to-shoulder in front of her, the peacock's palm raised and a golden glow forming.
"You wish to fight us?" Toran called out to the humans, glancing up to see Umou, Tobias and Sora above, circling overhead.
"We wish to kill you. Monsters aren't allowed in this kingdom." The human growled.
"Very well." Toran sighed sarcastically, and let out a loud roar. The human looked up in time to see three bird humanus plummeting toward them, knocking three of the other humans off their horses, talons around their throats. Things soon turned to Chaos as they fought, Benett lighting a small metallic sphere and throwing it toward a mass of humans waiting at the back. A loud explosion sent the humans flying into the air as Toran met swords with the remaining man on horseback.
"We just wanted safe passage. Why do you hate us?" Toran growled as he kicked the man's horse in the side, tumbling the man off the beast.
"We do not tolerate monsters!" The man said, quickly standing with his sword ready as the horse reared in anger and ran off.
Toran let out a low growl, meeting the man's sword again.
Naru looked around as several humans surrounded him, letting out a small squeak in fear as he let out energy blasts to several of them, but two dodged the attack. They were met with a blast of blue energy, falling to the ground to reveal Althea standing with her palms open, shaking in fear from the sudden battle. Naru let out a yell of warning as another human grabbed Althea, holding her by the shoulders so she couldn't get away.
"Althea!" Naru yelled out in horror as the human held her tight, grabbing a knife from behind her.
"Don't come closer!" The human yelled, his eyes flashing. "You really care about this girl, don't you birdie? Well if you take one more step, she'll die."
Naru groaned in frustration, but stayed where he was. "Toran!" He yelled out, looking back at the tiger as he sliced through another soldier with his sword. Toran looked over and froze when he saw Althea, his green eyes wide.
"Stay there. He'll kill her." Naru warned Toran, who paused and stayed in place.
"Good. Now me and the girl are going to see the queen. There's a ransom for you." The man kissed Althea on the cheek, who scoffed in disgust. "You'll make me a rich man."
Toran let out a low angry growl, his claws retracting from his flexing hands as he fought to stay in place.
"No!" Althea looked to Toran as the man started to drag her off. She started glowing a bright blue as she struggled, the man's green magic fighting against hers. She let out a loud yell, the blue magic filling the air around her as she blacked out.
Toran sat up, holding his aching head as he looked around at the humanus littering the ground around him. He scrambled to his feet, but sighed in relief when he saw they were all still breathing, just unconscious. He remembered what had happened and ran past Naru to find Althea on the ground on top of the man who had threatened her. He picked her up and carried her away, setting her down on the ground before taking out his sword and finishing the man off with a loud, angry growl. He bared his fangs down at the human for a minute before walking back over to Althea as Naru started to wake up.
"Oh wow, what happened?" The Peacock looked around in confusion.
"The girl blasted you all." A strange voice said from a nearby tree. Toran and Naru looked up in shock at the voice, Naru holding up his palm as Toran set Althea down to bear his sword again.
"But Fluffy has to ask- why you traveling with a human? Very strange. I think she's nice, because she didn't kill you all. And because prince likes her. A lot."
Naru grinned at Toran as the tiger blushed and let out a low growl. "Who are you?"
"My name is Izaho, and this is Floofy." A lemur humanus jumped down from the tree, his long ringed tail flowing behind him.
"Floofy?" Naru looked at Toran in confusion, who shrugged.
"Floofy." Izaho pointed to his tail with a pleasant smile.
"Right." Toran said uneasily. "So, are you the other one my father sent?"
"Oh yes. Long long time ago, when you were little tiger." Izaho smiled. "Many bad things happened. I was captured, and they did bad things. Almost killed poor floofy." Izaho hugged his tail to him with a sigh. "But we got out, and we're alright now. Where you going?"
"The Okami kingdom. How about you come with us so we can take you back to the Tora kingdom?"
"That would be nice. Izaho is wondering if sister is okay." The lemur glanced at Althea on the ground. "She okay? Izaho was about to jump on mean man when she blasted everyone. Lots of magic in her."
"No kidding." Naru chuckled, looking over his shoulder to see the other humanus slowly waking up.
"I come with you. Meet wolfies." The lemur grinned happily and looked out to the ocean."Humanus boat? What that doing here?" He said in confusion.
"Finally." Toran sighed in relief. "It's time to head over the ocean again." He watched as several row boats started to cross from the ship to the shore to meet them.