Chapter 7

Emu rolled out of the portal, still held by Sento. They hit the ground hard and Emu felt his teeth rattle as Sento's hold on him broke and he skidded to a stop. He shook himself and stumbled to his feet. He turned frantically to see the portal closing.

He ran, hands outstretched.

"Don't let it close!" he cried.

But the circle of light dissipated long before he could reach it, let alone throw himself through it.

"No. No! No, NO, NO! PARADO!"

Emu whirled to find Sento, Build transformation undone, sitting up and putting the remote back inside his coat. Emu grabbed his lapels and shook him.

"Reopen it! Please! We need to go help Parado!"

Sento shook his head.

"We can't."

Emu shook his head.

"No. We have to."

He let go of Sento's jacket and reached inside it, frantically searching for the remote.

Sento grabbed his hands and stopped him.

Emu struggled to free himself, eyes still fixed on the jacket. It was there. It had to be there. If he could just get it-

"Ex-Aid. Emu!" Sento's hold tightened. "Look around."

Emu's gaze remained fixated. Sento was just trying to distract him. He thought Parado was disposable. But he wasn't. Parado wasn't just a friend. He was part of Emu. Literally half his soul. Emu needed him. And he had just left him there! They had to help him!

"Even if you get the remote, the portal will only reopen to the last coordinates: here. You can't get back."

Emu's stare flicked to Sento's face and he took in the solemn features.

"You have to help me. We have to go back."

"We can't."

Emu opened his mouth to protest but Sento continued.

"Look around, Ex-Aid. I don't know where we are. Even I can't make the necessary calculations if we don't know where we are."

Emu blinked and finally noticed his surroundings.

They were in a desert of navy blue sand. The sky was a strange luminescent purple with three suns and there was nothing in sight: not even the silhouette of a tree.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Sento got to his feet slowly.

"You don't know either? Then I should find out!"

He looked strangely excited as he pulled a strange contraption from his jacket and took some initial readings.

"Nothing poisonous in the atmosphere. Some dust particle saturation. Probably not a good idea to stay outside for too long then. No signs of life within 30km."

He began wondering away, still muttering to himself.

Trust the scientist to get distracted. Emu pulled out his phone and immediately noted the lack of signal bars. He tried dialling the Hospital anyway.

"I am afraid you appear to be outside of a serviced area. Please try again at a later time," his phone told him.

Emu put his phone away and went to follow Build but a groan stopped him in his tracks.

He spun to find Takeru 10 paces away and mostly covered by sand already.

Of course! In his panic, he'd forgotten there was a patient!

Emu ran to Takeru's side and excavated his friend, pulling the still-limp upper body to his lap.

Takeru was pale and shivering. Emu doubted it was from the temperature. At present, the weather was quite comfortable. No, with the sweating and head trauma, Emu suspected a concussion. He checked Takeru's eyes and frowned at the sluggish reaction.

If they had been near a hospital, Emu would have ordered a plethora of scans and immediate action on the head wound. But here, he had little to work with.

He pulled bandages from his jacket and was thankful to find that he'd also managed to pocket a small pump bottle of sterilizer. He triple-checked the head wound as he cleaned and dressed it.

There was a nasty cut there. Emu would have recommended some medical staples if he had access to them. But stitches were likely not necessary. Most of the bleeding had crusted the wound closed already. Emu felt down Takeru's spine and concluded there was no damage there. A number of lacerations and bruises to his upper chest concerned him but Takeru's breathing suggested they hadn't caused serious damage.

Emu finished Takeru's first aid as Sento returned.

"How is he?" Sento asked.

"I'm worried about a concussion but he doesn't seem to be in immediate danger," Takeru said, leaning in to check the fastening of the bandage he'd wrapped around Takeru's head. "Did you figure out where we are?"

Sento mussed his hair.

"It's amazing. From what I can tell, we're not anywhere on either of our worlds. My readings don't match any world I have heard of from the other Riders either. Without programming coordinates, I assumed we'd end up back at the last coordinates: my world. Instead, randomised the coordinates and bought us somewhere completely foreign. I analysed the pattern of the stars-"

"It's not night."

"I don't need to it be. I analysed that and from what I can tell, we're not in a parallel earth but a completely separate space."

"You mean like another world?"

"Another world. A pocket dimension. Just not an alternate Earth. More like Ghost's Gamma World."

"But it's not the Gamma World?"

"No."

Emu took off his coat and made a pillow for Takeru, gently leaning him down.

"What about-"

Emu broke up as he looked up and saw Sento clearly for the first time since coming through the portal. The man was covered in dust and there was a tear in his jacket that hung open to a nasty contusion. One arm was dripping blood and Emu could see a raw scrape through a rip in his jeans.

"You're hurt!" Emu exclaimed loudly.

Sento pulled his jacket closed with his uninjured hand.

"I'll manage. We need to find shelter. If this really is a desert (and my readings suggest it is), the temperature will drop at night."

"I agree that we need shelter but that needs treatment. Now."

"Ex-Aid-"

"Lift your right arm," Emu ordered.

Sento looked like he was about to argue so Emu stood and reached for the offending arm.

Sento shied away before Emu could grab it.

Emu crossed his arms. "You can't, can you? It could be broken. Let me take a look."

Sento sighed and slowly lowered himself to the ground, pouting like a child.

Ten minutes and a bit of yelping later and Sento was smothered in more bandages than their unconscious companion. They'd had to brace Sento arm which meant that the task of carrying Takeru fell to Emu.

Slowly, their ragged group began their trudge through the desert in search for shelter. In a foreign world, there was no way to tell long it would be before the sun began to set. They could only hope to find shelter before then. Emu dreaded thinking of what a night in the desert without shelter would mean for his injured companions but he had no doubt it would not be good.