Dolor extended her arm, crystals forming around the edges of the hexagonal portal in hopes of keeping it open. The edges of the portal began to close and as they made contact with Dolor's crystals, it simply broke them off like glass and consumed them into the vast expanse.

Dolor shifted her focus from her crystals onto the portal itself and tried to telepathically hold it open. It slowed down for a few seconds, but continued to collapse into itself as the force contracting it overpowered Dolor's willpower. The edges of the portal shrinking to the size of a grain of salt before fading out of existence.

"Oh Pretusals," Dolor muttered. She made her way out of the library and out into the expanse of a stone city, open windowsills and people walking along the streets.

"This isn't magic world…" Dolor muttered as the floor around her slowly rippled across, taking a step forward to find that her footsteps created the ripples on the floor. The world appearing to warp around her like a mirage on a dessert.

She turned around as the world around her suddenly became misshapen, bricks side-by-side being the size of apples and logs, the empty pathways twisting and turning one second, and straightening out into and endless expanse in a blink. The sky turned a bright blue, a calming orange, then an endless dark expanse, and a dark night sky before cycling back into blue. The lighting on buildings and the floor changing as the direction of the sun along with the proportions and positions of the world swapped around like trading cards.

Disoriented by her surroundings, Dolor fired a sphere of her magic, landing onto an empty wheelbarrow as it attained the brief appearance of a red fluid before splashing onto the ground and seeping into the shifting stone bricks.

Reality manipulation, Dolor realised.

A flash occurred what she thought was behind her, revealing a familiar teen with a watch on his arm.

"Well this makes it slightly worse."

"Well the feeling's mutual Dolor, I would've sent you into this purgatory if there wasn't someone else waiting for you," Nate replied. The eye being displayed on his watch glowed as the world around them appeared to stay perfectly still, objects in unnatural proportions and some were even floating mid-air.

"Now, let's get out of here," Dolor said.

"Well, we can't."

"…I'm sorry, but I don't understand. You got here through your 'warps' why can't you get us out?" Dolor asked. Her arms folded across while Nate sat on an extruding brick from the floor.

"Well, I was supposed to be on dragon world to investigate some sort of force-field, but I ended up here when trying to warp inside."

Nate tapped on the display on his watch which caused it to display a hexagon with lines from each corner converging into the centre.

"It appears that the hexagon has some sort of energy that is keeping us within it. It also is capable of existing in a fourth-dimensional state which means that I can't warp out of here, every time I do it will just change my destination to somewhere else within it."

"So we can't travel out of it, but we can explore within?"

"Pretty much, I've been able to get a message to Viribus through our Zero Point Network. Though he is likely still figuring out what exactly this is."

The face of the watch changed back to an eye, the image glowing a bright blue with an Indigo pupil at the centre.

"Well let's hope we can find some others in here, I already have an 'eye' on someone who could be helpful…"

"Gao. I'm. Exhausted." Drum panted as his buddy skill lowered Gao back onto the grassy plains. Himself collapsing onto the ground beside him not long after.

"Well we have been travelling for quite some time, you were the one saying that there was something weird out here," Gao said while looking across the grassy plains.

"Well maybe it was nothing, now can we please go back? That pudding is just waiting for me on the dining table…"

"Well we're already all the way out here, may as well as keep searching a bit longer."

Gao went back to Drum and stood there with his typical smile, the image of the sun shining down from Gao could be felt as his body was starting to sweat from the heat.

"Why are we doing this? I could've been seeing things in this heat."

"Yeah, your senses could have been lying to you, but it's the thoughts your head that is lying to you."

Drum perked up, the statement being unnervingly out of place coming from his buddy's mouth. Any hidden meaning was obscured by the fatigue of his mind by then, the long flight having exhausted him both physically and mentally, his stamina was not what it used to be.

"Though, was what you saw purple?"

"Eh, I think so. Kinda like some sort of plant here…Indigo I think."

Drum wondered as to why he had not told Gao about something as simple as a colour earlier, or what he had told Gao about anything for that matter.

"Hey uh, do you remember what we were doing before this?"

"Nah, we shouldn't dwell on the past anyways."

Right as Gao said that, a bolt of electricity landed right beside him. The sudden attack causing him to immediately panic and land on his back as Drum stood back up and readied for the next bolt. A faint outline of a blue dragon standing upright could be seen, holding a familiar staff that crackled with electricity and magic while surrounded by a purple glow.

"Think this is it Drum! Get ready!" Gao soured as he pulled the Crimson Fist, Dragoblaze from his deck and equipped it.

The outline started to become more defined, black clothing could now be seen along with a monocle on the left side of their face. Soon, blue scales could be seen along with other features such as Yellow eyes and blonde hair.

Is that?

"Now!" Gao shouted and punched the figure. The Dragoblaze went straight through the figure, causing Gao to tumble for a while before slowing down and getting back up. Drum could almost recognise who exactly the figure was, but the thought felt clouded by other things. Thoughts that were not his own filled his mind and impaired his judgement as he held the sides of his head and groaned.

"Drum!" Axia shouted. Drum looked up to see the Dragowizard standing before him, draped in a black coat and hat with an indigo glow around him. He immediately run towards Drum and jumped onto him, the momentum causing the both of them to fall onto the grass.

Axia nuzzled Drum's chest, his hug keeping them together as they laid on the soft grass on the hill. The Dragowizard's hair covering up the entirety of Drum's torso and shrouding Axia's head in complete darkness. Some of the threads had gotten into Drum's face which left him trying to blow them away with little to no avail. Drum gave up after moving the strands from his eyes to his horns, the corners of his mouth barely curling up at the feeling of his favourite Dragowizard lying on his chest. He placed his right arm around Axia and rubbed his back, his left hand placed itself on the silky smooth hair and what he hoped was the back of his head.

"Oh, it's just you Axia. Sorry for attacking you," Gao said as he unequipped the Dragoblaze. Walking towards Drum and Axia, Gao smiled and put his arms behind his head.

Drum faced Gao, his mind began to cloud with thoughts that were not his own. Blank images flooded it, drowning him inside his own mind and even clouding his vision to see Gao as nothing more than a red and blue blob in front of him.

Suddenly, Drum was yanked from behind himself. Seemingly going through the hill while his mind felt like it was about to shatter from the pain that pierced his head. His breaths were spluttering with a strange liquid and his body felt as if it was surrounded by a sticky substance, becoming increasingly viscous, trying to keep him from escaping from this world while an unknown force yanked him out of it.

After what felt like hours, Drum's eyes opened to find himself in some large red chamber floating on the red fluid that was trying so hard to keep him inside a mental prison. He looked up to find an indigo eye looking down on him, covering him with a glow that gave him a headache to look at.

Axia.

Drum found Axia to be lying on his chest just like back on the plains and appeared to be asleep. Drum poked his soft cheeks to see if the light sleeper would wake up from it. The feeble attempt proved unsuccessful as Axia remained in his comatose slumber, Drum tried nudging him which resulted in the same outcome. He also noticed that the liquid was sticking to Axia a lot more than himself, it almost had the consistency of some of the slime creatures from dungeon world but a little more watery.

The eye continued to observe Drum and kept the liquid from sticking to him, the supernatural glow extending to Axia and making the liquid run off his scales at certain areas. It would take a while before all of the liquid would be unable to stick to Axia just like Drum's current state.

"Bolt? What are you doing here again?" Gao said as he found Bolt knocking on his bedroom window. His eyes lacked the spark that could usually be seen within them and a slight tremor in his hand could be seen by Gao which did little to quell the worries within him.

"There's something I need to talk about," Bolt replied, Gao's head tilted slightly before stepping back to give Bolt some space to enter.

"Oh, what is it?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but it might involve us."

Gao's eyes widened, for the urgency of the matter requiring Bolt to visit him immediately meant that it was nothing small. He thought if this might be what he had been hoping for during the past few months, Bolt's increasing frequency of visiting the Mikado residence after the Yamigedo incident suggested that Bolt may have taken a liking towards him since then.

"Is it what I think it is?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure you weren't expecting it."

"Then what is it?"

Bolt inhaled at the question and for a moment, Gao thought that he was preparing to say something that he was preparing for. To lift the burden off both of their chests and the chance for him to finally share his feelings.

"Well…"

"I saw some weirdly shaped portals open at nearly every world. The Buddy Police has been keeping it secret for now but I believe that it might be involved with something larger. The energy that they give off…its strange to say in the least."

"…"

Gao's face stayed frozen, the shock had frozen it in place, but it was the disappointment in himself for thinking that this was the moment that had kept the ice cold. He let his hopes get up again and despite the fact that what Bolt said had numerous implications for the other worlds, it still hurt that the scenario he had hoped for still didn't play out.

"Gao, are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. I'm just processing this."

Hoping to forget the emotions, Gao tried to focus his mind on the situation before him. The worlds had a mysterious portal opening which the Buddy Police was keeping secret for some reason.

"What did the portal look like?"

"Well, It looked like a hexagon for all of the worlds. They all looked the same and they were all growing in size when I saw them."

"They were growing? Did anything go inside them?"

"I saw a few monsters go inside them, but most of them went back out from the portal once they went in. Yamigedo saw one monster from Dragon World and Fifth Omni Dragon Lord Tenbu that entered and didn't seem to leave."

"Tenbu is trapped! This is bad, what did the other monster look like?"

"He was an Armordragon if I remember correctly, he was laying on the grass without any armour so I wasn't sure who exactly it was."

An Armordragon…wait.

"Did he have a drill on him? Similar to what my buddy Drum had?"

"No, he didn't have that on him. Though there was another dragon that seemed to be older holding it before leaving him."

No…

"…That was Drum."