When X and Zero arrived at the valley, they didn't like what they saw.

"What… the… hell…?" X asked the world, somewhere between awed and appalled. The valley looked like it had been hit by a bomb, then suspended halfway through the resulting explosion.

Chunks of stone and dirt were floating, and moving about restlessly with no regard for gravity. The ground was… X looked down at the valley floor, and had to suppress nausea. He wasn't sure what the valley floor was doing, and his eyes and stomach were rebelling at his attempt to comprehend it. The best he could say was that the floor of the valley was close yet impossibly distant, small yet wide, and horrifically twisted.

"That is certainly one hell of a thing." Zero agreed, staring intently at the valley floor. X averted his eyes, wondering how Zero could bear it. "Let's see…" And Zero took a running leap into the valley.

"ZERO!" X grabbed at him too late. But Zero knew what he was doing, sort of; he was aiming for an island of stone. He was just about to activate his dash boots when-

He fell UP, and landed flat on his back on a different island. The utter astonishment on his face was almost worth X's brief moment of terror. X snickered, then started to laugh.

"Hey, it's not funny!" Zero tried to stand up, and swayed. "Which way is up? Dammit!"

"Get back here, Zero," X said when he managed to stop laughing. "I'd hate to think what might happen if you landed on the… whatever it is down there. Jump back." Zero grumbled, but did that. With advanced warning this time, he managed to twist in midair and land neatly on his feet beside X.

"Must be magnetized," he mumbled, a completely reasonable and totally inaccurate assumption. X nodded, but couldn't resist another look at the seething chaos at the bottom of the valley.

"Let's go around the valley. Maybe we'll be able to see more." Zero shrugged, but followed X as he dashed off.

They did find some very interesting things. Strange clouds were moving in between the little floating islands, and some of the islands had plants on them. Or rather, things that looked like plants. X guessed they had to be artificial constructs, since no normal plant would weep like a lost child or stretch out its branches towards them.

The first rod they found was putting out such a stream of raw energy that neither one of them dared go near it. X raised his buster, then hesitated. Whatever was going on here had been at it for a while. It was reasonable to think this rod was part of what was causing the trouble, but what would shooting it out do?

"Hey, X! Someone's on a platform over there!" Zero called, somewhat ahead. X blinked, and hurried to follow him.

"Axl!" X exclaimed as he saw the red-haired Reploid leaning over the edge of the platform. Axl looked up, surprised, then waved.

"I wondered when you'd be by!" He said cheerfully. Axl wasn't at all surprised someone had picked up the disturbance. They'd concealed it for a while, but it was a bit like trying to conceal an earthquake or a tornado. News couldn't help but leak out. Axl hopped out of the platform, sliding neatly down a rope to the ground. He walked over with a cocky grin. "How's it hanging, X?"

"It was doing better before you deserted," X said dryly, and had the satisfaction of seeing Axl wince. "So what are you doing here? And what is… this?" X's wave encompassed the valley, and Axl shrugged.

"It's a natural disaster. We're trying to keep it from spreading. This valley is toast, though." Axl turned to look at the devastation just as a muted explosion sounded from somewhere in the distance. "A good thing no one was dumb enough to live here."

"Axl, are you started another Red Alert?" Zero broke in. "Because if you are, we'll have to kick your ass, and I really don't want that." He'd always liked the spiky haired kid. Axl blinked, then grinned sheepishly.

"Oh, it's nothing like that! It's totally temporary. We just have to, um… help things along. Things like this." Axl waved towards the valley as X eyed him with faint disbelief.

"And what is 'this'?" X asked, glancing down at the valley floor again. "Besides a visual horror." It really made his eyes hurt. Axl shrugged, trying to look innocent.

"We-ell… it just IS. I can't really say much more about it." That got glares from Zero and X, and Axl raised his hands defensively. "I'm sorry, guys!"

In actuality, Axl could have told them the truth if he'd wanted to. And they would assume he'd completely lost it. Despite the evidence of the valley, they weren't ready to believe in magic and it was probably just as well. Magic came from the power of souls and could not be entirely eliminated, but disbelief was as potent a force as belief. Magic couldn't be destroyed by it, unlike gods, but it could be… lessened.

A tremor suddenly ripped through the valley, and Allandra called down. "Axl! I need help up here!" Axl dashed back to the platform, pulling himself up the rope as a crack suddenly extended from the valley. The ground trembled, and the crack slowly widened, running up towards X and Zero as purple smoke started to ooze from it…

Axl took over the computer terminal, typing with blinding speed. The ooze gradually disappeared, and while the crack remained, it was nothing but ordinary dirt.

"Axl, you are coming back with us to Hunter HQ," X said firmly from below. He wasn't sure what Axl was doing, but deserting was against all kinds of regulations.

"Not until I'm done this!" Axl called back. "You saw what happened there! If we stop working, this could spread!" X and Zero both looked at the crack.

"Kids got a point," Zero opined, and X sighed.

"Alright, we'll wait until you're done!" X crossed his arms, waiting impatiently as Zero decided to practice a few moves. X thought it wouldn't take long, but Zero was anticipating a long wait.

As it turned out, Zero was correct. It took three hours for the valley to settle into something that wasn't at all normal, but at least wasn't trying to escape its bounds. The floating rocks were still there, and the warped reality of the valley floor was still warped, but it had lost the feeling of movement that it had before. X still wouldn't have touched it on a bet, but it didn't look quite as deadly. He chewed his lip, trying to figure out what had caused it… he didn't really doubt Axl's contention that it was a natural disaster. The effect seemed too strange and immense to have been caused solely by Axl's rods.

"Well? Are you done yet?" Zero asked impatiently. He'd gotten bored with practicing by himself. Axl looked down at them, and nodded.

"Yes… but I can't go with you." X and Zero both stiffened. "Sorry I lied, but I don't have time to spend waiting for a court martial. Nam?"

"Yes, Master." The woman beside Axl leaped over the edge of the platform, and X blinked as she fluttered down. Her wings were ridiculously small, too small to house any normal flight systems. Perhaps she had anti-grav somewhere else. "I will delay them for you."

"The hell you will!" Zero exploded into motion, trying to dash past her… until her whip snapped out, snaring one of his feet and jerking him to a very abrupt stop. She drew her scimitar with her other hand, and it shifted into a spiked mace. She snapped Zero back with her whip, a casual display of surprising strength. X aimed his buster at her, and she smiled at him, a surprisingly gentle and understanding smile.

"Give up and go home," she said in a kindly tone. "You can perhaps defeat me, but not in time to catch Axl." The platform was already departing, moving surprisingly quickly. X scowled.

"Then we'll get answers out of you," he said as he fired on her. She dodged neatly, then parried Zero's beam sabre with her mace, lashing out with a foot to the groin. Zero's armor protected him, but it was still a painful blow.

The battle became heated after that. X was astonished by how capable the woman was, and wondered where Axl had dredged her up. She looked very human, and her armor looked like nothing but leather, but she had to be a Reploid and the armor had to be some kind of alloy. Humans might be able to match her speed, but not the flying on tiny wings. And her weapons weren't normal. The mace became a scimitar again, then a shield, and even a crossbow. X took a bolt to the leg and was left limping, after that. The whip was responding to mental commands and seemed to flay whomever it touched through their armor. Zero and X were both covered in painful welts.

In the end, though, the woman was no match for both of them. Her armor smoking, Zero slammed her to the ground and rested his sabre against her throat.

"Now," Zero said softly, threatening. "You'll tell us what we want to know." She shook her head, indifferent to the bloody scorch mark the motion raised on her neck.

"I think not," she replied, then called. "Master! Summon me!" Zero drew back his hand with a snarl, but before he could strike, she disappeared like mist.

All that was left was handful of gleaming, soft white feathers.

"So, what's next on the agenda?" Axl said brightly to Duhallan.

Even when he had been a wizard king, he'd depended on his subordinates for a lot of things. Especially when it came to tactics. Overall strategy was a different matter, but he'd taken care of that lifetimes ago when he'd made his deal with Gaia. Now that they were down to the brass tacks of the matter, it was better to leave the coordination to his long-ago general. He'd learned a long time ago that he was no military genius, and none of the lives he'd lived up until now had shown much improvement.

"There's nothing urgent. Just small things we can handle," Duhallan said briskly. He and the others were all working to control magical breakthroughs of various sorts. Everything from poltergeist phenomena to mystics that had suddenly discovered they really could float. Some of the problems they banished, some they destroyed, and others were gently contained so they could return at a later date. The world would eventually need mystics who could float, but the early birds were disturbing reality. And there was nothing inherently dangerous about floating. "And it isn't time for Domina and Taglith yet, is it?"

"No," Axl said with a shudder. He was almost afraid of Domina's place in this, and Taglith's sacrifice was just sad. "Maybe… Sobhana?"

"Hm." Duhallan turned the map, and Axl examined the indicators carefully. They were attuned to pick up mystical activity, in much the same way Alia could detect it, but with more sophistication. Alia only caught the backwash; this could detect far more. "Maybe. What do you think?" Duhallan could interpret the readings to a certain degree, but Axl was better. He frowned, reaching up to scratch his head.

"Well, it's still stable, but Sobhana is always stable. It looks like gates might be opening, so we should at least tie them down into set places." Axl grimaced. "Some people are going to wander in sooner or later, and if the gates are random, they might be trapped without food and water."

Sobhana was an ancient place, created by someone completely unknown long before Axl's first life. No one knew what it had originally been made for, but everyone knew what it was. A piece of reality from an alternate reality had been carefully snipped away, then layered over this one. The result had probably been unstable for a long time, but over the millennia it had settled in like glued paper. By now, it was probably impossible to detach. In his first lifetime, Sobhana had been a vast gathering place, a neutral zone where anyone could do commerce. It had also been very lawless. Axl vaguely remembered almost being killed his first time there.

Hiding the power of the world couldn't destroy Sobhana. It was like a rock in a well-worn grove; it no longer needed magic to hold it into place. Draining away the magic had cut the gateways to it, though, leaving the world entirely oblivious to the second reality laid over it. Food couldn't be grown in Sobhana, so anyone trapped there at the wrong time had… Axl tried not to think about it, but shivered. He really had been ruthless, in his first life.

He wasn't going to inflict that fate on anyone now, though.

"I'll take care of it," Axl decided. "I can handle it myself… call me if anything goes wrong, though, okay?"

"Right."

When Axl reached Sobhana, he found that he had been wrong. It wasn't a few people who had been trapped… it was a lot of people. And many had been killed.

Sobhana was currently congruent with a piece of China, near a major city. It was overlapping with several roads and a transit tube. The last had caused the worst trouble, with an entire train disappearing into a random gate. Axl shuddered at the thought. It would have entered Sobhana at the same speed, without the benefit of rails. The likelihood of survival for any of those people was slim to none.

Fixing the gates in place took quite some time. Getting the people out took longer, and was depressing. No one had starved, yet, although they were hungry, and Sobhana had its own water supply. But Sobhana itself was nothing but grey stone, ruined buildings and lichen. The ruined train and crushed cars from the roads did not add to the ambience. A few Reploids had survived the train wreck, and the other survivors carried them out through the gates Axl had stabilized. Soon, he was sure, the Chinese authorities would hear about this and begin a massive study of the gates. He wished them luck on that.

When Axl finally got back, he started work on some of the thornier problems that were beginning to crop up… like hunting down a necromancer.

Everyone else was very busy, so at first, Axl tried taking care of it alone with only his own tarnkappa. That didn't work out too well.

His first mistake was following her to a graveyard and trying to take her on at night. His second was in not realizing she had friends.

"Mistress… I smell fresh blood." Axl almost groaned as he saw the cadaverous man with the woman in black. A vampire. Things were progressing that quickly? And… why was any vampire saying something so utterly clichéd? The woman glanced around sharply, then uttered an unfamiliar word. Axl felt the stirrings in the currents of magic, and tried to shut them down… but he was a bit too late. The tarnkappa suddenly flared with energy, the magic that was meant to conceal it revealing it. Axl tossed it aside with a swear word.

The vampire came at him with a grin as the necromancer turned and ran. Now it was time for the vampire to make a serious mistake… his last. Axl was prepared for undead, even if he hadn't expected a vampire, and silver was a sovereign against them. It cost him a deeply slashed arm, but soon the vampire was a pile of ashes.

Axl bit his lip, then called for reinforcements. He'd need some help following the necromancer back to her hideaway.

Several hours later, Axl crossed his arms, leaning against the wall as he watched the necromancer rooting through the carpet.

The trail of opened graves and bizarre rituals had finally led to this mansion, and he was considering the best way to take care of things. She was smart enough to have given the zombies instructions to kill anyone who hurt her, and he hated fighting zombies. They tended to splatter. Lyos shifted uneasily beside him. He still wasn't used to the tarnkappa that was hiding him.

"What are you searching for, mistress?" Axl said in the deep, unctuous voice of the vampire he had killed. DNA copying was really coming in handy, when he couldn't just blast things to smithereens. The woman had accepted his return very calmly, assuming the vampire had eliminated the annoying Reploid that had hunted her down.

"A shrunken head!" Lyos looked slightly sick at that piece of information. "I could just use pile to flesh… but that's disgusting…" Axl suddenly dropped his disguise with a small grin.

"Have you tried using a divining rod?" He said conversationally, and she jerked up violently to glare at him.

"You… you little BASTARD! You're going to get it! Pile to FLESH!" Axl didn't flinch as the bizarre piece of magic hit him. The carpet, however, stirred. "No! NO! I meant flesh to stone, flesh to- AIIIiiiieeeeeeeeee………"

The carpet had turned into something reminiscent of a giant amoeba. The feeble digestive acids couldn't do much to Reploid feet, and Axl ignored the faint steam rising from then. The effect on human flesh in direct contact with the surface was far more spectacular. Fortunately, the thrashing and screaming stopped quickly.

"That's why you only use that spell on top of a metal table." He said conversationally to Lyos, who was staring at the spectacle.

"How on earth did you know that would work?" he asked, shaken, and Axl shrugged.

"I used to be a god, remember? C'mon, let's go." The police would have a hell of a time figuring out all the dead bodies and the pile of gore in this room…