Anya POV:

"Sahlia?... You do not look like you're doing well right now," I gawked when I saw my cousin standing before us, her looking to have been crying a lot with her eyes completely bloodshot, her hair all messy and dirty, and her face to have some stress on it with some bags under her 16 year old eyes.

"Annie... you shouldn't be here..." Sahlia said.

"Why? This was the only place that I could think of that was far away from that madman, yet closest to Noluta," I said to her.

"I mean that you need to leave... but you can't..." Sahlia said with tears welling up in her red eyes.

"What do you mean?..." Shu asked. Sahlia then pointed to the center of town and I gasped. She was pointing at a large tree that I could tell had magic inside of it.

"That tree... that fucking tree... every single year it wakes up and devours one of our citizens, whoever it chooses... last year it ate my father... this year, just 2 days ago... my mother..." Sahlia said before she cried again, me gasping and collapsing on my knees and hands.

"Auntie Sally... Uncle Boyle... both of them..." I sniffled before my will was back and I yelled loudly. "AAAAGH! NENE!" I yelled angrily as my Mystic Mermaid emerged from my shadow and Sahlia gasped when she saw it.

"A-Annie?... W-What's with your shadow?!" Sahlia gasped.

"Don't worry, cousin. I'm going to save this village and avenge my family once and for all! I'm going to rip that fucking tree to shreds, even if it takes all day to do it!" I exclaimed in fury as I then activated every single weapon that coated my body. "Lasers engage! Rocket launchers engage! Blade arms, fucking engage!" I exclaimed as all of my attachments came out and Anya looked extremely scared.

"Don't worry, cousin. These weapons are all going to be used on that tree. For auntie and uncle! For all of Devour Village... HHHYYAAAGH!" I yelled in extreme rage as I jetted at the tree and began my assault. When I made the first blow, the tree then revealed its true colors, its face emerging with horrific teeth and a very sinister face on it. I snarled as I hacked and slashed away at the tree's body with my blade arms, managing to slice apart two giant roots that it used for hands, making the tree shriek horribly. Once it did so, I fired rockets into its gaping mouth and then ignited the top of the tree with my lasers, which were where my... butt was. Yeah, I had lasers in my butt cheeks.

But it didn't matter to any of the citizens, because every single one of them started to cheer in unison. Why? Because the tree had been burnt to a crisp, exploded, and the fire it produced was perfect for a party to happen.

"Hah... hah... hoo..." I sighed and huffed as I let down all of my weapons and then laid down on the ground with a smile, Sahlia rushing up to me and not even caring about the fire nearby.

"Cousin... a-are you okay?..." Sahlia gasped at me.

"Rgh... I... I need a bed... and a bath..." I smiled at her, me hearing the power supply inside of me beeping for low power. "Activating... Sleep Mode... wake up... in 24 hours..." I smiled as I then let my eyes close and my entire body went into its sleeping state... the last thing I heard before falling asleep was my friends telling Sahlia to hurry up.

Shu POV:

Out of all the things that Nene had done to Anya, it was no surprise to anyone that this was the moment that finally made her lose her lid. After hearing that family members had died from a tree devouring them (which I guess is ironic, given the name of the village we were in was Devour Village), I probably would've gone into a flying fit of rage myself. Anya was carried by our group and Sahlia to a house that had a very cute interior with a stove and a kitchen that I could smell was making cookies.

"Okay, you lot. Tell me," Sahlia said after she had laid Sahlia down on her couch to rest.

"Tell you... what? Everything?" Kluke asked calmly.

"Anything you can that can explain to me what the fuck happened to my cousin. You guys have obviously been with her for awhile, so spill it," Sahlia said to us with a frown.

"W-Well... we honestly didn't meet Anya until a week ago. For 10 years she had been held captive on this jerk Nene's ship. He's the last remaining Ancient and his actions have been horrific not only to her, not only to us, but I suspect even your village with that man-eating tree," I said, Sahlia listening as she pulled up a chair and sat down in it.

"About 10 years ago, Anya was kidnapped by Nene when she was in Noluta Village. He then proceeded to try and turn her into an android, nearly her entire body being converted to become mechanized, the only places it not affecting being her brain, her bones, and her face. But try as Nene might, only two programming codes happened with her. She can never address Nene without calling him Master Nene and she is unable to say anything but the truth. She's unable to lie now, but other than that, she's still the same person you know and love," Jiro explained.

"All this time... I thought that Anya was still protecting Noluta..." Sahlia sighed.

"When we met her, she gave us some pieces of Nene's soul so that we could use magic just like she was able to do, even before she got abducted by Nene. She then told us that we had to reach a certain rank with our magic before we could be freed of Nene's influence in our bodies. That happened in an area called the Wire Highlands, when we were chasing down Nene," Kluke said.

"So... how did you manage to get here?" Sahlia asked.

"Well, we escaped Nene's ship and started out in the Lot Wilderness, pretty much the exact opposite in terms of where we are now on the map... see, this is where we had to start out, and this is where we are now," Jiro said as he showed Sahlia the map, her gawking at that.

"You must be awfully tired to have traveled so far. Would you like some cookies? I was making a fresh batch before I saw your group appear out of nowhere," Sahlia offered, her going to the oven and pulling out a tray full of them.

"Sure, we can eat them while we talk," I smiled as Marumaro was about to grab one, but yelled out in pain when he touched them.

"OW! Hot HOT HOT!" he yelled as he ran around the room.

"So... who's your yellow friend?" Sahlia smiled, trying to ignore Maro's outburst.

"He's Marumaro, a Devee. His village was poisoned with a flower that grows here, the Miasma Bloom," Kluke said, Sahlia furrowing her brow again.

"It's this Nene you mentioned, wasn't it?" she frowned.

"Yes. Marumaro also got a shadow from Nene and we had to go to the Forest of the Dead to find a Gabo plant to give the villagers of the Devee Tribe. And as for the other areas that Nene has hurt, he's killed 30 people in our home, Talta Village, with the Land Shark. He's flooded Castle Jibral once a year with magical tsunamis. He forced an entire city filled with servant robots to attack us against their will and kill some of them in the process. He froze all of Noluta's villagers in ice shortly after abducting Anya. And, the one that finally made Anya go nuts back there, he turned this tree into a man-eater and killed your parents, which I guess was her breaking point, as they were her family," I said.

"How horrible... she said that she needed to rest for 24 hours in sleep mode... she needs to recharge or something?" Sahlia asked.

"Yes, she can normally go 6 days without needing rest, but after that stunt, I guess her power reserves got quite low," I smiled.

"6 days... What about food? Does she need a drink when she gets up?" Sahlia asked.

"With her enhancements, she's now completely incapable of needing food or water or going to the bathroom. She's almost completely mechanical from the neck down," Jiro said as he kept watch over her body as she breathed in and out, a smile on her face as she slept.

"Yet she still remembers who I am... she hasn't forgotten me after I was born all that time ago... I knew it was her the moment I heard her voice... she hasn't changed at all since the last I saw her, over 12 years ago... I was just 6 years old at that time..." Sahlia smiled.

"So you're 18 now? That's a year above my age," I smiled. Sahlia smiled at me too, but I looked at Kluke with a smile and she simply held my hand.

"So what do we do now?" Sahlia asked when we started to eat our cookies, the tray being cool enough to eat them now. "Is it going to hurt Maro again?" our little 7 year old friend asked.

"It's cool enough now, it won't hurt you," Sahlia smiled, Maro taking the cookie and biting into it. Honestly, I really liked the cookies. They were incredibly sweet and had a very unique taste that I had to ask what was in them. "What's in these cookies that makes 'em so good?" I asked with my mouth full, Kluke pinching me for that.

That's a secret I will only share with Anya when she wakes up," Sahlia smiled.