Neo
Neo groaned slightly as she began to wake up. Her vision was blurry when she opened her eyes. Her stomach twisted. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When she opened her eyes again, her stomach had settle down and her vision was clearer. Her heart pounded as she remembered what happened. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked around the tan colored room. "Law!"
She found she was laying on a very large bed that could fit at least six people comfortably. To her left were two smaller rooms. The purple ombre doors, oddly shaped and angled, were closed so she couldn't see what they were. To her right was a balcony with see through light blue doors, without handles, that almost covered the entire wall. Outside she could see part of some kind of structure.
There was another door straight ahead of her. She assumed it was the way out of the bedroom. She crawled off the bed and rushed over to it. She carefully opened it and peaked out. The hallway was the same color as the room. Several doors lined both sides of the hall and apart of it opened up to, what she assumed, were stairs since she figured she wasn't on the ground floor.
The building was quiet. She assumed that no one was there, but she couldn't be sure of that. For all she knew, there was some kind of ambush waiting for her. She closed the door quietly. She pressed her back to it and tried to calm her increasing breathing. She couldn't sense Law anywhere near. "Law, where are you?"
She rushed over to the only doors she knew led outside. When she reached them, she paused. Were they even unlocked? The bedroom door was unlocked so this one should be too, right? She reached out and touched one of the doors. They both opened with just a light touch. She gave light sigh of relief. At least she wasn't trapped in this room.
She ran out onto the balcony to find she was right in assuming she wasn't on the ground floor. She looked out at the view before her. The structure she had see looked like it was part light house, part mechanical claw with only two pinchers. Around the structure was a small forest made of several types of trees that she didn't recognize and a maze made of bluish green bushes and multiple colored plants and flowers that were also unfamiliar.
She fluttered her wings before taking off into the air. Turning back to the building she was in, she gasped when she saw it. The building itself was weird shaped. It was huge, mansion like huge. The middle of the building looking normal, a simple vertical rectangular like shape with two tall, not very wide purple ombre doors. There was a concrete porch with some kind of bird bath like pedestal with some stone ball laying in it and several oddly shaped chairs around the pedestal.
Both sides of the building poked out from the middle of the building like a bird spreading its wings. They both had about seven stories to them, but it was hard to tell for sure as the rooms didn't line up with each other. They were angled and looked like someone just haphazardly piled one room on top of the others. The room she came out of seemed oddly straight compared to the others. She had no clue how the building could look like this on the outside when the hall looked so normally straight inside.
She turned away from the strange building and headed for the other only structure she could see. While flying over she found it odd that she didn't see any birds flying around or animals running around on the ground. Was she really this alone or were the animals hiding for some reason? But what she found most puzzling of all was she couldn't sense any kind of life. Nature was as silent as if it was dead.
When she got close enough to the structure she noticed it didn't have any windows or doors on it. While distracted why the build, a vine snapped out and wrapped around her ankle. She gasped as it jerked her downward. She flapped her wings harder and pulled away from the vine. She leveled out her flying and tried to fly closer to the structure. Several more vines rose up and started to snap at her. "Why are you attacking me? Stop that!"
She waved her hand to order them to back down. They didn't listen to her. They continued to snap and grab at her. "Why aren't you listening to me?"
While she continued to try to get close to the structure, birds rose up from the ground and swooped in at her. She noticed that she didn't recognize the strange dark blue birds. Their wings were tipped in black as were their beaks. Their eyes were a dull red, lifeless. They wouldn't listen to her either. "What is this? Are you all dead or something?"
One of the birds swooped in close enough that it sliced her left arm. She winced at the pain as she summoned her fire crystals. She put up a wall of fire between her and her attackers. Once they backed off she flew away from them. The fire died down and they followed her. When she got far enough away from the structure, the birds and the vines settled back down.
Neo turned back when she noticed they weren't following her anymore. They obviously didn't want her near that structure. She looked down to her injured arm. Blood was tricking down her skin. The cut wasn't too bad. It didn't need immediate medical attention but she summoned her solar crystal to heal it anyway. She knew Law wouldn't be happy with her if she let it get infected.
She turned away from the structure and flew off. Maybe she would be able to find her friends if she just looked for them. She could send up signal flares using her fire crystals. Suddenly a faded image of herself appeared in front of her. "What the…?"
Neo reach out and placed her hands on some kind of smooth surface. She didn't recognize it. It wasn't glass. And it wasn't plastic. She pounded her fist on it. Nothing. No sound or vibration from the hit.
She started to fly off to her right. Her fade image followed her. As she flew along side her image, dread began to settle in her stomach. She whispered to herself as she flew faster. "No, no, no."
Her dread was morphing into panic when her little flight brought her right back to where she had started from. She snapped her wings and rose up along with her reflection. As she got higher the strange material began to curve. She followed it to the other side of wherever she was.
She was trapped after all. She wasn't trapped in that strange shaped house. But she was trapped in some kind of dome. A dome that she estimated to be around two miles in radius. Her wings faltered and she dropped several feet.
She snapped her wings, regaining some altitude. Tears streamed down her face as she cried out. "No…Not again! I can't be trapped again! Let me out of here!"
She summoned all of her crystals and formed several attacks to fire at the dome. She formed ice, fire, lightning and every kind of attack she had in her arsenal the unleashed her fury, and panic, on the dome side. When her attacks faded a sharp stab of pain ran through her heart as the fears of the time she was trapped, without Law and the others back on Luminous, flooded through her mind.
Her wings began to falter again.
She descended down to the ground before she lost control over her wings and fell. When her feet touched the grass she dropped to her knees and hands. She clenched the grass, the lifeless grass in her hands. Fresh tears began to flow down her cheeks. "N-Not again…I can't do this…Not ag-"
Neo gagged as when her fancy dinner decided it wanted to make another appearance. When she emptied her stomach Law's hat fell off her head and rolled away a few feet. Once her stomach decided it had nothing left to give, Neo straightened up and cover her mouth with her hand. She then crawled over to Law's hat.
She picked it up. Hugging it to her chest as she laid down on the ground. Her sun crystal disappeared after it finished healing the cut on her arm as tears continued to roll down her cheeks. She held onto the only two things she had of him with her. His hat and his ring. "Law…Where are you? Where are you all? Come find me. I don't want to be alone. Law!"
She laid there, clinging to his hat, and eventually cried herself to sleep.
…
"Don't get so close!"
"Why not? She's pweddy!"
"Pretty doesn't mean she's safe!"
"Doesn't mean she's not safe. You know she doesn't belong here. He must have brought her here."
"True, but we don't know anything for sure."
"I wike her!"
"Celeste! Get away from her!"
"Hm?" Neo shifted when voiced began to filter into her ears.
"She's waking up! Let's get out of here!"
"Uh," Neo sat up quickly when she realized she wasn't dreaming, she really did hear someone, three people talking. Three tiny voices were speaking. But when she looked no one was around. She rubbed her forehead. Maybe she was dreaming after all.
A rumble made her look up. The strange doom ceiling began to darken like a storm was rolling in. The wind began to pick up. Neo stood up, still clinging to Law's hat. She could sense the storm coming, but it didn't feel right to her. It was different somehow.
She didn't have time to think about it as raindrops began to fall from somewhere above. She flicked her wings then took to the air. She made it back inside the room she woke up in just before it started to down pour. The rain felt different too. She held out her hand and caught some of it.
She brought her hand close to her face and inspected the drops. Instead of pooling into a tiny puddle, they maintained their droplet forms. They didn't mix together at all. She tilted her hand, allowing them to fall to the balcony floor. When they hit the floor they immediately absorbed into it. Neo gave it a confused look before looking back out into the storm. "What is this place?"
Neo turned and padded into the room. She looked around before walking over to the two smaller rooms. She opened one to find it was a bathroom. Everything in the bathroom was just as oddly shaped and angled as the outside of the house. It had a shower and a bathtub. "This is just weird. This place kind of looks like a mixed up version of our room on the sub and the one we stayed in on Luminous. Is this all just a coincident or on purpose?"
She closed the bathroom door and walked over to the other small room. She opened it to find it was a closet. All of the clothes were light colors either shaped in squares, triangles, rectangles patterns or they had designs with those shapes on them. She closed the closet door before walking back over to the bed. She sat down on it and looked over to the bedroom door.
She clenched Law's hat to her chest and bend her head down to take in his scent as she wondered what she should do now. "Should I just stay right here? Or should I check out the rest of the house? It doesn't seem like there's anyone else here. What would you want me to do, Law?"
Neo's instincts began to kick in when she sense someone was behind her. She waited until they got close enough before jumping off the bed. She summoned her wind crystals and trapped them in a whirlwind. She was stunned when a cheerful voice cried out from her wind. "Weeeeee! Faster! Faster!"
"What the…," Neo slowed down her wind so she could pluck the tiny little figure spinning around in her little tornado. She blinked rapidly at the thing hanging from her fingers. The thing was about three inches tall. Its skin was a light orange, hair was a pumpkin orange and all of it was style up into a point, while its eyes were a bright orange. The fabric the creature wore was a one shoulder strap revealing midriff leaf shaped top, matching shorts, orangish brown in color and didn't feel familiar to her touch. And sticking out from its back were dragonfly shaped wings. They were black on the outline and transparent orange everywhere else. "What are you?"
"I'm Time Sprite!" The little orange creature smiled brightly as she chirped her reply.
…
Author's Notes: Just so ya know, when writing this chapter I was envisioning The Jetsons cartoon. How everything is kinda oddly shaped and futuristic like.
sarge1130: Yeah, fun time over. *sigh*
Apple Bloom: Thanks! Will do! ^_^
PuddyKatz: I have no idea where this idea came from. Outta da blue? I can get ideas, sometimes, just from one word being spoken.
Mei: Separated again. Poor Law and Neo. Yeah, poor Usopp too.