Home. It was the place that had been on the forefront of their minds since they first realised they were trapped in this endless meadow. It was why they were still here, despite the fact that they could stroll through the same portal the fish arrived through, or any others that opened up after that incident.

After all, that was not a rare instance. The next few hours of their lives, trapped in this verdant paradise, was spent fighting off more hordes of unknown assailants that strolled, sauntered, crept or lunged out of portals that appeared with no rhyme or reason.

There was no pattern to the appearance of these portals, only the short warning of their appearance and the fact that everything on the other side wanted to kill them. Well... Almost everything. There were a few creatures who seemingly stumbled across the gate ways by sheer accident and wandered into their prison of paradise out of simply ignorance.

But no matter how many of these portals they stumbled across and fought against the encroaching hordes pouring out, they never even considered walking through them. There was no point. They would only lead them further away from their home, not towards it. So they waited, fought and studied, figuring out the mysteries of the bracer and those that came through the portals to invade their home.

A home, that had yet to truly miss them and yet, it was also a home that was still undergoing absolute turmoil and chaos in their absence.

It was all because of one simple fact. Despite the fact that Astra and Seth had spent hour, close to half a day, trapped in that boundless meadow for those at home, the amount of time that had based was barely enough to allow Bob to finish his train of thought.

'Where in the world is he?'

Bob chewed on that question as he stood within the church of his father, staring pensively at the weak, yet still living, flickering flame atop the pedestal. He focused his eyes on that flame, the representation of his fathers life, as he searched deep within him for the answers.

He reached out with his senses, stretching them as far as they could go, searching for even the smallest hint of his father. He was about to give up, feeling nothing but dead air, when suddenly he felt the faintest tickle at the very edges of his senses.

It was so faint that, had he not been paying the most absolute attention, he would have completely missed it.

By sheer coincidence, or perhaps it was not, that faint signal came at the precise moment a breach in reality opened up outside the church's doors, as a flaming wolf leapt out of thin air.

Bob didn't move from his position, gazing coldly at the beast as it sprinted towards him, its teeth bared and fur flickering as it ran. He might have been looking at the wolf, but he was really focused on his senses even now. Focused on the direction that they were pointing him, which just so happened to be the shattered glass in the window of reality.

'The portals... No wonder there wasn't a body.'

He wanted to leap straight into them, to go and save his Father, but Bob was smarter than that. His Father had ensured it. He might have been new to emotions, and was still getting a grasp on understanding them in others, but he had no trouble controlling them. Perhaps that was because they were so new, that being without them felt more natural to him.

Regardless, Bob knew that if his Father had, for whatever reason, disappeared through the portals and had yet to return, despite being alive, that there had to be a good reason that he had not returned. Whether it was voluntary or not, he had to have faith and not leap in, at least not without a way to guarantee he could come back.

Perhaps, in his need for some faith, it was good that he was still standing in a church dedicated to that man, even if his cultish followers didn't quite understand it. But it was also a church that was being invaded, and he couldn't allow that.

The dirt that littered the church's floor surged and swirled, the black sand shifting like it was the spiral of a galaxy, as it gravitated towards Bob. He didn't move his feet, the dirt simply crawled up his legs until he was one with the collection of particulates once more.

As the wolf lunged, the dirt beneath it surged upwards, bursting forth like a mine had detonated beneath it. When the dust cleared, those who were cowering within the church saw the wondrous sight of the flaming hell hound clutched tight within an earthen fist that rose from the ground.

It was as if the hand of god had risen to protect the blessed child.

Bob tilted his head at the wolf held in his clutches, looking at it as if it was simply a dead piece of meat already. At his command, the hand dissolved as quickly as it had manifested, the dirt and black sand flowing up and around the wolf. It flowed over it, completely surrounding it in an earthen tomb, and quickly poured down its throat and filled its lungs.

As the wolf choked and drowned on its earthen tomb, on Bob's extended body, Bob calmly turned his attention to one of the worshippers within the church, addressing the terrified yet fervent man with a calm, measured tone.

"Do you have a communication gift? I need to find a man called Lee, immediately."

'Just stay safe Father, I will come and get you soon! I just hope that you aren't in any danger.'

***

In the time that it took Seth's loyal son Bob to perform such simple actions, actions that took him no more than five minutes to complete in their entirety, with most of that time being spent searching his senses.

Yet while barely five minutes had passed for the son, more than three entire weeks had passed for the Father and his electric companion.

By now, with all the fires that they had to make throughout the days, there were more stumps than trees left in the meadow. There hadn't been many to begin with, and they had quickly chopped most of them down to use as firewood to cook their food. Such was the fate of any land touched by humans.

They were not alone in this meadow either. They were accompanied not just by their fishy friends, but an assortment of creatures and beasts from whatever strange land, or lands, these portals led to.

There were fish people, sentient slimes (although they didn't take a human shape like Cynthia), a few horse like creatures with four eyes and six legs and, strangely enough, a lioness that seemed to be made of pure metal as well as her litter of cubs.

The lioness was surprisingly docile, acting more like a friendly house cat than a true lioness, which went double for their rambunctious cubs.

There was also a small army of corpses, those of humanoid monsters, standing around the makeshift encampment and acting as their guard. These were puppets under Seth's control. As much as he hated puppeteering corpses, mostly because it was simply disgusting, when Astra had run out of her electricity reserves after the first week, he had to adapt and make up for their lack of numbers.

Seth idly scratched at his chin, the short, wiry hairs lining his jawline tickled at his fingers as he did so. He was still studying the bracer, picking apart its secrets and writing notes into his journal as he worked.

Part of him was thankful that he could still summon this journal, just like he could do with the Requitals that weren't currently in use by his alter ego. It wouldn't have been impossible to study the device without the journal, but it certainly made the process easier.

What did make it impossible, however, was the distracting sight that was directly in front of him as he used one of the tree stumps as a work bench. Up and down his eyes moved, hypnotised by the sight of Astra performing her morning workouts in nothing but a tank top, which used to be a T-shirt before it was torn apart, and the comfortable trousers she had been wearing when the invasion started.

She was currently performing sit ups, her lips pursing as she slowly exhaled a breath with every refined movement. Her toned muscles rolling beneath her pale skin, skin that glistened like freshly polished marble with the sweat that covered her like a fine glaze. Steam curled off her arms and cold, focused face as she performed her work out as if Seth wasn't even there.

It didn't even matter that their clothes were filthy, stained with blood, sweat and dirt or that they had been wearing the same dirty clothes for three weeks now. He was like a starving man looking at a buffet, and she knew it.

She called them morning work outs, but since there was no night here, it was just whenever she felt like it workouts. And whenever she felt like it lately seemed to always coincide with when Seth was trying to do his work.

He couldn't help but notice she always 'accidentally' performed them within his line of sight, although perhaps that one could have been his fault. But even still! She knew she was torturing him, and he fell for it every single time, even though he knew what she was doing.

Even still, his eyes were locked on a single bead of sweat, following it diligently as it trailed down her chin, trickled down her neck and slipped down towards her- Bah! Hold it together man! Get a hold of yourself!

I mean how was he supposed to work under these conditions?! This was just unfair!

Giving himself a firm slap across the face, and then an extra one for good luck, Seth focused himself on his work for a full 15 seconds before his eyes trailed back up to the tantalising sight.