"I got him. I... I actually found him! I can't believe it. I think I can open a portal to him if I just..."

Lee trailed off as, with his eyes still closed, he began to push his focus. His hands trembled in the air, his fingers spread as they pushed against an unseen force. The terribly familiar sound of glass cracking resounded once more, hairline fractures appearing in the air underneath Lee's fingertips.

Seizing the opportunity, Lee dug his fingers into the crevices and used them as hand holds. He grit his teeth, the muscles on his arms bulging underneath his skin. Beads of sweat oozing from his pours and trickling down his face, as he strained not just his physical body, but also his powers.

He was pushing them to their very limits, wielding his so-called 'master' of space in a way that his body simply wasn't adapted for. It was more than just opening a simple portal between two points in a city, for now he was ripping apart the very fabric of the universe to parts unknown based on the faint feeling of his best, and one of his only, customers.

It was the difference between taking a short cut through the park versus dragging the continents together with your bare hands so you could have a pleasant stroll over to China.

Yet against all odds, against the sanity of the laws of physics, Lee's fingers that were dug into the fabric of the universe and were vanishing into thin air where they held it, slowly began to move. Whether by sheer, dumb luck or nothing but force of will or simply the whims of an all powerful god amused by their antics, Lee began to tear open a breach in space.

Against all logic, the metaphorical continents began to shift and a dazzling beam of light manifested itself from the gradually forming tear in the fabric of reality.

***

Astra sat with her back against the log, gazing down at Seth with an unreadable expression on her perpetually scowling face. She was currently watching Seth's face as he stole precious moments of sleep, something he had not been able to do for a few days now. He had utterly exhausted himself, both in body and spirit.

If it wasn't for his freaky black blood, which crawled back into his wounds, he probably would have bled out by now. But that process also seemed to take its toll on his energy, leaving him in such a state. Teetering on the edge of life once more.

As soon as the bracer began to blink, the assault of the portals onto their endless meadow seemed to increase tenfold, as countless creatures poured through the breaches intending to use the same route to their home as they were. Some of these had navigation devices of their own, ranging from bracers to rings to circlets and all sorts of accessories to suit all sorts of body types. While others simply stumbled through by accident, and were unfortunately thrown into the meat blender.

As for Seth's bracer, it had been incessantly blinking for two days straight. At first they thought it was a malfunction, something he had done incorrectly in his ignorance of how the magical device worked. But after checking it multiple times, in the brief moments of respite they got, they soon ruled such a possibility out. Instead, they eventually figured out that this device, this navigator, was simply not designed to be used within this liminal space they had found themselves in.

At least, not in the way they were using it, as its detection time suffered from the same time dilation they were under. It could sense the portal home being opened, but time on the other side of the opening portal was slowed to a crawl compared to them. All it could do was endlessly tell them it was opening.

Meanwhile, if they had used this device in the 'real world', like it was most likely designed to be, then this blinking would only last for a few seconds before they saw a portal appear before them.

The way Seth had explained it to her, the space they were currently occupying was, for lack of a better term, a corridor. Even with the grass and trees that stretched on for infinity, changing their positions yet paradoxically retaining the damage done to them, this was a corridor. Or a terminal, like a train station.

Regardless of what you called it, it was essentially a world between worlds. A stop gap meant to be moved through, not lived within.

On either side of this endless corridor, were doors. The doors were not always there, and when they were they weren't always the same doors. In fact it was very rare that they were the same. Sometimes one door was open, sometimes both, and sometimes neither.

These 'doors' were natural weaknesses in space, something he had learned from a teleporter he knew. That means that the devices would, in theory, lead you to a naturally occurring portal in these spatial fractures.

It would tell you when the two doors you wanted had lined up, and led you through the door, passed the corridor and out the other side. Naturally that meant that you had to wait for the doors to line up, but with how time worked in this place, that could be as simple as a ten minute wait for hundreds upon thousands of variations until your perfect route lined up.

But since they were inside the corridor, they had to wait out those hundreds upon thousands of variations one by one. There very well could have been portals back to earth that had opened in their time here, but it also mattered where on earth.

If they took a random earth-bound portal, it could be as simple as walking out in a small town in America. But they could also end up in the middle of the desert, or thousands of miles in the air, or at the bottom of the ocean.

Astra let out a soft sigh, shaking her head ever so slightly. It was just so complicated, and she suspected that it was only going to get worse from here on out. She could see the weight Seth carried on his shoulders, the weight not just of the people he was protecting, but also the weight of secrets and more responsibility.

She had to admit, after the first month of no sign of a rescue, she had seriously thought about how long she would have to stay here. If this would be where they would spend their entire lives, where they would grow old and die. She had thought about that a lot, actually.

She gazed softly at the pale young man in her company, who had not hesitated to use his body to shield her from the explosion of the crystal core. Sure, he might have been responsible for their situation, and she was certain that he constantly told himself that, but he had also saved them from the enemy that required such an explosion. This was just a happy accident.

Her eyes trailed from his face, which had a tranquil expression as he was deep in the embrace of sleep, and moved to his hair. It had grown longer while they had been here, becoming messy and unkempt. Pieces of it were clumped together from dried up blood and dirt.

Her own hair wasn't much better, but at the very least she had used a cutting from her T-shirt to tie the mess back in a loose ponytail. Seth couldn't do the same, not yet at least.

Astra lifted her hand slowly, with her blackened fingers outstretched she tenderly moved her hand towards Seth's forehead before stopping halfway. Her hand trembled as she hesitated and bit her lip in thought, before moving once again.

Yet just before she could reach him, the incessant beeping of the bracer turned to a continuous, and very loud, tone. It shocked Astra out of her stupor, making her move her hand quicker this time. But instead of reaching towards his forehead, she grabbed his shoulder and quickly hoisted Seth to his feet.

The movement stirred him from his slumber, his mind still operating on fumes and unable to process what was going on, as Astra walked them both to the rapidly forming portal. A sight that not only drew the humans attention, but also that of their multiple companions. Those who remained, at least.

Seth slurred out a sentence as he stumbled alongside her,

"Wh-What's happ'nin? We be'in attacked? Where are they? I'll kill em all!"

"Just stay quiet and hang on, We're finally going home."

With Seth's singular arm wrapped around her shoulder, she carried the battered, broken and utterly drained Lord across the threshold and back into his kingdom once more.

As soon as she stepped through the portal, a cacophony of sights, smells and sounds assaulted her all at once. Barraging her with familiar sensations as if it was an excited dog, welcoming you home with tail wagging. She would probably experience the same from her actual dog, when she found the mutt anyways.

God, she had actually forgotten how good her home smelled until now. She hadn't even realised it until now, but as she stepped out of the endless meadow and finally came home, it was a euphoric scent that filled her lungs with every laboured breath. Yet it seemed not everyone was happy to see her.

She had barely taken ten whole steps out of the portal, before she was shoved away from Seth. His arm brushing against her shoulder as he slipped from her grasp, before she stumbled back and landed on her rump.

Thankfully, the only thing wounded from the fall was her ego, but as she looked up to see who had unceremoniously shoved her, and how Seth had dealt with losing her support, she was met with a sight that was most surprising. A sight that not only shocked her, but for some reason she couldn't quite realise, churned her stomach completely.

Seth was still standing, held up by another woman. A woman with pretty, pristine and silky blonde hair unlike the disgusting mess that was Astra's hair, who had appeared out of absolutely no where, and was currently pawing at Seth with her grubby little hands. Her mitts cupping his cheeks as she gazed into his eyes, her perfectly pink lips parting as she muttered words that cut into Astra's mind.

"Are you alright, My Love?"