Chapter Nine[IX]: Shifting of Realms

Xenos Waters stops walking as Mr. Balanius does, glancing around the frost-covered woods, leafless tree branches shining like crystals from the light of the moon, jingling quietly like wind chimes in the winter wind. "We're here," Mr. Balanius says, voice sounding loud compared to the nocturnal rustling of the forest.

"Where is 'here', exactly?" Felix asks, gesturing around them.

Mr. Balanius lifts his arm, and Xenos notices a faintly glowing watch on his wrist. "You'll see," Mr. Balanius says almost teasingly, "we're just a little early."

Xenos looks at Felix to see that he's rolling his eyes before looking at Xenos and squinting. "I've been meaning to ask, but how have you been maneuvering around so well, Xenos?"

He points at his left eye. "The scales spread to my eye, and I can now apparently see in the dark."

Felix gently smacks Xenos' back, seeming excited at the prospect. "That's so cool. Is it like looking through night-vision goggles?"

"Yeah, just with red instead of yellow," he responds.

"Interesting," he hears Mr. Balanius cut in and turns his attention away from Felix, "I suppose it makes sense, considering the dhabeho's eyes are red." Xenos grimaces, the image of the dhabeho in the window still clear as the sky in his mind. There's a sudden pop, similar to that of Mr. Balanius' portals, accompanied by a ripping sound. "Ah, they're here."

Before Xenos or Felix could ask who "they" is, a flash of violet light blinds Xenos, dark spots filling his vision that he tries to blink away. Once he can see properly, he can't help but stare at the portal in front of them; it looks like some animal ripped a hole in the very fabric of the universe, the purples and blues swirling around in the claw mark making it look like a galaxy.

"Come on, then," Mr. Balanius urges, walking forwards into the portal and disappearing. Felix and Xenos look at each other before cautiously moving towards the portal and stepping into it. Xenos' entire body suddenly feels cold and hot at the same time, stomach churning violently as his ears ring and his head aches painfully.

The sensations are gone just as fast as they came, and Xenos finds himself in a crisply white hospital room that has two beds inside of it, along with four people Xenos can only assume to be nurses or doctors. All of them have typical white coats on, a weeping willow tree patch on the right chest area.

"Welcome to the Magna Salices Clinic, Mr. Waters, Mr. Zevitas," says one of the doctors, a kind smile on her face. She has brilliant red hair and pale green eyes, her skin tone a shade darker than Felix's.

Xenos smiles awkwardly as he takes off his mask, fidgeting with it. "Please, call me Xenos."

Felix nods. "Same here, Felix is fine."

"Well, then feel free to call me Keona."

"Well, if everyone's introducing themselves, then I'm Zomelias," says a rather plain-looking man beside Keona, he has shaggy black hair with a hairpin clipped in to hold it back and light brown eyes, he's quite tanned.

"My name's Asta." The woman next to Zomelias, Asta, who seems to be around Xenos and Felix's age, gives a small twirl as she introduces herself; revealing that the backside of the white coats has a large weeping willow stitched onto it, with the name of the hospital underneath. She has long blonde hair in pigtails that have purple bows at the base, and baby blue eyes, her skin almost like porcelain.

The man at the end of the line sighs. "Drakon." Xenos almost winces at the uninterested and condescending tone but stops himself, deciding to ignore it. Drakon has silver hair and orange eyes, his skin in between pale and tanned.

Keona rolls her eyes. "Ignore him, Drakon, like most people, thinks that people from Obeuku are inferior for some reason or another. So, don't take it personally."

Xenos grimaces and Felix nonchalantly says, "Noted, I'll be sure to kick their asses later."

Drakon scoffs and Zomelias laughs, smacking the grinning Keona on the shoulder. "My man, that's the type of attitude I like." He rubs his hands together. "Alright, let's get you two treated. Sit, sit." He ushers Xenos and Felix on their respective beds, Asta coming over and hovering her now jade-green glowing hands over Xenos' head before slowly moving down until she reaches his ribs.

He can see Zomelias doing the same, except he stops at Felix's ankle. Xenos had, in all honesty, forgotten that his ribs were injured in the first place. When the scales began spreading over his chest, the pain had lessened to an almost unnoticeable degree. "Seems you have a few cracked ribs, but they're supported very well by the dhabeho scales on your left side." Asta's eyes sparkle. "So fascinating. Drakon, come and heal him."

"Felix's sprained ankle too, man," Zomelias says. Drakon simply sighs, walking over to Xenos' right side and pressing his mint green-glowing hands onto it.

"How did you guys end up so injured?" Asta asks, finishing her examination of Xenos.

Felix and Xenos make eye contact.

"Jumped out a window," Xenos says.

"To escape the dhabeho," Felix adds. He grins. "Had a nice mental breakdown in the shower after that."

Xenos rolls his eyes. "I'm still sticking with the cursed theory."

Felix holds up his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, I never said I disagreed with it, it's almost definitely the cursed theory."

"What's the cursed theory?" Keona asks.

"Cursed by a god," Felix and Xenos both answer.

Zomelias taps his chin, a grin on his face. "If you want to go with a god, choose Cantonia, she is the Goddess of Chaos."

Felix shrugs. "So be it, cursed by Cantonia it is." He turns to Xenos. "That good for you, Xenos?"

"Sure, our lives have been more than chaotic in the past twenty-four hours, it seems like a good fit," Xenos says, Felix giving an agreeing nod.

Drakon moves over Felix's ankle and says blandly, "If you were cursed by Cantonia, you wouldn't live to see the day."

Asta smacks Drakon on the back. "As Keona said, ignore him."

Drakon sighs.

|<>|

Xenos Waters glances at the vial of black liquid Zomelias just handed to him warily, off-put by its slight bubbling. "I'm supposed to drink this? Are you sure it won't kill me?"

"I'm with Xenos on this one," Felix chimes in, ankle healed up and sitting right beside Xenos on the bed.

"Aw, come on, we tried to make it as sweet as possible," Zomelias says, pouting.

"And it shouldn't kill you, by the way," Keona says.

"Well, it would kill us, but it won't kill you," Zomelias adds, grunting as Keona elbows him in the side.

Xenos looks at the vial for a few more moments. "Ah, whatever, I'll probably die in three months anyway."

"That's the spirit!" Zomelias cheers, groaning again when both Keona and Asta elbow him.

He removes the cork, surprised by the sweet cotton-candy like smell permeating from the sewage-looking liquid. At ease because of this discovery, he tips the vial back and drinks it. Xenos immediately regrets it, choking and gagging on the terrible tasting and far too viscous liquid. It tastes like ash, car tires, and regret, he didn't even know that regret had a taste, but this is definitely it.

Forcing himself to swallow the liquid, Xenos gratefully takes the cup of water from Keona to drinks it to rid his tongue of that awful taste. He glares at Zomelias, who only shrugs and says, "Hey, I said we tried, didn't I?"

Before he can respond, Xenos feels his body go cold and a minor headache comes on. He shivers, hugging his stomach which is where that coldness is coming from. "Good, it's already working," Keona says with an approving nod, looking at Xenos' eyes.

"How does it work?" Felix asks, looking at Xenos.

"Well," Asta says, "we temporarily clot some mana arteries so that less mana is circulating in the body and to the main stores of mana, which are in the head and core. The potion we gave Xenos is of a very high calibre, so it should block around two-thirds of his overall flow, something we would never do if someone had smaller reserves than Xenos. Side effects include coldness, headaches, and fatigue, nothing severe."

"It's very fast working," Keona says, still staring at Xenos' eyes, "you have less than half of the silver flakes in your eye left, and you shouldn't have to worry about the voices, anymore either. Max, they'll whisper a thing or two."

Xenos nods slowly, shivering again as his temperature drops some more before remaining constant. Considering this is an internal issue, Xenos doubts putting on any more clothes will help with it. "Thank you, I'll make sure to try my best to survive, after all, I'd feel bad if you guys wasted all these resources on me just for me to die."

Keona makes a grim face. "We'll be rooting for you two."

"Before that," Uzaire chimes in, startling Xenos a little, "you two have some contracts to sign."

Xenos almost groans with distaste.