“She wanted to go inside,” Zara gasped out, still regaining her breath. She was holding the three bears and sitting next to her brother with a contented smile on her face. “After so long of not being able to do anything, she wants to, uh, exercise some more before we go back through the portal.”

“If she wants to take the three of them a few feet into the trees to train them, I don’t mind. It’s up to you and what you can handle for the most part. Zelda just needs to make sure that they remain within an area where I can provide help if it is needed.” He stared at the trees and the eerily silent forest behind them.

The wind rustled their hair and stirred the leaves on their branches, sending a few spinning away. That is when it struck him, as he listened to the noise of the leaves fade away. It wasn’t that the forest had gone silent; it was that something had muffled everything inside.

“Zara, Zelda, change of plans. We’re leaving now!” He was glad that they had stopped before entering the forest. Who knew what was buried somewhere in those trees? It was powerful, too powerful for them to handle, is all he knew, and that was enough. “The training session will have to wait for another time.”

It had clearly been a stupid and ill-thought-out idea for them to come inside the portal for anything more than awakening Zara. Who was it that said the school portal was weaker than other portals? Zack wanted to smack whoever it was, along with himself.

He had been too confident for absolutely no reason! He knew next to nothing about this portal and the dangers that it contained. The lessons that would cover those topics had only just begun, and they would be running through the information for months at least.

He could excuse putting himself in danger needlessly, less so when it came to his little sister. There would always be dangers in her life, but they shouldn’t come from him. He should be working to mitigate them and make her safer, not put her in harm’s way needlessly.

Zara backed away from the forest without question. The bears surrounded her instantly and moved in unison with the girl as they acted as hers guards.

Zack followed a moment later after he judged she was far enough away. He maintained eye contact on the forest, his feet stuttering to a stop as the pressure of a powerful being making itself known. The pressure didn’t come from the hidden creature possessing a high level, though that was likely the case. No, this came from the ability that only ruler class beasts and monsters had.

He closed his eyes and bowed to the tree line. “Thank you for showing us mercy and allowing our retreat.” It was a gamble as to whether the unseen being would understand the gesture or his words. People were constantly moving around the portals, talking, attacking, destroying.

Not enough was known about ruler class existences. By nature, they were rarely seen. The number of times they had even been heard about living in a specific portal could be counted on one hand. Zack had no idea if that was because they killed everyone they encountered, or because they typically lived in the depths travelers rarely ventured in. Or some other esoteric reason.

All he knew was that they were in a sort of trouble that no one would have ever guessed they would find.

Zack felt his feet lift from the ground as he was pulled closer to the trees. Behind him, his sister screamed.

Struggling to look up, he found the area enshrouded in darkness, magical in origin. It was designed to hide the caster’s identity, and it performed its job well. Except for one possibly unimportant detail. The only thing he could see were two glowing yellow eyes, with elongated slit-shaped irises typical of nocturnal predators. Like a cat or snake.

Zack was slowly spun around in the air, affording him the view of Zelda and the others holding a struggling Zara back.

“You are different from the others.” An oddly accented voice belonging to the owner of the eyes spoke as he finished a revolution. “You do not fully belong to the other world, but you do not fully belong to this one either. Do you belong to the others?”

Zack swallowed and licked his lips. “You know about where the portals go?”

“Of course, but we do not go through them. There is no reason to, not for those like myself, anyway.” Zack drifted closer to the eyes, and he heard a sniff. “What are you? It is as though you belong to everywhere, and not just one world. Is your sister the same?”

“Probably?” Zack prayed that it was the right answer.

The being gently let him float to the ground, its eyes never leaving him.

“This leaves me in a difficult position. The people who come through that portal have taken that which is not theirs to take and have done so for many cycles. The Great Change is nearly upon us. No one knows what form it will take. However, as the name implies, it always changes things according to the whims of some unknown God, Maker, or Divine Being. Regardless, I wish to see them pay for what they have taken, but you do not belong to that world.”

Zack felt the words like a punch to his gut and had no way of refuting them. The words were true in several variations of the meaning. The only tie he had to Albion was his sister, who stood a hundred feet behind him. Both their races read as something other than human, and they had titles confirming that. He wanted to say that their parents had been born on Aperra, in the country of Albion, but who could say for sure?

In one short exchange, a simple fact had managed to be driven home for Zack. He and his sister, they had nothing truly tying them to Albion, or to Aperra, and without that, could they even say they belonged to that world?

Zack shook his head, dispelling the odd train of thoughts, and met its gaze head-on. “They know something is coming. The portals have been changing, getting stronger, stranger. I’m sure there are other things that I’m not privy to.”

“There are, and they will only grow worse until it all boils over.” The eyes shifted position, as though it had tilted its head in amusement. “For some reason though, I think you might be able to change that, make it easier on them, and maybe even give back some of what they stole from us. I wonder what the other rulers would say if they knew I had seen you?”

“How much time do we have?” He asked quickly, feeling the ruler beginning to pull back its darkness.

“It’s hard to say. It is called the Great Change for a reason. No one can accurately predict something that is constantly changing. Without your intervention, between,” It stopped to do some mental math. “Five and ten of that world's cycles. With your help, who knows? You should leave now. I look forward to seeing how things change.”

Zack waited a moment longer and then turned, hurrying back to his sister. His mind was a jumble of information and half-remembered conversations and snippets with Jean and sergeant Grieves.

Zara tackled him as he ran up to them, the bears not daring to let go of her before then. It was impossible to understand what she was trying to say through the sobs, so he simply held her for the moment. Zelda tugged on the destroyed hem of his shirt and pointed up at the silver sky.

Hovering several hundred feet above them was a dark blob with two yellow orbs glowing in the middle, not doing anything. The being hidden inside was simply watching and listening. A moment later, a deep purple mana crystal was tossed at their feet. A breath after that, the blob rose high into the sky and soared towards the floating island in the distance.

Zelda carefully handed him the crystal, while Zara took deep breaths and regained control of herself.

“Stupid bears, I could have taken the yellow-eyed blob… thing.” She finished lamely, pulling George into her lap and Aisha to her side. The action taking the sting from her words. “What was that anyway?”

“It was a ruler class being.”

Zara paled and patted the two bears nearby. “Such good bears, so smart and obedient.”

Zelda kicked the obviously two-faced girl's foot and went to sit by Zack.

“Why is there a ruler class being in the school portal?” The girl hissed, a moment later wiping the tears from her eyes.

Zack flipped the fist-sized mana crystal over in his hands. He had never seen or even heard of a purple one before. Of course, he had also never heard of the dark stones they use for complex engravings. The world was a large and complicated place, and the amount of knowledge he had was pitifully small.

Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. You never knew what you didn’t know until you knew it or needed to know it.

Holding a crystal so different from anything else he had ever seen really drove that home. He could feel how dense the mana inside it was, and there was something else. This crystal was different from the others’ travelers found. He wasn’t sure how, but the way mana moved inside it was different. It bugged him and unfortunately, it would have to wait for another time.