The human base was a motley looking town that included a few hundred buildings. It was surrounded by a set of deer fences that were twice the height of any seen on earth.

The thick wooden poles were big enough that she could only just barely hug the circumference of one if she didn’t mind getting electrocuted by the thick wires running in a grid pattern on both sides of the two lines of poles. Effectively creating four lines of wires between the humans and the rest of the Spirit Realm. Barbed wire further rose over the fences, creating a very unwelcoming image.

In contrast, the buildings inside the fences did not look like they were built by a modern militaristic organisation at all.

Honestly, it looked like an old European village. If European cottages were all fairly large and made out of stone, that was all the colours of the rainbow.

As one might expect, dragging the body of the Terra-Wolf around to the entrance caused quite the commotion among the people near the edges of the town. By the time that she got to the gates, there was a crowd brewing.

“Kyra!” The call came from a woman towards the back of the crowd as she pushed her way through. “How are you alright!? Is that what I think it is??”

Blaize was the definition of the word Amazon, as far as Kyra was concerned. At 178 centimetres, she was the tallest woman Kyra had ever met with dark, nearly black mahogany skin, curves to die for, and cheekbones that looked like they could cut butter. On top of that, she was incredibly smart and confident. So basically she was everything that Kyra wanted to be and admired in a woman.

Point in case, the first thing she did after reaching Kyra was to say, “Let me take that.” Then proceed to sling the body of the Terra-Wolf up into a fireman’s carry, just as though it didn’t weigh somewhere between 60 to 80 kilograms. A weight that Kyra would have struggled with even if she didn’t also have Ihaka and her pack to worry about. “I knew I should have waited to go through the portal with you. Look at this thing! Kyra, I swear. If anything had happened to you..”

“It’s fine. I survived, Ihaka survived, and we’re here now.”

Honestly, Blaize intimidated Kyra. Although she had been nothing but friendly since Kyra had joined the class, the more friendly she had become, the more nervous Kyra became. And the more nervous Kyra was, the more standoffish she was. Kyra wasn’t even sure why Blaize continued to be so friendly towards her, despite her many rebuffs.

“Out of the way! Sure Kyra, you survived. So it’s fine! I said get out of my way! You know what? One day, that pride of yours is going to get both you, and your brother killed. Move it! I’m not asking for permission here!” Blaize continued to scold Kyra as she manoeuvred her way back through the crowd.

Kyra only wished that it was her pride had that kept her from being able to accept Blaize’s good intentions. She could bend her pride. Pride was worth nothing in the face of Ihaka’s life, and it would have been easy then, to swallow whatever silly notion was keeping her from saying yes.

“So which way is registration then?” She interrupted her, hoping to avoid the topic entirely.

Blaize rolled her eyes, evidently not fooled at all, but thankfully she let the topic drop after expelling a deep breath. “We’re going there now.”

The building in question was the largest one in the town, made out of a dazzling array of different coloured stone. It was the headquarters of all political shenanigans that went on in the base. As well as being a post office, and a research facility.

It was flanked on one side by the hospital, made out of a green stone that surprisingly wasn’t Jade. And on the other, was a huge training ground that was mainly for the military, but open to the public as well.

Through the large arched doorway, Blaize and Kyra came into a large reception room that had what looked like white marble floors, and desks that looked like they were made from some kind of granite.

Comfy looking beige chairs littered the central area of the floor.

Kyra started walking towards a desk that was in the back left corner of the room.

The guy working there gaped at Blaize as she dumped the Terra-Wolf onto the desk. She got straight to the point, “Not mine. Hers. She’s Kyra, she needs also needs to register herself and her brother as new residents.”

The receptionist spluttered a bit before coming back to himself and pushing a whole lot of forms in Kyra’s direction. Blaize told her to go fill those out while she dealt with the wolf for her.

It didn’t occur to Kyra to wonder if that had been odd until she went back to the desk with the forms. As she handed them over with their Passports to be stamped, the guy asked if she wanted to sell the entire body of the wolf to the military. She let it go however, and, after giving Blaize a raised brow to let her know that she had caught on, she decided that she would like to keep the hide for Ihaka, and told the receptionist so.

After handing a few more forms to that effect, she was given back their Passports with a new page declaring them to be Citizens of the first New Zealand base in the Spirit Realm, a bank account book already showing the balance that she received for the TerraWolf, a receipt for the hide so that she could come to pick it up after it had been cured, and finally, key’s for one of the temporary residences that all new people stayed in until they were able to rent or buy their own official house.

“The large number on the key-fob is your house number. The smaller one bellow it is your bed number.” He said.

Kyra looked at the fob for a moment. It was made out of a dark blue material and somehow, it didn’t seem to fall into either the metallic or stone category. Nor was it plastic. It was very warm and soft to the touch, yet somehow unyielding and if she tilted in the light, she could faintly make out gold and silver lines dancing underneath its surface.

“What is this?” She asked.

“The scientists are still working on categorising it, but so far, it’s the most pliable material we have found. So it’s being used to make a few different miscellaneous things.” The receptionist replied, “They wanted to use it for some bigger projects as well, but there’s not much of it. If you find any, we’ll buy it for a pretty good price. Much more than you’d get for any other rock lying around.”

“Cool, thanks. Hey Blaize, do you know where building four is?”

Blaize did know where building four was, and was happy to show Kyra the way.