The group went to the lake Sophia and Fen had created to play around with magic. Anna wanted to test out her new increased powers while Chloe and the blonde tried to improve the portal by directly connecting them without using the storage space as a proxy. They didn’t have the slightest idea how to do any of that, though.

“W-Whoah!” While Sophia and Chloe were thinking about how to set up a portal without going through the storage dimension, Anna’s voice suddenly echoed through the area.

“Oho!” The blonde looked over to her fellow tiger and seemed slightly impressed while looking at the over 10-meter-tall portal in front of the princess. “What happened?”

“Uhh…” She needed a moment to sort herself again. “I… I wanted to see what happens if I feed the portal with my magic…”

“Why?” Sophia tilted her head.

"No idea… Because I wanted to..."

“She’s promising!” Chloe liked her answer. “That’s exactly the right mindset when experimenting with magic!”

“What she said!” The blonde felt the same.

“Yep, that’s how it works.” The wolves also agreed.

“Is it?!” Ari and Maya had some slight issues with that.

“Alrighty,” Ignoring them, Sophia looked at the princess again. “Now, try to get the portal to its original size again. Maybe even smaller for a challenge!”

“Okay!” Nodding a few times, she concentrated on the portal again.

“We can’t be outdone now, can we?!” Feeling extra motivated, the fox-girl smiled at the blonde with sparkling eyes. “We have to improve the portals!”

“Let’s go!” She was just as eager.

----------------

Half an hour later, things hadn’t progressed much. Anna’s portal was still gigantic because she couldn’t figure out how to extract magic out of it again. Around Chloe and Sophia were around ten portals while they were trying to directly link them to each other.

“It isn’t working, huh?” The fox-girl scratched her cheek while looking at the eleventh portal that appeared in front of the tiger.

“Yep…” Sophia hung her head. “It also leads to the storage dimension… I can’t seem to create a portal without it directly connecting to that side…”

“Should we try it from the other side?”

“Hmm…?” She tilted her head at Chloe’s suggestion. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t seem like you can control the destination of the portals, right? It always leads right to the other dimension.”

“I think so, too, yeah…” The blonde nodded. “Ohh! We might be able to do something with the portals on the other side?”

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

“Let’s go!” Sophia pointed at one of her portals, and the two disappeared right into that.

“Are we more or less safe now…?” Ari wasn’t sure how to feel about them leaving.

“That entirely depends on your tiger…” Maya gestured at Anna, who was circling around her gigantic portal while her tail was darting all over to place, indicating that she was slightly agitated about not being able to shrink it again.

“Can we go home…?”

----------------

Inside the storage dimension, Sophia and Chloe started circling around one of the many portals just as the other tiger outside.

“Hmmnn…” The fox-girl was trying to come up with an idea while they were studying the purple distortions. “You can move the portals after they’re created, right? You put Anna’s test portal to the side after it was created, didn’t you?”

"Yup." The blonde nodded while reaching toward one of them and started moving it around. "Kinda like putting a lasso of raw magic around it and them dragging it."

“Mh-hmm.”

“Do you have an idea?” Sophia tilted her head again. “Do you want to put them right in front of each other? You’d still have to take the detour through my storage, but you don’t actually enter it?” She made her own guess.

“Would that work?”

“I don’t see why not?”

“Alright!” The tiger immediately got to work and placed two of the portals right in front of each other, close enough that they were almost touching each other. “What now? Should we head back and test it?”

“How about I go, and you watch from this side?”

“That might be a good idea.” She agreed with Chloe's idea and watched her leave through one of the portals. A few moments later, the blonde noticed a fuzzy line of pink between the portals before everything turned back to normal.

“WE’RE NOT DOING THAT!” Another few moments later, the fox-girl reappeared through one of the portals.

“What’s wrong?”

“WAY TOO SCARY!”

“Uhh...?” Sophia was a little confused.

“It feels SUPER weird!” Chloe shuddered a little. “Once you’re halfway through, you suddenly feel a tug from the other portal, and for a split second, it almost feels like they want to rip you in half!”

“SCARY!”

“YES!”

“Could it be from the slight gap between the portals? You maybe have to go through fully first before taking the next one?”

“Maybe?” The fox-girl tilted her head. “Or we need to eliminate the gap entirely. Pressing the portals right against each other.”

“Oh, that might be worth a try.”

“You’re the one testing it this time, though!” She got loud.

“S-Sure...” Giving her a slightly reluctant nod, Sophia then brought the portals even closer together. “E-Eh...?” But once they touched each other, the two portals suddenly morphed into each other before eventually disappearing entirely with a slight popping sound.

“Well, that happened...” Chloe wasn’t sure what to say. “I guess they have to be individual portals, huh?"

“Seems like it...” She hung her head. “What a bummer...”

“Maybe you could create some closed-off corridors for each portal pair?”

“Yeah… That seems to be the only way to keep the travel gates somewhat separate from the rest of the storage dimension. Still not really a fan of it…" The blonde paused for a moment. "I don't exactly know why, but I don't want to have anyone in here that I haven't personally invited. No matter if it's just a corridor or whatever…”

“I see.” Chloe nodded. “How about we take a break and try again if we come up with something new?”

“Might be for the best. I’m out of ideas. Let’s help Anna to get her portal under control for the time being.”

"That sounds like a plan. I still don't understand why we let her play on a portal to train her newly gained magic even though it's highly advanced stuff."

“Wasn’t that your idea?” Sophia tilted her head.

“…” She scratched her cheek in return. “Was it?”

“I think so?”

“Why did I do that?”

“How would I know?” The blonde just looked at her. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was it, after all…? It’s a fun idea to throw her right into something complicated.”

“Ahaha~.”

----------------

Back on the other side, the duo noticed that everyone was huddled up in a circle while looking at something on the ground in front of them.

“What’s up?” The two walked up to them to try and find out what is going on. “Also, where is the portal?”

“Why are you all looking at a stone...?” Sophia and Chloe were a little confused.

“Uhh...” Anna awkwardly scratched her cheek. “Something, err... happened?”

“Okay...?” The two got only more confused.

“Has the group decided to keep a pet rock?” The blonde tried to make a guess. “I agree, it's very cute, but we’re only keeping it if it's housetrained, okay? Oh, well, it can stay in the barn if it isn't, I guess."

“Pfft!” Chloe liked that.

“Ehh...?” They were only met with a confused expression by everyone else.

“Anyway,” Sophia decided to ignore that. “What is going on here?”

“I’m sorry about calling you ridiculous before, Chloe.” Maya suddenly faced her. “It seems like your ways of tackling magic are not that odd, after all.”

“Okay...?” The fox-girl wasn’t able to follow her.

“What about me?!” Sophia got loud. “She and I are the same!”

“Mhmm...” The cat-girl paused for a moment. “Maybe slightly a little less ridiculous.”

“Not happy with that!” The blonde then thought about it for a moment. “Wait, why...? What happened?”

“Anna, explain.” Maya faced the other tiger.

“Why me?!”

“Because you’re the one who did it!”

“That doesn’t mean I know what I did, though!”

“Never saved me from having to explain anything..."

“Me, neither...” Sophia and Chloe just smiled at her.

“Urgh...” The princess gave up. “I got a little frustrated that I was unable to make the portal smaller again and threw a stone at it...”

“Understandable.” The duo nodded. “Go on.”

"Well, it stopped halfway through and landed on the ground at the bottom of the portal because I didn't throw it hard enough... Anyway, afterward, I put some more effort into it again. I came up with the idea to get rid of some of my magic to use it a bit on other stuff and then tried to soak up the power from the portal.”

“Ohh!” Sophia started smiling. “That kinda makes sense. If you’re completely filled up, it would be hard to pull magic out of the portal.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought, too.” Anna nodded. “So, it worked, and the portal started shrinking pretty fast. The stone was still there, though... Once the portal got so small that it had the same size as the stone, there was suddenly a bright light, and the portal was gone...”

“Okay... That’s a little weird." The blonde looked a bit confused. "Doesn't sound like too much of a problem, though, does it?"

“In theory, I guess, but...” Anna kneeled down and touched the stone while pouring a bit of her magic power into it. A moment later, a portal appeared out of nowhere right above the rock.

“E-Eh?!” Sophia and Chloe were shocked after seeing that.

As it turned out, the princess somehow had accidentally managed to enchant a stone with the portal magic.