The House of Teeth (Con't)

[Katrielle Layton]

Continued from here due to Net Nanny problems.

The creatures had gathered around the climatologist, swiping and clawing at her. Thank goodness she wasn't wearing her parka, otherwise she would've been caught and mauled a long time ago. She let loose a freezing spray in a wide arc, backing up from the group that was trying to surround her. "Back! Get back!" she shouted, reflecting the frozen claws of a monster with the back of her blaster.

Said beast dared to press the assault, trying to rip into her. Mei grimaced when a set of claws hooked her in the stomach, but it didn't hurt as much as she expected. Maybe waiting in a block of ice for several years toughened her skin up? Now that the monster had to pull its hand out, she retaliated and started spraying the beast. Slowly, it began to seize up, freezing entirely and becoming the first monster-popsicle. She lashed out with a foot, pushing the ice sculpture along until it crashed into another group of creatures. The one she had frozen earlier burst free of its prison, whimpering and scampering away.

Mei took the free moment to look around for Yuuka. She found her quickly, the latter having pierced one of the invisible monsters with the tip of her parasol. Strange-- just a few moments ago the parasol didn't seem all that sturdy, let alone strong enough to be swung around like a weapon. Guess that was a little bit of her Youkai showing.

One of the creatures managed to grab a hold of Yuuka's shoulders, and Mei rushed forward to try and help. Before she got very far, she heard yelling from behind her. She couldn't make out what was being said, but it must've been Kung Fury that had been shouting. Spinning around, she was just in time to catch the karate cop delivering a well-timed kick to a beast right next to her. Had that thing been about to kill her? "Thanks, Fury," she said breathlessly, turning around to find that Yuuka had taken care of the creature from earlier.

The two suggested that maybe they should retreat, and the climatologist nodded in agreement. "Yeah," she huffed, turning tail and fleeing, "it was somewhere over here. Come on!"

The race to the house was surprisingly short; after about 30 seconds, the shadow of the building came out of view. Although it wasn't in any state of disrepair, the structure still looked old, much like one of those old plaster and wood houses one would find in the suburbs. The paint had worn out long ago, leaving the place a dull, grey mess. The lights were off.

They reached the door and piled in, scrambling around in the darkness. "Could anyone find a light switch?" Fury asked, stumbling away from the doorway.

"You do that-- I'll hold them off," Mei replied, looking out into the world. She could hear the monsters drawing near, and her hands began to shake. Taking a deep breath, she aimed at the ground right in front of her and fired. Slowly, a wall of ice began to rise, blocking the entrance as she ducked back inside.

Fury had managed to find the light switch, and now everyone could see that they were in a living room, complete with wooden tables and chairs. The climatologist pulled out a chair and dragged it over to the door. Something was pounding violently on the other side of the ice wall. "Help me barricade this!" she shouted, tucking the chair underneath the doorknob.

However, that would prove to be unnecessary. The ice blockade shattered, and the monsters immediately moved on to the door and windows. No matter how much they pounded, the structure remained steady. Eventually, the pounding stopped, and there was silence.

[Jacket]

Kung Fury makes a dash to the mysterious house they see deep in the woods. They all ran through the dead and uncomfortable forest but in all directions, Kung Fury can see the glowing red eyes slowly surrounding them except the way they were running towards. From who was the fastest in the group, the cop was sprinting half speed but not full since he could possibly leave the group behind. Kung Fury reaches the porch of the modern looking wooden house first before everyone else. He grabs the door knob with firm grasp expecting it to be locked but flung the door open with a lot of force. The rest got in the dark house safely and Kung Fury questions "Could anyone find a light switch?" Mei replies "You do that-- I'll hold them off." looking outside of the house seeing if those creatures were still following them. Kung Fury blindly tries to find the light swich even knocking over stuff that were placed on some small dressers. He hits the wall and scrambles with his hands to feel the light switch. Luckily, the cop flips the light switch which causes the room to start flickering from the small bulb hanging over the living room. "Help me barricade this!" shouted Mei at the front door with her weapon. The cop moves the coffee table out of the way to be able to move the couch to use as a barricade. He grunts as he pushes the couch across the room putting it next to the chair holding off the door and can hear the damned creatures howling with hunger to consume their own flesh. When the ice blockade shattered outside of the house, Kung Fury gets up at the window and sees the claws breaking through the glass reaching out to them. Kung Fury gets out his gun and starts shooting at the window to make the creatures back off or at least kill some of them.

Suddenly the creatures stopped making noises and backed off from the window making the kung-fu cop thinking they must've retreated but the question is why? This made Kung Fury let out a small sigh not really seeing any sign of those monsters but still on guard of their surroundings. The inside of the house is pretty clean and from the look of things someone must be living here. A bad feeling came off from Kung Fury thinking they might've trespassed someone's home which could upset the owner. Mei slouches down with her back against the wooden wall sitting their with her blaster in her lap kind of breathing heavily from all the adrenaline in the fight. Yuuka though wasn't feeling the same way as Mei but she had a sadistic smile on her face after all the danger. Kung Fury didn't really felt fear but eager to still fight if he needed too. He puts his gun away in his jacket and says "Is everyone alright?"

[Katrielle Layton]

Mei sighed, glancing around what appeared to be a living room. Aside from the table in the corner and a group of chairs, though, it was oddly vacant. A lack of dust confirmed that this house had been used recently, although one wouldn’t be able to tell the amount of people nor the length of time they had stayed. An open hallway led to the kitchen, and another door appeared to lead into the basement.

When Kung asked if everyone was alright, she nodded, examining the scratch marks one of the monsters had left behind. “I’m okay,” the climatologist replied, spraying tiny bursts of ice at the wound much like someone would put on an ice pack to dull the pain.

“That was actually pretty fun,” Yuuka mused with a smile on her face. Holding her parasol in a casual manner like nothing happened.

“We could’ve died out there,” pointed out the karate cop.

“You could’ve died,” Yuuka corrected. “I was perfectly capable of handling myself out there.”

“Whatever you say, miss.” Kung Fury turned back to the entrance. The windows had repaired themselves during the short moment in time that no one was looking at them. “…Weren’t those windows broken before?”

Mei got to her feet and walked over to the window, tapping the glass with her finger to make sure it wasn’t an illusion. Indeed, it was fixed. “They were. I’m not sure if I like this place.” Sure, it was helpful that the house had repaired itself, but the Overwatch member couldn’t help but find it suspicious. “At least this place is safer than out there.” Had the monsters left yet? Maybe. It was really hard to tell when they were invisible.

Turning back, she saw that the Youkai was heading into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just exploring.” And with that, she disappeared into the next room.

Now that she had a moment to rest, Mei settled into one of the chairs by the table. Being close up, she noticed the odd device resting in front of her. It took her a moment to recognize the machine, since she hadn’t seen one in decades, but she realized that it was some type of tape player. Despite the theoretical age of the player, it looked relatively new. “Huh!” She picked up the device, alongside the tape that was sitting next to it, and waved Fury over. “Check out what I found! Shall we see what it says?” She inserted the tape cassette and hit the play button.

The voice that spoke was that of a middle-age man, laced with static. “In the psychology of a modern human being, it is difficult to overstate the significance of the house.” The voice was incomprehensible for a few moments. “…Humankind has defined itself by its buildings. Buildings for watching, buildings for socializing, buildings for protection, even buildings for the commemoration of the dead. But of the various structures that mankind invented for itself, the house is the one that mankind relies almost completely for its continued survival.”

[Jacket]

Kung Fury sits down with Mei at the end of the table and kicks his legs up, leaning a little bit in the chair away from the table having his arms in a resting position behind his head. When Mei mentioned the tape player, it was similar device that they used in the 80's for music or entertainment wise. Kinda reminded him seeing thugs out on the streets with there big boom boxes blasting synthpop through the speakers. The cop sees Mei with curious look presses play on the device which makes Kung Fury raised his brow what the tape was all about.

He hears the tape begin playing but it just gave him an odd feeling what kind of weird quotes it was saying. After a minute listening to the player, Kung Fury follows up saying "This must be some kind of zen tapes that people want to hear to get motivation. Man, the tape sounds lame and it's making me want to plug my ears to not hear this weird stuff."

Mei turns to Kung Fury with a cheerful attitude and says "C'mon you can't have that kind of mood if you want something good to hear. Just listen to a couple more lines of what this tape has to say." The cop shrugs and has whatever look on his face still not impress listening to the tape. After a couple of more sentences that involve building and house with humans that was on the recorder, Kung Fury then gives in and says "Yeah, screw it this isn't giving me no motivation. The only motivation I need is to put criminals behind bars and make the streets a better place for everyone."

The chosen one uses his omnilium to summon a cassette player with headphones from his time era straight out of his time which the device develops out of the thin air and lands into Kung Fury's right hand. He checks the tape that came with it and inside the rectangle box was a album by Bryan Adams called Reckless. This made him smirk and putts the headphones over his ears and begins playing the popular rock music which Mei could hear the sound coming out of the sterophonic piece. Mei gets her attention back on what the tape kept rambling on about.

[Katrielle Layton]

The tape ended right there and then, although it sounded like the man attempted to say something before it cut to white noise. From what she remembered, these old tapes could only hold one recording at a time; if you tried to record again, it would overwrite what was on there previously. It sounded like that was the case there, but she had to wonder what might've been erased.

"This sounds more like a university lecture than a zen tape," she mused, ejecting the tape. "Not really a thing you'd expect to find lying around." She turned to Fury, only to find the cop rocking out to a portable cassette player with headphones. It wasn't really her kind of music, but to each their own. She tapped on his shoulder to get his attention. "Hey, I'm going to poke around the place a bit. Just don't want to make you think I disappeared or anything."

Whether the man heard her or not, she didn't know, but nevertheless she backed up into the kitchen, carrying the tape player. Walking across the checkerboard tiles, she made her way to the window and stared out into the night. There wasn't much to see, but as she turned around to return to the living room and maybe investigate the basement, she noticed another cassette tape on the dining table. Settling down, she placed the player in front of her and inserted the tape.

The voice continued where it had left off. "The house is one of the key elements that separates modern humanity from its more primitive antecedents. Never a creature goes to such lengths to create a lasting, permanent shelter for itself, where God held such shelter in importance and relevance. Human beings in our modern age foster this tremendous sympathy towards their homes. There are many reasons, of course, but perhaps it is due in some small part to seeing them as a reflection of ourselves."

Once again, the tape deteriorated back into static. Mei ejected the tape again, left with more questions than answers. Maybe the tapes didn't get overwritten? But this was certainly an odd way to format the lecture-- surely all of the tapes this speech was on would fit onto a single one? She was pretty sure those things could hold a lot more than 30 seconds of dialog.

She returned to the living room and waved slightly at the karate cop, confirming that she was still alive. She moved over to the basement door and carefully pushed it open. What met her, however, was a very confusing sight: as she pushed the door away from her along its frame, another door, having been resting in the same spot the other door had been a moment ago. Literally. It was as if the door created a clone to act upon her hand instead. Puzzled, she tried opening the new door, only for it to do the exact same thing.

"Fury? Do you have any idea what's going on here?" Hopefully he could hear her question through the headphones.

[Jacket]

Kung Fury turns down the volume on the player to hear what Mei said and nods in response. Through out the house, Mei was the only one exploring while the others were just taking a breather after what they just encountered. Still what made Kung Fury get the weird feeling was thinking about those windows how they regenerated fast. Is this house made of Ominilium? Is it Witchcraft? Whatever it was, the cop goes back focusing on the lyrics of the song to make him feel comfortable for the time being.

Seeing Mei go into the kitchen, Kung Fury gets out of his chair and walks into the living room moving slowly to one of the windows just to see if there was anything still out there. Outside was still pitch black hard to see anything but couldn't tell if something was hiding or not. To be on the safe side, Kung Fury is thinking about proposing if they could stay here for the night. Although they could be squatters by doing that, but Kung Fury will do the explaining if the owner comes back and finds surprising visitors.

He turns around seeing Mei comes in the living room with that same tape recorder waving slightly at him. The cop turns off the cassette player and takes out his headphones. After when the cop had no need for the device anymore, it vanished into Omnilium. Mei tries to open the basement door but couldn't seem to work since the door kept replacing itself.

The climatologist turns her head at Kung Fury and questions "Fury? Do you have any idea what's going on here?" Kung Fury sees what's going on and tries to come think of an answer to respond to Mei. "Maybe this house is made out of someone's Omnilium which could explain how everything is fixing itself. This could be some kind of security system that can feel the owner's hand and allowing it to open. There might be something down there that someone doesn't want us to their privacy to be invaded. Listen, how about we call it a night and rest a bit from today." said Kung Fury next to Mei looking at the door then back at her.

"What about if the owner finds us sleeping here without permission and taking up living space?" said Mei worried about the consequences of living here without permission. "Don't worry, I will let you guys get some shut eye while I'll keep a watch out for anything." responded Kung Fury patting her lightly on the left shoulder showing a confidence on his face.

[Katrielle Layton]

Mei hesitated, reaching out to close the oddity of a door. "I guess we could do that... I'm sure whoever lives here will understand why we're here." She passed by the table and set down the tape player. "Just let me wash up."

She made her way into the hallway, briefly glancing over at the stairs leading upwards before finding the bathroom. The room was barely large enough for anyone to really use it, although it would work for one night. She sat on the toilet, staring in confusion at the medicine cabinet that was hanging at both a 90 degree to the wall and parallel to it. Two of them to be exact. She could understand the weird cloning security measure with the door, but this was a cabinet. In the bathroom. What?

After flushing the toilet, she moved up to the sink, having to lean over to the side to reach the knob without bumping into the cabinet that was sticking out of the wall. As she washed her hands, she noticed another tape by the sink. She frowned, drying her hands before picking it up. Most likely, it was the next part of that strange house-related psychology lecture she was wondering about. However, as much as she wanted to see what else the man wanted to talk about, she couldn't help but feel suspicious; why were these tapes even laying around in the first place? One tape? That's normal. Two? Strange, but it could just be a coincidence. Three? That's just too improbable to believe-- especially when they're each in a different room almost as if they were left there on purpose.

She stared at the recording for a while before deciding that it could wait. Picking it up, she returned to the living room and left the recording with the player. "You sure you want the first night watch?"

The karate cop shrugged. "Don't worry about it, miss. I can handle it."

Mei nodded and returned to the staircase. She ascended, fumbling around in the dark for the master bedroom. Once she found it, she entered into it. If there was a way to make a bedroom creepy, it was going on here; dark red wallpaper and flooring, pictures of mouths and teeth (seriously, who would want to look at that while they try to fall asleep?), minimal lighting, and a huge painting of a hag sitting on a sleeping man's chest lining the wall behind the bed. As she stared at the room, the only thing she could think of was... why?

Nope. No way she was sleeping here. She backed out into the hallway and poked around further for another bedroom. Thankfully, she found one nearby. Sure, it was very sparsely furnished, but at least it didn't make her feel like she was sleeping inside something's mouth. She settled into the bed, staring up at the ceiling because the only other things to look at were either a painting of two dog skeletons fighting and repeatedly glitching in and out of the wall or the darkness beyond.

Needless to say, she found it very difficult to fall asleep.

When she awoke, the first thing she noticed was that the ceiling was leaking some sort of clear substance. ...Was that saliva? She rolled out of bed, dodging a drop of the suspicious liquid and running over to the window. Looking out, she couldn't tell how long she had slept-- to be honest, it didn't even seem like she had slept at all.

This place didn't seem safe anymore. She needed to get the others.

[Jacket]

Seeing Mei go upstairs, Kung Fury patrols around the house keeping an eye on things. The night is quite outside, making Kung Fury feel like they are the only people on this land present. This makes Kung Fury look out in the window at the front of the house just making sure if the owner has returned yet. After minutes of looking out the window, the cop turns around heading back to the living room. He sits down on the couch and leans forward a bit with his hands clasp together sitting in his lap. Kung Fury can hear Mei's footsteps that was making the floor creak through the house. Since Mei found a different room to sleep in, he didn't hear no more of the house creaking.

Now it was just him staying up and possibly Yuuka too. A old grandfather clock sits across the living room makes clicking noises as the time goes by. The time was ten til midnight, making Kung Fury think maybe the owner is running late to get home or maybe he/she is staying somewhere else. Silence was interrupted with more creaking noise that Kung Fury hears making him think it was Mei but she is lying in bed and not moving upstairs. It was the house that was making the noises. Sitting here and having not anything to do, the cop decides to get off the couch to move around. He walks into the kitchen seeing Yuuka actually has fallen asleep too, sitting at the table with her head down that was wrapped in her own arms. This makes Kung Fury want to move through the kitchen quietly not to wake up the yokai.

He goes to the fridge and opens it up to see if the owner had anything but it was empty having no foods or condiments. Strange. thought Kung Fury to himself still looking inside the fridge. The cop closes the fridge and walks over to the window of the kitchen that had the view of the backyard. Nothing wasn't present outside as usual same as the front lawn of the house. From all the night-watch, this made Kung Fury thirsty thinking if he can get a cup of water from the faucet in the kitchen. He opens a cabinet above the sink that had cups of glass in and takes one out of the place. Fury sets the cup on the counter next to the kitchen sink then closes the cabinet.

The kung-fu cop places the glass in one hand under the faucet and the other turns the nob to turn on the water. Liquid pours into his cup from the faucet then turns it off having enough water to hold. Kung Fury starts to drink the water but after two seconds of drinking, he gags and spits it in the sink from the water tasting funky. It didn't even taste clear but rather had a very bitter taste to it. He pours the rest of the water in the sink and sets the glass on the counter. Fury goes back into the living to check up on some things but after a minute being in the living room, the grandfather clock goes off hitting midnight making the room fill with ringing noises. After the clock hit midnight, it stops and doesn't tick anymore nor keep up with the time. It's like the clock died which was strange for it to do at a random moment. A gust of wind blows through the living room, waving Kung Fury's hair and bandanna as if the house started breathing. This gave Kung Fury a uncomfortable feeling what this house was turning into.

[Katrielle Layton]

Mei raced as fast as she could out of the bedroom, the door having wedged itself into the wall and forcing the climatologist to squeeze through. She stumbled into the hallway, ducking under a group of unidentifiable spindly objects that snaked their way through the walls and floor as if they didn't exist. The wallpaper had begun to peel, revealing fresh, red insides. Without taking a moment to examine the increasing amount of oddities, she thundered her way down the stairs whilst accompanied by sickening crunching noises. The house shuddered with each step. Glancing down, the Overwatch member noticed that the stairs had turned into a stark, white substance much like bone.

As soon as she hit the floor, she hurried over to the kitchen. She stopped just in time to avoid running into a fleshy tube, approximately the width of a human, endlessly pumping whatever lifeforce this house ran off of and curling up and around the wall and into the ceiling. Mei estimated that this foreign object connected this room to the master bedroom.

Turning around, she expected to see the kitchen table, but that wasn't the case. Instead, the table as well as its chairs were floating several feet up in the air, absolutely still and with just enough headroom so that a person could sit in the chair without hitting the ceiling. Speaking of which, Yuuka was currently in said chair, apparently asleep.

"Yuuka!" Mei called out, hopping and waving and in general trying to get the Youkai's attention.

It took her a moment, but the green-haired woman woke up. She turned to stare down at the human. "What are you doing down there?"

"What are you doing up there?"

Yuuka suddenly realized what was going on and hopped down, floating to the ground. She withdrew her parasol and glanced over at the tube in the corner with mild amusement.

"...Is this normal where you come from?" Mei asked, starting to grow nauseous.

"I don't know. It could be."

"Let just find Fury and get out of here, okay?"

[Jacket]

The house starts coming alive right before Kung Fury's eyes. This makes him think if he was actually in a dream and this isn't really happening. He rubs his eyes in surprise seeing the house developing flesh. Suddenly, the basement door swings open with fleshy tentacles coming out which they instantly go for Fury. Now, the whole living room is nothing but made of flesh which the floor was very squishy under the cop's feet. As the tentacles go for Kung Fury, he whips out his gun under his jacket then begins firing to weaken part of the house. The tentacles start thrashing around in pain and making the house rumble as if an earthquake was happening. A huge moan can be heard across the house but the tentacles still try to reach Kung Fury across the room. He starts backing up and still unloading clips upon the beast.

Now, the cop has his back up in a corner trapped by the tentacles. His gun wasn't helping him much, so he decides to use his kung-fu abilities with some round-house kicks and chops. When he tries to do another round house kick on the moving flesh, it finally grabs fury's right leg then slams him on the ground. This makes the cop grunt from the hit and he goes for his gun again to shoot at the tentacle. Before he could even shoot, the other tentacle grabs his left arm that was helping him to aim. The tentacles thrashes out Kung Fury's left arm making him throw the weapon across the room and now has his left arm and right leg immobilized. More flesh tentacles reach out to the chosen one and grabs the rest of his limbs. The cop tries to fight by trying to get released but wasn't doing much only wasting his energy away.

Mei and Yuuka rush into the now red flesh living room seeing Kung Fury getting dragged across the floor towards the basement opened door. "Help me!" grunted Kung Fury still trying to break free. Mei summons her endothermic blaster and begins spraying at a part of the tentacles to freeze them up which the house roars in pain from the chilling ice. Yuuka smashes through the frozen tentacles with her parasol making them into ice chunks fall onto the floor. The cop falls down before the basement door which the remaining parts of the tentacles sucked back up in the frame then the door shuts tight. "Thanks." said Kung Fury looking back up at two then removes the disgusting tentacle remains that were wrapped around him.

[Katrielle Layton]

As the two rushed back into the living room, they caught a glimpse of writhing tentacles dragging Fury towards the basement. Within a moments notice, Mei's panic turned to determination. Whatever-- no, whoever this house was, it was like a pest, a foreign beast threatening to disrupt the world around it. Like all pests, this one needed to be exterminated for the sake of everything else.

She pulled out her blaster and rushed forward as Yuuka followed close behind. Before she could get very far, another door slammed into her face. Frustrated, she pushed it away, ignoring the entrance that went nowhere. Once she reached the tentacles, she let loose a cloud of icy wind, continuing until the appendages had frozen and she ran out of ammo. As if on cue, the Youka shattered the icy tentacles into tiny pieces, giving the climatologist time to reload and Kung the chance to break free.

The house wailed as the appendages retracted back into the basement, and for the briefest moment, everything seemed somewhat normal; while the house still retained the slimy, red walls and teeth slowly breaking through the floor and ceiling, the glitches and other "artifcial" additions that had appeared over the course of their stay had vanished.

And then everything fell back into chaos.

Mei guided the two over to the exit, ducking underneath a chair that jittered in and out of place. When she reached the door, she tried to open it, only to find it locked. She gestured to the karate cop, who realized what she was asking. With a well-placed kick, he delivered a massive amount of force to the door and splintering it into several pieces. Except the door was still there in one piece, much like the basement door would've reacted.

Remembering that brief moment of peace, the Overwatch member got an idea. "Fury, stay here. We're going to try to hurt this house. When the glitches go away, break the door down again." She aimed her weapon at a fleshy wall and fired an icicle at it. However, the wallpaper reupholstered itself, serving as a shield and rendering the attack useless. She paused for a moment, trying to figure out another point of attack.

"To the kitchen!" she announced, running over there and avoiding the door that hit her last time. When she arrived, she noticed that the giant tube was still there. The sinks were filling up with a boiling, green liquid, overflowing onto the floor. She needed to act fast. Hurrying over to the tube, she froze it while Yuuka attacked it from afar with her magic.

As expected, the house cried out in pain as it ruptured, and everything turned normal for a split second. Then came the sound of broken wood. "It worked!" Fury shouted from the living room. "Now hurry!"

The ceiling began to shudder, having grown a full set of human teeth. The three wasted no time in leaving, which was good, because the moment they were out, the ceiling fell with a mighty snap. The rest of it began to follow, apparently unable to handle the force of its bite. The roof and walls caved in until it was nothing more than a heap, leaving behind no sign that it had ever been alive.

[Jacket]

Fury looks back at the destroyed house they once were in and lets a out little sigh of relief. "Everyone still ok?" questioned Kung Fury looking back at the group. Yuuka nods that she is fine and Mei replies with "I'm alright." Now, they were surrounded by complete darkness in the dead woods but those creatures they fought earlier weren't here and must've gave up on their prey. "We should still get a move on and at least try to get of this damned forest." suggested Kung Fury which Mei agrees but Yuuka replies "I'm actually quite enjoying myself with this place we ended up in, it's better than where we met."

They start walking back where they came from through the forest and it felt like they were all alone at last. The group didn't really had any map or compass to know where the nearest civilization is at. This made them feel lost in the deep woods and they can hear howling in the night. Mei grips her blaster tightly being on guard what might come out of the darkness to ambush them this time. Both of the three stay close to one and another so they can keep up with each other. Kung Fury stands in front of the group and keeps making sure everyone is accounted for.

"I'm thinking we should get out of this verse soon and go looking for one that isn't as hostile as this one." suggested Kung Fury looking back at the group. "I would agree with you Fury, since trying to explore this part of the Omniverse is quite deadly." responded Mei, next to the cop's right side. "Of course, you humans aren't fun as I thought. I'm starting to feel right at home with this place. If you guys are going to leave then suit yourselves, I'm staying here." complained Yuuka about Kung Fury and Mei as they kept walking. "Fine then, that's up to you but when me and Mei leave. Were going to be far away somewhere else and most likely not return here." said Kung Fury shrugging at Yuuka's response and not really caring if she doesn't want to leave.

The primes arrive back at the gateway after a twenty minute walk without anymore harm. Kung Fury looks at the gateway in front of the group that leads back to the Nexus and looks back at them. "This is your last chance Yuuka." said the cop looking at her.

[Katrielle Layton]

Throughout all the time they traveled, Mei couldn't help but wonder where all the other creatures were at. Perhaps the collapsing of the manor had warded everyone off? After all, they had been attacked mere minutes after they left the gate. And now they were suddenly all alone. It was almost as nerve-wracking as if they were actually there. Nevertheless, the way appeared safe.

Even though she had almost died, she had to agree with Yuuka that it had been kinda fun; it would probably be one of those moments that she'd look back on and smile, although in a "I'm glad that I survived and I can stay far away from it in the future" sort of way.

They finally made their way to the gateway-- a welcoming sight after all the dead trees and such. Before they entered, Fury questioned the Youkai whether or not she would be staying.

"Of course I am," she answered, twirling her parasol. "This place is absolutely fascinating. And once you leave, I don't have to worry about being weighed down."

Mei felt a little offended, but didn't say anything. She glanced over at Fury, noticing that the karate cop was most likely going through the same emotions. After a moment, she turned back to Yuuka. "Very well. This place does seem to be holding many secrets. And if you feel like you're brave and strong enough to seek them, then kudos to you." She waved a little goodbye and passed through the gate to the Nexus with Kung following close behind.