Return from the Ice

[Alain the Carnedge]

The mercenary passed through the gate on his bike, speeding across the white abyss for the third time since his arrival. He assumed Gin would be heading to the Fountain so he could yell at Lubbock or something, so that was Alain's first stop. It had already been about half an hour since the dragon's death, so the mercenary's mood had went from "energetic" to "sedated" by the time he was back in the Nexus.

It wasn't too long, at most six minutes, until he saw Gin again, on whatever species of bird he had for a pet. Alain sped past him again, and grinned to himself, but still didn't wave. Crashing and getting a concussion wasn't on his to-do list. He briefly wondered whether or not he should've taken the time to summon a helmet, but considering the lack of objects or people, he'd have to be trying to crash.

The mercenary came to a stop upon seeing one of few existing things in the Nexus; the Fountain. Neither Mami nor Lubbock were there, so they either hadn't resurrected or had already moved on. He didn't know or particularly care which. He didn't know about Mami, but Lubbock had conjured a phone, and if he wasn't mistaken, it had access to the dataverse like his. Alain took his own phone out and took another look through the Dataverse as he waited for Gin.

After a few minutes, he was fairly convinced he'd got all of the new information. For starters, more people wanted Primes dead. Though from the descriptions, Omni evidently didn't care about who he brought in. Dragon-people, spider-men, space marines, ninjas, and eldritch, living shadows. Elsewhere, there was apparently a tournament going on in one of the other verses called Camelot, and the aforementioned living shadow was leading a cult, or something. Alain stopped reading about the latter very quickly, as that sort of thing in his world typically led to mass brainwashing. Whether or not it'd work here, he wasn't sure, but better safe than sorry.

The mercenary eventually concluded that the tournament sounded like fun, and he'd at least spectate. Besides, the more information he had on the various Primes in the Omniverse, the better, and this was a perfect excuse for some scouting. But first came informing his new allies as to where he went. Alain sent short messages, just informing them as to how their fight ended, the tournament's existence and how he might be competing there for fun, and also mentioning the possible existence of the Void gates.

Sure enough, as he'd finished sending them, Gin and his bird-thing ran up. Alain utterly refused to ask what the actual name of it was.

"Showoff." Gin said, though he didn't look that annoyed. Also seemed to have calmed down a bit. Alain shrugged. "Hey, I had some stuff to check out. Anyway, it doesn't seem like the other two are back yet. Or they already ran off, I'm not sure. Either way, I sent them some messages through this-" He raised his hand, still holding his phone, before putting it back in his pocket. "-and I've got a good idea as to where I'm going next. Apparently, there's a tournament going on in Camelot's Colosseum. You comin'?"

Gin shook his head. "Colosseum? Been there already, competed in a tournament, then went to Dante's Abyss. No thanks. Gonna explore some more before revisiting places."

Alain yawned. "Suit yourself. You should get one of the dataverse devices, they come in handy. Well, see you later, I guess."

"See ya." Gin said, turning back to the fountain as the mercenary drove off again, this time to the east.

The mercenary had nothing interesting happen on his journey. Of course, what people find interesting varies from person to person, but Alain most certainly did not find driving through a world of nothing but pure white interesting. He couldn't help but feel relieved when he saw the stone gate of Camelot, and he wasted no time in riding through to the world beyond.

[Gin Yatreg]

As Alain drove off, Gin turned back to stare at the large fountain. It was different than when he came here the first time, he wondered how it changed so quickly.

"Crud, I forgot to ask Alain if that dataverse device said how long it takes for someone to come back." Gin said aloud. Gin pondered what to do, he could stay here and wait for however long it took for Mami and Lubbock to come back to life, or go off on an adventure and hope he meets up with them later on. As he thought about it he realized it might be a LONG time before they come back, and he definitely couldn't wait in one place for that long. After all, there was still so much to see and explore of this place. Waiting around would be a waste of precious adventuring time. But then again, he couldn't let his friends come back to life and worry about whether or not him and Alain were alright. "Ah, I have an idea!" Gin exclaimed.

Gin closed his eyes and concentrated, picturing a sign and a marker in his mind. After a while, a loud thump sounded in front of him. Gin opened his eyes to find the object on the ground in front of him. Picking them up, Gin turned the sign around and began to draw on it. He wasn't the best at drawing, but he was sure no one would mind the horrible artwork. Once he was satisfied, he set the sign up a few yards away from the fountain so it could be seen clearly. "That outta do it! Come on Tonic, let's head out!" He said to his avian counterpart. Gin climbed onto Tonic's saddle and rode off towards the first gate he saw, which seemed to be made up of palm trees.

Meanwhile, the sign the boy left behind only had three words and a picture of a boy giving a thumbs up:

SEE YOU SOON!

- GIN