"I don’t like it." Shinobi admitted.

"I don’t care that you don’t like it. I like it and that is all that matters." Valkyrie scoffed out in turn as she glanced at him. Then after a moment of looking at the empty rickety dock she looked back over at him. "What don’t you like about it?"

"Why do you care?" Shinobi asked with a huff of annoyance.

Valkyrie shifted nervously as she looked at the gold trimmed white cloak she had over her armor. Then she looked at the simple black cloak that Shinobi had. "Did you want one?"

"No!" Shinobi groaned. "The point of blending in is to not stick out. A gold lined white rob, sticks out of the crowd and draws plenty of attention." He explained.

"Oh... is that all?" Valkyrie asked.

"Yes." Shinobi answered with a nod of his head.

"So it looks good on me though?" Valkyrie asked.

Shinobi turned and looked at her for a moment before looking her over. "Yes, it does look good on you." Valkyrie hummed in appreciation. "But you know it would look better with the armor off and-"

Whatever conversation he was going to bring forth was stopped as the water just shy of the rickety old dock broke. With it came the surface of the massive submarine that they were told about. They watched as the water settled before hatches started opening up and people started climbing out. Some of them moved around on the roof with weapons while some ran across the dock and onto the shore. Moving into the treeline.

"Hmm... military procedure. Very efficient. But their weapons..." Valkyrie trailed off.

"Yeah, but that is not really their fault." Shinobi pointed out.

They watched with no hidden amount of amusement as some of them assessed them before deciding they were not here for the crew of the submarine. They then watched as several groups and people started filtering out of the submarine. At first there were some larger groups that seemed to be mercenaries or criminals on the run. All of them were armed to the teeth and immediately ran off as soon as their boots hit the dirt.

None of them even tried to talk to either of them. But then the next groups were a bit different. They were people in ragged clothes, some of them with family, all of them carrying bags or something else that was probably all they had in the world. Refugees. Cain did mention that the Southern Islands were undergoing a massive civil war, one that eclipses the one on the Northern Continent and then some.

As they watched, Shinobi noticed a tensing of Valkyrie’s body. Likely as she remembered her own people and their precarious circumstances that they were left in. Shinobi moved slightly to the side and nudged his shoulder against her own and the tension released from her body.

Then they heard yelping and looked over to see the next things to come out were creatures and mounts. Some in cages and some with riders. They watched with intrigue at the array of beasts that were coming out.

Up until the cage holding a massive scaled creature with rows of jagged teeth slipped off the dock a bit early and rolled. As it did, the creature saw its opportunity and slammed against the roof of the cage that was at its side and weaker than the bars. It came off easily enough and once it was out it ran straight towards a group of refugees who were likely waiting for the mounts or something else.

Shinobi went to draw his sword on instinct but stopped because Valkyrie was already there. Her rapid movements had been getting better and more disorientating by the day. Now as she arrived in front of the creature she swung her weapon with ease. So much ease that it just looked like an arc of light appeared to anyone else as the creatures stopped and slowly split in two.

There was silence as Valkyrie walked back over to join him and Shinobi relaxed. The refugees had not even had time to panic before the threat was neutralized. In fact, looking at the refugees, Shinobi was happy to see that not all of them were human. Glad that she was no longer looking at the world in races but in good and evil.

As she walks back, Shinobi hears yelling and screaming and frowns as he looks to the source. A man with a whip in hand marched toward him. Red faced in anger no doubt as he pointed at Shinobi and Valkyrie. "I think the man is angry." Valkyrie pointed out with a chuckle.

"I think you killed one of his creatures." Shinobi pointed out with a scoff and then glared at the man as he pointed his finger in Shinobi’s face. "He has three seconds to back off before I remove his shoulder from his body so he cannot even point a stub at me."

Three seconds passed quickly as the man quickly started to yell. But the people from the submarine seemed unbothered by their actions. Then as Shinobi drew his sword and sliced off the man’s arm at the shoulder and then resheathed his sword, they still seemed unbothered. But the other people with this man reacted in an instant.

They moved forward drawing their weapons as they did. Shinobi glanced one last time at the crew from the submarine and confirmed they did not care. "We can kill them." He told Valkyrie and stepped back slightly.

A moment later several feathers shot through the air and tore through the group of people who came toward them with hostile expressions. When they started coming back and flew under Valkyrie’s outfit, hiding out of sight, the people in the surrounding area started reacting.

The people from the submarine laughed. The other criminal groups who had hands on their weapons started moving away at an increased pace. While the refugees were mixed with horrified and celebratory at the actions that had transpired. Although they could not be too sure, it was not like they had learned the local language.

Then there was a beeping in both of their visors as they watched a person walk off- or rather ride a mount off the submarine. There was just one problem with what they were seeing. Which was that they were not actually seeing a mount. It was somehow invisible.

Which was eye catching to them, but would have probably slipped their gaze since they were barely paying attention. Instead what made them notice was that there was the beacon in the bag the rider was carrying. A beacon that Cain had them follow to the southern most part of the continent.

Valkyrie moved forward first and stood in front of the person and whatever invisible mount they were on. While Shinobi moved to the side and held up a hand to stop her as she reached into the bag. "So do you think we should just play charades with her?" He asked in confusion.

—----------------------

"Why not?" Victor asked as they walked through the night.

"Because they don’t have hard outer skins." Jace explained. "Their external bodies are far too soft. I am sure you saw a few of those worms up close. There is no way you did not see them."

"So are worms!" Victor argued. "So how can you be sure they aren’t digging under our feet at the moment." He countered, the argument was about the continued transmission of the radio frequency that was causing those bugs to stop moving. Jace insisted they no longer needed to transmit them since they were walking through a rock covered ravine. But Victor was worried about them coming up through the floor or through the walls.

"Yes, but worms move through the dirt." Jace pointed out as he tapped the rock under his boot. "This is rock and stone. They would have to use some type of acid to melt through it or have mouths with super hard pincers and external skin that was hard."

"Ja-Gladiator is right." Eduta announced as he followed behind them. Correcting himself as he started to call Jace by his name. Already knowing, no doubt from Victor’s mind, that Jace was keeping his name hidden. "Besides I would be more worried about those vultures." He nodded his head to the sky before pointing a clawed finger upwards.

"Should we go for cover-" Victor started to speak but stopped suddenly as Jace interrupted him.

"Those aren’t vultures." Jace told them as he tilted his head as he looked up at them and stopped moving. "They have leathery wings and honestly look like giant bats." He told them and then flinched, "Oh, they are moving in to swoop down on us." He informed them.

"Then shoot them." Victor told him. Jace looked at the man and tilted his head. "What?"

"Can’t you... you know stop them with your vampiric powers?" Jace asked teasingly.