Strange Visitor

Bright and early. 8:55 A.M. The perfect time for U.F.O. hunting. A slightly older looking ferret dressed in a white lab coat sat on a bench at the Mystic Ruins train station, along with a pack filled with lab equipment. He looks down at a pamphlet with a list of times written on it, then at the watch on his wrist.

"Hmm, let's see... 9:00 A.M. They should be arriving any time now."

Clash grooved his way over to the station, phone in hand and earbuds tucked in his ears. In fact, he almost missed the stairs because he wasn't looking.

He did eventually go up the stairs and see the ferret, however. Taking off his earbuds while heading towards him.






"Hey there! You're that Zel guy right?" "I'm here about the guild mission."

It wasn't long before the chubby, young cat woman walked up behind Clash, in slightly more casual clothing than her usual skirt.
"You're Dr. Zel, right?" She asks, clearly not having heard Clash ask the same question.
She then notices Clash to her side, and blinks.

...they looked familiar. What was the other name on the sign-up...?

The ferret was looking at a tablet when he heard his name. He looked to see a brown hedgehog and cat coming up the stairs. After setting the tablet down on the bench, he stood up and said,

"Yes I am! You must be Clash and Julie. Thank you for coming to help me with investigating this U.F.O." Dr. Zel said as he reached out to shake both their hands.

"Have we met before?" Zel said to Clash. "You seem very familiar." 

The ferret paused a moment before saying,

"Anyway. Come, come!" He said as he motioned for them to come over to the bench.

He grabbed the pack and unzipped one of the pockets. He pulled out something that looked vaguely like a hockey puck. He set it on a table nearby, and tapped the top of it. A holographic screen emitted from the puck and began playing footage of a starry night sky.

"This is footage from one of our telescopes at InTech that was taken last night. As you can see, something entered the atmosphere, and crashed somewhere in the forest area inside the Mystic Ruins. We are not sure what it was, so we decided to go investigate it. With the help of you two of course!"

Zel tapped the top of the puck again and the screen shrunk back down into the projector. He picked it up and placed it back in the pack. He then pulled out a light brown, round-brimmed safari hat. As he placed it on his head, he asked with an enthusiastic grin on his face,

"So... Who's ready to find some aliens?"

Clash saw Julie as she came up, and almost simultaneously gave him a strange look along with Dr. Zel. A look he was somewhat familiar with.

"I get the feeling you both met my dad, huh?"

After Zel explained what was up, Clash was pretty darn ready to find some aliens! Though, he needed to introduce himself to his teammate first.

"Yeah!" "Um..."

"You're Julie, right?" "I'm Clash, it's nice to meet you!"

Though she shook Zel's hand and sat at the bench, her interest was put more on her partner for a but.
That confirms her suspicions. She was a little thrown off, but tried not to show it.
"Yeah, I believe you've... met my sister? Pyra?" She reveals nonchalantly. "It's nice to meet you, Clash."

The holographic video played out, with her staring in curiosity and intrigue, as Zel explained the situation.
The man's enthusiasm was... sickening, he had an energy she couldn't dare muster. She was a little excited, or... anxious, perhaps?
I mean, these aren't the first aliens on Mobius, but she hasn't met any of the other alien species herself, and the idea of potentially meeting creatures from another corner of the universe still felt bizarre.

After seeing the excited looks in front of him, Zel turned towards the forest and began walking into the dense brush. 


"Come along then! We've got a lot of ground to cover!"


After walking for a bit, Zel turned his to his traveling companions and said,


"Who knows how long it will take for us to find our U.F.O., so why don't you two tell me a bit about yourselves? I just love hearing stories about new people I meet!"

"Yeah, I have! She's really cool-" Clash then interrupted himself, realizing what he said... To Pyra's sister... Crap.

"Uh- Nice, she's really nice..."

They then started walking, Clash making sure he doesn't step in anything as they went, until Zel asked to know about them.

"Well, my dad's a scientist too, but you knew that." "Earlier I beat my record of how fast I can run across the roofs from the station to the town hall, about eight seconds now."

While he was proud of this, he didn't say it with as much enthusiasm since not everyone might have cared.

"What about you, Julie?"

Oh my, now Julie was even more curious... and concerned. Honestly, she didn't want to be judgemental here - she didn't know Clash at all, just that his father made a weapon of mass destruction according to her recent kidnapper - but she couldn't help but worry of Pyra getting dragged into their mess.
It was the last thing either of them needed.
"Heh... that's surprising, guess she isn't always annoying." She joked, though there was clearly something on her mind.

As they began walking, heading toward the minecart that led deeper into the ruins if she knew the layout of this area well enough, Zel asked a bit about them.
Oh dear...
Now that's a story and a half.
Recently, they had moved out of Shelby's apartment to go into their own, and she wouldn't have known if Pyra had said much about their past. They did come to a conclusion about a story they could tell while they figured things out, much to her own frustration.
She wouldn't have to lie about herself if her parents weren't awful... but coming right out and saying "I'm a princess" to everyone, especially when you were disowned, seemed pretty dumb.
"W- well, my sister and I were born around Station Square, but had to move away because of the Perfect Chaos Incident. We uh... recently moved back, after some issues with our parents, but it's fine." She lies, trying to come off as nonchalant and relaxed as possible. She just... wasn't as cool or relaxed as Pyra always seemed to be.
"You said your father is a scientist? Is he working on anything right now?"
She asks as if she didn't already know. She wanted more info...

Zel listened intently as he pushed through tall brush and weaved through trees. He then asked Clash after he finished,

"How is your father by the way Clash? I haven't really been in touch with him since the Genesis incident."

When Julie finished her story of her childhood, Zel responded with,

"Ah yes... Perfect Chaos... What a fascinating creature! Though I am sorry to hear about you having to move because of it. It certainly did a lot of damage to Station Square."

Suddenly a beeping noise came from the scientist's backpack. Zel stopped and took off the backpack and put it on the ground to unzip one of the pockets. He pulled out some kind of device and then proceeded to put the backpack back on.

"We must be getting closer. I'm getting large energy readings in the area."

The ferret pointed the device in different directions. As he turned, the beeping got faster and slower until Zel pinpointed where it was beeping the fastest.

"Looks like we are headed that direction!" He said as he continued onward into the dense jungle environment.

Clash thought for a moment, he did hear about what wacky things his dad was doing when he got really excited and needed to brag.

"Yeah, he's doing good, recently finished a project he's been working on for a while called 'SX6'." "Some kind of artificial mobian that could evolve to be like the people around it, it's pretty cool."
Clash remembered Pyra telling that same story to him when they met, still felt kinda bad about it, but Zel had just found something.

"We must be getting close if it's beeping that much!"

"Yeah, based on war machine technology or whatever..." She mumbles as quietly and quickly aa she can to herself.
"Eh, it's okay, we were pretty young at the time." She says to reassure them it didn't bother her.

As the beeps get faster, her ears perk up ever so slightly and she looks at the tool with curiosity.
"Almost there..."

As the beeping continued to get faster. Zel's tail shook vigorously with anticipation underneath his lab coat.

"We're almost there! We just have to get through these bush- WHOA!" The ferret said as he pushed through a shrubbery and almost stepping off of a cliff face. He stumbled to regain his balance before he let out a sigh of relief.

"Hmm... I was not expecting this ravine to be here." He said as he took a few cautionary steps back. The ravine seemed too far to jump across.

As he looked up from the ravine, he could see a faint green glow coming from below a group of trees.

"Well, on the bright side I am pretty sure we have found our U.F.O. Now just how we get over to it is the question." Zel said to the others as he looked around for a way across.

"The ravine looks too far to walk around, so that is probably out. We could maybe use the vines hanging from these nearby trees, but I don't know how stable they would be. Anyone else have an idea? Let's find all our options before we decide."

Clash didn't hear what Julie said exactly, but he did hear the tone, which made him frown a little.

When they got to the ravine, however, this impeded their search, there were some trees and vines, but who knew if they were durable enough? So Clash gets an idea

"Gimme a sec!"

Clash takes off his red anklets and stands for a few seconds. A blue aura enveloping him as a softer voice merged with his as he spoke.

"Let's try this!"

Clash jumps in the air and fires a pulse at the ground, skyrocketing upwards before firing a few pulses behind him to get across the ravine, after picking himself up, he shouts.

"I can probably use my barriers to carry you two across, but you'd have to be very careful! It's not that strong!"
He says, as he makes a clear shimmering barrier appear on the other side.

She didn't see his expression, nor did she care. She simply kept walking along with the others... until she nearly stepped into a ravine.
"H- holy shit!" She yelps, jumping back and growing stiff. And off in the distance were the green, glowing lights...
Aliens? Or maybe an upgrade. There's at least three upgrades in the Mystic Ruins- anyways.

At Zel's request, Julie was about to grab her bat and suggest, unironically, she use it to hit them across. Of course, how would she get across? Who knows.
However, Clash was unsurprisingly quicker to the punch, using his powers without even letting the others know of his plan.
When he mentions how the barriers aren't that strong, her ears lowered a little and she pouted.
"Can it handle both of us...? Should we go one at a time?" The chubby cat girl asked with a somewhat sheepish tone.

Zel stared intently at the vines, trying to decide if they were safe to swing across. He was too focused on the vines to notice Clash take off his anklets. After a few moments, he announced,

"I don't think we should try the vines. We should look for another way acro-" 

He turned back to the group. Julie was still there, but Clash had vanished. He looked around and saw Clash was flying through the air and had landed safely on the other side of the ravine.

"I can probably use my barriers to carry you two across, but you'd have to be very careful! It's not that strong!" Zel heard Clash shout as some sort of magical barrier appeared next to Zel and Julie.

"Extraordinary!" Zel said as he slid his hand across the surface of the barrier. He then looked over to see that Julie was not so keen on the idea of floating across on Clash's barrier.

"Are you sure you can do this Clash?" Zel shouted to the hedgehog. "It's a looong way down."

Clash at first looked with confusion, but then understanding, they had likely never seen the Minor Barriers in action before.

"One at a time! And all I mean by it not being that strong is that you shouldn't move while I'm pulling you across!" "If you fall off I can probably catch you with another, but I'd rather not chance it!"

Carter/Clash wasn't that good at instilling confidence it seems, but he's trying his best.

After Clash explained himself, she decided to just go on ahead and try, just to get it over with. She would have let Zel go first, but she figured she shouldn't waste time and make things more awkward than they needed to be.

"Alright..."
She slowly steps onto the barrier, and tenses up as she tries to stand as still as possible.

Zel stepped back to let Julie climb onto the barrier and waited for his turn to float across, anxious to find out what was causing that intense glow.

Good Clash slowly pulls the minor barrier towards him, visibly struggling, but the barrier shows no signs of breaking, just strain.

As long as Julie didn't move, she would make it across.

She was as still as physically possible, feeling the movements, which she was ready for, as she gripped her long, fluffy tail close to her to keep it from swaying, and holding her breath. She was scared to make any movements, fully aware of the strain Clash was experiencing.
It was the longest few minutes of her life it felt like.

Zel waited as Clash slowly carried Julie across the ravine. Julie looked terrified, though he didn't blame her. She was after all levitating on a magic barrier over a hole roughly 50 feet deep.


Suddenly, the glowing from under the trees started to get dimmer. Zel started to get a bit frantic.


"Clash, if you could, maybe go a bit faster! Something's happening over there behind those trees!"

Give the lad a break! He's going as fast as he can!
Speaking of, Julie's already reached the other side, as soon as she gets off, Good Clash moves the Minor Barrier over to Zel.

"I'm trying my best!"

Julie is relieved to be back on solid ground, but is still rather wide-eyed as she steps onto the ground. She takes a few deep breaths, then sits down on the ground to relax.
"Jeez..."

Zel climbed onto the barrier and sat down, waiting for Clash to carry him across. He pulled a pair of binoculars out of his pack and tried to see if he could see anything through the trees.

'Hmm... It's still too dense. I'll just have to wait a bit longer!'

As the group worked on getting across the ravine, the bright, green glow from behind the trees continued to grow dimmer with every passing moment.