For a moment it felt as if they hung, suspended in nothing, before they crashed back into reality. There was a splattering sound like dozens of fleshy things bursting at once, and then Schatten landed with an "OOF!" on her back, sprawled on something furry and warm.

For another moment, the Ruban was too dazed to move. She stared skywards, but there was no sky to meet her gaze, only an expanse of...was that metal? She blinked as Skippy barked nervously, then yelped as a few NiKara materialized out of nowhere and rained down onto the golem. The little creatures--three had gotten sucked into the vortex as well, it seemed--chattered agitatedly, zipping up into the air as soon as they regained control of their wings, and hovered around Schatten's head as she tried to figure out just what had happened.

Out of sight, a voice suddenly exclaimed: "Hellu! Does the fruit taste good? I always wanted to try mixing up lots of fruits and making them into a juice, but I dun' like juice very much."

The thing she landed on snorted and shifted, then suddenly sat bolt upright, and as N-13 sat up, Schatten and Skippy went spilling off of him, landing in a pulpy, fruity mush that had splattered across the...floor? Metal above and metal below...and metal all around, at that!

As Schatten finally looked around, too dazed to currently care she was sitting in fruit-pulp or even wonder why she was sitting in fruit pulp, she realized she and N-13 had apparently reappeared in some kind of marketplace. It wasn't like any marketplace Schatten had ever known, however, being all metal and glowing lines and bulbs everywhere! But the marketplace explained the fruit-pulp carpet.

They had apparently landed on some poor fruit vendor's merchandise.

And then there were the people! Schatten had to assume they were people, anyway, though they were in so many strange forms and colors and patterns the likes of which Schatten had never known. She was vaguely aware that more talking was going on behind her, between N-13 and that first strange voice, but she was too busy gaping at these strange new sights to pay much attention to the conversation.

Then suddenly something landed on the back of her neck and grabbed tiny fistfuls of her mane, and Schatten leapt to her feet with a bellow that mixed surprise and defensive anger. Her Ni'kara buzzed fiercely and started to dive-bomb the trespasser on her person, until Schatten started to swing her head violently.

"Getitoff, getititoff!" she squawked at N-13, since the structure of Ruban forepaws meant she couldn't grab the whatever-it-was herself, though she certainly did her best to bat at it and knock it loose!

"OMG they look just like Rubans! WTF?" exclaimed a second strange voice, though Schatten hardly understood some of the words. Omig? Watif?

N-13, annoyingly, appeared more amused by her plight than anything else, for he only snickered and took a few halfhearted swats, only to be buzzed by the Ni'kara himself whenever he tried! Meanwhile, the whatever-it-was kept on squawking and climbed up her mane to her head!

"They are!" it cried in response to the second voice. "Doesn't that kick ass!? It's them! It's really them! It's a dream come true, isn't it?! One of my own critters just up and pops up by me!"

For a moment the other voice made no response, but just before Schatten could start clawing madly at the thing perched between her ears, she heard the other exclaim: "OMGshe'sSCHATTEN!"

Schatten jerked to a halt, stunned by this other voice's knowledge of her name. Blinking, for a moment forgetting the thing in her hair, she swept her gaze around until it located an odd red...insectlike...eyeless...thing gaping up at her. Schatten blinked again, squinting down at the thingy.

"omghiSchatten," it squeaked. She? She squeaked?

"Should I know you?" Schatten scowled.

"You sure should!" the thing on her head piped up. "She created you--well, who you are and picked what breed you are and everything," he amended. "I made the gods and the Progenitor Ruban, and the gods did the rest!"

N-13 snorted, still fending off the NiKara, tail lashing about. "So where are we?" he asked.

"Star City! Phoenix and another friend of ours made it." One could practically see the ^_^ on his face. Although Schatten didn't know what a ^_^ was or meant.

"I did what now?" asked the insect-thing, tilting its head in a manner that, though eyeless, was clearly a look of confusion.

Schatten had had enough. Reaching back, she managed to pinch the thing on her head between two toes after a couple of attempts, and dragged it out of her mane to dump it back on the fruit-pulpy ground. It appeared to be a fox anthropomorph with a white face and orange mask around his eyes.

"From thieves to lunatics," the Shadow snorted, summarizing the day's encounters in one low mutter. She finally managed to calm down her NiKara with a mental command, and the little trio settled between her ears with disconcerted chirps.

She looked around and took a few steps forward, stepping over the red odd red thing at her feet, and started to lick the fruit juice off her paws once she was free of the mess. Normality appeared to be returning to the marketplace, outside of the occasional sideways glance directed their way, as if this "Star City" was used to bizarre occurrences.

Absently, Schatten wondered where the owner of the now-smashed fruit was, and what kind of trouble they might get into for having wrecked--even if accidentally--the vendor's goods. The thought was brief, though. There were far more interesting things to think about.

"Star City," she murmured, testing the name. "So why are we here, and not home?"

The fox-anthro looked ready to cry, giving Schatten the wide-puppy eye look. "I'm not a lunatic," he protested, and fished from his backpack a large book, opening it up to point at some section of it. Unfortunately, neither Schatten nor N-13 could read English. "See?"

N-13 got to his feet and shook juice out of his fur. "That warp of the necromancer's," he reminded his friend. "It probably acted like a teleport pad similar to the huge one on the Teleport Sector."

Schatten looked back over her shoulder at her one-time apprentice, pondered his words, and frowned in concern. "Like the Teleport Sector..." she repeated, and looked around again, patting Skippy's head as the golem huddled close to her foreleg. "Then how do we get home?" she wondered aloud. "We don't have any of Reitag's keys to lead us back to Rubara."

For once, the Shadow found herself at a loss. As skilled and clever as she was in the ways of necromancy and her experiments with the cycle of life and death, as a loner, she was not very world-wise outside of the basics only an idiot Ruban wouldn't know. What she knew regarding The teleport Sector N-13 spoke of amounted to thus: using the teleporter would randomly send a Ruban to any world that the semi-sentient device was aware of. Anyone could use it, but in order to return, one had to have been given a magical "key" by Reitag, King of the Rubans. The device was often used as a means of exile, so the use of Reitag's keys ensured that only Rubans welcome to come home could actually do so.

Schatten had no such key, and she doubted N-13 just happened to have one on his person. Did this mean they were stranded in this strange metallic place?

"I could go to Rubara for you," the fox-anthro suddenly offered. "Except it'd take a while, so you guys could look around Star City while I contact Reitag and have him make a pair of keys. Hey, I know! You guys could go watch a dragon egg hatching! That'd be fun. I bet you two have never seen dragon eggs hatch."

N-13 blinked. "You can do that?" he asked the fox.

"Well, sure. I made the world, after all," the fox grinned back. "So what do you two say?"

Schatten gave the fox-boy a long, doubtful look. She wasn't sure what to think of a strange little anthro speaking so casually of being, essentially, the gods' god. It made no sense. This scrawny little thing, that she could crush under one paw? Clearly he was a lunatic. The insect-thing--had he called her Phoenix?--also seemed to be watching him dubiously, but she also kept glancing back at Schatten, as if uncertain what to think.

Well, so what if the Phoenix-thing knew her name? Maybe she was a mind-reader. And so what if the fox-thing was a lunatic? Maybe the magic of this world differed, and he could get back to Rubara for them, to ask Reitag for keys. If he could do that, and would do that for them, did it really matter that he was a lunatic with a harmless, if amazingly bizarre, delusion? If he could get them home, did it really matter what his means were to achieve the end result?

"Alright, sure, whatever," she sighed, half doubting. "If you can do that, we would be incredibly grateful for it."

"Oh! Oh!" Phoenix squealed, suddenly coming to life. "And since you'll have to stay on the station to wait, you guys can use my old apartment!" The red creature clapped hands with too many fingers together. "I live down on Atu at the Ranch of DOOM, now, but I still have my old apartment up here for visits, and the rooms are all dragon-sized, so you can stay there!"

Schatten blinked down at her, and looked over at N-13. For a moment she had the absurd thought that this was all his fault, for coming home and triggering this insane chain of events. Then that thought, too, passed.

"You are too kind," Schatten conceded.

"No problem!" the fox chirped, then gave the Phoenix-creature a tight hug. "I'll be back as soon as I can, Pheeface!" he added happily, and poofed in an explosion of orange and white fur.

N-13 merely blinked. "That was interesting. Dragon sized rooms?" he asked, then blinked, catching Schatten's weird look. "What?"

"I have no idea," Schatten sighed again. "This day's been weird."

"Tell me about it!" exclaimed Phoenix, brushing orange and white hairs off her carapace. Then she grinned. "Now come on, I'll show you to my old place."

With that the strange creature turned about on her spiky heels and trotted off, leaving the two Rubans no choice but to follow or be left lost in the marketplace.