The forsaken (Rainimator book4)

epilogue 3: Overworld

Crystal held his throat tightly, he gasped for air, and he hit against her arms. "pl..please, Crystal...stop" he begged. 

She tightened her grip until he went limp, she dropped him and stared at his body, the body of Charlie.

Crystal jumped up, almost falling off the sofa, if it wasn't for Charlie's arm wrapped around her. "you alright?" he asked pulling her close, and into a hug. 

Crystal rubbed her head and leaned into the hug. "Yeah," She muttered shifting on the sofa and laying her head on top of the blanket covering Charlie's lap. "just a bad dream," she stared at the TV screen set up in his flat. "what's this one?" she asked as the face of a man with blond curly hair faded into the background of the intro.

"Attack of the Cybermen," Charlie answered, gently twirling some of Crystal's hair. 

Crystal yawned. "I like that one, his coat is very colourful," she said. 

Charlie nodded. "I do too," he said.

"do you miss them?" Crystal asked. 

"hmm?" 

"Ember, Caleb and the others?" Crystal asked. 

Charlie took in a deep breath, which meant he was about to talk for a while. "of course, I do, not having them here after getting so used to seeing them every day, and yes that including Razer, he might have tried to kill me once but I don't hold that against people, but I think with mixing in Andrew's fancy comms device integrating with our tech we'll be able to speak to them whenever, so yes I miss them, but hopefully not for long," 

"How long will it be until you have to move?" Crystal asked. 

Charlie moved his head and looked to the wall, checking the clock. "A few hours, then I need to do some work," 

Crystal snuggled into Charlie. "good," 

Azura placed Patrick's helmet down on the table and got some of her tools. "now let's see what he down to you," she whispered to herself, she started to remove the lens from the frame, chipped and broken, but that didn't matter, Azura had planned to rip out and replace with it a new optic system, with an infrared and night vision. 

She smiled to herself as she fitted her new wire systems and built them in, she placed it on her own head to test the system, and Azura took it off smiling to herself at the successful upgrade.

Azura turned and jumped out of her skin at the sight of the young woman holding the duffle bag. She had short hair but it's been growing out, the hair was brown, her eyes a shiny grey, her muscles were toned, and a scar on her face went along under her left eye, she wore a black tank top and black shorts, Azura know the woman, she called herself Wolf, she was from another universe, not the same as Charlie and the others. 

"AHH!" Azura let out taken off guard by her. "good gods! don't do that," 

Wolf raised an eyebrow. "force of habit," Wolf said walking over to her, and placing the duffle bag on the table, and unzipping it, she brought out bits of armour. "I need it fixed, and you seem like the best to do that, here," Wolf placed a wench-like thing down. "Elisabeth made this to help me get in and out of it," 

with that Wolf turned to leave. "I'll be back soon," she said.

"Hang on!" Azura said grabbing her arm, but Wolf pulled away from her with no trouble. 'Gods that is one strong woman,' she thought, Azura lifted Wolf's helmet and looked over it. "Yeah, I fix this," 

"Fix what?" 

"AHHHHHH!" Azura screamed turning to see Lyria peering over her shoulder, the young girl's interest in science had only grown since Charlie arrived, Lyria was still close to Hilda and Dorain, but Azura was still her teacher as was Charlie now. Azura placed her hand on her chest, above her heart, she wasn't sure she could take another scare today. "Oh Lyria darling," Azura said hugging her.