In the not-so-distant past, the world plummets into war as the nation's greatest leaders conspire to betray their homeland.
Following years of conflict, Alice from the Ninja clan appears, and vows to bring down the leaders in her Goal to restore lif...
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"Are you feeling okay, Julie? It looks like you're shivering or something," Alice asked, peering over Seth's shoulder at the girl sitting in front of the group.
She shook her head, "I'm fine. Just trembling....with excitement!" she replied, with a determined gaze and looked over the water as far as her eyes could see. It was shimmering ever so slightly in the sunlight and legitimized the feeling of her Goal once more. Over the past few weeks of her adventure, Julie began to feel more comfortable with her position as a worthy addition to the UME. She doesn't feel so undeserving or worthless as she previously had. However, she still doubted the strength of her abilities and needed to continue working on her self-worth.
"Oh, that's good!" Alice reassured her. "Then if any enemies come our way, I'll count on your magic to take them out."
D'Milo gave a hard swallow at the thought of naval warfare, worried about being attacked in a defenseless state. Before she could interject, Seth commented seemingly on her behalf, "Well, I hope that's not the case. We're not really equipped to do combat on the water. It would probably be best to avoid conflict."
"Dude, Julie is an ace at casting spells," Alice said, making an OK sign with her fingers in Seth's peripheral vision. "She'll make any ship go ka-blooey before they even know what hits 'em."
This comment gave Julie a burst of confidence on the inside and put a large smile across her face that she kept hidden from the others.
D'Milo continued paddling through the murky water slowly - and quietly - taking careful note not to make large disruptions in the waves. It wasn't clear if enemy ships were patrolling the water, or if they could track movement from other entities. For now, the UME and Seth wanted to enter Desert Dust as stealthily as possible, and there appeared to be no other signs of life this far away from the shore. A good sign.
The group traveled for a little longer across the widening river, seated like ranchers riding a horse, before Alice got uncomfortable and changed to a criss-cross position. It was the smooth ride that gave her the idea to change positions, without fear of falling off the amphibian's back during the ride.
"I gotta say D'Milo, you drive a lot smoother than your brother. Definitely a four out of five-star ride so far."
"Gah, I'll take your compliment since you're so hard to please. But I've been going slow on purpose so that's a little bit of an unfair comparison."
"I wonder how he's doing, D'Milo? Can you contact him at all?" Julie asked. "He said we could keep in touch with him, but he never explained how exactly."
"Ah! Yes, I can contact him! We use a special sort of sonar communications that only axolotl can interpret."
