Guess I'm not in Hawaii

"OLYMPIAN!" Heard another Slayer as he searched his section for any abnormalities.

He rushed over to the sound, seeing something furry along with a human tumbling down the mountain, and almost as if it was planned, a yellow portal appeared in their path, having them fly right in it.

"Oh, what great misfortune." He stared on as he reached for his cell phone.

Zero bars.

"Damn it. I need to tell 'em about this." He finished saying, marking the trees as he headed back to the park station.

After coming back with the rest of Jacob's team, the manager, and a small group of Slayers, they began setting up a perimeter before anything else.

"So you're saying that someone rolled in practically as it appeared," the manager asked. He was a buff man who always wore sleeveless shirts and had a peachy scar that ran along his jaw that stuck out due to his tan skin.

"Yes," He responded, "I saw it happen."

The manager stepped closer to the yellow portal, noticing something odd about it.

"It's fading," he mentioned the dullness the yellow slowly turned to.

"Everyone ready up," he continued as he reached for the portal, "we're beginning an extraction immediately."

A bright light shot out at the point of contact, making all instinctively turn away, and made the manager tumble back.

The hand that he used to touch the portal was entirely numb while what felt like thorns shot up his forearm and stopped at his shoulder.

He gritted his teeth as he held his arm.

Something was stopping them from entering, he thought as the pain tried to cloud his mind.

——————————————————————

'Hey, whatever you do, don't go dying here,' Rose transmitted as I took the hand of the woman.

He sounded unnecessarily scared.

'What do you mean?'

'I get that you're from another world, but that thing,' he referred to the women in front of me, 'y'know, just don't mess with it.'

'Another world? We're still on earth-' My thought trailed off as I noticed that we were now on flat land, surrounded by trees that grew yellow fruit with a ruff exterior.

"Are you from the village?" The women said in a sweet and soft voice.

Her dialect was different from my own, so I did my best to match it.

"No, not originally," I explained as I turned to her. "I'm a traveler."

"Where are the rest of your things?" She looked at both sides of me, seeing that had nothing other than a bundle of bananas, 2 of which were squashed after that "fight" with the gorilla.

"I kind of lost them after that attack with the gorilla," I nervously laughed, feeling sweat begin to form on my forehead.

"If you need help, you can come to my place," she offered as she picked up her basket, full of the same yellow fruit that grew on the trees.

"No, that's alright," I slightly bowed, thanking her, "I was just heading out of here, didn't mean to disturb you."

She smiled as she waved me goodbye, but for some reason, that only left me uneasy.

'Oh, thank Taruso.' Rose let out a sigh of relief.

'Who is Taruso?'

'The last god,' he explained. 'It is said to be the God of stability and the only one to have ever answered prayers.'

'What happened to the other ones?' I looked down at a trail of leaves that were crunched and scattered around.

'I'm not sure, you learn more the older you get, and well, you know what happened.'

The trial came to a stop after a short while.

"There's no way the portal turned invisible that fast," I felt my stomach drop when I realized that I could be lost.

I walked around where the trial ended, hoping to luckily run into the portal and get back to my world, but all I got was the sound of crunching leaves beneath my feet.

It all felt pointless, so I sat down, and my mind slowly cleared as I didn't feel like thinking.

'We're being watched.' Rose brought back my attention.

'From where,' I answered back as I quickly got up.

'Where we just came from.'

I reached for my dagger as I turned back, only to find that it wasn't there.

I looked on, seeing no one. 'You sure you're not overreacting,' I asked.

'Yes, I'm certain they're there.'

I stood up straight and confidently said, "You can come out now. I know you're there."

"You know you do have some nerve coming onto my property," the red-eyed woman said as she appeared from behind one of the trees.

I hadn't noticed before, but she was wearing a house dress, the kind Cinderella used in the story when she would clean the house.

"And I'm quite surprised," she continued. "You didn't run away when you first saw me and even took my hand. I honestly don't know what kind of idiot you are."

"Thanks," I had a confused expression. "Look, I'm not looking for any trouble."

She let out a playful laugh as soon as I finished that sentence. "You weren't looking, but you ended up finding just that."

'Run,' I could hear Rose saying between the pauses.

"There's this little rule I have here, that anything on my property *is* my property." A grin began growing on her face.

'Run.'

"And I'm sure you understand that if I don't enforce this rule that more people will come trampling in here."

My body felt frozen like I was being encased with ice the more she spoke.

"It looks like today wasn't it for you. It's best if you don't resist."

It was the sense of dread from those final words that finally gave me the strength I needed to move.

She dashed forward, closing the great distance between us before the basket she had let go of began descending.

'Rose freeze time.' but by then, I was too slow.

Her hand pierced my left shoulder, near the joint, when time froze. The cold pain only increased as I spent 3 seconds pulling that hand out as my warmblood kept tricking out.

For the next 20 seconds, I spent running, pressing my wound with my right hand.

I noticed that once the blood left my body, it stayed suspended in the air.

Shit, I'm leaving a trail. I thought as I bolted straight past the trees, with the pain stabbing at me.

Once I noticed the things began moving, a wave of fatigue hit me like a train as the force of gravity grew as if it wanted to pull me to the ground.

'She said that there was a village, right?' I asked, hoping that I was remembering correctly.

'Are you sure you could even make it?'

'Not like I have a choice.'

——————————————————————

"What?" The red-eyed woman was dumbfounded by his disappearance and heard the sound of water falling.

"A teleporter," She continued, wiping the blood off her hand, and looked around. "And where did that water noise come from.

"Sniff, Sniff." She could still smell him, but the blood that was on her hand distracted her.

Looking to where he was previously standing, she noticed small markings of dark red on the green leaves and grass.

She saw that the abnormal marking continued on for a while and smirked. "How nice of him to leave a path."

——————————————————————

"Are you alright, sir," the Slayer said.

"Yes, just a bit numb," he answered. "No one goes near the portal. That's an order."

He turned to one of the other Slayers. "Get me in contact with a leader of the church."

The rest of Jacob's team seemed to be put in a state of shock at the idea of having one of their teammates trapped on the other side of a portal, with Jacob being in an almost trance state.

"Hey, are you alright?" Ophelia sat next to him as he took a sip of water.

"Yeah," he put on a fake smile as he heard her but didn't turn to her. "Max always seems to find himself into some sort of trouble, so I'm sure he'll be fine."

"I know you don't really believe that." Ophelia grabbed his hand. "Tell me, what's bothering you?"

"He hasn't come out," his voice cracked a bit. "Usually, you can leave portals even before you complete them. That just means that they won't disappear, and more things can cross over."

He paused for a second and handed Ophelia a water bottle.

"And yet nothing," he continued. "Max isn't back, and the portal seems to be fading. It feels like there's nothing we can do, especially with the reaction the portal has on other things."

She forced his head to turn to her and softly said, "I'm sure someone will have the answer for us, then we'll figure this whole mess out."

——————————————————————

Before the trail of red even stopped, she saw him limp on the floor.

"All I did was injure you once, and you're already out of it," she said as she tossed him over her shoulder.

"He isn't a teleporter," she continued as she began to walk back. "He left a trail of blood, so he was moving, but why was he moving towards the mountains?"

——————————————————————

"That sure gave you a scare," a distorted voice said to Rose.

"Why don't you show yourself," he responded in the black void that he was in.

The sky filled with a light blue, and the setting was of the same town that Max and Rose were in before.

But all that Rose was focused on was the silhouetted figure that stood at his height.

"You never told me what you were before," he continued.

"I'd like to know that myself." The distortion got even worse. "But I find it funny to know that even demons have their fears," it finished before fading away.