The Rift, despite the warnings given to all of them, had the allure to wander. There was an entire city of dark yet eye-catching spires and steeples, long hallways and crumbling architecture the likes of which you'd expect from an ancient city, one where your school might take you for a field trip or tourists would come to visit and take pictures every 3 steps. While Wolframite wanted to check out these areas, his mind, his heart, wasn't in it. Upon exiting the hallway, his red-lined, glossy eyes looked about the landscape and he turned, heading off down the cracked stones and vast space outside of the city that looked down at him from atop it's peak.

It was days when he felt the worst that he went for a walk. His only cure, and while his mind worked, the slow turning gears to only carry out basic functions like wandering aimlessly, it said that a walk was in order. Why here at the Rift? Simply because he didn't feel any place ON Earth was where he wanted to be and with a new place that might devour him whole, maybe UNDER Earth was a better option. Now if anyone had a cent of sanity to them, they would know that this was a completely idiotic idea, but Wolframite was short on that sort of change at the moment. He had been for a while, and recently, he spent his last penny.

The world was crazy enough. It seemed only fitting that in insides of Earth was teaming with monsters and dead soldiers who no doubt lived day in and day out in this sunless world in the multi-colored sky thinking about their past and their failure. They were noble. True. They died for a cause, but were they now bitter thinking of what they had become and what they couldn't do as they stayed here for the rest of their time. Did youma age? Did they have aspirations of any sort aside from the consumption of energy and possibly getting another chance at war?

He passed by a broken stone path, his books muted on rough stone and gravel. Everything was rough here. Raw. Lacking any softness or gentle shapes. His eyes slid about, moving more as he tilted his head like a doll's rolling eyeballs than of any real urge to look anywhere. Petrified trees, barren, curled about the path, lined by dark half-walls that shaped this garden of un-living. In the distance, past the farthest horizon, he saw something black and slick uncoil from it's slumber, turning in it's sleep or it's grave and settle once more. Behind him, he felt the ground shape as something move somewhere, he knew not what or where it was, and didn't care to find out. Something else flew from the clawed branches overhead, dropping down stone branches that shattered on the path ahead of him. He passed, stepping over it, noticing the rings of age in the tree branch and smiling. It was alive, once before. All these things didn't grow this way. Were born this way. It had changed.


A sharp pain pieced his side and he gritted his teeth, touching his ribs and pressing on his tight uniform. What was that? Something strange. A pinch, and a sickening feeling. There was something there, and it pulled him out from where his mind was floating to the basic of concerns. He scrambled about his uniform, popping buttons and hastily undoing a few more buttons from the undershirt underneath. Slipping a hand to his side, he felt about and pinched something. It was soft.

Pulling his hand out, he noticed long legs with small spines, and cringed. A bug?

The legs twitched, jerking from being captured before pulling into, disappearing from sight. He felt something move under his fingers and soon a body squeezed out.

"A flea?" It's body was black, sleek, with a soft, purple glow inside it's abdomen. It was bigger than a few. Almost the side of a beetle or ladybug. It shook it's body, before regarding him and bouncing off and landing on the cobblestone.

Rubbing his side, he regarded the creature. He never liked fleas. While his mother never approved of pets, he and his sister had stuck in a small puppy from a litter their neighbor had saying that they were allowed. They kept it inside their room, quiet, but didn't know the pet had fleas. Soon their rooms were infected and his mother had found out, sending the pet back and giving a word about how badly the owners kept their animals for having them so riddled with bugs. His mother went on a rampage, replacing things and stuffing them into bags, mostly getting ride of everything and replacing it with the new. It had been most tragic because Elliot had almost been taken away, but after much crying and pleading, his mother only put all the stuffed animals several times in the wash and drying to kill them. Still, he always wondered if they were inside. Dead little bodies inside his friends.

But these were no ordinary bugs as this was no ordinary place. The little creature was hard to imagine as once being a person, but here it was, faintly glowing as it hopped, and yet he could still follow it as it's body glimmered like a fire fly in the dark. It wasn't after blood. It was after energy. It wouldn't find it here....

Wolfarmite's eyes widened, and he darted off after the bug. "WAIT!" He called out, following the flea, but it jumped quickly and moved fast. It hopped over the wall of the petrified garden and sent the captain racing up to it before looking around, judging the distance, and jumping up to the top of the ledge and over it.

The old saying look before you leap couldn't have held more true as he landed the rubble of a once beautiful garden. A fountain with a broken statue chopped through it's midsection sputtered out acidic water that splattered the ground. Alla round, the high walls encircled the place aside from a few open archways leading into the main courtyard, and here, surrounding the ground, was a thick layer of the flea youma....

..and they did like entertaining guests who stumbled on their home.

If that didn't make matters worse, Wolframite slowly looked from the carpet of insects to the massive Queen of them all. Her legs were spiked, crystallized armor, her body large with the shimmering glow in the cracked segments of her body segments glimmering purple from the energy inside her, and glassy black eyes looked down, regarding him as if he has been the pest. In this case, as small as he was in comparison, he was.

There was a pressure of power, and then, in a rush, the swarm was upon him. They crawled into his clothes, over hsi body, and soon the miniture weight was weighing down on him. He was being brought down to his hands and knees, and he had to blow out to keep them from going up his nose. He closed his eyes. "STOP! PLEAS -" He started to cough as a few unwisely tried to leap down his throat. He managed to cough them out, and through the swarming black, he tried to spot the Queen.

"I NEED TO SPEAK TO YOU! I NEED YOUR HELP!" He continued to couch and was being pressed further down. Speaking was becoming impossible. "I HAVE A MISSION!" He cried, falling near flat on his stomach as he felt his bones creak under the weight and finding it hard to breath as he tried to bat away the bugs. He felt sharp pains all over his body as they pierced his skin, biting hard. They couldn't get energy from him, could they? He was part of the Negaverse!

Didn't you feel like dying? Getting rid of your life? The youmas are just going to kill you.

He gasped for air, feeling small legs crawling over hsi body, his hair, passing his eyelids and moving under and through his uniform.

And then they pulled back. The biting stopped, and the fleas jumped off in an instant, creating a small circle around him. The sound of their collective jumping, tapping, landing, went quiet. The large youma stood, her long tubes ending with spikes regarding him. A long, violet line of slime traveled down. Was she........salivating?

Still, she did not move, and the swarm was not coming for him. Was she listening?

"I have an idea...and I need your help. The help of all the youma here." He gestured to the swarm at her feet.

She didn't move, and neither did the swarm. She was listening. Wolframite regained his breathing, brain working fast, as he rose his head and explained his idea.