Kelly and Yulvaris stepped out of the teleportation formation, the last bit of light fading as it shut down.
Kelly looked around, curious. They were standing at the edge of a city—floating billboards glowing, traffic noise carrying even from here. It reminded her of Earth in a vague, off-brand way, just… upgraded.
It was already night, and eight round moons hung in the sky. Three of them looked wrong—two glowing a deep green, one a pale blue—washing the whole city in shifting colors that didn't feel real.
Kelly frowned at the sky, thinking hard. "Doesn't Zathron have five moons? Why are there more?"
Yulvaris scoffed like the question offended her, arms folding, but she still answered. "This world has ten moons. You only see the ones catching the galaxy star's light. The rest are still there, just not lit up because they're off the main path." She paused, smirking. "For someone who's supposed to be smart, you're weirdly slow on basic things."
Kelly rolled her eyes and headed toward the city. Yulvaris followed with a snort. The outskirts were packed—people arriving from everywhere, most of them teenagers hyped up by the news about the Ancient Ruins. Airships flew overhead, fast and loud, each one marked with crests that only belonged to powerful families.
Everyone was heading toward the massive city gates, where five guards stood like they owned the world, huge battle maces slung over their shoulders. They stopped people one by one, searching them with the kind of grin that said they enjoyed this way too much.
Kelly paused when she saw the line—easily hundreds of people. Most of them wore plain clothes, which made sense. She couldn't picture those arrogant draconian nobles with their swollen egos standing in line like commoners.
No chance. They were probably up there in their airships, looking down and laughing at the "ants" below.
"They're so overbearing!"
"This is just robbery!"
Complaints started rising from the crowd. Kelly looked ahead and saw the guards smashing apart a merchant's cart with their maces, wood flying everywhere. One of them even had the creature pulling the cart locked by the neck, lifting it while the thing kicked helplessly. It looked like a mini dinosaur—two legs, long tail, straight out of Earth but wrong.
"Please stop! That's everything I own, you're destroying my life!" the merchant begged, already on his knees as they shattered box after box of what looked like breakable goods.
The guard holding the creature grinned, licking his lips. "Your Cipherion's going to make a great stew, little man. We'll take it as your entrance fee. No need to thank us."
The old man's voice shook with anger as he yelled, eyes burning. "I paid you before I even left the city! You all know that, yet you destroy everything I own and throw me out with nothing! Do you know how many people I owe? I'll be dead before the galaxy star rises if I can't pay my debts. Monsters—every one of you! Which of my competitors paid you to do this?!"
A slap cut him off. His teeth hit the ground, blood running down his chin. One of the guards sneered down at him. "You should've kept quiet, old man. We're just doing our job. If you showed up broke, that's on you. Keep talking and the next thing rolling on the ground will be your head."
Kelly watched, not really reacting on the outside, but her thoughts moved fast.
Funny how even outside Earth, nothing changed. If you didn't have power, you were nothing. The strong crushed the weak because they could, and everyone else just watched. As long as people had free will, greed would exist. Selfishness would exist. And someone would always be the one getting stepped on.
It wasn't a rule tied to one world. It was everywhere. A universal law.
The weak get eaten. The strong keep getting stronger by eating them.
Kelly let out a slow sigh and looked up at the eight moons hanging over the sky. She was still far from strong—but every strong person started out weak, didn't they?
She turned to Yulvaris, who was staring at her own fingers like they were the most interesting thing in existence. "Get us out of here. Into the city."
Yulvaris shot her a sharp look, scoffed, then snapped her fingers.
Space twisted.
They vanished.
***
They reappeared in the center of the city. Chaos greeted them instantly—Draconian drivers yelling over each other in the streets, air shuttles gliding overhead like they owned the sky while the cars below crawled around in frustration.
Blinding lights flashed from street poles and floating billboards. Laughter and drunken shouting spilled out from taverns. The streets were packed—people moving in all directions, the night alive and deafening.
"Go do whatever you want," Kelly said, already walking toward the crowd. "Someone like you would know when I need you."
Yulvaris watched her fade into the sea of people, amused, then turned and walked the opposite way without a word.
Kelly pushed into a tavern, immediately hit by the sharp, burning stench of liquor so strong it scratched her throat. Waiters slid between flailing drunks with trays balanced like second nature, practiced and bored.
She took a seat by the window. The noise—the shouting, the laughter, the clatter—pressed into her skull like an ache. Outside, she spotted a skinny boy guiding an old woman through the crowd, his small hand wrapped around hers. He couldn't have been older than twelve, yet his eyes held a kind of steady resolve adults failed to carry. Strange. And a little sad.
"Customer, you didn't come here just to stare out the window, did you?" a young woman's voice cut into her thoughts.