“Surrender yourself immediately, or you will be forced!”

  Yeah yeah, talk it up buddy.

  Chimera, fully engrossed in her task, had one of her tendrils make a small voice that mimicked the Elfari that was speaking.

  It was pretty useless all things considered, but making a fool out of him, even in her head, helped her focus on the hole she was digging.

  Yup, Chimera decided the best way to go about leaving was to bury herself in the dirt.

  It was genius really.

  Only she had the ability, (that she knew of) to phase through this wood, or pierce it easily. There was no way some rent-an-officer types, that had security detail for a place that probably never saw anything like her, would have a contingency for what amounted to a termite infestation.

  A small termite infestation, maybe, but it still fits.

  If you can hear me Meras, say sorry to your mom for me.

  Chimera finally reached a point that she felt comfortable with, adding one last heave to her movement as she constructed her space oak drill.

  It was a small, slender thing, completely made of wood on the shaft and ends, but on the very tip of the drill, was a cut of diamond she made using her newly regained terromancy.

  Making diamonds was tough, but for a small place on her drill? She could manage that.

  “Alright, time to dive!”

  Smashing the tip into the hole she dug, Chimera grabbed hold of the drill bit as she pushed herself along, grabbing onto the space oak walls for leverage as she went downward.

  “Last Warning!”

  So long suckers!

  She was already deep enough now that no amount of weird wood sorcery was going to reach her, and the ground below gave way to more dirt, and thankfully no more wood.

  WooHooo!

  Spinning much faster than any living being should be able to realistically, Chimera swam ahead in her own sea of dirt, pushing and twisting as fast as she could manage.

  The task kept her busy, and for a long while Chimera couldn’t tell how long she had spent in her digging adventure.

  Though she could tell that despite her digging, she was close to the surface, if only due to the heat that she felt coming from the ground above her.

  A little further, then we surface.

  Using her terromancy, she checked the rock formations around her, being careful to avoic obvious structures and places where rock and stone seemed artificial or built.

  A nice alcove was showing up on her radar sonar sense she was using, which made her decide on that place to be her breach point.

  Okay, surfacing!

  Her drill bit shot up easily, piercing the packed earth and stabbing right through what Chimera realized must have been a house’s floor.

  “Uh oh…”

  Turning to scan the environment, Chimera noticed a small Elfari child staring at her, an innocent look of curiosity splayed over her green hair and eyes.

  “Umm… Yup! No badgers, moles or tunnel snakes here! Guess I’ll be moving along!”

  The girl tilted her head, “moles? Badgers? Whats a tunnel snake?”

  Abort! Abort!

  Chimera went back down, doing her best to cover up the hole she made by using a bit of space oak.

  Okay, that was a bust, got to make sure the spaces I breach are actually holes and not floors!

  Nodding to herself, Chimera began her deep dive once more, twisting and piercing the earth.

  …

  It took two more tries and an almost run in with what Chimera assumed must be the police on this world until she had finally found a safe place to breach.

  “PWAH! Hah… no…more… drills.”

  She took a big breath of mana infused air as she rested herself along the edge of her hole, taking in the sights around her with a lazy eye.

  Should be good, if that's the tree over there.

  Chimera was staring at what could only be described as a massive tree, filled with green leafs and numerous branches that reached up into the cloudy heavens on its perch.

  It was so large that when she stared at it, she could almost mistake it for a large tower, but the hanging leaves that floated down from the clouds dissuaded her of that.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  From above her no less, meaning the tree’s branches extended much further than her dig to this outskirt of the city.

  “Okay, time to do some recon.”

  Chimera found a smaller but taller tree nearby to climb up, her morphous body sliding up in a corkscrew.

  Grabbing a bit of the tree’s DNA while she was at it, Chimera catalogued it as she reached the top, flexing a little to let her eyes open.

  “Alright… let’s see. Holy…”

  Chimera’s eyes revealed a sprawling city.

  Cinderbough was everything that she thought New Terra was, and yet…

  The city was a quiet place, with no electric light to illuminate the city streets. Its streets were bustling, but the people were respectful. There was no shouting, no loud noises of passing vehicles or background noise. It was a silent city filled with life.

  Lights of a different sort decorated the sprawl, fashioned to bulbs that swayed with the wind on large flowers. Some kind of fungus decorated the inner streets, and glowed shades of red, green and blue to decorate the night life.

  It was so mesmerising that Chimera couldn’t help but zoom in to see the people’s expressions, so entranced was she by this city.

  They were happy, smiles all around, and some even neighborly to their fellows by helping the elderly across the wooden streets.

  She took it all in, lost for a moment in the familiar, yet, new sights she witnessed.

  It’s almost identical, but the materials, the lights, the people, hell, even the damn streets are paved with wood. So this is Steros…

  Chimera glossed over a few more buildings before she saw what she was looking for.

  There… that has to be it.

  Her eyes settled on a wooden ziggurat, a massive pyramid looking structure that held a gem covered in vines. It was made from space oak as far as she could tell, and the decorations upon it made it light up under the night sky. Streaks of red, purple and green decorated the sides, all trailing to an entrance that was built like a castle gate.

  Makeshift spotlights decorated the walls, and Chimera could make out the guards on the wall’s ramparts, clad in gold and silver armor.

  The weapons they wielded looked like a mix between staves and spears, with a green gem that matched the hue of the even more massive emerald that floated in the middle of the Palace.

  No entrances, no sewer grates or openings to exploit.

  Is that really the only way in?

  Chimera shook her head.

  Even if it is, I got a disguise now! Should be no problem.

  Chimera finished anaylzing the tree’s DNA, and with a flick, hopped off her perch and landed on the soil.

  It was time to breach the Palace and find what she needed to get off of this rock.

  And maybe pay a visit to the Empress while she was at it.

  …

  “Youngling? Where is your Mother?”

  “Little girl, you should not be out so late…”

  “Let’s get the guard to help her find a way back.”

  Chimera had grossly miscalculated.

  “Umm…”

  It didn’t help that the people of Cinderbough were super friendly.

  Apparently, a child walking around, alone, at night, was enough to worry the overly nice Elfari people.

  “I… I was on my way home!”

  One of the elderly Elfari approached her, “Oh?”

  “Y-Yesh.”

  Oww, how the hell did I bite my damn tongue?!

  “Well, look at you, all grown up and trying to walk home. Where do you live, child?”

  Chimera couldn’t help it, the absurd situation, the awkwardly helpful people and their almost brutal way in being nice to her.

  She threw out the only answer that would make sense.

  …

  Bayleaf Bristlebranch sighed in relief as she walked into her room in the Imperial Palace, reserved for the Imperial Harriers and those that trained under them.

  It had been a bit of a trip, especially at the end with the biological agent that she and the crew almost unleashed upon the Elfari, but after finding no trace of the being for a few hours, she left the search to the rank and file and headed home.

  She may have been interested in finding the missing ‘Mera’, but she had been out in space for a few months now, and her bed, in all its fluffyness, called to her.

  “I’m coming, my love, just wait a few more minutes.”

  She chuckled at her own joke, her cloths falling to the floor as she switched into pajamas.

  Bayleaf was just about to fall on her bed when a ring came over and a voice called out.

  “Umm… Imperial Harrier Bayleaf?”

  Bayleaf sighed, “Yes?”

  Her home was equipped with a transceiver and speaker phone, so that she could respond in case of emergency.

  “Well… your… neice is here?”

  Bayleaf froze.

  “One moment.”

  Slipping on the last of her pajamas, and falling to the floor in a bundle of limbs, Bayleaf quickly recovered as she sprinted to the door.

  She opened it to the sight of a familiar young girl, and the guard that was staring at the both of them, as if to sus out if they truly were related.

  Bayleaf almost shouted at the ‘young girl’ in front of her, but instead grabbed her tiny hand and pulled her inside.

  “That will be all, thank you!”

  “W-Wai-”

  The guard could only groan as the door shut in his face, and on the otherside, Bayleaf turned to look at Chimera.

  Who was sheepishly looking at the ground.

  “Look, I can explain…”

  The frustration of the day boiled over, and Bayleaf grabbed the nearest pillow to shout all the curses she could think of, before turning to face her newest headache.

  “Explain?! You left the cargo bay, sent the border patrol into a manhunt that is still ongoing by the way, and you what? What possessed you to do it? Didn’t we come to an agreement?”

  “Well yeah but-”

  “But nothing! You better have a good reason, or I’m going to inform the guards outside that a damn alien is walking among us.”

  Chimera awkwardly smiled.

  Oh… she’s not going to be happy with what I have to say…

  …