The barren landscape changed a bit later as darkness slowly crept over it all. Some greenery started showing up as well, brightened by the lights of many cities as well as individual posts that were spread around the land.

Then as the car moved further, the land got more and more green, as it moved into a mountainous land.

The mountains were surprisingly filled to the brim with houses as well, each one bright with light at night, leaving not a single one of them empty. They went past those mountains too.

Stanley watched curiously as they flew past the mountains as well, arriving in a verdant land with cities that had buildings taller than the ones in the Eylish city they had left a few hours earlier.

The car suddenly spoke in a language that Stanley couldn’t understand, and Ulia quickly got up. "Hmm? Oh, good. We’re past Franoss," she said.

"Franoss?" Stanley asked.

Ulia turned to look at Stanley, taking a moment to realize who he was. "Oh, you didn’t go to sleep?" she asked.

"No, I looked at everything along the way," Stanley said. "I can’t believe how large this world is."

"Huh, now I’m truly curious about your existence. Franoss is a country we just passed. You saw the desert, didn’t you?" Ulia asked.

"Desert?" Stanley thought for a bit. The word sounded familiar, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

"I can’t be bothered to answer your questions if you won’t answer mine," Ulia said with a sigh.

The car kept flying for a few more minutes before they saw a massive sprawling city that was many times larger than the town that Stanley had been from. It glowed in the night as brightly as it did in the day.

Stanley’s eyes glowed as well, reflecting the light of the city in them.

"Sheila, wake up," Ulia called, but the girl was dead asleep. She didn’t respond at all. "SHEILA!"

Sheila’s eyes opened after the crazy shout. She stirred up a bit, looking around. "What is going on? Are we there?"

"Yes, we’re here," Ulia said.

Stanley expectantly looked at the city in front of them. "What’s that city called?" he asked.

"Starhall," Ulia said as the car continued flying.

Stanley looked excitedly, wondering just how good this city was compared to the last one. Would it be different in any way? What language would they speak?

As he wondered, the car continued flying, and soon, they went past the city.

"Huh? Aren’t we supposed to go into that city?" Stanley asked.

"No, we’re going into the mountains," Ulia said. Just past the city, there was another mountain range, and they flew up to it. It was barely a few hundred meters out of the city, so it wasn’t even far away.

They arrived on the side of the mountain and as they did, something suddenly changed as the green mountain disappeared from view, turning into a barren mountain with buildings built onto the side of the mountain itself.

Stanley freaked out a little, not knowing what had just happened. "What... what’s going on? Where’s the mountain from before?" he asked.

"It was a hologram," Ulia mentioned. "It was fake the whole time, meant to keep away anyone that would want to go toward the mountain."

Stanley looked around in shock, unknown what to make of it. "Won’t people see that we flew into the mountain?" he asked.

"Oh," Ulia looked at him. "You didn’t realize we were invisible?"

"Invisible?" Stanley asked and looked around. "We are?"

"Yes," Ulia said. "We’ve been invisible since we flew out into the ocean. I’m surprised you didn’t realize."

"Was I supposed to?" Stanley asked, looking around the car to check for clues. He couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or not from inside the car.

The car slowed down, landing on top of a large plastered ground with many other cars there.

Stanley looked out to see the massive building next to them, completely covered with glass windows at the front, built directly into the mountains. The front area was bright, but nothing could be seen on the inside. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Welcome to the AAA Headquarters."

The car shut down and Ulia walked out.

A few people quickly walked out, all of whom seemed to be here for Sheila. They included both men and women of various ages, the youngest as young as 16 years old, and the oldest as old as 50 years old.

The old man, a man with a thick gray beard, whose arm seemed to have been cut off and was instead replaced by some glowing machine arm walked to the front.

"Hey, director," Ulia said as she walked to the back door and opened the car door to pull out Sheila.

"Any problems?" the man asked.

"Nope," Ulia said as she dragged Sheila out. "Well, unless you consider him a problem."

Ulia opened the door, forcing Stanley to walk out.

Stanley slowly left from inside the car, appearing amidst the many unfamiliar faces in front of him. The men and women all looked at him curiously, before looking at Ulia.

"Who is he?" the director asked.

"Well according to her—"

"Stop," Sheila said.

Ulia stopped as asked. She looked toward Sheila in confusion and shrugged. "Fine, speak on your own," she said, standing to the side.

"Sheila? What’s going on?" the director asked.

"Is Gray in the base?" Sheila asked.

The director frowned a little. "He returned a few hours ago. Why?" he asked.

"Can you call him out, director?" Sheila asked.

"Why do you want—"

"Hey! I heard someone call my name," a voice came from above. When they all looked up, they saw the white-haired Gray slowly float down from the sky.

At a certain height, his speed accelerated and he landed in the midst of the group with a loud bang. His visor receded into his metal mask and his eyes sparkled in joy.

"Hey, Sheila. You finally decided to come back," Gray spoke. "It’s nice to see you alive and... I guess not very well."