"You can understand me?" Urs looked up at him with her head tilted to the side.
Ouran shook his head trying to clear his ears. "I think so."
Ell and Frides jumped out of the treetops onto the steps. Elle walked over to Ouran and lifted him up. "Are you alright? We saw the whole thing."
"Yeah, yeah. Something weird is going on?" Ouran hadn't taken his eyes off Urs.
"More like idiotic. Frides is taking orders from Nero."
"Yeah, yeah. Like some kind of test huh? I figured when I lost sight of you. Its just like the training me and Frides did in the forest yesterday. Listen, there's something going on with Urs." Ouran looked at Urs.
Frides picked up her wings. "It is weird. Her wings are glowing like the animals in the forest, but her wings are multicolored."
"Can you stop that and just scratch my chin already?" Frides fell over and Elle stepped back.
Ouran spun to Elle. "You heard that, right?"
Urs bounced into Frides' lap. "Scratch my chin, come on." Frides scratched her chin. "That's the stuff. Now, where is Nero?" She looked around.
"How can I hear her. Can you guys also? Hear her?" Frides looked at Ouran and Elle and they nodded their heads.
Elle shook her head. "Nero is going to lose his mind when he hears this. It must have something to do with this tree. It's a Sapient Dadona. It's said that if you smoke the pollen covered leaves you can talk to
Animals and bugs and even plants."
"When I hear what?" Nero skipped down the stairs with Blipp and Izuzu behind him.
"Nero that boy is glowing!" Ouran said.
"Look at Urs' wings." Nero yelled with stars in his eyes.
"Nero!" Urs jumped up and flapped her rainbow wings.
Nero's eyes and his arms shot open. "Urs I can hear you and look you're flying."
She flapped her wings but wasn't very good at controlling her sense of aerial direction and missed Nero only to be caught on his side. He lifted her up and spun her around. "I just learned. I'll get better you wait."
"I can wait for that. I just cant wait until I can ride you."
"That'll only be if you ask me nicely." Urs growled.
Elle punched Nero in the head and he dropped Urs on her head. "Ow!" They said in unison.
"How could you ask Frides to put Ouran in danger." Tears were welling up in her eyes.
Nero looked down at Ouran. His arms were swollen and covered in bites that had already started to puss. "Ouran!" He grabbed his arms. "Blipp! Do we have anything in this bag for bites?"
"I don't know." Blipp stammered uselessly.
"Give it here." Elle reached her hand out. Nero handed her the bag and she reached her hand in it and in one pull she found a medicine bottle. "This should help relieve the pain and make the swelling go down. Frides made it using some things in the garden."
She rubbed it on his arms and Ouran let out a sigh of relief. "That stuff is great. My arms have stopped hurting but now they're tingling."
"Okay then, all better now." Nero looked to Frides. "How'd it go?"
Elle thrust her fists in their faces. "Are you kidding me?"
"Elle. It's the best way for him to learn how to survive." Nero explained sympathetically.
"Well how about when we lost sight of him. Was that teaching him. The only reason he's alive now is because Urs broke free of Frides and was able to fly to help him."
"You did? Ow!" Urs had bit his leg.
"You're not supposed to put people you care about in danger!" Urs said while she was still biting down on his ankle.
Nero shook his leg. "You can finally talk and the first thing you do is plan a mutiny."
"Who is he?" Ouran pointed at Izuzu. His glowing skin made him hard to miss.
Nero shrugged. "Some kid."
Elle rolled her shoulders. "Okay, what matters is we've made it here and we're all together, again. We need to gather information on this town so we can find our target and complete our mission. We should find some place to stay the night. Is it night? I can't tell its so dark in here."
"It's night time." Izuzu piped up. "You guys can stay with me if you want."
"Who is he? Blipp can you answer that?" Elle said close to boiling over if Nero said another word.
Blipp grabbed her arm and told them about what happened in the tree.
"So are we supposed to help these jerks escape the tree? What life are we supposed to save?" Elle cried while they walked through the tree to Izuzu's house.
"Over here." Izuzu showed them to a side entrance to his house. When they entered the house they found themselves in a room with a large couch and a bunch of jars full of insects. "I meant for us to go in here when we were running. This is my dads shop." There were slabs of wood on a bench and saws on the wall next to it. Izuzu hadn't been in his fathers shop since his execution. Jars were smashed on the floor and he hurried to clean up as they entered.
"This place is amazing!" Nero gawked at the bugs and stopped and pulled a jar from the wall. "It's a Hercules beetle."
"That's gross." Elle gagged and turned away only to find dead bugs in jars.
"And creepy." Said Blipp.
The beetle crawled up Nero's shoulder. "Young master, who is this."
"This thing can talk to?" Nero said disappointed. "Izuzu, was it talking to you."
"Yeah the creatures of the forest want me to be their master." Izuzu said annoyed.
"You are our master." Churo popped out of Izuzu's messy hair.
Izuzu grabbed him and lifted him off his head. "No, I'm not anyone's master. That was my father and he's dead. You have no master."
Churo spread out and flattened the hair on Izuzu's head. "That's not how it works. You are our master now."
"I don't want to be. I don't even know what that means."
"What is he talking about?" Elle said.
Izuzu looked at Elle confused. He looked at all of them. "You guys can hear them. Did you guys smoke the trees?" He said disgusted.
"We didn't smoke anything. Are you smoking?"
"No! I don't smoke anything. Only very special people can hear them. This tree allows certain people to commune in the tone of the voice."
"What voice?" Frides asked.
"Special people." Ouran asked.
Izuzu sat Churo on the bench. "The voice of the world. Its how animals communicate with each other. Only certain people can speak to them when touching the tree. My father called them coeval. They are the chosen."
"I don't know anything about that." Ouran said but the rest of them looked at each other.
"Its just weird." Izuzu said finally. "You guys can stay here if you want. That way I can keep an eye on you. To make sure, you are who you say you are, and you don't help that bartender and his friends."
"Sure." Nero said easily.