Harambe and Cleo arrived at the site where the portal was as the sunlight had risen. What Harambe immediately saw were the bloodstains on the forest floor, as he had no idea what a portal is— from his first life and this one. He beckoned Cleo to come over right as she finished pouring mana in the space between two nondescript trees.
The snake shifter took a step back, unsure about the absence of a reaction from the portal.
"Bloodstains. It seems like it hasn't dried fully yet." Harambe knew that a fight had broken out near the portal. The bloodstains weren't a lot, but it dragged on from this point and vanished at the portal.
"It could be Uhuru's troops." Cleo can only make a conjecture, since Uhuru was the only one who knew of the presence of the portal around these parts. "Worry not, as you should know, Hercule was with them."
Cleo didn't mind the bloodstains as much as she thought about the absence of the portal. She poured the last bit of her mana to it, but still was unable to activate it for some reasons unknown to her. She does know of another portal a little further away, but unlike this one, it doesn't lead to Nowhere.
"Try and feed it with your own mana. Let's see if it'll work."
Harambe doesn't have any idea on how this should work, but he pushed his palm into the same position Cleo did. Tendrils of his azure mana were instantly sapped by the portal, which to his surprise materialized...
But right before it's fully activated… the two shifters watched as the portal apparently overloaded and exploded, in a shower of sparks, disintegrating into nothingness.
"What happened there?" Cleo remembered a story from at least a decade ago, when King Harambe, Hercule, and the then Duke Uhuru, destroyed three portals that connect to three different human kingdom capitals by detonating it with their unparalleled auric capabilities. It was a feat that was only remembered by the higher ranking officials of Ubwiza today. "Did you somehow detonate it?"
"You know me, I haven't seen a single portal before today!" Harambe protested. The memories old Harambe had didn't have anything about portals that could instantly teleport someone to another location.
"Makes sense. But I know of another place that could send us to our comrades… since there's a huge chance that what happened here was the same thing that your father, Hercule, and Uhuru did before."
It was at that moment that Cleo felt a shocking, somewhat alien disturbance within her spatial ring. She staggered backward, catching Harambe's attention.
Neither of the two powerful shifters realized that they were being spied on.
"Something is causing my spatial ring to malfunction." She grabbed her most important belongings and shoved it towards Harambe. "For safekeeping. Your father's spatial ring is immense. It can fit everything in there."
The disturbances didn't stop, forcing Cleo to believe that a recent change might be the cause. Her theory points at the Ascension flower they stole from under Uhuru's nose earlier.
"The flower might be the reason for this."
"How so?" Harambe doesn't know the existence of such a flower that could do this.
Cleo started running off into another direction. "Uhuru's idea might be true. There's a high chance this could be a mythical Paragon flower."
Harambe processed the new information and ran together with Cleo. "A Paragon flower? That's a myth, right?"
Cleo was not surprised in the slightest. "Your father is so stubborn. He never really told you anything about important intel! What a pain, that monkey."
The king's concubine explained in full detail to Harambe how their family of gorillas were a product of a single Paragon flower, a shapeshifting kind of flower with the ability to turn into what their hearts desired. Harambe was stunned at the revelation, especially now that he realized that his past life, and his new life, truly began to turn because of a Paragon flower.
"So, if what you're saying is true, then…" Harambe spoke between deep breaths. "It seems like the flower is responding to your desires."
"Even a Paragon can't give me what I desire." Her words sounded bitter, and sorrowful, that even the callous mind inside Harambe felt a pang of guilt for asking her. For she desired one thing— one person— only.
The atmosphere quickly devolved into awkwardness, and as the morning sun creeped slowly overhead, they reached their supposed destination.
It was a rocky area with thin, coniferous trees near a ravine, with a swift river flowing downstream beneath it. The gushing sounds of the water tempted Harambe so much that he wanted to jump on it. Well, since he's once a human who lived in barren lands, a river like this would be most appealing to him.
"Don't fall off the edge, gorilla."
Harambe sat at the edge of the ravine with his feet dangling over it. His eyes were craned straight ahead, deep into the jungles on the other side of the river, wondering about the lives of the beings there. Now that he thought about it… he actually adored animals in his youth.
Not the shifter kind, but the pure ones.
It was peaceful, serene even.
The sounds of the river rapids, birds cawing, and the crickets chirping made him feel like this might be the first time he truly appreciated that the sprawling world beneath the World Tree was a sight to behold rather than a chaotic wasteland.
"You know, Cleo—" Harambe's thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud. He pushed himself up using his hands and backflipped to solid ground, only to see several cloaked figures hoisting Cleo's unstable storage ring.
Unknown to him and Cleo, several people started shadowing them at some point with unparalleled excellence.
Mana started coalescing on his hands, as he wanted to attempt to break the two of them out of this hole, in the form of the same sharp energy blades he used on Uhuru. Before he managed to swing though, he saw the tall figure holding the ring take out the sealed Paragon flower.
"I promise you, you don't want to do that." A lady's melodious voice that appeared uncomfortable with the human language had spoken. Within the cloak, Harambe saw the hints of a disdainful glare directed at him. But those veiled threats won't stop him this time, as a Paragon flower is something worth the risk, even for a cautious person like him.
He released several sharp blades of mana, while also jumping straight for the people holding down Cleo on the ground. His brass knuckles appeared on his hand, imbued with his fiery blue mana.
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you." The tall woman's free hand easily blocked the whistling blades with a mysterious arcane barrier appearing on the blades' target points. Her hands then opened to show a ball of bizarre purple energy.
Harambe had already sent the three people holding Cleo down to the dirt with his brass knuckles. However, when he looked in the direction of the tall woman...
Boom!