When I returned back to 21's dimension with the PDL, she immediately appeared before me with a smile on her face, however, when she touched me, my body glowed pink for a second while she cried out in pain.
21-"So cupcake, what did sh-Ahhhhhh!"
Seeing 21 hold her burnt hand in pain mentally made me happy but I didn't show it on my face, we have something more important to deal with, and I can mock her later.
Sage-"Oh yeah, just a heads up but Nala had engraved a rune on me that's supposed to stop you from touching me, so I suggest you don't touch me."
I could see she looked quite pissed and as much as I would like to make fun of her, we still have Towa to deal with so I held off on that for later.
Sage-"Anyways, I think I've figured out the solution to our problem, this is a Portable Dimensional Lab or a PDL for short, how the PDL works is, by squeezing it, it'll envelop us in a small mirror dimension, identical to the dimension we would currently be in."
21-"That could indeed solve our problem, let me see it real quick."
As I throw the PDL to her and watch her tinker with it, you might wonder why I would do something so dumb, well here is the reason. 21 has gained an interest in Nala's runes and I'm sure she would love to learn how to use them, so giving her runes may seem like a bad idea as I'm just giving her what she wants, but learning runes isn't as simple as it might sound, Nala said in order to be a Runesmith you must first learn the rune language and only then can you start inscribing runes. So unless you know the rune language, trying to comprehend an already completed rune is like trying to read a book in a different language, it's impossible, and it seems 21 has just figured that out by the look on her face.
Sage-"So, now that you realized you can't learn Runes without Nala's instructions, you don't care about it anymore?"
When I said that she just looked up in annoyance before throwing the PDL back at me, with some force behind it too, if I had to guess she was probably still mad from earlier.
21-"Tch, whatever Sage, let's get going, we don't have all the time in the world."
Sage-'Now that's the 21 I know and hate.'
Following behind her with a smirk on my face, we arrive at a floating portal situated in the middle of her space-time machine or whatever it was called.
21-"I'll lead the way, just make sure to stay close, I don't feel like experiencing millions of years in a blink of an eye."
Jumping into the portal behind 21, when I make it out the other side, I hover beside 21 as we observe our surroundings, which look like a crazy maze with pathways leading in all types of directions, some of them don't even lead to anything and just continue on for an infinite loop.
Sage-"We don't have to follow the pathways and complete a maze do we, because if so I don't mind destroying this entire dimension."
21-"No we don't, they're just decorations as we can fly, I already know which direction Towa's hideout's out so just follow me, stay close by, and make sure to keep your ki suppressed, we can't alert Towa too early otherwise she'll escape again."
Squeezing the PDL, we wait for the mirror dimension to envelop both of us before we head toward Towa's location, as we continue flying, the amount of maze-like pathways continues getting less and less until there isn't anymore, allowing us to see nothing but greyness for as far as I can see.
Now since we're within the PDL we experience time at a normal pace so I can't even tell if what 21 said was true about the chaotic time, though I do believe she was telling the truth.
We continued flying for 10's of minutes with nothing in sight until 21 suddenly stopped and hovered in place, causing me to do the same.
21-"We're close by, but if we go any closer we're going to be spotted even within the PDL, so unless you have anything else that could possibly help us right now, I suggest we charge at Towa's location at full speed so she doesn't get enough time to move locations."
Sage-"Nope none, so we're going on the count of 3 or what?"
I didn't get an answer but seeing how her skin changed to dark purple was enough of an answer for me, once I transformed into an LSSj, we suddenly shot off at full speed, leaving a giant dimensional hole from where we launched off at.
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I was currently deep inside my lab while carefully working on transferring the space-time energy from the time rings into a small handheld bomb, similar to the one I had given Mira to test, as the whole purpose was to see if I could break the seal on the crack of time. The answer I got was a yes, but I would need much more space-time energy than what I alone could produce if I wanted to break open something like the crack of time.
A few hours passed with me doing nothing but working, however, while I was transferring the space-time energy my staff laying beside me started flashing red, almost causing me to lose my concentration on the space-time energy. Putting the remaining space-time energy into the container, I grab my staff to find out what or who has tripped my alarms, but the moment I do, I get angry when I realize who it is.
Towa-'Fuck! How did that failure of an experiment and stupid berserker find my location so quickly, dammit, they're moving too fast, they'll reach my place within a minute, and I won't be able to escape in time.'
Right after, Mira busted through the door and stood beside me as he waited for any instructions, but I myself didn't know what to do, I had prepared in case my base had been found out, however, the plan I created needed some time, and even if I just left everything except for the time rings and space-time bomb, I would still need more than 40 seconds to transport an explosive that volatile.
Towa-'It seems it might really come down to my last plan, however, I truly hope that doesn't happen.'
Towa-"Mira go gather all of the androids, demons, and previously defeated enemies, and tell them to prepare for battle, tell them their job isn't to defeat the intruders but to buy as much time as possible."
Mira-"Got it."
As Mira left the room, I quickly stood up and started to prepare the most important things I would take when escaping, however, I still couldn't shake this bad feeling that appeared the moment my staff started flashing red.