Finally, finally, Araun had gotten his wish. It had taken entirely too long, in his opinion, for the group to redouble their efforts to find Sword, but now there were three whole search parties investigating the root of her strange manifestations, and with three solid leads to follow there was no way they weren't going to get to the bottom of it.
Skara didn't have to come along this time, of course, not now that she could actually move independently at speeds greater than "particularly lethargic and unmotivated snail". But even if she'd grown a little exasperated with her familiar's weird crusade, she'd been itching to get back to proper work somehow. And if something significant actually was happening with Sword, well, that was as good a jumping-off point as any.
She'd briefly considered following the group headed to that "Worldcore" place, but the shadowy little voice in the back of her head reminded her that the "ley lines" they'd been talking about probably had nothing to do with the sort she had back home. With nothing in particular to contribute, there was no reason to favor one line of investigation over another, then... at least, not until she heard who'd be accompanying the group returning to the Reverse World.
Truth be told, Skara hadn't paid all that much attention to S'more. He'd been involved in the investigations after Owen was framed for the attack on Destiny Village, if she recalled correctly, but the aftermath of the battle against Sword coupled with Araun's sudden emergence had rather distracted her from the details. Now, however, with Cynthian's discovery and Icetales's warning, she agreed that he definitely needed to be watched closely. Nothing had gone amiss so far during their trip through the portal, although she supposed that, even if he was the spy, Sword bouncing around all over the world was probably not in Giovanni's plans; he had plenty of incentive to figure this out as well.
So she stole glances at the marshadow and his security crew whenever she thought she could afford it, and then endeavored to keep stealing them even when she was hovering upside down and fluttering in circles. It was not easy, she had to admit as she tumbled uselessly past the chatty vulpix familiar and in entirely the wrong direction. Perhaps multitasking and getting in some flight practice during the mission had been ill-advised.
Araun kept his nose to the ground, for once not paying Skara's tribulations much mind. He had Sword's scent—well, whatever passed for scent when it was your core stone reacting to weird familiar ghost shit, whatever—and this time, he was gonna fuckin' find something.
