From far in the distance, several people watched as the large ships pulled up and the starship ascended.

"This don't look good," said one, a woman with soft tanned skin and long hair pulled back in a ponytail. For as cold as it was, she wore little clothing, nothing more than a pair of baggy pants and a bandeau. She had a good amount of muscle on her.

"Did you expect mermaids to be flipping onto shore today, instead?" spoke a second woman, this one more slim, more feminine than her companion. Light, draping robes flowed down from her shoulders and stopped at her knees. Upon her skin there were a myriad of painted designs, a few of them tattoos. Her eyes, normally a smokey grey, were covered in a black film as she projected a spell of far sight over into the area.

Behind them there was a town, a small place of many within Gonthar. Though Albertine had moved there within the last three years, it had been Aldarine's home since her birth.

And now it was being invaded.

Cheery.

"All-terrain? Oh, funny. A wheelchair just looks funny in my head. You're thinking oldtime. You're not on Terra." she spoke as she sneaked down what barely looked like an alleyway. It was so narrow that Josai's shoulders nearly brushed the walls of trash on either side.

"ATW. Adaptable Terrain Walkers. If you couldn't even guess that much...I'm afraid of what your reaction is going to be."

She glanced up at the sky, which had become very narrow for the fifty foot walls closed in on them. There were three white moons above, the first just peaking the horizon.

As they came to the end of the alley, Austin would find a domed ceiling reaching over them, cold, and smooth, and metallic from underneath. Above, it just carried the appearance of another floor of garbage.

Josai put her fingers between her lips, and blew hard, a single, pure note ringing out across the dome. She leaned her hand onto a pile of scrap metal and grime that lay next to her. "You're going to meet someone special to me. Austin, this is Tyst."

It was very sudden, the disabling of the ATW's chameleon shield. One moment, there was only a small pile of waste that Josai had decided to lean against, and the next...

It was a...machine. What seemed to be a very large motorcycle, sleek, black, with the head of a giant cat no doubt as large as a Sabertooth, with the paws gripping the wheels on either side, keeping them in place.

But it didn't stop there! The eyes of the machine lit up, shining a dim blue, and the thing transformed. The wheels disappeared into the main body, the paws landed softly on the ground, and the head lifted up, turned, and stared at Austin hauntingly.

"This is an ATW." said Josai, smiling. She snapped, and the canopy on top opened, revealing the cockpit. Large enough for two people.

"A biomachine."