The black panther raised its four legs and they both stepped out of the tent, carefully treading towards the back of the house where they saw the family's heat signatures disappear from the screen.
Lisa held onto a portable screen and kept scanning the family's backyard. As she looked around, her eyebrows furrowed deeply. It definitely pointed here but...
'Where? Where is the gateway?'
"Lisa." The little black cat brought her back to attention and she looked at it.
"Did you find it?"
"No." She answered honestly.
"What! Did it close?" It asked in shock.
"I'm not sure. But I saw them disappear around here." She insisted, walking around the backyard garden.
The black panther shrank its size and entered the house. A black shadow flitted across the house and went back to where the woman had been standing. Lisa looked at it in curiosity. The little black cat shook its head.
With one knee bent down, Lisa squatted on the ground and started to write some weird symbols on her portable screen. Luca, the little black cat, looked over and felt its head swell from the multitude of symbols it saw.
"Did you find anything?" It asked finally.
Lisa remained quiet and wrote more as she checked the blueprint of the house. The moon is high up in the sky and it's nearing midnight when she heaved a breath and lifted her gaze from the portable screen. She kept her eyes opened and looked around the backyard once again.
"Based from my calculations, the heat signatures disappeared around..." She lowered down her gaze to look at the portable screen again.
Slowly, Lisa stood up and walked in the direction she saw on her screen. Soon, she stopped walking and felt her head bump into something with a rough surface. Before she could raise her head to look up, she felt her body lifted up and thrown on a soft cushion as it flew back to the tent.
'Huff'
'Huff'
She heard Luca panting as it closed the tent behind it. Once it made sure that they are both inside, it sprawled its four legs and collapsed on the floor.
Lisa did not asked. She felt it. She felt the heavy steps of the rushing animals towards the house. They're back! The residents are back! She looked at the sprawled Luca and can't help but rub its head softly in relief. The little black cat just moaned.
They did not hear any movements inside and still startled from their sudden appearance, the pair of woman and cat held their breath as they looked at the house. They moved their gazes on the bigger screen inside the tent to monitor the movements inside the house. Two pairs of eyes saw five heat signatures on the screen walk side by side towards the back of the house and disappear from their screen. The little black cat's jaw dropped in shock.
'It's true! The gateway is opened!'
Luca turned to look at the woman beside it, its eyes gleaming in excitement. Lisa saw the cat's gaze and grinned.
'Just a little bit more.' She thought.
This time, they patiently waited for the sixth batari to appear, the youngest of the group, that round ball of flesh with an arrogant look. They sat comfortably inside the tent and remained focused for any changes that may happen inside the house. Both felt their eyes droopy as dawn came but there's still no sign of the youngest batari showing up, they looked at each other.
"Did the little girl probably went in first?" The little black cat asked. Lisa showed a troubled look.
"I'm very sure four of them went out yesterday morning. Two remained, the mother and the younger son. Then three came back but only the mother received them from the house. The younger son probably entered the gateway first and came out when the three arrived. So there's still the little girl. She has not arrived since." Lisa recalled and she went through their video monitoring from the other day.
They watched as the video showed Eder, Tala, Zari and little Sasha settled themselves inside their car and leave the house. Fast-forward to later in the afternoon when the three older people arrived and got inside the house where Latini received them inside. Rewinding back, they did not see the younger son leave the house but when the older siblings and their father arrived, he was not inside.
Lisa looked at the screen that monitored the heat signatures inside from yesterday morning and watched it carefully. As they watched, they saw the small humanoid heat signature of Huan morph and turn into a winged being.
"Titan." Luca uttered. What is a lord's mount doing here?
"It's a young batari, Luca." Lisa corrected the little black cat.
Titans are one of the ancestor hawks that have long disappeared from this world but their kind still exists in Toradashi. They are favored mounts of chiefs and rulers due to their abnormally large size. While the hawk they saw is larger than average making one think it might be a young titan, these mounts do not have any ability to transform, a unique skill of bataris.
Lisa is sure that they are a family of Bataris but something keeps on bothering her. They've already seen the young man transform into a wolf and the young woman into the golden snake. If that young boy is a hawk, then what kind of relationship would these bataris have? And why are they here in this world? And most importantly, what are the true forms of the older couple and the youngest child?
'We have to be more careful. They are not a typical family of bataris.' With this thought, she decided to wait until the youngest batari shows up and enters the gateway.
Their waiting did not take long when they heard the heavy and short steps of the youngest batari. She panted as she reached the house and they heard her call out,
'Nana, I'm home!'