Croc grinned. He had deserved that.

"Well, it didn't break through here, at least not from wherever it came from. It broke the barrier fer sure, but that was recent ‘n all. Probably when it went after your friends. I'm willing to bet it just pushed through where it was until it formed its own Little bubble between the dimensions. Kinda like I do, but a lot more powerful."

Anya looked confused, but Johan seemed to be grasping. He turned to his comrade.

“Think of dimensions as separate plastic bags. You push your hand through and it forms around it, but as you stretch out the area behind starts to retract. Except dimensions don't like getting stretched, so it just sort of seals behind itself. Pushing through one wall is hard but doable. That's what Croc here does. Pushing through two is what the Dark One did, or at least that's what I'm gathering from Croc. The thing we need to watch out for is something that pushes through all three."

“Like an Elder God?" she asked.

"Like an Elder God," Croc confirmed.

“If it's as big and bad as you say, it could leave a hole that won't heal. Not only will we get that apocalypse you all are talkin' ‘bout, but one dimension could bleed into the other. Total chaos."

"And with a ancient and powerful creature that thrives on chaos, it could be enough to help it win against order. It could actually beat God." Anya stopped. She had inadvertently realized how high the stakes could be.

"Shit," Croc said. There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Anyway, I thought I saw which direction it had been stretched from. Let's head west."

"You know there's an ocean there, don't you?"

“Hope you brought your bikini."

“Silly Croc," Anya said, "I always swim naked." She walked off at a brisk pace.

Croc stared after her.

"She's a devilish woman."

Johan clapped him on the shoulder.

“Welcome to our world."

"Man, the slums around here have gone straight to hell," Tarloh said as they scratched another possible new home off the list.

"I can't believe I said that and was actually surprised."

Talia and Shield had convinced the big man that he needed to get out and get some fresh air, so he had gone “house shopping" with them.

They were trying to keep with Red's wishes of not removing themselves too far from the people they were trying to protect, but they hadn't found anything with the infrastructure needed to set up shop. They'd have to reroute power and water and keep both sets of tampering hidden.

“Maybe we SHOULD stay in the Den," he muttered.

"No, we need to get out," Talia reminded him.

“We've been over this.