"What now?" Alex asked, his face scrunching into an unconvinced grimace.
The Fox opened his mouth to talk, but before placing a word, his head snapped up toward the sky, where a cloud as dark as the ocean's depths had formed.
Streaking within that cloud were flashes of light, some white, some blue, and before long, a single bolt of lightning crashed to the ground not far from Alexander's group, kicking up a cloud of dust and dirt as a person came tumbling out of it.
Tumbling a bit before stopping on a rock with an "Oof!" audible to everyone present, a dirt-covered Liu Yan rose to his feet, dusting his clothes and looking at Alexander with a wry smile.
"What an entrance, right?" he joked with a nervous chuckle.
***