Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hallownest faded an uncountable number of years ago. That was for certain.

The inhabitants who were around when Mika had been there are all long gone, even those believed to be immortal. Ages passed and Kingdoms fell. Caps and Shells all fell to dust, but there was no-one left to readjust.

All that stood now was a vast desert, no sign of anything that might’ve been.

But it was not barren, that was certain.

Strange antlion-esque bugs roamed, hunting and gathering what they could. Moths had all but vanished and all that was left was sand, stone, and sandstone.

Now, tunnels carved by the bugfolk did go down into the depths of the desert, and ruins were discovered, but the main thing that was still intact was a well.

The rune she’d carved as an anchor to this world was buried deep, almost too deep to activate.

The key being almost.

As it was made to do, the rune suddenly flared to life, and a gateway opened.

The bright light from it filled an ancient chamber, one barely held together by traces of magic.

A golden cocoon shook in the center of this sanctum before splitting open to reveal the world’s oldest living being.

Mika hadn’t used her vocal chords in so long, she could only make a foul rasping noise when she tried to speak. This was followed by a very loud cough.

“...And I’m finally awake. This is new.” She rubbed her eyes and looked around the room.

“Jesus, this place is falling apart! Time to go.” She spotted the portal and hopped through.

The air felt divine.

A whole new world was laid out in front of her, but only for so long.

All kinds of strange folk were in this park, only a small portion being human.

“What in Kluex’s name is this?” A strange feathered being made the choice to approach.

“Umm, hello? Sorry, been asleep for an unknown amount of time?” Mika examined the bird person with great curiosity.

“This is Earth, homeworld of the human race.”

“Oh, Earth! Looks very different to when I last saw it. There weren't any flying cars.. Last time.. I. THERE’S FLYING CARS!?” Mika stumbled back in shock.

A human laughed nearby and ran over to explain.

“There’s been flying cars for decades! How long have you been away from earth?”

“Alright, so the last time I was here was… 2024? That sounds about right-”

“2024? That’s thousands of years ago! It’s currently 4078.”

“Oh god, I’ve been asleep that long? I really need to set an alarm clock.”

“That’s not a very amusing joke, Saturnian. I thought your kind was often more kind-hearted.” A fishlike person wandered over slowly, dressed in a kimono.

“Might I ask what’s a Saturnian? I’ve not heard of that before.”

“Ignore him, he’s always overanalyzing stuff. I was heading to the Protectorate graduation ceremony shortly, do you want to come?” The human kindly extended a hand, and Mika took it.

“There we go… wait, you’ve got four arms? That’s so cool! Think of how many dogs or cats you could cuddle at once!”

“I… may have misjudged. You’re not a saturnian, nor any of the other species from their homeworld. Just what are you?”

“It might take more than the hour that Earth has left, but I can simplify it. I’m the reincarnation of a person who died protecting their friends, and through many other antics since then, I became both immortal and a god.”

“That raised more questions than answers, but the protectorate is always welcoming to those who are kind and accept its laws.”

“Is it a dictatorship?”

“What? No! The Miniknog is. The Protectorate’s much nicer, trying to unite the universe instead of controlling it.”

“Oh, cool.” Mika looked around herself once again, the sun shining brightly as beautiful towers rose up into the sky.

Mika still didn’t understand how everyone was so accepting of her, but she guess living with aliens makes one’s views on everything change a lot.

“So, are you really not a Saturnian?” The Human went on to ask her.

“No. I still don’t know who they are! Can you explain?”

“Oh, the saturnians are one of many different races the Protectorate has discovered! There’s also species such as the Arachne, Florans, Apex and Avali. You’ve already met an Avian and a Hylotl, just wait until you meet a Novakid! Great fun to be around. You also talked about the end of the world? You’re joking about that, right?”

“God I wish I was. Buried deep under that field there is a rune I carved into a rock with the order to create a portal from where I was to that exact location exactly one hour before the end of the world. I think I know exactly when it’ll happen, too.”

“D- do you know what will end the Earth?” The Human looked up at her with fear in their eyes.

“I do not. I was hoping I could help prevent the end of the world, but I don’t know what it’ll be. I can only pray most of the people here will get out in time. I recommend getting off this planet at your first opportunity.” They reached the entrance to the Protectorate Academy.

“Can’t I tell anyone about this?”

“I want to, but we can’t. Nobody would believe us.” The pair went up a lift and took a few different turns one out and found a room full of people, all different kinds. There were robots, too!”

“So do I just enjoy the time left?” The poor soul was shaking violently and crying like a river.
“Simply enough, yes.” Mika rested a hand on their shoulder empathetically.

They sat down, and waited.

A human with mismatched eye colours walked up to the podium in the center of the room, before raising a hand to silence the crowd.

The lights dimmed, and a single spotlight shone on the figure.

“Before we start, may I ask that all lights in the crowd be turned off?” The person in question looked directly at Mika.

“Sun goddess, sorry. Can’t turn off my light!”

They looked at Mika with a confused look, then turned to welcome a particular individual from the other side of the room.

“You just got stared down by Leda Portia, and didn’t back down? Are you clueless? She’ll rip into you at the end of the graduation ceremony.”

“There might not be an end. I pray we get out of this alive. Well, you do.” She looked the human in the eyes before they turned back to listen to the speech.

“My fellow protectors… Today is the day we come together to witness the protectorate grow.”

“For over 500 years we have stood proud here on earth, drawing together races of all kinds in the name of peace.”

Mika felt something. A kind of tingly sensation, like something was about to happen.

“Our task: to protect our fellow beings; to support, house, and educate those that seek our aid, and to foster accord between those that aspire to it.”

There it was again.

“Hey, I think this is it.”

“Is what?”

“Today, in the name of peace, we welcome our newest compatriots, and present them each with our greatest tool…”

“The end.” Mika felt something stirring violently below them.

“...The Matter Manipulator.” Leda Portia finished her speech as an explosion sounded somewhere far below them.

“Do we run?” The Human was tense and ready to spring into action.

“Yep.” Mika got up and the Human followed.

But the room started to violently shake, knocking them both over.

“Huh? What was that?” Leda looked around to see what was making the commotion, then-

BOOM.

Huge tentacles burst into the room, ripping through the seated people as another rose up and grabbed the Grand Protector and rose them into the air.

“You, Graduate! Take the Manipulator and run! Get to safety!” She managed to shout at the protectorate coming up to the stage before she was dragged into the floor, never to be seen again.

Mika helped the human up and checked for any wounds.

“What happened!?” They looked around and tried not to vomit. Bodies were everywhere, thankfully all in one piece.

“No time to explain! We gotta go, NOW!” Mika dragged them with her.

She ran to the graduate, and learned there was a ship ahead they could use to escape the planet.

“Got it, let’s move!” The three ran in the direction of the landing bay.

The ceiling had collapsed, making a roadblock that’d seal them in this tomb if they didn’t shift it right this second.

“I’ve got a Matter Manipulator. Let me do this.” the graduate stepped forwards and raised the U-shaped tool.

A small blue laser shone out the end of it, highlighting the ground in blue before breaking it down into easily movable packages.

“That’s too slow, let me!” Mika charged up her magic, only for it to fail her.

“Never mind, I’m out of soul. Lead the way, graduate.”

they looked at her with disappointment, but carried on.

Once the debris was cleared, they could move on.

“Flooded. We need another way round-”

“Roof hatch!” Mika pointed up and raced up the ladder, followed by the two humans.

A small voice suddenly piped up from the graduate, catching Mika’s attention.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the Ship-Based Artificial Intelligence Lattice, or S.A.I.L for short. Let’s keep moving.”

“Copy that, captain.” Mika chose to ignore the hylotl laying on the ground motionless.

They got past the flooded room and found themselves in another blocked corridor.

“This destruction’s immeasurable! What do we do?” The first human looked to Mika for guidance.

“...”

“What do we do!?”

“We cannot do anything.” Mika felt tears starting to run down her face.

“Come on, we can mourn later. Time to leave!” The graduate had finally cleared the debris and they got to a docking bay.

There’s a tentacle over there blocking the way. Anyone got a weapon?”

“No.”

“Nope. Check that box over there, perhaps?” Mika noticed a techy chest with a hazard strip on it.

Inside was a gun shaped like the Matter Manipulator and a sword in the same design, both badly damaged.

“It isn’t much, but it’ll do.” the graduate turned to the tentacle was, or where it would’ve been had Mika not already reduced it to a fine paste.

“Ship’s just ahead. We’re nearly out of this mess!” The three hopped on board and instantly shot off, a gargantuan tentacle crushing the building they’d just been standing in.

The graduate was behind the ship’s wheel, steering the spacecraft at a horrid angle to the stars above, whilst the other two barely managed to hang on to the doorway near the back of the ship.

Mika could even see other ships which couldn’t handle the strain of such a departure and exploded not far from the ground.

They were some of the few survivors.

As the ship flew through space to an unknown location, the trio felt the fatigue of such a rush hit them and sent the lot of them unconscious.

As the battered ship drifted through the cosmic ocean, who knew where they’d end up?

Chapter Text

After the mad dash to escape Earth, the ship was left in tatters. Two humans and a Goddess were lying unconscious on board, the quiet beeping of a signal trying its best to wake at least one of them.

Eventually the graduate woke up, a headache worse than any hangover they’d ever had ringing their skull like a bell in a wrestling match. Getting up to see the other two on the ship with her, she knelt down and shook Mika awake before moving onto the other human.

“Gods, My head… What- What happened?” Mika shook her head and got up, making herself glow so that the others could see.

“Well, we escaped all right, but where exactly is the hard part to guess.” The Protector tried to open a locker, but the thing beeped and wouldn’t open, static racing across the inbuilt screen.

“Everything’s currently down, I’d guess the S.A.I.L’s gone- yes, it has. Give me a moment.” The Protector walked over to a terminal with a scrambled humanoid figure on the screen before punching in a few different orders and the ship flared to life.

The other human jerked awake and sat bolt upright, processing what just happened.

“Where are we now, Mika?”
“That’s the Saturnian’s name?”

“I’m not a Saturnian! I am much older.”

“By how much?” The Protector challenged.

“Well, I was born in 2003, died in 2020, reincarnated a couple times, the second time after killing the embodiment of darkness, then going back 1500 years so that’s the starting point. Going on that, I should be around… 3570? Yeah, I was asleep for the larger portion of that.”

“I struggle to believe you, but I’m all out of shock right now. Earth’s been destroyed by tentacles, and the people I once knew are all gone. I’ll be taking a long time to mourn once this is all over, no doubt.”

“Hey guys, I don’t want to be the guy who is annoying and all, but we should introduce ourselves. I’m Adam!”

“Eve, the latest and last graduate of the Protectorate academy.”

“Mika, Goddess of Dreams.”

“Hold on, don’t Saturnians only live up to 60?”

“I have no idea. I’ve not met a real one yet.”

“I say we check S.A.I.L’s database for answers.” Eve held her wrist to her face and spoke to it, a small voice chiming out of it moments later.

“ Saturnians Originate from a planet in the Graxis Wake, home to the largest sky city, Solalei. Part of the planet is home to large deserts, one in particular believed to hold ancient ruins of a long-forgotten underground kingdom. ”

“An underground kingdom? Sounds like Hallownest. Do you have any pictures?”

“We’ve got a few.” Eve tapped a few buttons and a holographic picture appeared, showing different pieces of architecture half buried or fully excavated out of the masses of sandstone that encased them.
“My god…” Mika felt her antennae droop.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Adam noticed her expression, one almost fearful.

“I recognise these buildings. This was a place called Dirtmouth, and those pillars there are from an archway that led to a place called the Temple of the Black Egg. I must’ve been buried in my chamber not far from that place, in the Crystal Peak.”

“Crystal Peak? Can you explain?”

“It was a mountain on which my people called home. I’d bet they’re the ancestors of the Saturnians, so that makes me…”

“A precursor to them? You are the ancestor to their race! Besides, Modern Saturnians only have one pair of arms.” Adam Held out one of Mika’s lower arms and marvelled at the perfect chitin.

“I don’t want to disrupt your love-making, but we should go find food, there’s some stuff here, but it’s only going to last us so long, plus it’s disgusting. Let’s get moving.” in a bright flash of light, Eve had vanished.

“Woah, what was that!?” Mika fell back in shock.

“That’s teleporting! It’s quite the rush.” Adam suddenly vanished the same way.

Mika was left dumbfounded on the ship still, thinking about what to do. She had her own way of teleporting, right?
Yes, portals!

Mika focused any soul she had from the escape earlier and channelled it into a portal to the surface of the planet.

A portal opened up for her, and she hopped through.

It wasn’t what she expected from an alien world.

Exiting the portal, Mika found herself standing on some ancient stone ruins. Judging by what she could see, they were pretty common here. Oh look, there’s Adam and Eve!

When she flew close enough to hear them, she noticed the pair arguing about… copper?

“I said, it’s a valuable conductor, not for sword-making!”

“Come on, it's tradition! We humans make weapons out of the first hardy thing we find!”

“Then wait until we get some iron. Copper’s more valuable later, anyway.”

“Hello humans! I have arrived.”
“Funny, I didn’t see you take the teleporter.” Eve hadn’t spotted the bright light teleporting usually made.”

“I used one of my portals instead. Needs a lot of soul, though. That stuff comes from living creatures though, and I’m not seeing any soul totems or hot springs here I can use.”

“Ah, well at least it’s daytime. That gives us a chance to make shelter.”
“Shelter? Good idea. What resources do we have?”
“Timber from local trees, stone from underground or surface deposits, and we might be able to renovate an old tower to use as a starting point. Get to it!” Eve brought out her matter manipulator and focused it on a patch of stone whilst Mika searched for some trees.

Adam located a relatively safe ruin to fix up and waited for his next order.

Eve was the first to return, a substantial amount of stone gathered for use.

Mika arrived a fair bit later, dragging a silk sack overloaded with wood logs.

“Sorry for the wait, I had to get creative in getting these back.”

“Where did you get a giant bag?

“I wove it.”

“I don’t remember you getting any cotton on the way here.”

“Hold on, there’s cotton out here? I love that stuff! It’s delicious.”
“Wait a minute, it’s inedible. You can’t eat it!” Adam laughed at the goofy bug person he’d made friends with.

“I’m a goddess, I do what I want! And if that's to eat cotton or build shelter, I’ll do it!”

“When you’re finished, can we get some structural supports in here? I don’t want to be flattened and the dirt floor isn't nice to sleep on.”

“Fair point.”

It took them a fair chunk of the day, but a decent shelter had been set up, with plenty room for the three of them.

“Good, now we need lighting before any creatures come out to hunt us, the universe is vast, and dangers come aplenty. And we don’t have any sheets for beds… great. Did anyone gather some cotton or silk?”

“I can produce silk, that’s covered by me.”

“Oh thank goodness for that.” Eve breathed a sigh of relief.

Door on the front, Windows on the walls, roof on the top. Mika chose a bedroom in the tower, whilst Adam and Eve had separate rooms on the first floor.

Mika had a lot of trouble sleeping, and instead chose to wait out the night on the balcony.

“The stars are beautiful here. No pollution as far as I know.” Mika sighed happily, her glow brightening slightly.

But that was a rather big oversight on her behalf, as anything out to catch  a meal now had a feast glowing bright and ripe for the taking.

Her antennae prickled at the sound of hooves and claws tearing at the ground, all making a beeline for her. The sound of flapping wings was worrying, too!

Mika prepared herself for something to try and fight her just in time as a weird birdlike beast swooped at her, unusually large beak open wide and full of… teeth?

Instinctively, Mika grabbed it and sent it as far as she could with a single throw before heading back inside and trying again to sleep.

Fortunately for her it worked, and the trio slept through the first night in their adventure.

Chapter Text

When morning came around, the trio planned on what to do next.

All three of them wanted revenge for what the creature that destroyed earth had done.

Other than that, food was high up on the list along with getting the ship repaired.

“Other than that, what should we do?”

“Well, S.A.I.L had the brilliant choice of notifying me in the middle of the night about an archaic energy source on this planet. I’m not pleased with the timing, but it was interesting news. I say we follow it.” Eve sighed.

“It’s as good as we’ll get for a while! Let’s find this thing!” Adam cheered and Mika joined him.

They set off without hesitation, although Eve did require dragging for a bit, only making the choice to follow after realising Mika could carry her with ease.

They ran in the direction S.A.I.L had told them to go and sure enough, a huge gateway stood alone on a huge platform, strangely pristine for something so old.

“So we’re here. Is there anything we do now?”

“Find out what this thing runs on- S.A.I.L, what is it now!?” Eve jumped as a loud beeping chimed from the watch on her wrist.

“What’s the fancy thingamajig saying?” Mika watched the small hologram pop up and start talking to the protector.

“That there’s a message coming through the thing and it wants to relay it to us. Alright then, let it through.”

A new hologram that was almost entirely obscured by static started talking, congratulating Eve on finding an ancient gateway and that she’ll need to gather core fragments to power the thing.

“So there you go, that’s our task. S.A.I.L also says we can find them near the core of the planet, but that’ll take a long time to get to. The other method is to find where someone’s mined before, which is much faster but will likely be more dangerous if they’re not willing to share.”

“So we need to find a mine? I can do that.” Mika flared her wings and shot up into the sky before stopping to survey the surrounding landscape.

Apart from lots of ruins, there was something that caught her eye. A clearing next to an oddly shaped hill, with someone wandering outside next to a campsite.

She flew back down and told the group about her findings.

After a short run, the trio found the campsite and the lone traveller who was wandering around.

They saw the two humans and Mika and immediately ran over to see the moth.

“Wait, what are you?” The traveller went up to Mika with starry eyes.

“Woah, those are really on there!” they tried to reach out to her antennae, but Mika stepped back.

“Don’t touch them! My antennae are extremely sensitive.” She shielded them with her upper arms and glared at the traveller.

“I’m sorry! I haven’t seen a Saturnian before.”

“How many times will I have to tell people that I’m not a Saturnian! I was around before them!” She hissed.

“Then what are you?”

Mika was left without words.

“I… I don’t know.”

Adam and Eve both turned to her, confused that she didn’t know what she was.”

“Do you have any way to describe yourself?”

“Well I’m part bug, part moth at that, and I was human before that.”

“Did you get put through some sadistic Miniknog experiment? They’re behind some atrocities when it comes to ‘science’.”

“No, I’ve not heard of them before. I was lying on the cold hard concrete whilst I bled out. My friends had been tricked by someone to go down that route and I ended up fighting to the death trying to get them out of there. I Was successful, but now without losing my own life. I am practically a zombie, when I think about it. Being reborn is weird.”

“Sounds like a horrible way to go about it, but what you are now sounds really cool! Immortality, magic and the natural ability to create portals! That’s so cool!” Adam threw his hands in the air.

“Immortality is a curse, not a blessing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Being alive for this long is torture, it’s my family that made life worth living. My first clutch are all dead now, no doubt. I just hope my second clutch has been able to stand the test of time.”

The humans stood there for a minute, stunned by what Mika said. She had a family, but where are they?

“You had a family?”
“Had, or have? I don’t know. If they’re out there, they likely got captured and shipped off or made it out themselves. Markoth might’ve been able to blend in with the crowds, but if Saturnians have a short lifespan, he’d stick out like a mountain of fire. Gaia and Mael are either still on the planet Hallownest was built on or got off that barren rock somehow, and Solace? Jumping through time is a habit of his.”

Eve was talking with Mika for a while after that, mostly apologising for being inconsiderate even though she’d not been like that in the slightest.

A large bat with an even larger tongue flew out of the mine and then towards them after noticing the bright glow of Mika.

“Look out!” Adam shouted to Mika, prompting her to turn and grab the thing with all her arms.

“What the hell is this!?” Mika held it as far as she could, not wanting any of that saliva to land on her as it slobbered and snarled at her.

“That’s a batong, there’s a lot of them in the mine. You should probably kill it before any others come this way.” The Traveller quickly looked the other way as Mika disposed of the weird bat.

“Alright, if there’s more of those down there, what else do we have to worry about?”

“The place was a mine for core fragments, miners back in the day used to use them in the production of explosives, due to how volatile the things are. It’s overrun with monsters now, with the largest room in there being a nest for Poptops. I’d recommend avoiding that place, unless you want to find out what happens when a poptop eats too many core fragments. Do you need them for something?”
“Yes we do. There’s an ancient gateway on this island, and I intend to power it back up to find help on the other side.” Eve stepped forward.

“If you’re going down there, might I recommend some armour? There isn’t anything particularly useful on this planet besides iron. Have you been gathering any?”
“I have. Not much but it’ll make a decent number of bars. We’ll need to smelt the ore first. Anyone have a campfire and mud?”

At a record pace, Eve had set up a furnace and was melting down the ore into decently sized bars.

Adam was about to be forced into making cloth, but Mika stepped in with her weaving skills and provided far better materials for them to use in armour.

With a pair of suits for the two humans, the trio prepared to go spelunking.

“Before we head down, any last words?”

“It’ll feel good to be underground again!” Mika leapt down into the depths before screeching at something while Adam and Eve jumped down behind her.

They found Mika with a glowing blade and shield facing off against a few monsters. There was a Snaunt, One Nutmidge and three more Batongs.

“I should’ve warned you not to go in head-first!” Eve ran over and threw a spear from the bunch she’d found in a crate back at the camp.

When it connected with a Batong, the thing died with a screech and made the other two focus on her instead and gave Mika the space to breathe that she needed.

In a flash of golden light, the Nutmidge had been split cleanly in two, not even allowing the Nutmidgelings inside a chance to burst out.

Without cover, the Snaunt could only spit acid so much before the trio took it down.

“Great! Now what’s next?”

“Search any of the storage crates, light up the place and find those core fragments!” Eve stabbed a torch into the wall and carried on deeper into the mines.

They soon came across a huge wooden structure after dealing with a gleap, a standing torch still burning in front of it.

“Does anyone else hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The huge footsteps on the other side of that wall.”

“Nope, your antennae work much better than our ears.” Adam reloaded the small gun he’d fished out of a crate.

“Are we ready?” Mika grabbed the door’s handle.

“Time to take a life.” Eve’s gaze darkened for a moment.

Mika twisted the handle and threw the door open to find… Another door?

“Oh, double wall.” Adam chuckled lightly as Mika opened the next door.

She got it right this time as it led out into a massive room full of plants laid out like a nest, and a huge shadow coming towards them, only revealing its true form when passing by a torch.

“Woah, that’s a huge one!”

“Adult Poptop, watch out for the claws and children!” Eve took a defensive position on some crates piled up in the room and Adam ran around like a headless chicken.

Mika was caught off guard by what the protector had said and was left as an open target.

She wasn’t willing to hurt a creature that was only trying to raise its young and protect them.

Of course that was until it swatted her effortlessly and she collided with a wall, making mincemeat of her wings.

“MIKA! Hang in there!” Eve hurled a hunting spear at the beast to draw its attention and shouted at Adam to help Mika.

He brought out some bandages to tend to Mika’s wounds, only for her to get up with blazing eyes and latch onto the back of the beast in one single leap.

She dug her hands into its hide, grabbing hold of whatever was in there and pulling it out.

Bones and organs were torn out of the beast’s back and it fell to the floor instantly, dead.

Eve turned away and started retching, Adam sat there in shock.

“What… Was.. that…” He managed to say, flinching back as Mika turned to him.

“My apologies, I lost it for a second there. What happened?” She then noticed the blood smearing her white fluff and the missing wings.

“JESUS CHRIST!” She screamed upon seeing the giant corpse just behind her with half a spine and ribcage hanging out the back of it.

“Wh-what did you d-do?” Eve’s normally stoic expression was replaced by horror and pure fear.
“I must’ve had a flashback to something in the past, likely when I died trying to save my homeworld. A beast called the Shade Lord tried to consume everything and I fought it to the death, killing it just before passing on.”

“How are you still here, then!?” She screamed at Mika who squeaked in distress.

“I don’t fully know! It’s been such a long time that a lot of stuff has gone completely from my memory! I don’t even know if I want to remember half of it…” She curled in on herself before noticing a glow coming from what was likely the beast’s stomach.

Using a claw, she split it open to find a pile of core fragments inside.

“...At least we have the fragments needed…” She grabbed them and put them in a bag she’d picked up earlier.

It was the most horrible silence for what felt like forever after that. Eve was shaking, Adam had tried and failed to calm her down and told Mika to go and find some place to clean off.

After a couple hours had passed, Eve had regained her sanity and swiftly left the mine to see the traveller sitting on a chair with a look of utter shock.

“I guess Mika went through here?”

“That… person? Covered in blood, right? What did they do!?” They collapsed further into the folding chair.

“She got swatted by an adult Poptop and it didn’t go well for the creature after that.”

“I see.”

“Did you see which way they went? I’d like to find them. Mika said she’d look for a place to clean up, so where’s the nearest body of water? I don’t think hygiene’s the first thing on her mind after that.”

“Well there’s a small bridge over a river not far from here, I’d suggest looking there.”
“Thanks! Come on Eve, let’s find this deranged and self-proclaimed goddess.” Adam marched off with Eve following behind him.

The traveller was right about where to look for Mika, as they found her on the edge of the river bank, clean of blood.

Her antennae perked back up as she looked back to see the two she’d come here with and got up to say hello.

“You guys got out alright? That's good. Sorry for the outburst earlier, although I don’t think an apology would make it up to you after that.”

“You acted how any animal would when trying to survive, I can understand that enough, but it was still brutal beyond anything I’ve ever seen, apart from back on-” Eve stopped and tears pooled in the corners of her eyes.

“You okay there? Losing earth was hard on all of us, you don’t need to pretend it hasn’t caused you any grief.” Mika got up and held out her arms for a hug.

Eve hesitantly took up the offer and realised how soft their friend was.

“How..?”

“The fluff? It’s all in the soul, hun. Got blessed with a lot of things and being the softest thing this side of the galaxy’s one of them.” Mika gently rubbed the Graduate’s head, and let them cry all they wanted. Grief needed time to run its course.

“You know, Grief’s like an ocean, and we are the beaches. It’s at a low tide until we lose someone dear to us, then it will rise to a high tide and wash over us. Don’t stop it, though, that makes it worse. Once that initial flood passes, it will come back in waves, lessening each time. If it hurts, let it. We will all heal, no matter how long it may take.”

“Damn…” Adam whispered under his breath.

Eve stood there in Mika’s arms for a little while longer, until the sun started to set.

“I don’t want to bother you guys, but it’s getting dark and I don’t have any light sources. Can we get back to the house?”
“Oh gods, it has gotten dark!” Mika let Eve go and they ran back, chasing the sun back to their home.

Turns out the sun sets a lot faster than anyone expected.

It didn’t take long before they were getting swarmed by beasts trying to make a meal out of the group.

“It’s going to take too long to get back to the house! We need another plan!” Adam dodged a swooping beast and blocked it with a shield when it tried to bite him.

“I know! Let’s power up that old portal and jump through! It’s over there- look!” Mika pointed to the light it gave off, the pillars around it shining like ancient lampposts.
“She’s right, time to leave this planet!” Eve took the lead with Adam in the middle and Mika at the back.

She got to the terminal first and Mika threw her bag of core fragments over to the protector.

It hit the floor at Eve’s feet and the contents spilled out which she quickly gathered them up and shoved them into a hatch on the old tech.

The gate lit up and a big blue portal formed just out of reach.

“Damn it! It’s too high to jump!” Eve tried her best but failed to reach it.

Mika noticed and Picked up Adam as he was being too slow for her liking.

Upon reaching the portal, she picked up Eve and threw the pair through it, leaving just her on the other side.

“Off one world and onto the next!” She waved the vicious beasts farewell and hopped through before they could reach her.

On the other side of the portal, it was far from what she’d expected.

“Can somebody tell me…” Mika was staring at something.

Adam and Eve looked up at her with confusion, not sure what she was looking at.

“...WHY THE HELL IS THERE A SHOP OUT IN SPACE!?” she pointed to a small shop titled ‘Infinity Express’.

“Oh, that’s a convenience store! I can get some cheese!” Adam cheered.

Things just kept getting stranger.

Chapter Text

Mika got up from where she’d been laying on Adam and Eve before helping them up and watching as Adam handed over some pixels to the store as he tried to get some cheese.

“So we just escaped a horde of ravenous monsters, and now we’re in space? How do we breathe here!?” Mika threw her hands up in frustration.

“If I remember correctly, some scientist tried an experiment on the void of space and kind of stopped it from instantly killing you. No idea how it works but it does. Best not to think about it too much. Come, the signal from earlier has got to be nearby.” Eve and Mika calmly made their way to the building before them.

The front door opened up automatically and revealed a myriad of different characters all wandering around and doing their own things.

“What is this place?” Mika looked around and admired her surroundings as Eve watched the compass-esque thing that pointed towards something.

“This is the outpost, if I’m not mistaken. A place which most people can freely roam and do as they wish. There’s a lot of shops here that I’d recommend browsing if you’ve got the pixels. We might find something useful!”

“Oh, I haven’t got any pixels, though. What should I do?”

“I’d say that is for you to decide. I’m going to go find this signal, you can do as you wish.”

“Alrighty, I’ll have a look around.” Mika and Eve went their separate ways with the goddess making a beeline to the shop with a tree growing out of it.

“Welcome to Terramart! How can floran help you?” a peculiar person was running the small shop.

“Oh hello, can I ask what you sell?”

“We have sseedss, eggss and other sstuff! Iss there anything you like?” The floran handed Mika a list of what they sold alongside how much it cost.

“I haven’t got many of these pixels, but I can afford those… living roots? They look tasty.”

“Floran advissess not to eat, but will still sell to you.” Mika handed over 150 pixels and the shopkeeper gave her three bundles of green vines, all moving slightly.

“Take care!” Mika waved as she carried on looking around.

‘Sstrange thing.’ the floran thought as they watched Mika leave. She could've sworn that the customer had been eyeing her foliage hungrily.

As Mika went further into the outpost, she noticed a way into the bowels of the building.

Hopping down, she noticed that there was an empty stall that looked like it’d held a lot of weapons.

There was nothing to note beside a leak in a pipe slowly filling the room, so she went on further.

Passing by a burning barrel and a bag of trash, Mika found a way down deeper.

She landed in a small bar, where there was a-

“Howdy. Ya lookin’ to get a drink?”

“You’re a talking… penguin? Is the future really this crazy?”

“What? Never seen one of us before? There’d be more of my kind here, but the regulars are on the run from Dreadwing and his gang of crooks. Could you help me out? If you want, I’ll send you right to him!”

“Wait, will that require teleporting? I don’t seem to mix with that tech too well. I should get one of my new friends to help.”

“Ya can’t teleport? You’re not pulling my flipper, are you?”

“If you want the truth, I’ll happily tell you.”

“I’m a barkeep, we get to know a few things. Come on, try me.”

“Alright, don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

After sitting down and telling the barkeeper most of her life’s story, the penguin looked like he was about to drop the glass he was cleaning.
“Jesus, you’re supposed to be a god, right? And the gods from where you come from cannot die, but instead fade from a lack of worship? Then, where are the others?”

“That’s on the list of things to do. One is to find my homeworld, the others are to find my family and help out these kind folk who helped me escape Earth’s destruction, whatever it may be they need my help with. But if you’ve got something else to help me find the place, I’ll see what I can do, alright? Oh, a live video of a place works too.”

“I should have the means to get that, give me a moment.” The barkeeper hopped off a large stool he needed to be level with the bar, and rifled through a cabinet before bringing out a small screen connected to some odd gadgets.

“Here we go, just need to see if this old thing still works.” The penguin grabbed a screwdriver that was taped to the machine and twiddled with a few different screws and pressed something out of her view.

The machine clunked and whirred for a moment, almost forming a picture of a snowy landscape with something in the sky before it sparked and exploded, ripping the old gadget to shreds.

“God damn it, There goes the last of the first holoprojectors. Those things were reliable once, now all they’re worth is a few pixels in the scrapyard. Can you take it there for me? I’ll get you one drink on the house.”

“Sure, I can do that. Where is it?”

“Just head up to the surface from the right. You can’t miss it. Look for a guy named Penguin Pete and tell him it's from me.”

“Gotcha.” Mika picked up the remains of the machine with her four arms and set off.

‘Four arms? That’s gotta be useful.’ The barkeeper watched Mika leave. Of all the people and penguins he’d seen visit the bar, not one had more than two arms.

Back on the move, Mika took the path the penguin told her to and passed by what looked like a room full of machine parts.

A way up was above her, so she jumped up and noticed a man surrounded by what looked like ship parts and a weird robot that looked like a futuristic post box.

“Are you Penguin Pete?”

“The one and only. Got a ship that needs workin’ on?” The man spoke with a gruff tone.

“The barkeeper down below asked me to hand you this for a few pixels. Said he’d give me a free drink if I did.”

“That’s awfully nice of him. Here, that old thing isn't worth much but I’ll throw in a little extra for him.” Pete handed her a sack of pixels.

“I still don’t know what these are, but if they’re money, that’s all I need to know. Thanks for this!” She waved and left the kind man to his business.

Upon returning to the penguin at the bar, Mika handed him the pixels and he thanked her for it.

“Here, there’s a few different things I’ve got down here. From Cyanider to Ultimate juice, what would you like?”

Mika looked at the list for a while, looking at the oculemon suspiciously before deciding to have the sweet punch.

“Sweet punch? That’s an acquired taste. I personally prefer something like grape juice for a normal drink, but down here where the hours are long, a flat white coffee’s my number 1 choice.”

“I don’t recognise much of the ingredients on this list, so I’m going with whatever I recognise. What the hell even is a pussplum? Sounds vile.”

“It probably is, but some do claim it’s delicious. The place it grows is worse than the fruit itself!”

“Do I want to know?”

“Ya really don’t.”

“Got it.” Mika’s antennae twitched as she heard Eve’s voice up above.

“Hear something?” The Bartender watched her.

“Eve’s back, gotta go!” She waved farewell and climbed back to the surface.

She hopped out and swiftly spotted Eve and Adam arguing over something.

“Hello you two! What’s the argument for?”

“Something negligible. Adam’s trying to tell me that Avesmingos don’t change flavour.”

“But they don’t! It’s just a myth.”

“Yet another thing I’ve never heard of before. What is it exactly?”
“It’s a fruit that can change flavours to almost anything. The better flavours come out when it’s ripe.”

“I see. Where does it grow?”

“Jungles, often found on planets with high levels of radioactivity.”

There was a deafening silence after that. Mika was left staring at Eve with Adam taking the hint and staying quiet.

“They. Grow. On. Planets. Which. Are. Radioactive.” Mika stood rigid in disbelief that Eve would consider eating something like that.

“They do. Is there something wrong?”

“I’m sorry, are people immune to radiation poisoning in the future or something!?” She threw all four hands in the air and shouted at Eve, who then remembered how old this person in front of her was.

“We have measures to prevent it, yes, but we’re not immune to radiation. The Avians tolerate it just fine, though. They even prefer planets with it! Most Avesmingo farms are run by them as such. I’ll have to sit you down and educate you on a lot of things once we’re done here, which reminds me. I found out who sent the signals.”

“Oh, who was it?”

“Esther Bright, Former Grand Protector.”

“She’s ALIVE?!” Adam lost it as Eve quietly laughed at his reaction.

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mika sighed.

“Do you remember the person who led the graduation ceremony?”

“I do. Was Esther the one before?”

“Exactly. She resigned to study something she discovered that involves the destruction of earth and what was behind it!”

“We know who did it?”

“Not who, but what. It’s a massive creature, one ‘born of hatred’ that couldn’t stand any form of life and tried to destroy it. Actually, I should start from the beginning. Shall we return to the ship?”

“Agreed.”

And thus, Eve told them everything.

An extremely long time ago, there was a force, or being, known as the cultivator. Its goal was to maintain balance in the universe. And so it was for aeons.

But such peace proved finite. A being arose, one of hate and destruction. It was the Ruin.

The Ruin could not abide life in any form, and sought to blot out all traces of it.

It would have succeeded, if not for the sacrifice of the cultivator.

The Cultivator fought back against the Ruin, and succeeded in sealing it away. But this did not go without a price.

The Cultivator had used all of its energy in the battle, but before it dissipated it gifted six artefacts to the races that lived in this universe, which when united would open the way to the Ruin so it could be destroyed once and for all.

“And the defences are crumbling, the Ruin’s attempts to escape cost us Earth.”

“So that’s what destroyed our home!? We gotta get revenge!” Adam hissed

“I agree. I won’t sleep whilst this thing is still out there. Who knows how many more planets could be destroyed by the Ruin?”

“You’re right, Mika! Come on, where do we start?”

“We need to fix the ship, and Esther told me to go to the Shipyard’s Captain.”

“Oh I know that guy! I was over there earlier giving him some scrapped machine from the bartender at the outpost. I might be able to put in a good word?” Mika prepared to show them the way.

“We shouldn’t need it, he needs help with some business issues.”

“I wonder what’s the problem?” Adam asked the two of them.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Chapter Text

Back on the ship, they checked out S.A.I.L’s terminal and saw the coordinates for the lunar mining facility.

“We’ve got the best stuff we can get at the moment, right?” Adam looked at the description of the mission fearfully.

“We’ll be fine! It’s just a case of go see what’s wrong and get some Erchius crystals. Eve, could you do the honour?”

“On it.” In a flash of light, Adam and Eve were teleported to the mission’s location and Mika used the video feed they had to create a location for the portal she’d use.

Once over there, she marvelled at the sight.

It was the surface of a moon.

“Am I going to question how we can breathe out here?”

“It’s a big moon..?” Adam guessed.

“Whatever the reason is, be grateful. Look, the facility’s over there.”

The trio could hear a siren blaring inside, so they ran in to see what was wrong.

It took a little searching, but they couldn’t find anything. No sign of any humans, avians, or any other race.

“Found anything yet?”

“No, S.A.I.L Says that lockdown was instigated, and to find a breaker room so we can restore power. Where has everyone checked now?”

“I went to the right, found a bathroom and a locked door. Adam found the sleeping quarters and got that hat out of an unlocked locker.”

“It’s mine! I called dibs!”

“Glad to see that’s a phrase still used.” Mika was glad that some stuff was still understandable.

They found nothing else in the facility, until Mika noticed that there was a vent big enough for her to go through.

So up she went, through to the other side.

There was a pile of rubble there, though she didn’t think that was the cause of the lockdown.

Over the rubble was the breaker, so she eagerly gave it a flick and turned it back on.

On the other side of the room the doors opened up and she turned to meet the others.

Then out of nowhere-

SPLAT.

Some disgusting… thing, fell out of the hole above the rubble!

Mika shrieked in both shock and disgust which set the thing off.

It got up and with a goopy gaze raised its appendages at her before it shook violently.

Instinctively, Mika summoned a dreamshield to defend herself, and not a moment too soon.

A volled of pink sludge erupted from the thing’s ‘hands’ and was deflected by the shield.

When the attack failed, it blindly charged at her with no sense of self-preservation.

She swiftly cut the thing down and it dissolved into a pile of gunk.

Stepping over it, Mika could hear Eve scream and Adam shouting behind gunshots.

Mika shot towards them like a speeding bullet, locking on to one of the fleshbags that was attacking them and pulverising it with her bare claws as she raced past.

The other one fell over from the wind and burst when it hit the floor.

Once Mika had torn herself free from a set of metal stairs she’d collided with, she went to check on the others.

Eve had passed out on the floor, not being able to take the fear of these disgusting creatures.

“Adam, are you hurt?”

“Not doing too good, those things vomited on me and it burned!”

“Shite, do you need healing?”

“Medical attention would be most appreciated. Do you have any bandages?”

“Bandages? I’m literally a deity, we don’t do that here.” Mika raised her hands to Adam’s burn wounds and started to channel soul.

He was spooked by the sudden light coming off her, but it felt warm and kind, which he liked.

Not long afterwards, Adam’s burns had completely vanished, leaving him as good as when they got here.

“You healed me, can you wake Eve up? She’s stoic but has her limits, as you can see.”

“I’d say we leave her here, but it’s dangerous to go alone. On that note, I’d like you to take this.” Mika cast a dreamshield and gave it to Adam.

“This thing’s huge… but really light!? How strong is it?”

“Unload a clip into it and see what it does, I dare you.”

Adam looked at Mika with a suspicious gaze before pointing his gun at the shield and letting loose.

After the gun was empty, he looked at the shield in disbelief.

“Nothing?”

“That shield is forged through essence and soul.Ancient magic that I’m likely the last user of. It’s an honour to see my art wielded once more.”

“Thanks! This thing’s so cool!” Adam was distracted from the situation at hand for a moment before remembering where they were.

After that, Adam and Mika got to waking Eve up, which took a minute.

“What happened? I saw some abominations, then I blacked out.”

“We got attacked by said abominations. I recommend sticking with the group in case we get attacked again.”

“I understand. I don’t think close quarter combat is our best choice with these things.”

After everyone was prepared, they descended into the bowels of the facility, finding more abominations and… purple crystals?

“This is Erchius, no doubt. We don’t have the proper tools to extract it, so we’ll need to find some that already has been or tools to mine it.” Eve tried her best to avoid going too near it, the crystals gave her the creeps.

“Gotcha, any answers on what these creatures are?” Mika hoped they’d have some kind of answer.

“I think. S.A.I.L’S saying something.” Eve then looked at the band on her wrist and Mika could feel the horror creep onto Eve’s face.

“What’s the answer?” Adam watched as Eve slowly turned to them, more pale than anything Mika had seen for a very long time.

“They’re…”

“They’re what?”

“They’re human.” Eve managed to speak.

Everyone went completely silent. These things were- they were human. Something here was mutating people into abominations.

“You’re lying, right?” Mika hoped desperately that these things weren’t human.

“I’m not…” Eve looked to the next group of the mutants.

“There’s no way to turn them back, we must free them from this suffering.” Mika looked at the creatures with a sad gaze, one hiding an intense rage.

She put her hands out to the side and a soul nail formed in each of them.

“Come, let’s put an end to this.” Her glow darkened and she charged forward, Adam and Eve following closely behind.

The poor souls had no chance to respond as they were cut down and destroyed instantly. When the room was clear they opened the next door and found a living, healthy human!

And of course, more fleshy mutants.

Before they could react, though, the miner had blasted a large hole through the mutants.

They turned to shoot what was behind them, but stopped as soon as they saw the trio.

“So you’re the backup we get? I hope you know what you’re doing.” They huffed.

“Are you alright?” Mika flew over, still surprised that they didn’t even flinch.

“Could be better. We uncovered something that shouldn’t have been uncovered, and it destroyed everything down there. If you think you can take it on, You’ll need to get through those mutants. I saw what they were too. Damned Erchius Horror, sucked up my colleagues and spat out monsters.” The miner looked distant yet highly strung.

“Come on, we’d better get moving.” Mika flipped another switch and they went further down.

More mutants and lots of Erchius filled the place, and nothing much to note until they found another base, deep under the first.

Opening up the doors, they set off a violent gunfight.

On the other side of the building, there must’ve been a lot of mutants piled up, because the two miners inside had to desperately fight them off as the others joined in to help them.

There was no time for talking, they had to keep moving.

Well, they would have kept moving if Mika hadn’t detected something of importance above the building.

“Wait, there’s something up there.” Mika eyed the roof of the base.

“What? Are there more mutants?”

“No, something else. I think it’d be important.” She jumped up and crawled through the tight space.

On the other side, she found a tunnel directly upwards, and a lever at the top.

Without hesitating, she gave it a tug and returned to the group.

“What was up there?”

“Some lever. I think it’ll be important in the future.” Mika knew it was important, she was sure of it.

“Whatever it does, let’s keep moving.”

They turned to keep moving, but a squelching tide raced towards them, dozens of mutants all ready to kill.

“There’s too many, we’ll be overrun!” Eve raised her gun and pointed it at the horde.

“Never say we’ll be overrun. Remember, I’m a goddess. Watch this.” Mika charged up something as they watched.

She let out a solid beam of light into the cave, engulfing everything in a blinding light as the swarm evaporated as they watched.

When the beam faded, all that was left was charred rock and foundations.

“See?”

“Yep, got it. Of course you can shoot lasers.”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’s fun!” Mika laughed.

“Let’s keep moving, we can’t just wait around whilst more people die!” Eve shouted at the two of them.

A couple mutants later, they found another base, also populated by miners.

After killing the mutants and a short conversation later, they discovered that the thing can’t normally be damaged, but there’s a convenient mining laser underneath the beast that can pierce the thing’s shell.

Thanking them for the info, the trio went further down still.

Mika noticed Eve looking at her wrist thing again and asked her what was going on.

“S.A.I.L’s just rambling on about morts and peril. It's nothing to bother us down here.”
“Alright. Doesn’t sound very good, though.”

“It usually isn’t.”

They found another base, and one single lever in a room.

Upon activating it, another mutant appeared from their left, one which still had its gear and weapon.

Still, what good is a fleshbag against a perfect blade? It didn’t last long.

“That one was still fresh. We’re getting close.” Eve flipped another switch.

Behind that there was another switch, then another. Finally, they reached what looked like a break room with three miners all holed up trying to weather out this storm.

“Are you guys okay?”

“No, we just had two guys try to take on the Horror and neither returned. Are you here to rescue us?”

“Yes and no. we’re here to find out what happened, and the way to the surface is clear if you want to leave. Good luck out there!” Eve flipped another switch which showed a way forward.

In the next room there were three crates and a strange contraption that activated when they got close.

“What is that?”

“That machine allows us to respawn here if the unspeakable happens. I’m not sure it’ll work on you, though.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I wonder why it wasn’t on already.”

“Lockdown shuts everything up and shuts all machines down. It probably went offline when they tried contacting whoever’s in charge of this facility.”

“Come on guys, we’re nearly finished with this place! Let’s get going!” Adam pushed them along.

The next door had opened, allowing them to get into the next room. On the far side, a cave-in had blocked the way out, but that wasn’t a problem anymore due to the rest of it blasted out the way by Mika.

“More of those armoured Mutants here! Get ready!” Eve raised her pistol and opened fire alongside Adam.

Mika summoned a soul nail and effortlessly tossed it at one of the mutants, nailing it perfectly in the head. The impact caused it to pop and melt away.

Adam and Eve managed to dispatch the other one, so they were safe for now.

Mika’s antennae flicked and she looked up to see a platform hidden in the darkness.

“One moment.”

“What have you found? Another lever?”
“Exactly.” Mika jumped up and flew to the platform, where a lever was waiting.

She tugged it and returned to the others.

“Do you think there’s any more?”

“No, that’s the last one.”

Onward further, They found a huge vertical shaft sparsely populated by platforms. On the other side, however, was a small tunnel down.

“I say we crawl through this. I’ll go first.” Mika bent down and peered into the hole.

“Are you sure? You won’t get stuck, will you?”

“No, I’ll be fine.” Mika dove in.

She crawled effortlessly through the small tunnel until it opened out into a small room.

“Come on, It’s safe to go!” She shouted back up the tunnel.

Eve was the next to arrive, followed by Adam.

“So this is what you were looking for?”

“I don’t know. It just… called out to me?” Mika spotted strange brickwork and two runed above it, both lit up.

“Do you think that was to do with those switches?”

“No doubt. Wait here.” Mika climbed down into the ancient ruins.

Once inside, it was rather empty, however her glow illuminated a large chest and strange mural on the wall.

Mika didn’t quite remember the language, if she’d ever seen it, but could somehow read it perfectly.

It read:

It will return.

Unnerved by the message, Mika opened the chest to find half of some kind of wheel. Inscribed into the surface was a number of runes and letters next to them. Some kind of translator, perhaps?

She returned to the others and showed them her findings.

“That’s a strange artefact, so keep it close. It’s probably very important.”

“I gotcha, one moment.” Mika opened up a portal and gently placed the artefact inside.

They found another way out and managed to get to the bottom of the mineshaft, where a strange door blocked their path.

“What’s this?” Mika pointed at it.

“That’s a forcefield door. It only allows one-way travel. Not sure why they’d put one here. Maybe it keeps mutants inside? If so, that’d make sense.”

“We can’t stop now, onwards!” Mika tried to open the door, but failed. She didn’t know how.

Adam then went over, pushed a button and the door opened, sucking Mika through much to her displeasure.

Adam and Eve hoped through after her, finding one fluffed up moth girl lying in a heap.

There wasn’t even a moment to check if she was okay, as the hatch below them opened up and they fell into a large spherical room with a huge crystal in the centre.

Mika quickly got up and watched the crystal closely, making out figures inside.

“I don’t mean to alarm you, but…”

Adam and Eve turned to her.

“THAT’S THE HORROR!” She screamed as it turned to them, the single unblinking eye focusing directly towards them.

With seconds to spare, the trio jumped out of the way as a searing beam of plasma scorched the spot they’d been standing.

“GET TO THE MINING LASER!” Eve shouted at the top of her lungs to the others.

Mika got there first, and Adam tried to turn it on, to no success.

“It needs power!” He pointed to four switches around the room, one of which Eve was right by.

She flipped the switch and a single light lit up on the gun, one of four.

“The others!” Mika flew directly to one as Adam got the other.

Mika got the fourth as Adam fired the gun.

The gun let out a piercing sound as a large bolt was shot at the Erchius Horror, tearing more of its shell off.

It let out a horrible shriek and stopped firing lasers for a couple seconds before firing twice as many.

“DO IT AGAIN!” Mika got the ones on the right as Eve activated the left.

Once more Adam shot the Horror, more of its shell being broken away.

Then the thing realised what was going on, and acted accordingly.

It focused its attacks to Adam, surrounding him with plasma beams, slowly closing in for the kill.

In a desperate attempt for survival, he brought out the shield Mika had given him and positioned it above him.

The beams tore through the mining laser like butter, but the shield held more than firm.

Its lasers were reflected back towards the Horror and broke open more of its crystal shell, revealing more of the Horror’s insides.

“We’d nearly killed it, but it’s got no weakness now! What do we do!?” Eve called over, panicking badly.

“... I’ll do it.” Mika thought about what she could do.

“What?”

“The miners said that anyone who got too close was drawn inside. If I get sucked up by it, I can let out a large wave of magic, destroying it from the inside!” Mika told them her plan as they dodged more plasma.

“ARE YOU CRAZY!? THERE’S NO WAY THAT’LL WORK!”

“IT’S WORTH A TRY!” Mika flew directly at the Horror as Eve tried to call her off.

As soon as she made contact, the crystal shell seemed to wrap around her and drag her inside.

For a moment, all was silent. The Horror had stopped shooting plasma everywhere and the two left were in a stunned silence.

Then, something shifted. The Erchius Horror seemed to shift and shake violently, slowly turning from purple to a light shade of gold.

Cracks ran like cobwebs through its shell, and the thing let out a deafening scream as it inflated before violently exploding in a shower of light, sending the remains sprawling across the room.

Mika was left hovering in its place, a small Erhcius crystal fused with her face just below her left eye as a battle scar.

“I told you it was worth a try!” She laughed victoriously.

“It wasn’t worth almost dying over!” Eve scolded Mika when she landed.

Adam ran over to hug Mika. He was glad she was okay.

From a corner of the room, a quiet groan could be heard.

Thinking it was the remains coming back to life, they drew their weapons, only to find a lucky miner who’d been trapped inside the beast.

“Are you okay there?” Adam helped the poor soul up.

“Did you three take it down? I’m forever in your debt! You save me from being mutated by that thing!”

“Don’t mention it, we’re just here to look for some crystals to fix the ship.”

“You can take as many as you want, I won’t tell anyone.” The miner then looked at the damage. “Welp, I Guess I’d better start fixing up the mine…” They turned to see where their saviours had gone, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Mika had picked up the crystals whilst Adam and Eve fought over the contents of a chest nearby.

When all was said and done, they set off back to the outpost.

Penguin Pete thanked them for getting the crystals and wasn’t pleased in the slightest when they told him about what they’d found.

Nevertheless, he had their ship fixed up quickly and thanked them for waiting.

Now they just needed to find Esther again.

Chapter Text

This time, Mika and Adam got to meet Esther. Adam was quite excited to meet the former grand protector whilst Mika didn’t see much to be impressed by except for the flying rocket-powered wheelchair.

If you could call it a wheelchair.

“Hello! I see you have some friends with you, dear?” Esther was remarkably cheerful, despite recent events. Mika admitted that she was slightly envious of her jolly nature.

“These two are Adam and Mika. Mika has a bit of a story as to why she’s here, and Adam was the one who allowed us to meet.”

“You have a story, dear? I’m curious as to what it is, if you’d be happy to say?”

“It would be a pleasure, but first I’d like to ask you something.”

“Go ahead. I’ll try my best to answer!”

“Do I look like a Saturnian?”

“I’d say you do. Are you a Thaumoth instead? You don’t have the nocturnal nature they have.”

“Thank you for being honest, I’m neither.”

“Neither? If you aren’t then it’s likely you’re a new species. But the fact that you can speak such fluent English is strange, most uncontacted races have great difficulty at first when learning new languages. There’s more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there?”

“You couldn’t be more right.”

Adam and Eve chose to sit down and wait for Mika to finish. Esther was incredibly interested in Mika’s story, taking the most interest in the fact that Mika put herself into a stasis in order to try and stop Earth’s destruction.

“...and after all that time, I’m here, amazed at convenience stores in space.”

“It’s convenient, isn’t it?” They both laughed at that one.

“So, Eve told me that there’s a way to stop the ‘Ruin’ from destroying any more planets, right?”

“Yes, it lies through this door. The problem is that we need six artefacts belonging to six races, one for each. In order to find out where each is located, I need you and your friends to search the stars for clues in settlements and other places on planets throughout the stars. Now that your ship is fixed, you’ve got everything you need to find them!”

“Thanks, Esther! Come on, let’s get to it!” Mika turned to leave, but she called out to the group.

“Before you go jetting off, I'll teach you how to access and use the scan mode on your Matter Manipulator, Eve. There is a lot to be learned from your surroundings, and the Outpost is no exception. Bring out the matter manipulator and set it to scan mode. Key areas of interest will appear green when you point it towards them. Let me know how you get on!” Eve took the matter manipulator from her belt and raised it level. As soon as she switched it, a bright light shone from the end of the gadget, and anything caught in it was highlighter in blue.”

“Good show! Now, when you get to the outpost, shine it at whatever catches your eye and I’ll call you back when you’ve got everything.” Esther waved them off and the trio ran off to the Outpost, leaving Esther at the Ark.

“So, what do we try first?”

“I’d say just raise it up and see what happens.”

Eve shrugged and lifted up the matter manipulator. As soon as she set it to scan, Pete’s place turned green.

He evidently was caught off guard, but settled down quickly, Esther had probably let him know that this would happen.

As soon as Eve scanned the shack, a slamm voice popped up on her wrist.

“Penguin Pete is an authority on automobiles, from hi-tech spacecrafts to humble hoverbikes.”

“Oh, I was wondering if we could get one of those when we’ve got enough to buy one. I bet it’d be fun to ride!” Mika waved to Pete.

“There’s also Submarines here. Those will be very useful if we ever have to search the depths of ocean planets.”

“I can only wonder how many planets are out there.” Mika looked up and noticed a lush looking planet orbiting a gas giant. That must be what the Outpost orbits.

“Come on, let’s find the next thing! Maybe the bar below has something?”

“Sounds good. Lead the way, Mika.”

She pointed to the drain and lifted the lid, allowing access down to the bowels of the Outpost.

They soon found the Beakeasy and gave it a scan.

“The barkeep in the Beak Easy will happily trade any diamonds you may have for penguin dubloons, which are popular among his mercenary clientele.”

“That was if they weren’t on the run from Dreadwing. When you’ve all got gear and guns, will you take him on?”

“I was thinking about just going in right now, but-”

“Are you insane? You’d get gunned down! There’s a reason Dreadwing’s so notorious.”

“I’m sure he’s not that hard to take down. Besides, I’ve definitely fought worse.”

“Alright, you can give it a go once we’re done with scanning.”

“I’ll get some snacks and drinks!” Adam joked.

“Please do, I’ll make it an impressive spectacle.” Mika smiled back, an ominous tone in her voice.

Eve sighed and they carried on to the next spot.

They took the exit inside the Outpost and went to the right, where they found another stall.

“The 2-stop teleshop? That’s an odd name. Ready to scan?”

Eve held up the matter manipulator and scanned the stall. Once again, Esther’s voice piped up from her wristband.

“You can buy personal teleporters from this shop, extremely useful things.”

“Personal teleporters? I think I’ll stick to my portals.” Mika didn’t like it for some strange reason.

Eve didn’t bother with asking why, she went to search for the next place they could scan.

They found Terramart next. The floran noticed the two humans first, then suddenly looked fearful upon seeing Mika.

As Eve scanned it, the floran almost forgot to blink whilst staring Mika down.

“Why is that floran so wary of you? They’re almost never afraid of anything.”

“I think they realise I’d eat one given half the chance.”

“Please don’t.”

“I won't, not unless they try to eat me first.” Mika smiled mischievously as the now rather flustered floran hid away.

Mika let out a sound akin to a laugh mixed with a series of squeaks as Eve completed the scan.

“Terramart stocks farming and gardening supplies, among other things. They will even buy home-grown produce from you through their remote shipping service.”

“How many more things do we need to scan? This is taking longer than I’d expected.” Adam moaned as he started thinking about just eating the cheese he’d bought. After all, it’d only spoil if he didn’t.

“What about that shop up there? Can you scan that?” Mika pointed up to a small stall above them.

Eve pointed the manipulator towards it and scanned the stall.

“At this store you're able to create your own custom signs.”

“Oh, custom signs? I’m not the most creative, but it might be worth a shot sometime.” Mika looked up and noticed a fish person running the stall. What were they called, Hylotls?

“Alright, that’s all the stuff on the ground level, let's go upwards.”

On the next level, there was a terminal they could scan, and Esther said something about techs and mobility. Above that, there were… toilets? Stalls and sinks, to be precise.

“Hey, can we wait for a bit, I need to go.” Adam darted into a stall, as did Eve.

Mika waited outside for them to finish which didn’t take too long. She did have to tell Adam to wash his hands, though.

“Hey, don’t you need to go?” Adam asked Mika.

“Oh, me? No, everything that I eat or drink is solely for enjoyment. Anything I eat is converted into essence.”

“Wait, so you don’t have any bits down there?”

“You ask the strangest questions, and that’s a bit personal, don’t you think?” Eve scolded Adam.

“Don’t worry, I’m alright with telling him, it’s not much of a bother for me. Though I do have ‘bits’ down there, they’re solely for reproduction. Nothing else happens, nor needs to happen. Besides, I’m not expecting at the moment. Lord knows how my children would turn out if I was expecting for all that time I was asleep! I know roughly 1500 years turns my children into gods, I’m almost too afraid to let them go anything beyond that!”

“Jesus, that sounds exhausting.” Eve’s jaw dropped at that. Pregnant for that long? That sounds exhausting. She had no interest in having children, so it wouldn’t trouble her.

On the other side of the, there was something amazing.

In the last stall they had to scan, there was a frog. Or apparently, a Frögg.

“Oh my god.” Mika stared at the merchant in disbelief.

“What? They’re not very common, so I can understand some of your surprise. Wait, there weren’t frog merchants when you were around, were there?”

“There were not. This is glorious. I could finally depart from this world happily, if I wanted to.”

“Don’t do that! We’ve not known each other for very long. We can’t just split up now!”

“It’s a metaphor, Adam.” Eve sighed.

They were interrupted by Esther’s voice again when Eve scanned the shop.

“This furniture shop sells a large selection of exotic pieces from across the universe, and regularly has new stock. It also sells colony deeds, which attract tenants when placed in dwellings.” Shortly after, another message came through.

“Excellent work. It may seem trivial, but scanning is an essential skill that will be pivotal in our search for the artefacts.”

“Excellent. Shall we go meet her first, or can I take down Dreadwing?”

“Alright, I know I shouldn’t let you, but this’ll only get worse until you do. Go on, Adam and I will speak to Esther, you go and do what you want.”

“Thanks Eve! I’ll make this quick.” Mika opened up a portal and jumped through.

Adam and Eve looked at each other and nodded before leaving.

The Barkeeper was wondering when Mika would be back when a large circle appeared on the ceiling and said person fell out of it.

“You’re back quick. Nice tech you’ve got there.”

“I haven't got any tech, just magic. Now, where was Dreadwing? Can you send me there?”

“I’d say I couldn’t, but Pete’s lot managed to fix that old thing and now I’ve got a spot ya can go to. Ready?”

“As ready as I can be.”

The Barkeeper brought out the machine and pressed the same buttons as before, causing it to work this time and show footage of a snowy landscape with an unidentified flying object in the middle of everything with small dark things dotted around the landscape.

“Got it. I’ll be back soon.” Mika summoned another portal, one which had a cold gale blowing out of it. After a quick wave, she hopped in.

She’d arrived at yet another planet.

A warzone.

Tattered tanks and machines could be seen dotted around with heavily armed penguins littering the place.

Mika stood up from the ruin she’d landed in, and leapt into the sky.

The snowy white that bathed the place kept her remarkably camouflaged, perfect for watching the field from afar.

The location had a sharp drop on one side and a hill on the other. Further towards the hill, there was the ufo that she’d noticed. Perhaps that was Dreadwing inside it?

Mika wasn’t interested in being gunned down on the ground, so she silently glided towards the ufo until she got close enough to make a lunge.

Upon doing so, she latched onto the ufo and dug a soul nail into the side of the ufo, causing sparks to fly and a siren to blare inside the cockpit.

The penguin quickly turned to face her and then reached for the controls in a panicked state before pressing some large button.

In a flash, the ufo vanished and Mika fell towards the ground.

She righted herself before contact and raised shields as the other penguins opened fire. When they stopped shooting the shields, she shot out from behind them and slammed one in the beak, sending it flying.

“Who wants to fly!?” She yelled and charged at the next.

Before she could. Some strange bolt of energy collided with her back and pain flooded her back.

She turned around to see the Dreadwing flying overhead.

With a growl, she took to the skies again and hurled more soul nails at her target.

Each hit their mark, and the ufo started to hiccup as it tried to stay aloft. Out of nowhere, four miniature ufos appeared and circled the main one, firing at Mika as they went.

Realising this was a desperate measure, she charged up a beam and shortly released it.

The beam tore a huge chunk off of the ufo and it crashed into the ground and exploded, leaving almost nothing behind.

With a satisfied squeak, Mika opened up a portal and returned.

The Barkeep was surprised to see her, and thanked Mika for her trouble.

“You sorted him out for me? Thanks, now I'm back in business! Come speak to me if you want a Doubloon to hire a penguin merc.” He handed over a bag tied with a red string and a sum of pixels.

“Thanks! I’ve got to go now, I’ll see you around!” She rushed off to find Adam and Eve.

When she found them, they were leaving the Ark and heading to the Beakeasy.

She ran over to them with the bag and cheerfully exclaimed that she’d beaten Dreadwing.

“You did it? That quick? You’ve got to be joking. You just respawned or something after getting destroyed, right?”

“Do you really doubt me that much? I promise you, I’m not that weak. Look, the barkeeper gave me this after I helped him out.” She showed them the reward bag, and Eve told her what it was.

“...so, if I open this, there should be something nice inside? What do you think I’ll get?”

“You should do, at least. He probably didn’t put a weapon in there, considering you walk around unarmed. How many pixels did he give you?”

“Uhh, I still don’t know how much these are worth.” Mika showed her the amount the barkeeper had given her.

“Only 50!? What a cheapskate! But what else would I expect from a penguin.” She blurted out loud.

“I’m over a few thousand years old, and I can tell you for sure that in each of those years, that language has been unacceptable.” Mika glared at Eve before she opened up the bag.

Inside it was 2500 pixels. The bag was completely full.

Mika looked at Eve victoriously as Eve went silent.

“So, what did Esther say?” She tried to change the subject.

“She was glad we did as she asked us and said to look for Floran stuff first! She also said we should check forest planets first, as that’s where they like it best.” Adam piped up in a cheery tone. Seems he was excited to finally be able to explore!

“That’s a much better note to end today on a positive note. Come on, let’s get back to the ship.”

Chapter Text

Mika couldn’t help but feel a burst of joy!

At last, she wasn’t restricted to a planet, the true potential of exploring the universe is in reach!

Eve had asked Mika to get some liquid erchius to fuel the ship’s FTL drive with, and she’d happily obliged.

They beamed up whilst Mika rejoined them through another portal where she gave the protector the erchius she’d requested.

Eve took it into the captain’s cabin and fueled the ship before sitting in the captain’s chair and punching in a few directions.

Then out of the blue, the ship came to life and shot in that direction at a speed Mika thought impossible.

Then again, her magic was belief-based; there was no limit to its potential, only the limits thought of by the caster.

The stars whipped by and they were soon floating far above a whole new planet.

“Have you ever flown to other planets, Mika?”

“In all honesty, I’d never tried. Didn’t think it was possible.” She peered out of a window down to the planet. It looked beautiful from here.

“Scanners say there’s a few things of interest down there, including a Floran settlement and an abandoned Miniknog research facility. I’d recommend we look around. You might be interested in the housing the Florans built, or should I say, grow.”

Mika turned to Eve and nodded, then the three of them made their way to the surface of the planet.

Once down there, Mika took in her surroundings.

They’d landed in a huge forest, with strange trees everywhere. Leave like ivy and thorns all over the bark.

She’d decided already to not get close.

“We’ve got two possible locations to check, as mentioned earlier by S.A.I.L. Where do you want to go first?” Eve looked at the band on her wrist and fiddled with it whilst waiting for an answer.

“I’d quite like to find the florans first. There’s this unshakable feeling that there’s something important in that Miniknog place. Should I scout ahead?” Mika unfurled her wings in anticipation.

“Yes, that’d be quite helpful-” Eve looked to see Mika but she’d already vanished into the sky.

Above the treetops, Mika could easily see some huge trees in the distance unlike the rest, with many bamboo huts lining the sides. No thorns, too, which was a plus.

She flew back and told the others which way to go.

“So that way? It’s full of unpleasant things, but you might find carrots hidden amongst the shrubs.” As soon as Eve had said the word ‘carrots’, Mika was staring directly at her with a frighteningly intense stare.

“Carrots. You said there are carrots here..? They still exist?”

“Uh, they do. I can see one from here.” Adam pointed to a small orange plant and a large rush of wind told him that Mika had already bolted towards it.

She practically fell flat on her front and with one hand grabbed the carrot in a death grip and tore it out of the ground and started munching away.

“Hungry? I thought you’d said that you didn’t need to eat.” Eve watched as the carrot ceased to exist.

“No, I just missed a good root. I often ate those when I was awake last. It’d been so long since I last ate one.” Mika tossed the leaves aside and wiped her face clean as they got back to looking for the Floran settlement.

When they found it, it was quite the sight.

Large bamboo huts with thatch roofing as Florans wandered around. Some wore armour and were armed, obviously guards to protect against wildlife.

“Alright, one quick word before we go in. Whatever you do, don’t attack anyone. And Mika?”

“Yes?” She tried to act surprised.

“Try not to eat any of them.” Eve sighed. Best to make sure they don’t cause trouble.

“Alright...” She grumbled.

Upon getting close, one guard went up and greeted them, taking great interest in Mika for some reason.

When they asked him about it, the floran said that ‘ssstrange creature makesss nice light, makesss Floran feel nice.’ It took them a moment, but then it clicked.

Mika was a sun goddess. She produced light. The Florans were sentient plants. They could perform photosynthesis.

And she was causing them to do it much faster than normal.

“That’s so cool! What else can you do?” Adam circled Mika whilst singing her praises.

“I’ve yet to discover everything. Now can we go inside? I want to see what these plant folk do.”

They went through the fist hut and Eve got to scanning as Adam tried his best to sneakily rifle through drawers and crates for goods. Florans did see him but not a single one cared.

Mika was busy talking with some more villagers until she found one that asked her if she wanted to play ‘hunt’. Not expecting much, she agreed.

A few minutes later Eve was wondering where She’d gone. Upon leaving the hut with Adam, they quickly noticed the excited shouts and the random flying spears.

Seconds later, a very excited Mika shot past them, flying between huts as what started as one floran had turned into half the village now chasing her down. The guards carried on with their business, but not once did they get involved.

“Oh great, she’s set them off. Hey, what’s going on? Did Mika make them angry?” Eve called a guard over to find out what happened.

“Ssstrange creature do something bad? No, Sssomeone asssked to play hunt and creature agreed. Tribe liked it and everyone joined in.”

“Oh.” Eve watched as Mika passed by again alongside the horde of excited florans.

“Could we use this to our advantage?”

“I suppose. Come on, let’s find some more clues to scan.” Eve darted into the next hut with Adam, not wanting to get trampled.

Whilst they were inside, a loud crunch came from a wall and one of Mika’s claws was visible for a moment before she ripped it back out of the wall and carried on with the chase.

Behind her, Eve heard a tired sigh from a particularly well-dressed Floran with an ornate headdress who was lying on a sofa made from hide and bones.

“Hello there. You’re not playing with the others?”

“No, I’m the tribe’s greenfinger. My job’s to keep them in check and make sure the tribe is doing well. As you’d expect, it’s hard work.” They let out a raspy sigh. “So, what brings you to our tribe?”

“Do you want a short or long version?” Eve was surprised by the lack of a hiss coming from the Greenfinger. She guessed it was to do with being well-educated or something along those lines.

“Short, please. I’ve only got a few minutes longer to relax before I’ll have to stop that hunting game. Last time someone agreed to it they nearly died. The wounds they had when I got the others of him were severe, if not life-threatening. You’ll probably find their corpse or something beyond here. They were heading towards the old building that was here quite some time before us.”

“Short story? Alright. The former Grand Protector asked us to gather clues from Floran settlements in order to locate where the Floran artefact is, one of many required to stop everything from being destroyed.”

“Short enough for me. Come- if you can help me out I’ll give you something for your trouble.” The greenfinger got up from their seat and set off outside.

Adam and Eve joined them and looked around for a short while before Mika flew overhead. Briefly stopping to wave hello.

“Mika! Can you come down now?”

“Aw, Alright.” She landed gently beside the group before spotting the Greenfinger. “Not here to join in?” Mika tilted her head to the side as her antennae pointed upwards curiously.

The rest of the tribe charged towards them, but out of nowhere the Greenfinger let out a stunningly loud hiss, and all of them stopped instantly.

A few made it clear they weren’t happy with being told ‘no’, but there was little they could do against the leader of their tribe.

“Thanks for bringing them to me. As promised, here is a reward for your trouble.” The Greenfinger unhooked a bag from their belt…thing… and handed it to Eve.

Inside was a sum of pixels and a teleporter core.

“One of these? This is advanced tech, shouldn’t you keep it?”

“No, one of the florans brought it back from the old lab and I thought you should see where it was from. It might help you with something, who knows?”

“Thanks, anyway! Come on, let’s go find that facility.” Mika was the first to set off.

The trio waved goodbye to the village and set on their way.

After some time in the bushes, they spotted a group of unusual figures dressed in purple.

“Who are they? They’re armed.” Adam crouched behind a tree and watched from a distance.

“I’ve heard of them before. Cultists, I believe? The Protectorate has had some nasty problems with them before. I say we avoid them for now- Mika NO!” Eve hissed as Mika approached to say hello.

As soon as she’d entered the clearing, all three cultists noticed the sudden bright light now illuminating the small camp they’d set up.

“Hello. Can I ask a question?”

The Cultists all looked like they were about to open fire, but one round of glances later they lowered their guns and agreed to answer whatever Mika had to ask.

“Right. Make it quick, we don’t like xenos like you.”

“Okay then. So, are you cultists?”

“Yes, stupid. Read anything lately?”

“To be honest, I haven’t read anything for the last few thousand years. Being trapped in stasis means you miss out on a lot. Still, I did get to see what Earth had become, even though it was gone not long after.”

“Is that a joke? Are you seriously joking about Earth being destroyed?”

“No! I lived there once! And hell, I died there too. It’s too much to explain, we’d be here until the end of everything.” Mika shrugged and kept walking, leaving the cultists to try and figure out what the hell just happened.

Once they were out of sight, Adam and Eve met back up with Mika.

“How did you do that!?” Adam asked her in disbelief.

“I thought I’d have to kill them. Maybe they decided to listen before killing me and got confused, maybe they saw something in me. Something still human.” Mika glanced back with a look of loss. Her antennae drooped backwards to confirm that.

“That’s deep.” Adam nodded before watching the sun as it began to set.

“Wait, that’s not good.” He realised the sun was setting.

Eve and Mika snapped up to watch as the sun disappeared behind the trees and it got freakishly dark.

“We need to go!” Eve started to run.

They all joined in, making a mad dash for any form of safety, when the forest cleared to reveal a large white building in a severe state of disrepair.

“The facility! Let’s take shelter in there!” Adam pointed to the entrance.

Mika grabbed them both and effortlessly hopped over the fence surrounding the place, where she put them down and went inside.

The place was no better than outside, but it was protected from beasts.

Mika chose to explore the top floor whilst Adam and Eve set up a rudimentary camp.

She found two rooms of interest, one was an old kitchen whilst the other contained two cabinets, one with books and another with bags of… oh god, that’s blood.

Turning away from the blood, she took out a book and opened it.

Side Effects of VEP

FOR INTERNAL DISTRIBUTION ONLY

Vestigi-Evo Process Final Report before Distribution: The trade-off between mental evolution and physical devolution is unavoidable. Skeletal alteration is extreme, hair growth drastically increased. Mental function at 300 percent efficiency.

Conclusion: The change to our species will be permanent. Research into reversing the physical devolution to commence immediately

She put the book back and began to think. This place must’ve been part of something very dark. The Vesti-Evo process? Maybe there was some more information here.

She picked out another book, but it was far too damaged to understand. After picking out the 12th book, she gave up.

Heading over to the kitchen, she noticed what looked like a bottle of wine sitting there, unopened.

Ignoring it for now, Mika opened the fridge, expecting the mother of all bad smells to waft out and punch her in the face.

But somehow, that’s not what she got.

The fridge was full of bananas.

Downstairs, Eve had gotten out three sleeping bags and a nanostove from somewhere.

Adam had taken to cooking a carrot he’d grabbed and started munching on the roasted root when a howl came from upstairs.

“BANANAS!?” The voice shrieked.

Eve was the first to get there, where she found Mika staring at an open fridge full of said bananas.

“I guess that’s what they ate? How have these not gone rotten yet?” She didn’t want to touch one.

Mika snapped out of her shocked state and looked back at Eve.

“To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. There’s a mulled drink over there. What do you think about opening it and enjoying a treat?”

“Do you ever stop to think about how old what you might be eating is?”

“Heh, not really.” Mika chirped.

She went over and popped the cork off the bottle before putting it to her lips.

The sickly sweet liquid went down her throat and she screamed bloody murder.

It burned her tongue and she was left rolling on the floor in pain.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Yeah, thanks!” Mika gasped between each cough.

They decided against eating or drinking anything more from that ancient kitchen and went back to the camp for the night.

When the morning came around, the three of them looked around and found a long staircase down into the depths of the facility.

“Do you think we should go down there? It could be dangerous.” Adam swore he heard something at the bottom.

“Come on, what’s the worst that could be down here? Mutant apes?” Mika jabbed him in the side and he tried and failed to get her back.

At the bottom, they found two directions to go, one which had a cave-in blocking the way through.

“The other way?” Mika said flatly.

“Yep.” the others replied.

Most of the place was empty, save for a few batongs, crustoise and pieces of furniture. The whole thing played out like some kind of parkour course.

The first place that was of particular interest was a room with a very foggy door.

Mika opened it up and was met with a bright display suddenly lighting up, blinding her for a short moment.

When she regained her senses, she had less than a second to dodge the mouldy claw of some humanoid ape with a deformed head. Reacting out of instinct, she cut the thing in two, and it fizzled away into nothing. There were two more to deal with, and the rapidly approaching footsteps of Adam and Eve.

When they found Mika, she was standing over the rapidly decaying corpse of the last mutant ape.

“Were those people?” Eve looked in horror as the monster’s face had a look of fear on it as it dissipated.

“I think they might’ve been, long ago. We should keep going. There could be more down here, shambling about in endless suffering.” Mika noticed a small trace essence fading away. Whatever these were, they had dreams once.

“I think these are apex. Do you know about them?”

“I found a book earlier. It said something about a ‘Vestigi-evo project’. This must be the poor souls they tested it on before it was perfected.” Mika heard something ahead and went to check it out.

Three columns stood over a pool of water, where a creature was floating about. Some kind of crab thing, no doubt.

“Over here!” She called out, and the others joined her on the other side of the course.

When Mika opened the door, a screen attached to the ceiling sprung to life, flickering in and out but occasionally showing a picture of an apex, watching them.

Then an explosion rang out from behind them, and a wave of green liquid fell down into the water where it turned the rest into itself.

The poor crablike creature fizzled and died in the toxic liquid, a message to not go down there.

They pressed further still, eventually finding the end of the place.

Strange vines were wrapped around some parts of the facility here, vines which felt strangely familiar to Mika.

“Does anyone know what species these are?” Adam pointed to one particular vine, the orange thorns sticking out in random directions.

“I can’t shake the feeling that I know them from somewhere. There’s one last room, let’s check that our for answers.”

Adam opened the door up and the room sprung to life, a large red sign was nailed to the wall near the top of the room which read ‘thought reassignment’

Four mutated apex spotted them and shambled over but a few rounds from Adam’s gun and a swing of Mika’s blades moved them on to the next life.

A chest was on a table next to two shelves on the opposite side of the room, whilst the dentist’s table from hell sat in the middle of the room.

A large drill and saw were attached via robotic arms, a horrifying sight.

“Torture… An act humanity outlawed many, many years ago…” Eve stared in horror at the table.

Mika could smell something coming from the table, and she leaned in to get a better scent.

It reminded her of something she’d not smelled for an untold amount of years.

Hemolymph.

She reared back from the table and let out a wail. She knew that smell! But from WHERE!?

Some deep instinct told her to destroy this table, and she let out a storm upon it.

By the time she’d calmed down, the table was dust whilst Adam and Eve clung to the wall opposite her.

“Oh.” She turned around and saw them looking at her fearfully.

“What the hell was that?” Adam pointed at the table.

“I’m not quite sure. Something has slipped my mind, but that brought it back. Almost.”

The chest on the table was everyone’s next target, so they opened it up.

Inside was a monitor remade to be a hat, some strange syringes and a book.

Mika grabbed the book, Eve grabbed the syringes and Adam grabbed the hat.

She swiftly opened it up and began to read.

Researcher’s log no. 47

The locals prove as annoying as ever, but this time they proved useful.

They brought in some strange creature, one made almost entirely out of plants with a living core.

After removing most of the plant matter, it was discovered that the creature highly resembled a Saturnian, but with strange properties.

Vines and other plants grew from them, and they bled a strange sap-like fluid.

Soon, we’re going to try and find out what it’s made of.

Researcher’s log no. 48

I’m dying down here. Not sure why I’m writing this.

When we started the dissection, the thing woke up and rapidly grew vines with orange thorns before it tore our facility to bits. I’m not going to live through this, but I discovered that it took control of one of our ships and made it off-world. Wherever it is, it screamed about finding its ‘mother’.

Mika turned even more pale than she normally was. she knew what- Not what, WHO this was.

The person they'd brought here was her daughter, Gaia.

Her arms went limp and the book fell from her hands, creating a loud splash in the water that flooded the room up to her ankles.

Adam and Eve turned around to see what it was, and saw the look on Mika’s face.

It was a thousand-yard stare, but at the same time was a look of utter shock.

“Wh… What is it?” Eve asked Mika.

“My children.”

“What?”

“They’re alive.”

Chapter Text

With a blast of speed like no other, Mika raced out of the facility, not stopping once she left the long shaft down and tore a huge hole in the roof where she hadn’t bothered to take a normal exit.

Adam and Eve had to run out as fast as they could, as the sudden creaking and groaning of supports throughout told them this place had given up on holding itself together.

Mika hadn’t remembered that her daughter wasn’t on this planet, and raced back towards the floran settlement where she quickly started to dig, expecting that to be a place where Gaia would go. After all, how else would those massive trees be there?

Adam and Eve eventually caught up and found a confused and annoyed Greenfinger and a handful of other Florans all standing around the hole.

“Can you tell me why your friend flew over here and started digging?”

“Well, they discovered some logs there and found out one of her children was trapped there back when the facility was still functional. And I’d say it’s safe to say she had a rather strong reaction to it.”

“And how old is she?”

“It seems she’s at least a few thousand years old.”

“Each planet orbits a star differently, do you mean Earth’s years?”

“Earth has been destroyed, but yes.”

“Earth was destroyed!?”

“By something we’re out to get revenge on. Did I tell you about the artefacts?”

“You did. You’re looking for the Floran’s artefact, right? There’s only one thing I’d think would suit the title of ‘Floran artefact’ and that’d be the trophy at the end of the Ceremonial hunt. If you can get there, it might just be your ticket.”

As soon as the Greenfinger had stopped speaking, Eve’s watch came to life with a message from Esther. ”You did it! That was the last clue we needed. I know just where the Floran Artefact is now.”

“Looks like we have to head back! How do we get Mika?” Adam looked down the hole, unable to see the bottom.

Before anyone could say anything, Eve grabbed a flare and tossed it down the hole, watching it bounce off the sides and eventually go out of sight.

A few seconds later, Mika was back in sight and left the hold she’d dug.

“What were you thinking running off like that?” Eve scolded her.

“Sorry! I got caught ahead of myself. Do we have to go now? I heard Esther talking.”

“Damn, you’ve got some good hearing.” Adam was impressed.

“Sort of. I heard her voice but couldn't make out what she was saying. Are we going somewhere?”

“She’s figured out where the Florna Artefact is. It’s in the ceremonial hunting grounds, and it’s the prize for the hunt that’s happening in a few hours! We need to go and get there before it’s too late!” Eve beamed back to the ship, followed by Adam and Mika.

Once on board, Eve darted to S. A.I.L’s terminal and checked the mission tab and found the ceremonial hunting grounds available there. She selected it and was swiftly teleported over.

Adam set the teleporter to take him to her, and Mika waited for a stable location to warp to.

When she got there, she was amazed by the sight.

A massive temple served as an entrance in the middle of a massive jungle where the sky was barely visible through the leaves.

Florans were all over the place, probably waiting to watch how the hunt went down.

“This is it, the first artefact. It’ll be dangerous, I think we should be careful down there.” Eve warned the others as they made an approach. Florans around them commented on new challengers trying out the hunt, and how they’d probably not make it far.

They’d be proven oh so very wrong.

A rickety lift took them down into the caves, but had no bridge, so Mika picked up the two humans and flew them to dry ground.

“So, do we stick together or split up down here?” Mika admired the cave paintings of previous hunts as they went. The roots growing from the ceiling looked tasty, too.

Soon they came across a Floran who looked different from the rest. She was shorter, with far more foliage sprouting from her head. Mika guessed it was their version of hair.

“Oh, sstrangers? You’re different from the rest. Have you come for the hunt?” The friendly floran spoke with very little hissing, something few Florans can do.

“We have! There’s something at the end we need.”

“You’re going to try and win? Wow, I gotta respect that misguided bravery. Hundreds come here, spending years honing their skills and sharpening their weapons…”

“And what happens to them?”

“They mostly die. Here, I’ll unlock the gate for ya.” The floran walks over to a huge gate blocking their path and lifts it up with one hand.

“I’m Nuru, by the way. Youngest champion of the grand hunt.”

“Cool! Good to see such success at an early age.” Adam waved goodbye as they went on.

Mika noticed the sinister smile Nuru had as they went on, but when she noticed Mika looking back, she shouted at them to look out for the other hunters, as they’d try to stop you from winning.

Mika thanked her for the advice, and they set off to find the artefact.

As soon as they’d gone through the gate, they came to their first split in the path. There was a way up or a way down. The smell coming from the lower one made Mika’s antennae curl, so she asked if they could take the route up instead.

Adam and Eve soon caught a whiff of the stench and agreed.

Once they’d gotten up, the first thing they found was another hunter. They hissed angrily and charged with their spear, which Mika swiftly dodged and punched the side of the Floran’s head, sending them sprawling across the cave floor where they were left limp. Unable to fight, but not dead.

“Thanks for keeping it non-lethal.” Eve watched the Floran where they laid still.

“No problem. I’m a bit tired of killing. It’s not fun in any way unless they did something to deserve it.”

Further up, they came to an opening with a group of hunters and sentries watching the ground from forts.

As soon as they’d appeared in the open, the hunters charged towards the group, where Eve and Adam took potshots at the sentries whilst Mika handled the hunters.

The whole fight took less than 20 seconds and they could keep moving.

One gate later, they were back in the caves, jumping between old platforms over a green lake of poisonous liquid.

Down under it they went, swiftly dealing with another hunter and turning their steady pace into a mad dash as holes appeared in the ceiling and the poison flooded the cave they were now running through.

Past the other side they went, then they came across a spot where boulders rolled through one after the other. Mika put up a shield Whilst Adam and Eve went ahead to find a safe point for her to rejoin her.

When they did, She quickly got out of the way of the boulders and they hopped down into what seemed to be a trap.

Instead of anyone killing them, they heard the voice of Nuru.

“You actually made it thiss far! I’m impressed.” Then after a moment of awkward silence, she spoke again. “...Buuut now you’re stuck. The phrase ‘slow clap’ springs to mind. Here; I can help with that.” She pulled a lever they couldn’t see and the gates opened up to both sides of them. One to the left and one to the right. Something caught Mika’s attention to the left, whilst Adam and Eve were more focused on heading to the right. In the end, they agreed to split and regroup further on.

She found a deep pool of water, and chose to dive in. The other two had to climb between some crumbling pillars and pick fights with hunters as they went.

After a steep hill climb and boulder dodging session, Adam and Eve were by yet another gate.

Mika swam through the flooded caves before finally resurfacing in a place that looked like it’d not been touched for a long time. There was a platform barely holding together that had a carving in the wall which she checked out.

It depicted a strange circular being with three eyes and four tentacles sprouting from it. She didn’t quite understand what it was, but it felt important. Still, ther roof of this place was made from soft dirt, she could easily break it open to get back faster.

After a short argument on who should pull the lever, Adam sighed and gave it a tug, they hopped down the side of the room and turned to see three Floran hunters, one which was wearing the skull of an alien goat. After a short staring contest, the floran let out a battle cry and charged!

“FRESSSH MEAT!” He raised his huge axe and lunged.

But before he could, the ground turned a bright white and exploded in a shower of essence, sending them soaring out the openings in the cave, never to be seen again. Mika was left hovering in the middle of the room as Adam and Eve stared in shock, gobsmacked at the accidental show of power.

“Oh hello. Ready to carry on?” Adam shrugged, looked at Eve, went around the hole and carried on. Eve followed suit, and they came up to the end of the caves.

One final lever later, a strangely familiar door stood between them and what was next.

“I think this is it. Is everyone ready?”

They activated the door and went through.

On the other side there was a dimly lit room larger than any so far and the place was covered in giant vines.

Nuru was seen standing beneath the middle of it all, before noticing the others and waving hello.

“This year's prey iss much bigger. Finally, a proper challenge!” Nuru grinned as the vines above started to shift.

The vines then grew sharp orange thorns and a deep hiss could be heard from within the mass.

“Look, it’s waking up!” Nuru raised her spear and everyone prepared to fight.

Then it all happened at once.

Mika had heard that her family was alive, she was going to look for them when this was all over, but it seems fate had different plans for her.

The beast revealed itself, and let out a massive roar.

“WHAT HTE HELL IS THAT!?” Adam screamed as it slammed into the floor, taking up two thirds of the room, and swiftly subduing Nuru and keeping her tightly wound up in vines. Mika had frozen still whilst Adam and Eve opened fire.

The bullets merely bounced off the hardened vines, and then Mika spoke but one word.

“Gaia?” In a tone so soft you could barely hear it.

In an instant, something must’ve clicked in the beast’s head, because all the thorns instantly vanished and one word rattled out of the creature who’d not used their voice for a thousand years.

“M-mother?”

Adam and Eve practically dropped their guns and Nuru noticed something was off and lowered her spear from where she’d gotten back up to fight.

“GAIA!” Mika practically launched herself at her daughter, who quickly wrapped her up in a deep hug.

It was just what she’d hoped for! Her daughter, safe and sound!

“My gods, where have you been all this time!?” Mika chirped away, overjoyed to see her daughter.

Nuru had walked over to Adam and Eve by this point, wand tried to ask them what was going on and what Mika was saying to the creature they were meant to hunt.

“I don’t know either, but I’d guess that’s her daughter.”

“Her daughter!? But look how much bigger it iss compared to her! How would that work!?” Nuru hissed in confusion.

“I’ve no idea, but I’d take a guess and say they’re both gods from a long forgotten era.”

“...Do we go and finish the hunt?” Nuru agreed to keep this a secret if they promised not to tell anyone either.

Eve agreed and so they went off to collect the artefact Whilst Mika had her family reunion.

“I’m so glad you’re okay! I heard that some people had done horrible things to you!”

“They did, but I escaped! And where have you been all that time? Father said you’d gone into a kind of sleep, and he didn’t know when you would wake up! Hallownest faded not long after the Pale King passed away, and The White Lady vanished without a trace! The place turned to dust and a desert engulfed everything. We tried to save it, but failed. Sunrise left the planet for the stars, and we stayed behind. Solace also disappeared and not long after we were all bound up and shipped off by some weird monkeys. I don’t think they expected us to be so tough, though. Mael was taken somewhere other than me, I think it was to some watery planet, but I was taken to that forest. What happened to him, I don’t know. They all spoke in a language I didn’t know. None of us knew it.” Gaia’s vines shrunk back and she was left only a little bit bigger than Mika before sniffling and starting to cry.

“Shh, it’s okay now, I’m here, I promise we’ll find everyone again. I promise.”

“You will?” Gaia looked up from where she knelt, starry eyed.

“I will. Now come on, we’ve got a universe to save.”

Eve had just received the artefact and had Nuru tell her she wanted to join the cause.

A distant tremor caught everyone’s attention, and out from the side of the hill burst Gaia with Mika by her side.

Florans suddenly turned to Nuru and shouted about her cheating and not completing the hunt before trying to get the artefact back.

Mika knew what to do, and opened a portal beside them which Adam and Eve dragged Nuru through with them, followed closely behind by Gaia and Mika.

Behind them, the portal closed and stopped the angry mob from catching up.

They appeared in the Ark, beside a very surprised Esther.

“Hello dear, have you recruited someone to join our cause?” She greeted Nuru, who set up nearby with a small campfire and bone stool. Where did she get them from? Nobody knew.

Mika and Gaia stood up together and quickly explained what happened to Esther.

She was listening happily at first, then her facial expression quickly turned to concern and shock when she realised who, or what was standing in front of her.

“You two are old gods, if I am to believe?”

“You betcha! I’m going to be looking for my family as we go, alright?”

“That’s fine by me! I hope you find them all, dear.”

Eve handed Esther the artefact and she floated up in her rocket chair and slotted it into a hole in the door. It quickly gained a green coating and shone nicely from where it rested.

“Great! Up next is the Hylotl artefact, you can find them living mostly on oceanic planets orbiting temperate stars. I recommend diving gear or an EPP if you want to find their cities. If that’s not your thing, Pete recently started selling submarines. Are you ready, dears?”

"Absolutely."

"Heck yes!"

"or course."

"Squeak!"

"They can't understand you yet, Gaia. I'll get to that."

"Squeak..."

Chapter Text

In the end, it was decided that they’d get some breathing EPPs instead. It meant gathering the required materials, but that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. All they needed to do was find Tungsten.

With fuel from The Infinity Express, It was time to go.

Mika took a portal as Adam and Eve beamed back to the ship.

Once on board, Eve set the ship to go to the desert planet in their system.

In a matter of seconds, the ship was hovering above the planet, with a solid beam signature ready for them.

The Scans showed that the weather was a mixture of bug swarms, harsh winds and sandstorms.

“Are you good with the heat?” Mika asked Adam, who she noticed looked nervous.

“No, Not really. I prefer the cold.”

“You can stay behind, if you’d like?”

“Is that alright? I’d be happier if I could. Plus I hate the thought of being caught in a bug swarm.”

Eve wasn’t impressed, but she understood. She teleported down and Mika joined her shortly after.

The desert was interesting to Mika, all of these strange planets were. But what caught her interest the most was the gargantuan skeleton on the horizon.

“Should- Should we be concerned about that?” She pointed it out to Eve.

“Not really. It’s dead, isn’t it?”

“...Fair point.” So they carried on, planning on where to go mining for the stuff they needed.

“So, what else will you use the tungsten for?”

“Apart from the Enviro-Protection-Packs, armour sounds good. And grab some sand- I’ll need it for glass. Hey, there’s a house over there.” Eve noticed a small hut just ahead.

A warm wind blew around them, and Mika’s antennae picked up something behind them.

She quickly turned around and her antennae dropped.

“Eve?”

“Is there something behind us?”

“Yes. Run.”

She glanced back and saw in horror as a massive wall of dust and sand was barrelling towards them.

Eve instantly charged towards the house, and Mika as off like a bullet.

Mika got there first and threw the door open, not noticing the very startled hylotl who’d now fallen out of his chair.

Eve was metres from the door as the sandstorm was right on top of them, and she just managed to get inside as Mika slammed the door shut behind them, the sudden thundering of small bits of rock and sand rattling the door behind them. Eve got up and brushed herself off as the voice of the house owner piped up in a very annoyed tone.

“Might I ask what the sudden arrival is for?”

“Oh! Sorry, we needed to get out of that sandstorm.”

“Understandable, but I’d prefer if you were more polite about letting yourself in. But since we’ll all be in here until the sandstorm passes, might you have any stories to tell or musical talents?”

“Oh! I am rather good with a guitar, if you have one?” Mika asked the Hylotl.

“I do have one. It’s nylon, if that’s alright? I prefer the sound it makes. Much softer than the other ones you can find.” They left the room and came back with a guitar shortly after, then handed it to Mika.

She happily took it and got to strumming an old tune from her days in Hallownest. It was a sombre tune, but she enjoyed it.

The hylotl enjoyed it too, by the looks of it. His shoulders had relaxed as he sat and listened.

“Saturnians aren’t often this talented when it comes to music, but I don’t think you’re all Saturnian. For one, they don’t have four arms nor a face like yours.”

“Are you saying my face is ugly?” Mika hissed over her tune.

“Certainly not! They have compound eyes that are huge. I believe you’re a hybrid in some way. Was your mother or father human?”

“That’s a long way back, but they were both human.”

“That makes no sense. How does that work? You’re evidently part Saturnian.”

“Now that’s where it gets interesting. I’m from an age long before the Saturnians, or at least very early in their history. I suppose I am cursed with immortality.”

“Immortality… That sounds like a blessing and a curse. If you are speaking the truth, how long have you lived?”

“That is a question I no longer know the answer to. If I was to guess, I’ve lived nearly 2600 years? I don’t know much of what’s happened in the meantime, I was in stasis for most of it. The only reason I woke up was to try and save Earth, which I failed to do.”
“Earth? What went wrong? I’ve not got much on the side of communication here.”

Eve and Mika glanced at each other for a second, before deciding to lie.

“We’re on the search for some shipments that got lost on their way there. Neither of us have been too recently.” Mika looked back at Eve, who nodded in agreement.

“A lost shipment? There’s one not far from here! Unfortunately, a group of bandits got to it before anyone else. The thing’s full of Tungsten and a few other metals. If you’re willing to get in a fight, you should be able to recover it.”

“That’s great! Thank you for telling us about it. Now all we need is for this sandstorm to pass.”

“Indeed. Once it does, can you help me clear out the debris? Each one leaves behind a lot of sand that piles up against my home.”

“Sure, We can do that!”

It took a lot longer than expected for the storm to pass, but once it did, they climbed a top window and got digging. Mika cast a soul board and shovelled the silt to the side whilst Eve stood back because she’d told her to.

Once done, The Hylotl thanked them for their help and gave them directions to the supply crate.

It wasn’t too long of a walk, but when they got there, there was an encampment protruding out of the fresh layer of sand, with a number of armed humans in black clothing. From where they hid, Mika could smell the sweat. It made her writhe in disgust.

“Can we make this quick? They stink!” She hissed quietly.

“You can smell them from here? I can’t smell a thing.”

“Well Lucky you!” She tried to cover her antennae to no avail.

“Alright, what’s your plan?”

“I say I try to lead them away if we want to do this with a non-lethal approach, or we take them out quickly if you don’t mind that.”

“I don’t mind if you kill them. If they’re linked to a respawn anchor, they’ll reappear there.”

“So you’re telling me that my immortality is not as rare anymore?”
“No, people can still die from things such as illness or age. It only spits you back out if it’s an injury-related death.”
“Okay, that makes me feel a bit better. Still, it means I can go all out on these guys?”

“If you want to, then go ahead. I’ll be over here.” Eve turned away from the campsite, not wanting to see how Mika handled it.

Mika on the other hand, smiled. She thought she’d gotten bored of violence, but she hadn’t.

This would be fun.

“Yo, why are we guarding this again?”

“Because it’s worth a lot of pixels, you idiot. Has the sand replaced your brain or something?”

“Dude! Nobody’s gonna want to get this, anyway. Who in their right mind goes after a bunch of bandits with guns?”

“Hello?” A voice called out.

“Oh hey, that’s a strange looking Saturnian. Do we shoot them?” 

“Not yet, don’t want to waste ammunition on something not worth the trouble.

“Have you seen a cargo crate around here?”

“Okay, shoot this lamp-lover.” The two bandits open fire, followed swiftly by another 6.

Mika put up a shield and dug into the soft sand, to wait out the gunfire.

When it stopped, her head popped out of the sand to see if they’d finished.

“You done?”

“Never!” They opened fire again, so she did the same.

This carried on for several minutes until they gave up shooting her.

“You don-” Mika had to jump out the way as a strangely large hammer came crashing down where she was currently hiding.

The bandit who was using the hammer then tried to bring it back up to swing at har again, but was met with a full-force punch to the face, shattering bones and sending him flying.

The other bandits screamed in anger and all charged her at once. Daggers, swords and spears, all pointed at Mika.

She barked out a laugh and obliterated them all in an instant.

“Eve! It’s alright to come out now. They’re gone.”

Eve appeared from behind a rock and saw the spot where the bandits had been. What was once sand, was now blackened glass.

“You’re scarily efficient.”

“I like to make fights quick.”

“I can see that. Now where’s the cargo?”

They looked around the camp before pulling a camouflage sheet off of a large box, and there it was.

“Oh, there’s a note here! It lists the number of… Bars in this crate?” Mika plucked it from the crate and had a look.

“Jesus, that’s a lot of metal.” Mika handed Eve the list, and she let out a gasp of surprise.

“This is perfect! We’ll be able to make all kinds of useful equipment when we get this back! Wait, how are we going to get this back? These crates are used by heavy lifting machinery, we don’t have the strength!” Eve tossed the list at the crate, only for the wind to pick it up and carry it away.

Mika stared at her, waiting for it to click.

“What?”

“Y’know, I’m something of a heavy lifter myself.” She smiled and grabbed the crate with all four arms. It was bigger than her, but in a matter of moments, she’d had it on her shoulders.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm and raw power, but are you going to throw that at our ship or what?”

“Ah, forgot about that.” Mika dropped the crate and it made a loud slam on the sand. She then opted for a portal and pushed it in, leaving it in the dream realm for safekeeping.

“So, do you want to explore, or..?” Mika looked at eve before her antennae picked something up. Buzzing? Or a heavy wind?

“Hey, it shouldn’t be getting dark yet, there’s still a lot of time left in the day.” Eve looked at her wristband and the clock that was projected from it.

“That’s not wind, those are bugs!” Mika could feel her skin crawling from here.

“Definitely time to go. You’ve got those resources secure, right?”

“Yep!” Mika hopped into a portal as Eve beamed back to the ship.

Adam was surprised to see them back so soon, but he was happy to not be alone on the ship.

“So, did you find any tungsten?”

“Find any? We sure did!” Mika brought out the supply crate with a proud chirp.

“Nice! But how are you going to open it?”

A moment of silence followed, with everyone thinking on how to open it.
“Can’t I just punch it open?”

“Is it trapped? If it is, you'd better not do that.”
“Can S.A.I.L scan it?”

“I don’t know. My matter manipulator should be able to, however.”

“That works for me.”

Eve brought out the tool, and set it to scan mode. One quick sweep showed nothing but good metal inside.

Satisfied with it being safe, Mika swiftly summoned a soul nail and cut through the thick outside like butter. With it open, Eve put it into storage.

“Once we get back to that house we made, I can forge this into armour. It paid to have an interest in old Earth blacksmithing when I was younger!”

“Oh, that’s cool. I loved that stuff! I never could find a forge, though. Plus, where I was from, they made swords called ‘nails’.”

Eve and Mika started chatting about blacksmithing whilst Adam sat and sighed.

This was going to be a long day. And how long had it been since they last slept? He was really feeling tired.

“Gals? Can we go home? I’m really tired and not prepared to wait around much longer.”

“Aww…” Mika whined but Eve nodded and set the teleporter to their home’s flag.

In a blink all three of them were standing outside their home as the sun set. Seems nobody had been through for a while, the place looked untouched.

“Where’s my bed!” Adam rushed inside and Eve followed shortly after. Mika smiled and flew up to the top where her bed was.

It looked unmade, just how she’d left it. Without a further thought, she tucked herself in, curled up, and fell asleep.

When morning came around, the three got up and two of them found themselves very hungry.

“Good morning! How is everyone?” Mika hopped down the stairs in a cheerful manner, greeting the others the same way.

“Hungry.” Eve grumbled.

“Tired.” Adam moaned.

“Ah, rough crowd.” Mika sighed. She knew both those feelings well. Maybe not so much the second one.

“If you’re hungry, I can make something. What do we have on hand?”

“There’s vegetables, and a slab of alien meat.”

“Ah. That’s not much, but I’ll see what I can do!” Mika grabbed the carrots, some roots she’d found were edible, some freaky things called ‘Beakseed’ and some strange thorny fruits she’d picked on the desert planet.

She got to chopping them up, and mixed the sliced carrots with the thickest roots and spiced them accordingly. The thorn fruit and beakseeds were diced into a fruity dish, and once the root roast was done, she split it evenly between them and served.

“It’s ready!” Mika called out and felt Adam thundering through the house and Eve slowly trudging after him.

“Woooah!” Adam’s jaw dropped at the colourful bounty his friend had made for them.

When Eve arrived, she looked at the buffet and laughed.

“I didn’t know you could cook so well!”

“If you’ve been around as long as I have, you pick up a thing or two.” She giggled.

The morning was much slower after that, everyone had eaten a bit much. Still, the Ruin waits for nobody, so they set off anyway.

“Do we go to an oceanic planet now?”

“If you’d like! There’s a planet in this system that caught my eye first.” Eve pointed to another planet, a lush forest like the one they visited before. For the list of settlements in the area, there was a hylotl village and a Miniknog city.

“I think you’d like to visit this one. There’s something quite special at the beam site.” Eve smiled mischievously.

“What is it?”

“Not telling!” She smirked and beamed down before Mika could ask any more questions.
“Gods dammit!” She portaled down after her.

Adam shrugged and joined them.

When she exited the portal, Mika saw something that made her eyes widen and sent shivers of joy down her spine.

“Flowers! Big flowers!” She could barely keep still!

“I had a hunch you’d like these! Go ahead, enjoy!” Before Eve had a chance to finish, Mika was off like a bullet and dove into the closest flower.

Pollen galore and nectar rivers! She lapped up any she could grab, before the sugar hit her head and she was instantly in another. And another. And another! By the time she’d visited (or nearly torn her way into), Mika looked like she was about to explode with how violently she was shaking from the sugar rush.

“Are.. You… Okay?” Eve looked at her with concern. Adam had found them by this point, and noticed the violently shaking moth.

“Sugar Sugar Sugar Sugar!” Mika words were primitive at best. A second or two later, she calmed down freakishly fast and turned to Eve.
“Sorry, but you must excuse me- I need to run this sugar rush dry.”

“Sure… Go ahead.”

Mika nodded, and launched into the sky with such force that some of the nearest giant flowers were knocked over by the blast whilst Eve was knocked over. A charred patch of alien gras remained where Mika had been standing.

“I think we shouldn’t let her near those flowers for a while!” Adam helped Eve up and they watched the blazing trail of Mika as she flew far, far above them.

Hours passed, and she still hadn’t calmed down.

The sun began to set, and Mika was finally showing signs of slowing down.

When she finally ran out of energy, it was completely dark, with Adam and Eve setting up a camp for the night.

They’d both gotten ready to sleep, when a loud thud outside made them both jerk awake.

“Mika?”

“Sorry! I finally got it out of my system.” She got up and found a tent that’d been made for her before stopping.

“Should we keep watch?”

“Nobody’s going to go near here after seeing that, and any wildlife must’ve run for the hills. It should be more than safe for everyone to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Alright. Shall we set off for the Hylotl village in the morning?”

“That’s a good plan. One thing, though. The Miniknog city is in between us and said village, and going around it might seem as though we’re rebels, and we’d get shot at for sure. Our best bet is to go through. I need you to not fight them, there’s too many civilians in the area for that. Just keep going. Don’t even smile and wave.”

“Understood.”

“Thank you, Mika. You could easily take them all on, but you mustn’t here.”

“Good night!”

Chapter Text

After a rough night’s sleep, the three adventurers had to make the trek to the Miniknog settlement. They weren’t anywhere near close to it before they felt watched from every angle.

“So before we arrive, is there anything else I should know about the Miniknog?” Mika looked to Eve for an answer.

“The Miniknog came to power some time ago, and the first thing they did was introduce a pathogen into the water supplies of every apex settlement and forced people to undergo something called the Vestigi-Evo Process, or V.E.P, was the only way to get yourself cured, and it was forced on you or you died. As a result, the entire Apex race has been irreversibly changed and the oppressive government reigns supreme over them all through a scheme called ‘big ape’.”

“I already hate them. Although, the one who saved me did do something worse.” As soon as Mika finished, both Adam and Eve stared at her in shock.

“What? I stopped it and managed to save everyone. But now they’re all dead, and nothing but dust under a desert.”

An incredibly awkward silence followed, and then they arrived.

It sent shivers down Mika’s spine.

A towering gate and viciously barbed walls surrounded a small and incredibly compact city. She could feel the suffering from here.

Magic did start to flare up around her until Eve nudged her and she calmed down.

A pair of guards stood at the gate, and opened it to let them inside.

As they passed the guards, one warned them- “No funny business, travellers. Big Ape is watching you.”

“Understood.” Mika nodded and they went in.

Many people were here, all trying to hide their fearful, pained looks. As if anything were shown and they’d be dead.

If she was going to communicate, she’d have to do it telepathically.

“So we just keep moving?”

“Yes, and don’t stare. That’s a bad idea.”

‘And anything else I should know?’ A sudden voice spoke in Eve’s head, causing her to jump.

“What was that?” She looked around frantically to find the culprit.

‘Relax, It’s me. The moth on your left. I can read minds and communicate through them. I’ve used it very rarely as I prefer not to rummage through people’s heads and thoughts. It’s rude to do so. But in this situation it might just be what we need to avoid these guards. Think of your response and I’ll reply.’

Eve looked at Mika who looked back and winked.

‘Alright. Does this work?’

‘Works perfectly. Try not to think of anything inappropriate, There’s a reason I don’t do this often.’

‘That’s quite funny! But on a more serious note, we’re already being followed. I’ll go with Adam to the exit, to keep him from being abducted. They’re more interested in you, and I know you can handle yourself. Can you do that for me?’

‘A Scapegoat? Not what I’d like but sure, I can do that for you. Wait for me once you’re out of their range.’

‘Got it. Be safe, okay?’

‘You know that’s not my speciality.’ Mika exhaled sharply through her nose. She lost her sense of smell when she first became a caterpillar, but the antennae replaced her nose in that way.

Mika noticed the guards behind them. Two armoured Apex with guns, not a good time. Still, a building caught her eye and she went over to check it out. Adam was escorted out of there by Eve. He tried to protest, but when she gave him a certain look, he stopped all resistance. This was serious.

When Mika came up to the building she’d spotted, she found a strange grey door that slid open when she touched it. The guards were getting closer, so she swiftly wandered inside and left the door open as she didn’t know how to close it.

There were dozens of posters lining the walls, and she stopped to look at one.

It was mostly red and yellow with an ape’s face in the middle and a banner at the bottom only saying ‘Obey’ Instinctively, she let out a low hiss.

“Saturnian.” The guards had reached her.

She tried to ignore them, but the flicker of her antennae showed she’d heard them.

“Saturnian.” The guard said again in a deep and threatening tone.

“Yes?” She turned to face them, faking obliviousness.

“Big Ape is interested in you, and would like to meet with you. You are not like any other Saturnian he has seen visit this place.”

“Why does everyone think I’m a bloody Saturnian?” Mika sighed.

“...What?” The Guard was evidently caught off by this.

“I’m not a Saturnian! I haven't even seen one yet! Can someone please tell me why I look like one so much!?”

“You’re not a Saturnian? Tell me, what are you?” The Guard spoke in a very demanding tone, likely never having met someone who said no to them.

“I’m not quite sure what I am, to be honest. It’s been so long since I last met someone like me, I was starting to think I’m the last of my kind. But I’m not! My children are still out there. So that’s my mission, I’m going to go and find them.”

“And do your children look like you? We may have some way to assist you if so.”

“Sadly, they don’t. In fact, I found answers on one of them in an abandoned facility once owned by the Miniknog! Her name is Gaia, she’s the biggest of my children. Always covered in vines and orange thorns.

As soon as she’d finished speaking, the guard held a hand to his helmet, muttering something along the lines of ‘are you hearing this? We found specimen P’s mother.’ Before looking back at Mika.

“You’re going to have to come with us. Big Ape is desperate to meet you.” They didn’t wait for a reply and Mika shrugged before following them.

They came to a building covered in white metal, quite like the facility she’d first found.

Expecting this to go wrong, Mika sent a message to Eve.

‘Get out of here, they know who I am. I think. I’m playing the fool for now, expect chaos if things go wrong.’ Moments later, Mika got a reply.

‘Are you crazy!? Get out of there now! If you don't, nobody's going to see you again!’ The feeling of fear and panic flooded through with the message.

Mika cut Eve off and prepared for the worst.

The two guards arrived at the doors of the strange building and opened it up, waving for Mika to go inside.

She swiftly went in, and found it was incredibly dark. It wasn’t a problem, as she simply brightened her glow to see her way through.

Cameras were in every corner, and many strange contraptions were in adjacent rooms. Something ahead of her lit up, and she went towards it.

A doorway, of some sort. This was all for dramatic effect, Mika thought.

It opened for her, and she went inside.

An apex in a white lab coat and glasses sat in a padded chair.

He waved for Mika to sit in another chair opposite, so she did.

To her surprise, nothing happened. It was a normal chair.

“I suppose you know why you’re here?”

“The guardsmen said Big Ape wanted to see me. I’ve no idea why. Am I really that interesting?”

“To him, yes. I simply conduct interviews for him. Now, do you know what something called ‘Subject P’ is?”

“I don’t. Do you have any pictures?” Mika asked the scientist, to which several pictures were handed to her, some more blurry than others.

“We were studying a strange creature we discovered in an unnaturally large tree, hoping to use its properties to better grow crops and feed our nation. Do you recognise it?”

“It? That’s Gaia! My daughter, to be exact. She was always bigger than her siblings.”

The scientist began to take notes, keeping the notepad at an angle where she couldn’t see it.

“So there are others?”

“Of course! I’m on a search for them all. Y’know, for a family reunion. It’s been an untold amount of time since we last all met, but I found her! She’d been captured by Florans in their ceremonial hunt. She would’ve torn through every last one of them had I not managed to get through to her. Seems isolation didn’t do her any favours.”

“Apologies for interrupting, but have you retrieved Specimen- I mean, Gaia?”

“I have, and took her to a place where she’d be safe. Poor girl, I’d never have wanted her to suffer like she has!”

“I would too, if I had a child. But where are her siblings?”

“I’m still searching for them. Mael’s missing, and so is Solace. Sunrise shouldn’t be too hard to find, given her nature, but it’s still a vast universe. If anything, Solace will be the hardest to find. They’re all gods of something. Be it Storms, nature, light or death and what comes after.” Mika noticed the scientist writing stuff down so frantically that he broke the end of his pencil. Pausing to sharpen it, he asked her another question. The professional stoicism that he’d asked the questions with before had faded entirely, replaced by confusion and a genuine interest in what Mika was saying.

“So you’re saying your children are gods? Is there anything special about yourself, or their father?”

“Their father? Not really, though I do love him very much. Markoth was his name, if he still uses it. I inherited the power over light and dreams. Thus giving me some very special tricks indeed.” Mika smiled at the scientist before sending them a ‘message’.

‘Of course, one such trick is telepathy. I can read minds, and nothing is hidden from me.’

The scientist leapt out of their chair and screamed.

“What… was that!?”

“That’s telepathy, silly! Don’t you read stories? I can read minds, although I prefer not to. Don’t worry, your knowledge is still secret. It’s rude to do so anyway.” Mika knew that shit was about to hit the fan, it’d be time to leave soon.

However, he calmed down and sat back in his chair, taking more notes before looking up at Mika again.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I must go and show my findings to Big Ape. Will you wait here for me?”

“Sure, I can do that. I’ve got eternity to spend.”

The scientist grabbed his things and dashed off, leaving Mika to ponder.

She decided to check in on Eve again.

‘Hey, how’re things going out there?’

‘You’re not dead yet? I thought they were going to kill you!’

‘Far from it! I went to a room and spoke with a seemingly nice guy. He’s just off showing what he’s found to someone.’

‘What did you tell them.’

‘Nothing about you or Adam, don’t worry. Just stuff about my family.’

Anger surged through the link, and Mika cut it.

Not too long after, the scientist came back with another blank notepad and a tray with two drinks on it.

“Here, drink this.” The scientist handed her a glass, the clear liquid inside not seemingly anything other than water.

“Oh, thanks!” Mika drank the whole thing in one.

The scientist sat down and sipped from his glass, expecting something to happen. When it didn’t, he looked concerned.

“How are you feeling?”

“Me? I’m doing just fine! It’s been a while since I had something to drink. Wait, was that spiked or something?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Because, well, It wouldn’t work on me.” She stared daggers at the scientist, who shuffled in his seat.

“Of- Of course not! That’s why I wouldn't do that in the first place. If I may, can I ask some more questions?”

“...Very well. What do you wish to know?” Mika summoned a soul nail and tossed it in the air, catching it and repeating the process. The scientist watched with awe.

“Where were you hiding that?”

“Oh, this? It’s magic, simply. Something I’m quite good at. Runs of an annoyingly scarce resource, though. I can’t waste much. Each blade I cast has a perfect edge, capable of making cuts down to the atom. Of course, It’s not too often I get to use them. And It’s safe to say they’re the weakest spell in my arsenal.”

“What’s the strongest?”

“Oh, the strongest? Now that’s a fun one. I’d say it’d belong to portals. I can make them at will, with the choice of linking two places I’ve already been or jumping back to my realm.”

“Your realm?”

“Oh, the Dream realm! If anyone’s nearby me when they go to sleep, they’ll end up in the Dream realm. And that’s where I send spirits. If I don’t consume them, that is. If I do that, or the Dream realm is destroyed, they get sent to the Oblivion, the place my son Solace cares for. I went there once, and I never want to go again. Now it’s been fun, but I’ve got to go. See you!”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not going anywhere. Big Ape will make good use of you.” The scientist tapped the earpiece he wore and said ‘detain her. The sedative was ineffective’

Suddenly, the door burst open and armed guards barged in, raising their guns at Mika.

“Hands where we can see them, Big Ape will not tolerate resistance!”

“Oh I’m sorry, but I can’t stay, got to go!” They tried to shoot, but Mika vanished through a portal on the floor.

“SHE’S ESCAPING!” the scientist screamed and all  hell broke loose.

Sirens lit up all over the settlement, and guards poured out of every crevice, all looking for the escaped convict.

Little did they know, said convict was being scolded by her friend.

“...And what did I tell you? TO NOT GO IN THERE! Now look at what you’ve done! Our best choice is to stay down here, they’ve probably seized the ship by now! Ugh, you have no sense of what’s a bad idea, do you?”

“Sorry…” Mika whimpered.

“Sorry won’t cut it! We might end up dead if they find us with you! I think we should part ways after we’re out of here. MAybe there’s a teleporter in the Hylotl village.”

They raced off at breakneck speeds, reaching the Hylotl village before night fell.

Asking around, they found out that there wasn't a teleporter.

“NOW WHAT? We’re stuck here!” Eve roared.

“Hey, I can help! It’s the least I can do.”

“And how can you help-” Eve remembered that Mika was a god.

A portal to the outpost appeared in front of them, and beside it was a cheerful Mika.

“Of course you can do that.” Eve sighed and jumped through. Adam followed and Mika went through last, closing it behind them.

At the outpost, they argued about what to do next.

“Do we have the ship retrieved? Can we even do that?” Eve grumbled and cursed, storming off to find Esther and tell her what had happened.

Mika went to Penguin Pete and Adam went off for more cheese. He liked cheese.

“Hey Pete! I’ve got a bit of a situation, can you help me?”

“Aye, Depends on what it is.”

“Do you do a ship recovery service?”

“I do. Never thought I’d have to use it, though. What’s the trouble?”

“I had a run-in with the Miniknog and Eve feared they’d have taken our ship whilst I escaped capture.”

“Ah, that sounds bad. I know a few rebels, you might like to join their cause. I have your ship tracked, I added the tracker myself when we repaired the FTL drive. Y’know, in case you avoided paying me for something.”

“Creepy, but fair. So, can you use it?”

“Got ‘er here, miss! I’ll get the penguins to bring her back in one piece.”

“Thank you, Pete! You’re the best.” Mika hugged him.

“Agh! I’ve not been hugged in years! I missed the feelin’. I was gonna charge ya, but I’ll skip that part for this.”

Eve found Esther having tea and mint humbugs with Gaia. Well, Gaia was having boiling water instead, she wasn’t too keen on the tea.

“Hello dearie, how was the trip?”

“Bad. Really bad.”

“Oh no, what happened?”

“Mika in her infinite stupidity let herself get interrogated by the Miniknog.”

“Oh… That’s not good…”

Gaia squeaked at her mother’s name, letting out a series of chirps and buzzes before remembering they couldn’t understand her. She went back to sipping her water.

“Gaia here has been wonderful to teach writing to! It allows me to speak with her as sign language doesn’t work with vines.”

“Okay, but can you take this seriously? We’ve got a serious problem here!”

Esther suddenly looked hurt, then apologised.

“Sorry, dear. Pete might be able to help you, though!”

“Alright. Here’s to that bloody moth not screwing this over as well.” Eve stormed off, only to find Mika wandering right past her.

“Are you off to find Adam?”

“No, I'm off to have Pete get our ship back. Do you have any pixels for recovery fees?”

“Already done. He’s got a team after our ship right now. Sorry about all this.” Mika’s antennae went limp and trailed back, a sign of her feeling very upset.

“It’s alright, Just… Don’t stick around the Miniknog if you can help it, they’re very manipulative and nothing is what it seems. Did they try to drug you?”

“They did. But anything I eat or drink gets turned into essence for later use, so it doesn't have any effect.”

“You are unbelievably lucky, you know that?”

“Heh, yeah…”

“Now come on, Let’s find Adam.”

Chapter Text

Eve had rushed off, leaving Mika to her own thoughts. She spotted a spot to sit, and got comfy.

It turned out to be a whole lot more comfy than she’d expected and soon Mika was fast asleep.

She began to dream.

It was a deep dive into her memory, remembering things long, long past. In fact, it was her time before being Mika.

From her birth to her untimely death, she saw everything.

School was a rough time for her, she’d learned her way of solving problems from the countless times she’d been bullied to the point where Sophie had mastered the skill of being invisible to the naked eye. It sounds stupid, but that was the way she managed to survive. Teachers had liked her, but nobody could stop the students from giving her hell. Sandpaper had been scraped across her face by one guy, another practically threw her in one P.E. lesson.

Then it jumped forward, to when Mika met her parents again. She remembered how they looked at her like she was a liar, then their faces changed as they realised who they were talking to. Their Daughter, Sophie.

Then out of nowhere, she felt like she wasn’t alone.

Eve had finally found Adam and was looking For Mika.

She eventually found the moth sleeping in a chair and tried to wake her up. Upon grabbing her shoulder to shake Mika awake, she passed out on the spot.

When Eve came to, or at least she thinks so, she found herself in the strangest place.

A golden hue enveloped everything, with strange rocky platforms floating around, occasionally big enough to house a building on them.

“What is this place?” She said to herself, not expecting an answer.

“Uhm, what the actual fuck are you doing in my dimension?” Eve jumped and spun around to see Mika.

“Can you tell me where I am? Did you drag me through another portal while I tried to wake you up or something?”

“No! I’d have to be awake to do that. You caught me dreaming, I’d believe. Did you try to shake me awake?”

“How did you know?”

“Because you ended up in my dream with me but don’t worry, we’ll both wake up sooner or later. I was reliving my memories. If you want to experiment, go wild! Nothing’s impossible here.” Mika demonstrated by waving her hand, making a whole range of beverages appear next to them both. “Care for a drink?” Next thing Eve knew, an inn formed around them, with seats waiting for them.

“You think of the strangest stuff, you crazy woman.” Eve looked around herself, noticing how it looked like something the Novakids would build. She bets they’d get along well with Mika.

“Do you know the Novakids? They often build like this.”

“By imagining the result?”

“No! Their design is similar to this.”

“Oh, they have saloons? I like the sound of that. Do you think we’ll find them on our travels?”

“About that…” Eve hung her head. She didn’t expect Mika to like this.

“About what? Travelling together?”

“I don’t think it’s safe for us to be with you. It’ll only cause trouble for us, and I want to be as nice as I can be when I say this, but I don’t want you to join us when we next set off.”

Instantly, Mika’s wings flared, a telltale sign of her anger. Eve winced at the brightness, but it soon calmed back down.

“I understand. I don’t know how this world works, I will only cause more trouble. I hope you are successful in your mission. Besides, I’ve slept long enough already.” She snapped her fingers, and the world turned white.

Eve woke up laying down by Adam, who was fluttering over her in a panic, worried something was very wrong. When he realised she was awake, he hugged her and helped her sit upright.

“Are you okay? You went to wake Mika up and collapsed!”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I ended up in some weird stuff inside Mika’s head.”

“You went inside her head? What did you find? Was there anything cool?”

“You could say that. If a separate dimension is cool.”

“That is cool! Was she there?”

“Yes she was, and I spoke with her about my concerns. She’ll be staying behind from now on.”

Adam’s excitement faded instantly, replaced with shock and mild anger.
“You told her to stay behind? Why?”

“She doesn’t know anything about the world we live in, and if the incident with the Miniknog happens again, we might not live to see another day.” Not long later, they heard a rattling hiss at the door.

Adam swiftly opened it, and a very rugged Mika stepped inside.

“Hey, did she tell you about leaving me behind?”

Adam nodded, expecting Mika to be angry about it like he was.

“She’s got a solid point. I’m too naive to be here safely, it’s best if I stay behind. I’ll find another way to explore where I won’t bother you. Maybe we’ll meet on the road ahead?” Mika looked hopeful. “And if we do, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned!” She waved to the two of them and left.

“She’s pissed.”

“Understandably. I might end up regretting this. But hey, perhaps she’ll be on the road ahead?”

Mika found Penguin Pete shouting at a few of his ‘employees’ and called to him.

“Hello again lass! What brings ye here?”

“I got kicked out of the group for my behaviour. Evve said I was too dangerous and knew too little about the world to stay with them.”

“That’s harsh! I hear ye’ve been looking for yer family. I know a few ships I can hook you up with to get ye back on track. How does that sound, eh? I don’t usually do this stuff for free, but I’ll make another exception.”

“Thanks, Pete. You’re the best.”

Once Eve could get up and walk around, she looked out the window to see a huge ship, larger than their own, docked by Pete’s shipyard.

“That was quick.” Eve looked at the guns on the vessel, they’d easily blow a hole in the surface of Mars.

“Now she gets the bigger ship? Lucky…” Adam groaned.

On board, Mika was led around by a penguin no taller than her knee.

“...And this is where you’ll sleep, should you want to.” They pointed a flipper to a well-made bed and a series of shelves to display findings on.

She went inside, and admired everything. Despite the rough and industrial design of the ship, she was quite comfortable in the small corridors and rooms. They reminded her of being underground.

“So where do you want to go first?” Another penguin with a cute captain’s hat asked her.

“Well, If I am to find my children and husband out there, I need to look in places where they’re likely to be. Mael should be the easiest to find. When he’s angry, he lets loose heavy winds and storms. He’d need a spot where the water that flows from him won’t cause a problem and he can let loose storms without trouble. Somewhere with a lot of water already.”
“So an oceanic planet? The ship can check the weather range, it should do wonders for finding a storm god.”

“That’s a way of putting it. And yes, that’ll help a bunch! Come on, where’s the nearest one?”

Chapter Text

Ever since the ship which Mika had boarded had left, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Adam chose to stop speaking to Eve once they got back on board, and she was practically forced to carry out their mission by herself. It sucked.

They nearly had enough material for Esther to find the location of the Hylotl artefact, and she prayed for things to improve.

And as luck would have it, she stumbled across the perfect system for her to search.

Punching in the order to go there, the ship flared up and shot off, leaving the outpost behind in an instant.

Moments later, the ship had slowed down to a crawl in the system. What was it called… Almach Major? Strange name, but far from the worst. When she started picking planets, S.A.I.L piped up.

“This system is quite strange, as it only formed in the last few thousand years. Caution is advised, the star these planets orbit exhibits unnatural readings.”

Eve looked the message over, and looked at the star. The solar shields on the ship’s windows rendered it safe to do so, and she noticed it looked quite strange indeed. There were no solar flares, nor was it heating up the ship’s hull protection. There would be lots of people here studying this star, no doubt. And Hylotl often took up being researchers.

“Adam?”

No response.

“Hey, you should come and see this. Seriously.” She heard some grumbles and shuffling, and Adam appeared and saw the star. He was obviously expecting something else, because his eyes widened in surprise.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably not.” Eve noticed his anger had subsided as soon as he saw the star.

“What Sail said, wasn’t this star only recently formed? Like, a thousand years ago?”

“It did say that, yes. Mika would’ve been older.”

“And the way it looks so different from other stars, do you think it’s possibly one of her children?”

“That would make no sense. Gaia was bigger than her, yes, but that’s ridiculous.”

“Oh…” Adam sunk back into the previous room.

She looked at the planets, and chose an oceanic one to go to first.

Once close enough, she could see the weather that this place had.

It was… Strange. Apparently, There’s a massive storm on this planet that’s been there for an incredibly long time, very much like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Not as big, no, but still impressive.

Many research colonies dotted the islands, and she believed this’d be a good place to search for clues.

She left Adam on board as she beamed down to look around.

Eve found herself on a sandy island in the middle of a huge ocean, as she’d expected. Wandering around, she felt something hard and metallic underneath her feet, very different to the hot sand everywhere else.

She brushed it away to reveal a hatch, and used the matter manipulator to clear the rest. Once it was clear, she tried to open it.

It took all her strength to get the thing open, and she made her way down into the depths.

It was very dark and damp with the smell of old seaweed and salt everywhere.

She used the torch in the manipulator’s scan mode to light up her surroundings, and it wasn’t pretty.

Severe rust and the signs of fights filled the hallways, a sign of something bad happening here.

Checking different rooms, Eve found many different objects of interest, such as a broken distress beacon still trying and failing to broadcast a signal, and an audio recording.

She managed to recover it and listened in on what it said.

Though most couldn’t be heard properly, she found it was a Hylotl researcher alongside a human and an apex that lived in this bunker, but something had gone wrong and the group had descended into madness. Eve gasped in horror and dropped the recorder and the clatter echoed around until she heard something off in the depths of the bunker. Almost like a rebid hissing.

She quickly made her way to the exit, when the sound of heavy footsteps came crashing towards her.

Eve screamed bloody murder and went up the ladder faster than anything a human should be capable of.

Once outside, she fumbled for her gun and pointed it at the entrance to the bunker, waiting for the monster to appear.

After a few seconds of waiting with her breath held, a partially webbed hand emerged and was shortly followed by a very scrappy Hylotl who stopped hissing once he saw her.

“Oh… Hello. I’m sorry for turning into a rabid animal there. I’ve not had anything to eat for a long time now, do you have anything?” He swiftly regained his composure he must’ve lost weeks ago.

“Uh, I do. Here, have this.” Eve brought out some leftovers from Mika’s cooking and handed it to the poor man.

He swiftly turned away and devoured the meal before turning back.

“I Can’t thank you enough… You’ve saved my life from rotting down there! My name is Yoshirou, and It’s an honour to meet you. My coworkers have unfortunately not survived, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat their remains. I can’t really bury them now, and I think I need to find a therapist. May I join your crew, if you’re hiring?”

Eve was taken aback by how sudden this was, and was intending to decline, when the sound of thunder caught their attention.

The storm had changed direction on a dime and was barreling towards them, almost as if it was alive.

“I hope that you’re going to make your choice soon?” Yoshirou was shuffling and struggling to stand, but managed to in time for Eve to register him to their ship and beam him off the planet. Not the way she’d expected to get a crew member, but it was a method nonetheless.

As the winds started to get dangerously strong, she beamed away.

Back on the ship, Adam was staring blankly at the Hylotl in front of him.

Eve quickly explained who the hylotl was, and why he joined them.

With a long ‘ohhhh’, Adam welcomed their new recruit.

Once settled, Eve asked him about the artefacts and if he’d have any idea about the Hylotl one.

“An artefact given to us by a… god? I struggle to believe that a god actually exists, but if it were to be anywhere, I’d expect it to be in one of the oldest structures that’s around, which predates the Floran-Hylotl war. The Grand Pagoda Library, to be exact.”

Instantly, Esther Bright appeared on Eve’s watch, saying that it sounded like the exact place she’d been thinking about and to meet with her so she could give them the coordinates.

After she’d cut the call, Eve looked back to Yoshirou and sternly told him that gods do exist.

“Ah, are you religious? I’m sorry for insulting you.”

“No, I’m not bloody religious! We were travelling with a literal god earlier! I chose to leave her behind because she had no clue how the world works now and had a run-in with the Miniknog. She’s out there now, looking for her family.”

“Oh.”

“Oh. OH? OH!? Is that all you have to say!?” Eve got unreasonably angry and Adam did his best to calm her down. Once she did, she apologised and offered the poor man some refreshments which he gladly accepted.

If only they’d been keeping watch on their surroundings…

Chapter Text

With directions set, the ship lurched away from the dock and sped off to the nearest system that looked suitable for Mael to be living in.

Once there though, The ship’s systems lit up, warning of heavy Miniknog presence.

“Oh great. You said you needed to avoid the Miniknog, right?” The captain asked Mika, to which she nodded.

“If I don’t want a repeat of previous events, yes. Are they here?”

“You betcha. I can’t count how many there are, it’s like a whole fleet showed up out of nowhere! We really should get out of here and come back another day.”

Mika glanced out the window and saw all the different planets, a hunch told her that her children definitely went through here, but she couldn’t raise an alarm by sticking around.

Thus, a different plan was hatched. Instead of searching for them right away, she’d look for villages and such built by other races, hoping to learn about them. It would help her know what to do and what not to do in certain places.

“Alright, let’s leave. My children are immortal, so they should be able to handle themselves out there. I’m sure of it.”

“Good choice. But what do you want to do instead?”

“For starters, learn about this new world I’m in. Where do you think’s best for that?”

“I’m a pioneer of the ‘learn from the source’ strategy, so I say we find a few settlements of different races. Who would you like to meet first?

“You’re asking the person who doesn’t know a thing about anyone. You choose first!”

“Gotcha. I’ve always wanted to see an avian village, so I’ll look for one of those first. The Captain did something with the ship's computers and they were speeding off once again.

Once the jump was over, the ship stopped and the two of them looked at the map of the system. Plenty of nicer planets, no directly hostile ships in the system, all safe to explore.

“That star looks different from the other ones I’ve seen. Is there a reason why?”
“Of course. This star is dangerously radioactive, the previous was a temperate star. There’s a few different types, such as Gentle, Temperate, Radioactive, Frozen and Fiery.”

“Oh, I see! They have an influence on the types of planets around them, right?”
“Correct! You’re learning fast.”  The captain congratulated Mika, and she purred in appreciation.

As they spoke, another penguin with an eye patch waddled in with a message.

“Sir, the ships in the last system had been running long-range scans on our own ship, I suspect they know we harbour a wanted individual.”

“Shit. Welp, do you also want to know what we do in this situation?”

Mika had a feeling this happens a lot. “I do. What is it?”

“We hide the ship!” The captain turned back to the ship’s computers and directed it to land on a planet coated in thick jungles.

The ship lurched forwards, causing Mika to stumble and fall backwards. She was fine, but a bit shaken up.

The planet drew incredibly close to the planet and soon the exterior began to heat up, with a fiery layer forming around it.

“Hold on, miss! This gets pretty bumpy.” The captain laughed as the ship drew closer to the surface.

For a moment, Mika was scared they’d crash! Thankfully, the ship ground to a halt just before hitting the surface.

“Do you have control of this thing?” Mika got up from where she’d fallen over.

“Of course I do! Did you think I was gonna crash this hunk o’ junk?”

“The way you put it, I’d expect you to.” Mika brushed herself off, wondering what they’d do.

“Oh, and before you go out there, it’s highly radioactive. The crew will join you should you choose to go outside, but they’ll need to get on radioactive protection suits. Do you need one?”

“I don’t know, I’ll see what happens when I go out there. Besides, I haven’t experienced radiation before, for all I know it’ll have no effect.”

“Just don’t go crying to me when you grow extra limbs, alright?” The captain let out a raspy laugh. Mika gave him an annoyed look and went off to find the exit.

She found a handful of penguins now wearing protective equipment and looking like futuristic soldiers in elongated gas masks, ready to take orders.

Before Mika could say anything, a crackling voice echoed from the speaker in the airlock.

“Alright team, our friend here woke up from a ‘quick’ nap, and needs to learn about the many things that have changed since she was out cold. Make sure she’s safe on your travels, and I’ll let you know when the Miniknog threat is gone. Move out.” A series of mechanical noises came from the door, and it opened.

Instantly, Mika’s body reacted with the heavy doses of radiation, causing her to shine blindingly bright. If it wasn’t for the dim visors in the penguin’s suits, they’d all have gone blind on the spot. Even the moth herself was caught off guard by the sudden flash.

She quickly cut down on the light she let off, and the penguins could see again.

“Miss, you good? Felt like a star just went supernova in here!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know what would happen. Can we go now?” A ramp extended from the ship, and they went down to the surface.

It was a stunning landscape, with huge trees on every available bit of ground, and masses of plants everywhere. The thing that caught her attention the most was the familiar vines dotted around.

Beside her, a penguin piped up. “Mika, right? Name’s Beggy. Stupid name, I know, ‘penguins are terrible at naming their kids’ and all, but we’re here to do a job.”

“Beggy? I wouldn’t say that name’s bad at all! You should’ve heard what they called people where I was from. They often just slapped two random words together and called it a day. I tried to be a bit more creative with what I named my family.”

“The Glitch slap two words together to make names, you know. If we were bothered by that, it’d probably be seen as highly offensive. But we’re mercenaries, we don’t get offended.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Don’t be. It ain’t me you’re upsettin’.”

Ignoring the awkward introduction, Mika looked at the strange vines. They looked identical to the ones Gaia grew. There and then, an idea came across her mind.

In her native language she spoke to the vines. For a few seconds, nothing happened.

“I know talking to plants is supposed to make them grow, but I don’t think that-” Beggy waddled over and was swiftly taken aback by the vines erupting out from the ground.

They all pointed to Mika, as if waiting for a response. She checked if they were thinking, and they were. These were still part of Gaia’s mind.

She asked them about the planet, and got a quick response. When the vines asked about their main body’s whereabouts, she told them Gaia was safe.

With that, the vines lost their rigid stance and smoothed down, allowing the group to move through the thick jungle unimpeded.

“So you can talk to plants? Seems you’re not the only one learning stuff today.”
“Oh those weren’t just plants, they’re one of my children.”

“Your what? Children?”

“Yes! They belong to one of my two daughters, Gaia. I think she was living on this planet before being taken by the Miniknog for testing.”

“Oh. That explains a few things.”

As they wandered through the jungle, Mika came across a couple strange fruits which Beggy told her were called Avesmingos. Apparently, they can taste like anything. Strange. She ate one anyway. Sweet, but sometimes sour, or bland. Or like bacon! Truly a wondrous fruit.

Further beyond, Mika spotted strange brickwork made of sandstone. As soon as they came close, she noticed the strange bird people wandering around. This must be the Avian village! They had a huge tower there, too. That’d be a good spot for looking around.

This is an ascendant’s village, be careful. They won’t take kindly to you disrupting any ceremonies. But we should be free to learn about their faith if you so wish. Just be polite and they’ll do the same.”

“Understood. If you like, you can wander freely, I should be fine here.”

“Thanks, but I’m supposed to keep an eye on you in case something happens. You have a habit of… causing trouble.”

“Aw, okay. I’ll see you around!” Mika spread out her wings and took off, landing in the village ahead, where she was swiftly surrounded by amazed Avians.

Beggy shrugged and waved for his colleagues to follow.

Mika wasn’t expecting to be admired to this extent as soon as she landed, but here she was, with Avians asking about her wings and how she flies.

A deeper voice shouted out, and the villagers quickly dispersed.

“Greetings, traveller. Welcome to our village. Kluex guide you.” An armoured Avian with a long spear greeted her.

“Kluex?” Mika turned her head slightly as her antennae perked up in curiosity.

Instantly, a villager ran up to her and started to blurt out who Kluex was.

“Kluex is the god of the Avians. Do you worship Kluex?”

“I’m sorry, I only woke up recently after a long stasis. I’m travelling with some penguins so I can learn about the universe and what’s in it. If you have time, could you teach me about Kluex?”

“I don’t think I’m best suited to teach you about Kluex. The stargazer is at the top of the ascendant’s tower, he can teach you best about our god.”

“Thanks! Which way is it?”

“It’s that way.” The Avian pointed Mika in one direction. “But since you can fly, it might be easier to do that. I envy your ability. Saturnians are normally too heavy to do so.”

“I’m not a Saturnian. I’m something much older and probably one of the last of my kind. A god, in a way. My children are much better with being gods, though.”

“Gods? But Kluex is the only god.” The avian leaned in and whispered to Mika. “You should be very careful saying that to people in this village. I understand you’re new, but if you really are a god, you should keep it a secret in your time here.”

“Thank you.” Mika replied telepathically, which made the Avian jump.

“Did you..?”

“Shoosh, it’s one of my powers.” Mika grinned. “ I am a god of the mind and of light. I think. I haven’t really figured everything out yet. If I meet Kluex, I’ll make sure to find out what he’s god of.”

“If you do meet Kluex, do ask him if our sacrifices please him!”

“Sacrifices?” Mika’s gaze darkened.

“Yes, Sacrifices! Someone should be ascending today, too. You can watch too, if you’d like.”

“Wait, What does that mean? To ascend?”

“It’s how Avians get to meet Kluex! Your body falls, and your soul soars. In fact, there’s two of us ascending today, too. Not something you see every day!” The Avian was completely oblivious, and Mika was desperate to stop such proceedings.

She quickly took off and spotted the huge tower instantly. It looked so thin, she was amazed it could actually stand. Still, Beggy told her to not mess with anything here, so she’d have no choice but to stick around and find out what happened.

Crowds had gathered to see the ascension, and she swiftly joined them on a rooftop.

The avian up the top had their arms (wings?) spread wide, and did what Mika had hoped they’d not do.

They jumped.

She looked on in horror as the poor soul fell to their death, the remains nothing but a heap on the ground at the end of it. Then one of the effects of her presence took effect, like it had done all those years ago on Earth.

The poor soul’s spirit formed above their remains.

Instantly, Panic struck the crowd and guards appeared instantly, where they tried and failed to kill the ‘blasphemer’. Upon realising that their weapons were of no effect, the guards stopped and thought about what to do.

Mika took the opportunity to jump down and greet them.

“What is this? Why did Kluex not accept them?”

“Hello?” Mika waved, and the guards all turned to see her.

“You! Do you know why this is happening?” The other guards looked to their superior in doubt, wondering why she’d speak with a foreigner about something like this.

“Ah, sorry, that’s a little side-effect of my presence. I cause people’s spirits to form when they die. I don’t think something was quite right with your ceremony.”

“You dare question the Stargazer?” A younger guard raised is spear in anger, but their captain told him to stand down.

“I do not know. I had my doubts ever since one of my family was supposed to ascend and survived the ceremony. And now I ask you this- Are you Kluex?”

“No, sorry. I’m just a traveller named Mika.”

“Mika… You seem to be holding something back. What is it?”

“Apart from my body reacting with the radiation this planet gives off, nothing I can think of. If I were to let it go I’d probably blind everyone here. And I don’t want to do that. I just wanted to learn about your culture. And maybe stop the other person up there from jumping. They look rather scared from down here.” She looked up at the orange avian still at the top of the tower who tried to turn back.

Moments later, she heard a shriek from the top, and an ornately dressed avian was pulling a knife out of the ascendant’s chest before pushing them off the edge!

The guards all looked up in horror, and Mika reacted instantly.

She took off like a rocket and grabbed the avian mid-fall. Slowing down to make sure whiplash didn’t kill them upon her grabbing them. She landed back by the guards moments later, with them all crowding around to see the state of the avian she’d just saved.

It wasn’t pretty. A big stab wound was in the middle of the poor girl’s chest, and Mika quickly laid them on softer ground before preparing to heal them.

Behind her, the guards were quarrelling amongst each other about how true Kluex was, and if the ascension was just a lie. Their captain was knelt by Mika, asking her what to do.

“Hush, I’m on it.” Mika’s hands glowed, and she started to heal the failed ascendant’s wounds.

The Captain watched speechlessly as the gaping hole in the Avian’s chest was gone in seconds, feather all regrowing and leaving the girl like nothing had happened.

“You have a great gift. I had my doubts about Kluex before, but now I wish to join the Grounded. Flight won’t be achieved through sacrifice. But who will grow our crops?”

“I will take care of everything, don’t worry.” Mika whispered to Gaia on the wind, and vines sprouted from the earth, bearing fruit and other different crops.

“I am a god, I know that. I have no interest in being the only god. Kluex is likely a false idol, perhaps something twisted from a previous being, but if there was something before, it's likely been gone for a long time. Whatever happens, you’ll be safe here, alright?”

“I… I don’t think I want to stay here any longer. Will you accept me onto your ship?” The Captain looked to Mika, who wasn’t expecting anyone here to want to join her.

The Ascendant sat up from where she’d been healed but winced in pain.

“Hey, careful! I’m not a miracle worker. I can heal you to an extent. My skills just aren’t what they used to be.”

“Why did you save me? I was supposed to ascend and be with Kluex… Wait, why is Cuemal still alive over there? I saw him ascend!”

“Oh, he’s not alive, that's his spirit. I don’t think sacrifice is such a good idea. Not like this.”

“Do you need a moment? I can try to remove some trauma from your memory if you need it, though I really don’t want to mess with people’s memories.”

“It’s okay. My name is Ixotl. I was going to ascend with Cuemal, we were together and wanted to stay that way when he was chosen to ascend. Is Teztlal going with you, too?”

Mika looked at said Avain, and she nodded. “I am. Do you want to come with us, too? A ship must be the best way to fly.”

“If you’re going, then I’m coming too. Besides, Cuemal can’t come with us, can he?”

“I don’t know how space travel works on spirits. But since physical matter doesn’t affect them, I don’t think it will do anything. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I understand that Kluex was a lie now. Thankyou for letting me see the truth.

The penguins finally managed to catch up, and saw the scene of a corpse in a heap, guards everywhere, and Mika hunched over an avian with a large hole in their shirt.

“Uhm, is it not inappropriate for someone to show their chest?” Beggy quickly looked away and Ixotl yelped before trying her best to shield herself.

Mika took a moment to figure out what was happening, then barked a laugh and offered to repair her clothing.

Ixotl agreed, and Mika got to work spinning silk. In a matter of minutes, the leather shirt was wrapped in ornately woven silk and returned to its owner.

“This is beautiful! You are incredibly skilled in weaving. Would you teach me someday?”

“Of course! I only ask you to teach me about Avian society in return. Knowledge for knowledge, one might say.”

With modesty regained and belongings packed, The two new recruits were brought back to the ship.

When Mika saw the ship again, she noticed the mass of vines forming a canopy over it, shielding it from prying eyes above.

Mika thanked Gaia for her help, and they went on board. The ship’s Captain wasn’t majorly pleased with the new additions to his crew, but he wasn’t going to turn them down.

With everyone on board, Mika went and found the captain to ask him if the Miniknog were around.

“Nope, some of them did follow us to this system, but they gave up the search when they couldn’t find us. Plants are a lot better at hiding ships than I’d thought. Thanks for helping us out, you’re certainly pulling your weight in this crew!” He laughed.

“Thanks, I guess? I think you’re happier just because you’re no longer the only flightless birds on this ship!” Mika cackled as the captain hissed at her.

“Touché. Alright, where do you want to go next?”

“I’m not sure. What other races are there nearby?”

“Nothing much in this system besides Avian colonies and tombs. I’d say we’re best off finding a Glitch settlement next. They like volcanic worlds, but if we’re lucky we’ll find them in a cooler place. I’ll look around gentle stars for you. Get comfy and talk with the crew, I’ll let you know when we’re ready to set off next.”

“Thanks, Cap’n!” Mika waved and left.

“Heck, I see why Pete likes her.”

Chapter Text

Once introductions had been done, Yoshirou got to work after choosing to be the ship’s janitor. Not that it was very big.

Whilst he swept up any dust, Adam was looking out the windows when he saw a fleet of ships.

“Eve? I don’t like what I’m seeing here.”

With a sigh, Eve went over to see what Adam was so worried about, and let out a squeak when she saw what he’d seen.

It was a fleet of ships, yes, but it’s who they belonged to that scared her.

The Miniknog. A whole fleet of ships were searching for them.

They’d only have seconds before-

S.A.I.L suddenly piped up, saying that the ship was being scanned by an unknown vessel nearby.

Eve bolted for the controls, but it was too late.

A massive cruiser suddenly appeared before them, hailing their ship.

“Vessel. Shut down all non-vital systems. You are believed to hold a fugitive responsible for multiple crimes. Surrender for processing.” The cruiser’s weapons could be seen humming with power, a telltale warning of what happens when you don’t comply.

“What do we do!?” Adam raced about in a panic. Yoshirou sat there and sighed. He’d just gotten out of hell; this couldn’t be much worse, could it?

Eve looked down at the starmap. They were close enough to another planet to beam down.

“I have a plan, but it’s going to be risky. We’ll not make it out alive if we stay here, so I say we beam down to that planet there and hope they follow the ship when I set it to autopilot. S.A.I.L, are you ready?” She asked the ship’s A.I, and it agreed.

The teleporter was activated, and the three of them were gone from the ship in a flash.

Once the crew was off the ship, it lurched forwards and sped off around the system, a wall of gunfire following it.

Down on the safety of the planet, Eve watched the flashes in the sky as her ship sped away.

Adam noticed her and checked to see if she was okay.

“I’m alive, I guess. This is far too similar to Earth's destruction.

This is a Savanna planet, we haven’t got much cover, and food’s going to be scarce. We should get to preparing.”

As the sun set, the trio had a small camp set up, crudely cobbled together out of sticks, logs and packed mud.

It was all they had for the time being, better materials would surely be found underground.

But for now, bundles of hay would do as bedding.

Up in space, the ship had been stuck in its engines, rendering it unable to escape. Soldiers boarded the ship to find the crew had already escaped. Before they stormed off and sent teams to every planet in the system, the ship was recovered and taken to their hangar for further processing.

When it arrived, they’d check through more important records, such as the recent stops and the teleporter records. Once they got that, it’d only be a matter of time before things were over for the escapees.

Back on the planet, morning had arrived and the group got to work instantly.

Yoshirou was tasked with finding food, with hunting being the best choice.

Eve went digging, and Adam was stuck with the annoying task of building better housing.

It could be worse.

And indeed it could.

Yoshirou came back with very little to show other than thorny fruits from the local cacti. Eve got chased out of the mines by a monster and Adam had run out of materials.

“Great, so did anyone get anything at all done?” Adam groaned when both had little to show. Scraps of ore and a few handfuls of stone from Eve, and a couple space ‘rabbits’ and a pile of thorn fruit.

“At least we have something. We won’t starve and getting building materials doesn’t have to be done today. We’ll be fine!”

“That’s what you say. How are you always so optimistic!?” Eve had a go at Adam, who sighed.

“I would ask myself the same thing. I have no idea! But why would I look for a reason to be unhappy?”

Eve was about to reply, but paused and realised he had a point.

“I’m going to bed. I can’t deal with this today.”

“Wait, do you want something to eat later? I can bring something in a bit.” Yoshirou had gotten a fire going whilst they had argued.

“...Yes please.”

“You got it!” He bid Eve goodnight.

“It’s not evening yet, why is she heading to bed?”
“ I have no clue.”
“I think it’s to do with having a rough time underground. You’d be exhausted after being attacked, wouldn’t you?

“That’s true. I’d also be pretty hungry.”

“I can agree on that part. This’'l be ready in a bit.” Yoshirou stirred a pot of boiling water.

It didn’t take long to prepare a soup from the ingredients at hand, and the result reminded Adam of Mika’s style of cooking. She had a knack of making any random pile of ingredients work together. He’d bet she could make a dirturchin taste good.

“I noticed plenty of currentcorns growing around here, but only a fool or a glitch would dare eat one.”

“I remember something about them. Aren’t they full of acid?

“That’s right. Why we don’t use them in producing batteries, I don’t know. They store a good amount of charge as a battery on their own!” Yoshirou laughed. He’d tried that before and made the mistake of overloading it. It was dangerous but everyone found it very funny.

Eve hadn’t gone to her room to sleep, but instead she’d tried to speak with Mika.

‘Mika? Can you hear me?’ Eve sent out the thought, and waited.

Some time later, she heard a reply.

‘Hello. What brings you back to me?’

‘I’m sorry about kicking you out. Are you alright?’

‘I’ve never done better! I’m on the trail of my family, but a bunch of Miniknog ships were stopping me from reaching the planet where I think Mael is. Did you go to a planet with massive storms recently?’

‘Yes, actually. An oceanic planet?’

‘That’s the one! I wanted to go there, but I couldn’t. Did you get caught by the Miniknog yet?’

‘No, not yet. We had a dangerously close call, though. Lost the ship to survive it.’

‘Oh shit, are you okay? I can come over to pick you up, if needs be?’

‘No, I think you should put distance between us. When they realise we’re not with you they should let us go. I hope they will, at least. I’m not sure if they’ll just kill us like they do with rebels.’

‘I don’t think you should take that chance. If you do get caught, let me know immediately. You were kind to me, I ought to repay you for that.’

Eve felt the connection cut and waited for Yoshirou to bring her something to eat.

“Eve? Are you asleep yet?” The smell of a crude stew wafted in alongside Yoshirou.

“Nope, how’d cooking go?”

“I could do better, really. This is all I had on hand. It hurts to not add spices to make it smell and taste better.”

“It’s alright, I’m grateful you’re making us something.”

“Thanks. Eat up, being hungry isn’t any fun!” He waved to Eve and left to share the rest with Adam.

She looked at the stew and sighed. It wasn’t like Mika’s cooking, she knew exactly what to do with stuff like that. And it was because of her that she left.

Eve finished her bowl and flopped into her bed.

At first, things were peaceful.

At the hangar, The Miniknog agents had managed to crack into the ship’s logs and found out where the ship had been and where her crew went.

“So that’s where those rebels went? Shouldn’t be hard to find them.”

“Then go find them. I’ll get a team to assist you. Glory to Big Ape.”

Eve was woken up by the sounds of a scuffle outside.

She dressed herself, looked outside her hut and was swiftly grabbed and pinned to the ground by soldiers wearing a white uniform

“Wha-” She tried to talk, but was quickly made to shut up.

Yoshirou and Adam had been detained already, with the signs of a gunfight everywhere. How she slept through that, she had no clue.

“Rebels have been detained. It was as easy as you said.” One Apex tapped his earpiece and told the others a ship would be there to pick the rebels up shortly.

Eve hadn’t much time to think, so she sent out one last message to Mika, hoping it would reach her.

In mere moments, she lost consciousness. The last thing she heard was the sound of a ship’s engines and it landing next to them.

She prayed that her message found Mika.

Chapter Text

“I know, that one there! It looks pretty.”

“A desert planet? Not sure why you’d want to go there but I won’t complain. Do you like sand?”

“Sand? That’s something I haven’t had the joy of running through for a while. What about you two, do you want to have a look?”

“Neither of us mind. You’ve shown us the error of our ways, and for that we thank you. I’d say Kluex be with you, but that wouldn’t help!” Textlal sat in the rough chair she’d chosen whilst the chef Leggy taught her how to play card games like poker. It didn’t take long for her to beat him at his own games.

When they got to the planet, The Captain gave her a description of the planet and what was on it.

“...And over there is a nice part of the desert, there’s plenty of very colourful plants and a few animals. The water’s said to have special properties, and I’d recommend having a look.”

“Sounds perfect! Can we land there?”

“As you wish, m’lady.”

In a big swoop, the ship veered towards the planet, breaching the atmosphere with a plume of heat, and the avians playing cards before were now clinging to their seats. Shortly afterwards they’d landed on the surface of the planet, and Mika had shot out of the airlock to explore.

The whole place was beautiful! The light coloured sand was perfectly contrasted by the rainbow of different plants growing here. Even the palm trees were beautiful! Not that palm trees already were any less, they just lacked the colours of these ones.

She’d been loosely followed by the crew and the avians they’d been joined by, and it was evident they were having trouble keeping up. After all, it was one flying moth versus a dozen flightless birds.

When she found what she was looking for, she landed.

It was a glowing pool of water, one oh so tempting to dip into. And take the plunge she did. Instantly, she could feel the effects.

“How can she go so fast!?” Ixotl gasped as they finally caught up. The pool of water Mika was in seemed to be reacting to her, glowing brighter around her.

“Should healing water normally do that?” One penguin asked while they stared in awe.

“I don’t know, but something tells me to keep back for now.”

She couldn't believe it- Soul! This water was full of it! Hot springs, all the way out here! And on the surface, too! She could only wonder what it was like down underground.

She sucked up all she could, causing the pool to glow brightest where it came into contact with her, until the supply of soul in the water had run out for the time being. Feeling rejuvenated, she got out of the pool and turned to see everyone waiting patiently for her.

“You’re- you’re glowing.” Ixotl stared in amazement.

“I am? Oh, I am! I feel much better. It’s been a long time since I last filled up on soul.”

“Soul? Did you steal the soul of something?” Textlal glared suspiciously.

“What? No! Of course not! It’s an old substance from my homeland. It ran through every living thing, but I haven’t seen any since I woke up.”

“Woke up? How long did you sleep?”

“How long I’d slept? I’m not sure of the exact time, but around say… the year 2024?” The moment she said the year, everyone jumped in shock.

“That long ago!? How old are you!?”

“How old am I? Say, nearing 5 thousand? I stopped counting because it hurts my head.”

“That’s a lot of candles.” Laggy said bluntly.

“Yeah, It’s taking me long enough to find my family. I have a general idea where they are, but it’s weird. We went past one of the places I needed to check, it was an oceanic planet. The one with those huge storms? You do remember that one, right?”

“Of course. We got chased off by the bloody Miniknog. Damn those apes, they’ve been in power for hundreds of years now! Nobody from the start is still even there.”

“Exactly! I want to go there after this. But first, there’s an old festival I’d like to celebrate. One from the oldest corner of my past. Have you heard of Christmas?”

“What?”

Some hours later, the whole team had gathered a ton of the plants around the place, decorating the ship to fit the theme she was after. The desert wasn’t exactly the best place to dress up your house for Christmas, but it’s what they had.

She’d been gathering all kinds of colourful plants on this planet, arranging them in pretty bouquets and banners all around the penguin’s ship! In fact, it helped it seem more like a tribe’s hut rather than a space-age piece of tech.

“What are ye going to the ship?” Leggy came up to her in confusion.

“Why, It’s an old Earth holiday soon! Christmas. Have you heard of it?” Mika looked in shock at the 

“What do you do at christmas? Why, you decorate your home and give gifts! I never had much when it came to Christmas as my family wasn’t that wealthy, but it was nice nonetheless. It was always best when you had snow! But those days are long gone, as is Earth. Gods, it’s still sinking in.” Mika froze for a moment.

The penguin gave her a moment before Mika snapped back.

“But that’s already over. Come on, let’s have some fun!” She giggled and fluttered off to make the ship’s bow look like Rudolph.

Another of the crew waved over to him, and they went back to whatever they’d been doing.

It’d been surprisingly easy to come up with gifts, even for Ixotl and Textlal. They were very happy with jewellery made from precious stones Mika found on a quick trip underground. It was really pretty down there, too. All sorts of beautiful caves and crystals, and she even found a cavern of tiny gnomes! She made sure not to break their houses on her way down.

The crew had some things in stock that made for good presents, though Mika couldn’t say she agreed with a rocket launcher being a good gift. Then again, it was a rocket launcher.

That wasn’t the main thing on her mind, though.

How were Adam and Eve faring without her? Had they been caught by the Miniknog? She could only pray for their safety. Though was there a god to hear her pleas, other than herself?