Kensa nods her head side to side while sitting on the ground with both her hands in her lap, humming a merry tune. Miya walks in front of her, making her spring up from the ground and onto her feet.

“Sooo, you comin’ or what? I’ve kinda waited for your little chat to conclude, so the answers’ gotta be yes right?”

“Well, I didn’t come back over here to be your company.” Miya deadpans.

“Haha! Good one half and half! You’re nonliteral sense of humor is very amusing! You’re very different from the others. Anyways, come come, let’s go!~”

Kensa throws her arm forward, pointing toward the metal doors as she strides into the darkness. Miya looks back at Koko and Loliel still lingering a few feet away before walking after her, disappearing past the entryway.

“And you’re… Sure about this?” Koko crosses her arms.

Loliel turns around and starts walking down the broken concrete road. “She’s made up her mind, no point in trying to talk her out of it. And besides, it’s not like she’s affiliated with us in any way. Whatever mischief she gets into is her business. We’re making an equivalent exchange of information for information. Let’s not get attached.”

Koko lowers her head with a dour gaze, she then notices Loliel’s hand gripping onto her sidearm holster.

“… I know you don’t mean that… Captain…”

. . .

The clanking of two metal footsteps made for the only sensory aspect of a dimly lit narrow alloy passageway leading onto a downwards slope. The only light being a set of red-swirling alarm beacons on the sides of the wall, Miya continues to follow Koko down the cramped tract.

Koko turns around and starts walking backward while facing Miya. “Your human companions didn’t come. Why?”

“They aren’t my companions.” Miya retorts.

“Ohh, I see. So they’re like allies?”

“No.”

“Friends of a friend.”

“No.”

“Maybeee, they’re friends that you have, but you don’t know it yet!”

“You’re very irritating to talk to. Please be quiet.”

Kensa turns around and starts skipping down the path. “You know, I always wanted to travel onto the surface. It was, in some way an experience, but overall a huge letdown. I mean, everything was busted and broken and like, hello! Where’s everyone at?”

Miya closes her eyes with a sigh.

“I guess my fight with you was worth it, but still, I wanted to try out some delicacies. Maybe you could tell me all about them, since, you know, you’re like half them right?

“Don’t compare me to those sensitive weaklings ever again.”

“I dunno, you kinda smell like them, to be honest—“

Miya lunges forward, grabbing Kensa’s arm and slamming her back onto the metal wall. She then digs her pointed fingertips into Kensa’s stomach with an intense scowl on her face.

“You’re truly annoying, and I have little patience. So, for your sake and mine please do not say another word. If you decide to continue talking, I’ll pump you with so many holes that they’ll be nothing left for you to heal back from. Do you understand me?”

Kensa nods her head and puts a finger in front of her lips with a smile. After several more steps, they reach the end of the tunnel with a large red-metal gate centered near the bottom. Two large hatched doors were under the enclosure with the inside having dense claw marks on both the floor, chains, and alloy bars.

“I’m assuming this is how those things get up to the surface. They sit in the cage and get pushed up through those doors.” Miya observes, getting a closer look at the inside.

Kensa nods her head.

“Alright, where is the bottom then?”

Kensa points up to a concrete stairwell to the right of the cage, leading to a metal door with a blinking yellow light above it. She then leaps through the air and lands in front of the door, with Miya following after her and standing at her side.

Kensa places a hand on the entrance, but before she pushes it open she looks over to Miya and performs a deep inhale while gesturing her hands toward her torso and then down to her stomach.

“What? Just open it.” Miya commands.

Kensa presses the hatch open, a brisk of hot air making her hair fly back as she walks inside. Miya comes in shortly after, stepping inside the small enclosure covered with flashing green lights.

The door slams shut at Miya’s back, making her jolt as she turns to Kensa who leans onto the nearby wall and pats her chest while making another inhaling gesture toward Miya.

“What’re you—“

The blinking green lights all stop flashing and turn red, with the enclosure starting to plummet down with a shake and mechanical churn of its inner mechanisms.

A bead of water drops from Miya’s brow as she drops to the floor, holding onto her neck as she starts to breathe heavily. Kensa rushes over to her and rubs her on the back while performing the same inhale gesture once before.

Miya looks up at her with scrunched eyes and follows her breaths, with Kensa putting a hand on Miya’s abdomen and pressing down then up in accordance with when to inhale then exhale. After a few minutes, Miya’s breathing returns to normal, Kensa helps her back onto her feet and gives her a thumbs up before backing away.

Miya opens then closes her quacking palms while shaking her head. “What… What was that? My lungs felt like they were about to burst…”

The emergency lights surrounding the metal walls seep into their holes, with the walls themselves starting to raise up revealing a transparent sheet of glass on all of their sides. Miya’s entire body is coated with a bright orange-yellow light as she turns around with widened eyes.

An abyssal opening presented itself through the sheets of glass, surrounding the plummeting glass elevator as it continued its descent through a clear blue tube. The ceiling was coated with sparkling red, pink, and blue crystals with some forming into long spikes that shot down several feet.

A towering pool of moiling lava rushed down another clear-red metal tube from the center of the ceiling, stopping below a white surface covering the bottom of the flat surface. Several individuals in black puffy gear walked and glided along the wall, mining the crystals and throwing them into the air.

Miya’s eyes catch a brown bird-like creature with large scales and metal talons whisking through the air and catching the crystals and throwing them into a metal box sitting on its back. A Ya’valtian female sitting on a hovering blue disc points her fingers in the air, seemingly materializing a blue vortex that catches stray crystals and teleports them into a large flaccid pink pouch below her vessel.

Some other small green machines scour the wall on black ropes drilling large holes in the wall while providing surfaces for the suited miners to work on.

Miya’s cheeks press along the glass with her eyes darting side to side. She then looks over to Kensa who gives her a small chuckle, making her jump back.

“I was… It was just compelling is all. I must be acquainted with my new surroundings so I was just taking notes. I’ve seen a lot more fascinating stuff back where I’m from.” Miya explains, attempting to deny her obvious interest.

The elevator then shoots through an enclosed white space before opening back up to a white veil covering the inner windows. The elevator stops its descent with a jolt, with all of its sides sliding down into the floor revealing another spacious interior.

The walls were painted a dark gray and outlined in white on the edges. The room holding the now departed elevator led down to a long hallway with glass windows on the right giving a view of an in-door construction yard with mechanized droids carrying huge craters and containers on their backs and hands. On their right was a group of informational panels on blue hexagrid screens.

“… Hello there.”