After several minutes the elevator comes to a complete halt. The doors then slid open to a long, ominous hallway with dimly lit red-static light fixtures on the walls.

“Stellar Analysis Suite Offices & Experimentation… Now Unboarding…” The elevator’s voice discloses.

Miya steps out of the elevator and is followed by Kavie. Before Darfin could step out, Miya brushes two of her curled knuckles onto his cheek and flicks her fingers up, pushing back and making him fall to the floor.

She then presses a button on the outside terminal, and the door slowly closes.

“W-wait Miya! I want to help tooo!” Darfin’s voice echoes as the door closes and the elevator starts descending down.

Miya looks down the hallway, with multiple black-alloy doors on either side. Her boots clack along the brown-steel floor as she walks forward.

“Why does your father work for Stravos?” Miya asks while looking back at Kavie.

“It’s a bit complicated… But a while ago, my mother succumbed to some pollen-mutated disease from her studies as a neutra-florist. Aberese came and promised my father a cure if he helped them with a bunch of weird experiments. But… He isn’t acting like himself anymore. He’s always so anxious or discrete when we talk. I just want him to go back to the way he was.”

Miya then steps in front of one of the brown-alloy doors and presses her hand down. “Weird experiments? Like augmentation of mutant genes?”

Kavie's eyes widen with a subtle gulp. “Y-yeah… He knows what he’s doing is illegal but they won’t let him quit or they’ll pull the plug on mom’s clinical pod. Please, you’ve gotta help us!”

Miya throws her fist into the door with a metal churn making a wide dent as Kavie widens his eyes in astonishment.

“T-That’s Suclulium-plated doors… How are you able too-“

“I’m not here to be your savior. My missions is to get Dr. Kekdric back to A-1 under Federation command. Any other assignment is not of my concern. Your father knew what he was getting into when he got involved with these people.”

Miya then jabs the door three more times, making metal churns that echo through the halls. Then, with a powerful kick, she punts the door off its hinges, making it slide ahead into the room.

The room was similar to that of a prison cell, with a bed with white sheets at the far side of the room, and close to it sat a black desk with multiple documents and blue-liquid capsules sitting on its surface

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Dad…?” Kavie exclaims

Kekdrik, sitting atop the bed, leans up and hugs Kavie as he lunges into him. He then looks at Miya, still standing at the door.

“I didn’t want to believe it, but I suppose you are a Patroller. It was hard to fathom at first, I admit. I heard stories of the covert Sagho-Ops team working for the feds but never had the chance to see one for my own eyes.” Kekdrik revels while standing up from the bed.

“That’s because you’ve never needed any saving up until now. And they only call Patrollers when things are bad, like fucked, bad.”

She then walks outside the room and waits for Kavie and Kekdrik to follow suit.

“I suppose you’re familiar with this area. Why don’t you give me a tour of the establishment?”

Kekdrik nods and continues down the darkened corridor, reaching the last and final door at the end of the hall. Its material was different from the last, bulkier, and towering fifteen feet into the air.

Miya looks down at her Patroller’s badge turn from light-pink to a darkened shade of ruby, glancing back up at the door.

“It’s made of chem-metal. What’s behind this door?”

Kekdrik places a hand in the crease of the entryway. He looks over to Kavie with a tilt of his head and a quivering lip.

“I don’t believe you should see this, my son. I’m not proud… Of the work they have been making me do.”

Kavie lowers his gaze, then shakes his head with a step forward. “I’m not going anywhere father. We’ve been harassed by them long enough. I’m no longer a little kid that you have to protect, I’m here with you.”

Kekdrik nods his head with a faint smile. He then presses his palm onto the door. Its metal creases, once black, begin to turn lavender with a growing liquid flowing within the cracks.

With an eerie creak, the doors break open into a large labyrinth that ushers a gust of cold wind past them, making Kekdrik and his son’s body shiver with their hairs on end. Miya walks past them, gazing at the large crystal bulbs holding a red bubbling fluid wrapped in chains above them.

The floor was made of ceamite, a scarlet-colored cement that clicks with every step she takes. More bulbs of different liquids were stashed all around her, different sized but all under a huge electromagnetic ring of burning ignition, causing them to boil and swivel in their capsules.

Miya stops walking and turns to face a large white capsule floating in the air, one of the few that were not bubbling. She squints her eyes, noticing a shadowed figure inching forward through the blue ooze it rested in.

—CLINK

Kavie stumbles back as a Ya’valtian man’s head knocks into the glass. His eyes were wide, it being apparent that he noticed his onlookers as an animalistic grin spread across his face.

Miya presses a finger on the glass while looking back at Kekdrik. “What’s he doing in there?”

Kekdrik wipes a bead of sweat from his brow with a shallow gulp. “Well… He’s apart of an experiment, of sorts…”

“… You shouldn’t be so modest, doctor. For we, are going to change the world!”

A set of slender brown fingers rests themselves on Kavie’s shoulder, making him jump back with a shocked glance. He locks eyes with a man of unrealistic proportions. A black unibrow stretches above his two circular eyes, his left pupil being bigger than his right, with bags under them seeping with moisture.

His breaths were heavy and smelled of rotten milk and egg, showing his crooked teeth and hanging lips that droop from his face. With a snort of his downward-curving nose, he pressed a button on his levitating black armchair that his plump and round body rested in.

He then stops a few inches in front of Miya’s face, moving closer while making her withstand his hot and humid breaths as his lips curled into a smile.

“You must… Haaa…. Be the… Haaa…. Patroller…. Haa…” He spoke in between heavy breaths, drool trailing down the sides of his lips.