[Four hours ago]

  "Holy shit." Li wheezed.

  It felt like she had been wandering for hours down the endless halls of the Aerie. No matter where the Earthling traveled, even with her speed, there was just nothing but red carpet as far as the eye could see. But in her heart she beleived it all led somewhere.

  "And to think, I just took a left."

  From the Bedchamber, Li wasn't expecting there to be an entire network of rooms located just a door away. Many of the pathways didn't seem to lead anywhere beyond an exit to the outside, with perhaps some empty meeting rooms and dormitories scattered throughout. Yet just before she called it quits, Li stumbled upon something interesting.

  The one thing that kept her from returning to Ivy's side.

  A carpeted staircase leading downwards was tucked into the corner of a particurly dusty room. The concentration of dirt and overall stuffiness of the room reminded her of Sunday school, mixed with a bit of her grandparents' home. Suffice it to say, it wasn't a frequented area of the Aerie.

  Then again, what was.

  The purpose behind Yrix's comedically rge project was difficult to understand. From what Li knew, the Arch-Fyer had crafted every inch of her wicked school. So why make it all so needlessly rge?

  "Welp." Li shrugged. "If it was that important, surely she'd hide it, right?"

  Ivy was bound to go looking for her eventually. She was weirdly clingy like that. Ironic to think that only a week ago, she wanted nothing more than for Li to stay away.

  Li descended the staircase, not making it much further than a few feet before she was met by complete darkness, along with a sudden hatch that booped her on the nose.

  "Oh fooey." Li reached out, pushing her way forward. "The hickity heck."

  She continued to stumble for some time, taking note of her own footsteps. By the time she caught a glimpse of a dim light, her toes were resting firmly against a cold metal floor. Or at least, she thought it was just a floor, up until she tripped down a set of stairs.

  "Ow, owie, Owiesons," the Earthling squeaked all the way to the bottom. "This sucks."

  Once Li reached the bottom, albeit face-first, she was able to get a better look at her surroundings. Yrix had set a few dim orange lights alongside a series of empty walkways, all resting close by to what appeared to be a bottomless chasm. Li, of course, knew well how deep the Arch-Fyer could dig.

  But what really perplexed the Earthling was the nature of her surroundings. Unlike the Garth, it was all so human and archaic. It was as if someone had rented out an old storage warehouse from before the space program and stuck it under a chapel.

  "Retro," Li muttered to herself, keeping clear of the chasm. "And creepy."

  The way the dust floated through the air, illuminated by the warm glow of Yrix's artificial nterns, filled Li with a strange sense of nostalgia. She had never felt so grounded in an Earthly position than in that moment. Ever since she was taken from the actual pnet, at the very least.

  "Weird." Li waved her hand through the air.

  To her left, far away from the chasm, y a row a shelves, each segmented into its own aisles like it were a library. And as Li drew closer, she was shocked to see each outcrop of creaking wood and grated metal filled to the brim with artifacts. It was as if she stepped into an antique shop, only this time far vaster and thousands of light-years from home.

  "How the-." Li gasped.

  It was all from Earth.

  Clothes.

  Toys.

  Mirrors.

  Some wrapped in cobwebs.

  Others shiny and new.

  Li crouched down, shifting through the semi-organized collection before nding on an old photo, its gold frame depicting humans from centuries ago. It was only then that the Earthling realized where she really was. As it turned out, not all of Yrix's handiwork was a mere replication of the real thing.

  She had been to Earth.

  Stolen its history.

  But how long ago?

  Li didn't want to think about it much. But it was hard not to. If Yrix was there before she was even born, that meant she had been stalking humanity for generations.

  "But...why?" Li stammered.

  As creepy as it was, there was a bit of novelty to the vast collection. For one, there was quite a lot to look at. It was indeed far more entertaining than anything else in the Aerie, as far as inanimate objects went.

  She sprinted down the walkways, taking a peek at several aisles. Some of them even held costumes from Earth's old fairgrounds, while others held various knick-knacks stored on shelves and racks. Her favorite out of them was Yrix's collection of fur coats, reminding Li of an old book she had read.

  "No magic wardrobes?" Li smiled. "Still...this is cool."

  It could be a good spot to take Ivy on a date.

  She wasn't even from Earth after all.

  Before she left, Li made sure to stop off at the array of plushies Yrix had no doubt nabbed from some child's bedroom. The bears and bunnies in particur caught her attention the most. They each deserved a quick hug and boop on the nose, in remembrance of her little Ginjous.

  "Aren't you cute?" Li giggled, shaking a big panda toy up and down like a rattle. "Big bear bear."

  "Ivy will love it." She finished.

  "I'm gd." A voice entered her mind abruptly.

  "OH SHIT!" Li jumped, throwing up her fists in defense of the plushies.

  There was Yrix, looming over the girl silently. As far as Li knew, she was watching for quite a while. Such a sour idea made the whole ordeal even creepier than it already was.

  "What the hell!" Li fumed, gring at Yrix.

  The Arch-Fyer expressed a strange sense of glee in her singur eye, leaning down to get closer to her student. "I was wondering when you'd find my storage."

  Li crossed her arms, not unlike the way Ivy did. "Don't tell me you stole all of this!"

  "I...borrowed it." Yrix shrugged. "As your criminals tend to put it. Something about reparations?"

  "That's racist and not even right."

  "Sure..." Yrix squinted. "But yes, I'm something of a collector."

  "You know we have a word for that on Earth." Li sighed. "Kleptomaniac."

  "They have a word for you, too." Yrix scolded. "Fa-."

  "Whoa now." Li shook her hands.

  Yrix pced a hand on her chin. "Or was it...carpet muncher?"

  "That's just crude."

  "Well...someone had to save it all." Yrix shrugged.

  The audacity to suggest her actions were in preparation for the pnet's occupation. It made Li's blood boil. But then again, there was always the chance that she really was standing on the st vestige of humanity's culture.

  Who could say what remained of Earth?

  "Don't act like you did it for us," Li growled.

  "I always did have an affinity for your kind."

  "Why?" Li's eyes widened.

  She was desperate for that simple answer. Behind all of Yrix's sinister evil, she held a morbid fascination. It was oddly calming.

  "So weak. Yet so brave. I was there, you know..." Yrix crossed her arms behind her back.

  "For our history?"

  "For your history. Lilleth."

  The Earthling broke. Her eyes watered, and she shook her head furiously. She could read Yrix's mind and knew her words were not mispced.

  "I-." Li stammered as she backed away in fright.

  She was there.

  When her mother named her for the first time.

  "Indeed. I was there. You were her everything."

  "M-mother."

  "I can't say for sure that she's dead. Who knows, maybe you'll find her again."

  Li bolted, running past Yrix in a fsh before dissapearing through the exit hatch. Every time she dared to challenge Yrix, the Earthling was proven wrong. Truly, Yrix knew no equal in her savageness.

  - - - - - - - - - -

  "Li!" Ivy gasped.

  She was waiting in the bedchamber restlessly, having sensed something was off. The heiress wasn't privy to where Li had wandered or what she had seen. But it didn't take a world-css detective to infer her distress.

  Ivy made sure to meet her partner with open arms, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. To see the girl sour was to the heiress a personal insult. Part of her even felt vengeful for it.

  Not so unlike Sonera.

  "Hey-." Ivy whispered softly into Li's ear. "What's wrong?"

  "N-nothing." Li lied with a sheepish grin. "Really."

  "Yrix bullied you again, didn't she?"

  Before Li could reply with another lie, she was silenced by a quick peck on her cheek. That swiftly put her mind at ease. The one thing Yrix couldn't control afterall, was their bond.

  Ivy and Li.

  "Let's go see the others," Ivy spoke in a motherly tone, clutching Li's back with her fleshy cws. "Forget whatever that monster told you."