Valorie slowly pushed the door open to what seemed to be an Inn and bar and stepped inside. "H-Hello? Is...anybody here?" Not hearing anyone reply, Val walked around the bar countertop, looking for any signs of people. The only thing she could find were people's belongings.

She jumped over the counter, landing right next to a bar stool. She walked over to a set of stairs, chirping before she walked up them. "This town has to be abandoned...right?" She peaks her head into one of the rooms, "Nothing..." She checked out the other rooms that were unlocked. After finding nothing of interest, she walked back down the stairs, her wings puffing up a bit. She didn't know why, but she felt uncomfortable being here alone. Valorie left her coat, bag, and boots on a table in the far corner of the main room before leaving the Inn, deciding to walk around the town again.

A couple of hours later, Valorie came back to the Inn, carrying a few blankets in her arms. She walked over to her corner that she managed to claim and started to arrange the blankets into a nest. Once she was satisfied, she curled up in the nest and went to sleep, leaving her items on the table.

A few days had passed as Valorie's eyes slowly fluttered open. She stretched her arms and wings, being more careful with her wings due to her right one still being broken, before standing up to move to the table. She sat down and quickly put her socks and boots on before she stood once more, carefully putting her coat on, moving her wings through the slits, and throwing her bag over her left shoulder. She double checked to make sure she had everything before leaving the Inn to explore the forest.

Just as Valorie was leaving the Inn, she saw a woman walking towards the Inn who seemed to have come from the forest. She was moderately tall, with dark pants and a green jacket that's sleeves had massive black stains, in fact, she was covered in splotches of black and even from where Valorie was, she could tell this woman smelled of motor oil. The woman appeared to have a small bag slung over her back, and a piece of paper was visibly stuffed into her pocket, which also had a black stain.

Valorie's immediate reaction to seeing the woman was to squeak, once again sounding more like a chirp. Her wings wrapped around her like a shield the best they could as she quickly walked past the woman and towards the forest. From behind her, Valorie heard the woman sigh.

Valorie ended up walking for 30 minutes until she reached the camp she had found a while ago, standing at the edge of it in slight shock. The tents had been burnt down, the generator seemed to have been destroyed, and the first layer of trees bordering the camp were charred. As Valorie began to look around, she noticed the fires had definitely died down, though there were deep scars on the ground outlining the symbol she saw on the metal plate earlier. Valorie wondered if there was some sort of connection between the explosion of the camp and the metal plate.

Valorie decided to check on the generator next to get a better look at it. It looked like it had been destroyed from the inside out, and from what she could tell, something that looked to be a reaction chamber exploded. She makes a chirp in acknowledgement, noting that somewhere in her head before moving on to look for salvageable supplies.

There was a lot of scrap metal, a burnt up tarp, and after a few minutes of searching, Valorie found a strange, futuristic looking box. The birb in Valorie begged for her to go to the shiny box, so what did she do? She tried to grab the shiny box for her collection of small gems, daggers, etc.

Upon contact with the box, Valorie got shocked. It's nothing serious but it's still a shock, getting shocked basically the same as a taser would. The second the poor bird was shocked, she screeched in shock and jumped back from the box, now sitting on the ground.

She saw that the box had been glowing upon the shock, but the glow was slowly fading away. Val looked at the box from where she was, not seeing any kind of opening. She pouted before looking around for any other salvageable supplies.

Valorie saw something reflecting light back at her from behind a few layers of trees on the opposite side of the camp and her eyes began to sparkle. She ran over to the shiny, not being very careful of where she stepped.

As she arrived where she saw the light reflecting off, she found...oil drums? Val tilted her head slightly and chirped, confused. She lightly tapped one of the drums, and as she did so, it made a sloshing noise. From what Val could tell, it seemed to be semi full.

Valorie chirped in amusement and happiness as she began to tap more of the drums, stopping when she tapped one and it made more of an unholy sound. She chirped again, confused but also interested. She investigated the drum, noticing it looked similar to the shocky box, though it didn't glow or shock her, all it had a label that said "Warning: Contains Highly Volatile Paladium-based Plasma."

Val tilted her head in confusion, walking around the drum and stared at it, worried it might shock her. She waited a moment and saw that there were no signs of it being active like the other container she found earlier, which had faint glowing markings which, upon shocking, had glowed brightly.

Val's bird brain has decided to say 'fuck it' so she poked the drum again, it producing more unholy noises. She flinched at the noise this time, but didn't jump back or land on the ground. She decided to poke it again, getting the same results, more unholy noises.

"I'mdonewiththis," and that is when Valorie went back to tapping the oil drums. She decided that this was fun for her, she liked the noise that they made, so she got up on top of a drum and looked around. Not seeing anybody or anything, Valorie decided to do a slight march in place before spinning in a circle once. She smiled, doing a slight dance before jumping from one oil drum to another, giggling to herself. After a few minutes of this, Valorie got scared by a sudden voice.

"Hey! Kid!"

Valorie's head quickly turned to the voice in slight panic, losing her focus on the jump and her arms flailed, resulting in Valorie landing on the ground. Luckily enough, her wings protected her from getting hurt. Valorie finally managed to get a good look at the person who called out to her, seeing it was the woman she saw earlier.

"What the hell happened here?"

"Um...I don't...know?"

"Well then...Also you probably shouldn't be fucking around near- Jesus Christ Zack, you're leaving Paladium-based Plasma out in the open, you're dumber than I thought."

What Valorie had failed to notice was how her sword had cut into one of the oil barrels on the way down, and after a few moments, the childs is covered in oil. "..."

The other woman turned to look at Valorie and laughed. "Dipshit"

"...MOTHERFUCKER"

The woman took the stabbed barrel and laid it on its side, with the opening facing up, stopping the leak. Meanwhile, Valorie sat there, pouting. Somehow, her jacket only had a tiny bit of oil on it, but her wings & white tank top were covered and some had even managed to get on her face.

The woman looked at Valorie in amusement. "You gonna break the other ones while you're at it?"

"...no, I hate oil," Valorie is still pouting, but she slowly got up, shaking her wings and attempting to get as much oil off as possible. "Stupid...fucking...oil...barrels."

"Good, also, stay away from the camp. You clearly aren't grown enough to realize oil and fire don't mix, and the camp is on fire."

"..." Valorie stares at Jaye. "I will not hesitate to make my way over there and cut off a limb, bitch."

The woman snickered, "Good luck, angel."

Within a second, Valorie was right next to Jaye with her sword in hand, glaring. "Say that again."

"You think your fancy sword impresses me? Where I'm from, that sword is stone age, and I can tell you that you don't want to try me." Valorie heard a faint click of some sort.

Within another few seconds, Valorie was perched in a tree, staring down at Jaye."Who the fuck are you, what the fuck are you, and why are you here?"

The clicking stopped. "I was here because of my friend, but it seems someone, or something, sent his home sky high."

"...I was in the...Inn? I found this place when I first got here...nobody was around and my wing needed fixed...I took some simple medical supplies and left everything else...while someone fixed my wing, I heard and saw an explosion...I didn't fully realize it was this place until I came back here today...I don't even know what this place is..."

"Zack would only come Sider blowing this place sky high if-," the woman facepalmed. "Dipshit."

Valorie tilted her head in confusion, waiting for an explanation.

"Well then, no point in me staying if Zack bit the dust."

The birb is now hanging from the tree by her legs. "We good?"

The woman appeared to ignore her, walking back to camp and picked up the shocky box.

"The shiny!" She's out of the tree in a second and was standing beside the woman. "What is that? What's in it? How can you touch it without being shocked? Is there some way to open it?"

"Trade secret," Is all Jaye said. One of the faces of the box had a recessed section, and Jaye pressed her hand onto that, the outline of a hand glowing blue on the panel and it retracted. This revealed various objects on the inside, the most notable being some kind of device, which the woman removed before closing the box.

Valorie was immediately interested. "That's so cool! It's so pretty!...what is it?"

The woman tried to use the device, but nothing happened. "Damn it Zack, do you never charge this thing? Oh uh, an interuniversal Portal Gun."

"Oh...cool!" Valorie chirped in interest. The other woman opened the box again, putting the Portal Gun back before closing the box again, tossing it to the side. Val chased after the box, trying to open it like the woman did and immediately got shocked again. Valorie yelped in pain, quickly pulling her hand back and making sure it was okay, "owowowowow." Valorie could hear the woman behind her snickering as she started collecting scrap metal, meanwhile Valorie pouted as she got up and started looking for anything interesting she could take.

The only items Valorie saw was more scrap metal and burnt tarp remains. She huffs in frustration, walking to the edge of the camp before seeing a piece of scrap metal and staring at it. She stood in front of it while reaching for her sword. She held it with both hands for around ten seconds, the time it took to start humming, before bringing it down and through the metal. Being bored, Valorie continued to do this with more pieces of scrap metal around the edge of the camp until she started sweating. Still unsatisfied, she sighed and placed her sword back in its place on her belt before walking back to town.