Steven, Arya, and Robert kept progressing north to the ancient abandoned Homeworld facility in hopes of getting home. The sky was turning from yellow to black at an alarming rate, and our heroes were getting hungry and tired.

"Hey, any chance you could use your flames to make a campfire?" Steven asked. "Maybe we could cook those pizzas."

"Unless someone can chop up a log of whatever this kind of wood is, we gotta keep moving." Robert replied. Steven summoned his shield and threw it at a tree trunk, making it fall over. Arya and Robert used their weapons to cut parts of the trunk into logs. Arya threw the logs into a pile and noticed the gargantuan leaves were shaped sort of like large sleeping bag-sized pouches. She plucked three and looked into the pouches to find that they were completely hollow, no creatures living inside.

Several minutes later, Steven, Robert, and Arya found themselves camping, eating Digornio pizza above an open fire, with Arya holding the pizza up with her telekinesis and Robert providing the flames with his pyrokinesis. Steven noticed Robert had a few cuts on his left arm, and offered to heal them.

"If you insist," Robert said, dialing down the fire. Steven licked his hand and placed it on the cuts, healing them.

"Thanks," Robert said, "Hey, when you gaze at the stars, do you ever ask yourself...what could be over there...As in, what's going on on those other possible planets."

Steven chuckled, "Not really, but now that I think about it, it is interesting to think about... There could be lots of intelligent life out there and we'd never know it."

"There doesn't seem to be any intelligent life here, or on Earth," Arya jokes, which elicited a laugh out of Steven and Robert.

"Now I'm worried about Michael, did he make it out alive?" Robert asked.

"Knowing him, he probably did. Dude's ruthless, won't even think twice before killing someone." Arya replied.

"He probably bombed the ship...or took it over." Steven added.

"Don't forget: he's also reckless...I hope he didn't get captured, or worse--killed." Robert added.

"Let's just go to sleep, we won't find out until morning." Steven said. Arya was already out cold, holding out her hand, in hopes Steven would take it while she slept, which he did.

They woke up the next morning with a jolt. There was a large creature about to crush our heroes beneath it's bug-like feet. The creature roared before trying to crush Steven. Arya used her telekinesis to throw it off-balance. The large creature quickly regained balance before chasing our heroes into a cave, where it reached with its aardvark-like mouth after them. Robert used fire to scare it away, but all the creature did was take its mouth out of the hole and wait them out.

"Isitorsvay?" A voice called out, somewhat sheepishly. Our heroes turned around, only to find a bipedal, hooded creature about Ruby's height with wing-like appendages and three-fingered hands holding a glowing crystal shard as if it were a torch.

"Oh. Ree-thay Liens-way! Omma-may's onna-gay ee-bay o-say oud-pray!" It said excitedly with its beak-like mouth, motioning for them to follow. Steven, Robert, and Arya looked at each other.

"Can we trust it?" Robert asked.

"Well, last time we ended up on an alien planet and we followed someone to their home, it turned out for the better." Steven responded.

"Do you even know what it's saying?" Arya asked.

"I'm not sure, it sounds familiar...Let's follow it and if it turns out to be a bad guy, I can use my bubble and get us outta here" Steven replied.

They followed the small, bird-like child down the cave system into a civilization where fairy lights illuminated what was necessary. It looked rather natural, as the houses were carved in tree trunks, and several more creatures like the child roamed around in the town of many shapes and sizes.

"Is-thay is-way our-way ome-hay!" The child said. "Ome-cay ith-way ee-may!"

It took Arya's hand and lead her, Steven, and Robert to one of the nicer-looking homes. Robert picked on what smelled like apple pie comng from inside. The place was illuminated by more fairy lights. Plants like none they have ever seen before lined the windows, and an older-looking variation of the child was stanting at one of the counters using crystals and beams to prepare what appeared to be food. It looked like something you would bake.

"Emily-way, ere-whay ave-hay ou-yay een-bay?" it asked.

"Orry-say, omma-may, I ound-fay em-thay ettin-gay ased-chay!" The child replied.

"Can someone please tell me what's going on?" Arya asked.

"I...think they're speaking pig-latin. Here. Let me try." Robert said. "Ey-hay, Ere-whay...are-way ee-way?"

The adult creature gasped. "(They understand us! Emily, get back, they might be dangerous! What do you aliens want?)" it asked in fear

"(We're not dangerous, we just wanna know where we are...and what YOU are.)" Robert replied, trying to muster his most comfortable tone. The adult creature gulped.

"(You're in Hayhay town, and we are called Avims...and unfortunately, we're the last of our kind.)" She said solemnly.

"(All our friends were kidnapped by big purple guys! Come to think of it, they kind of look like you.)" Emily added.

"What're they saying?" Steven asked.

"I think their friends were kidnapped by Homeworld gems. (Any idea where they were taken?)" asked Robert.

"(They were taken up north, where they were tortured and beat up!)" Emily replied. "(You're not thinking of going there, are you?)"

"(We have to if we wanna get to Earth, and now we have a whole other reason to go.)" Robert responded. "(We're heroes, it's what we do.)"

"What did you get us into?" Arya asked.

"Apparently there are still Homeworld gems in that facility, and apparently they're doing horrible things to their race, the Avems." Robert responded.

"Let me try, (Any way out? We were attacked by a big yellow thing)" Steven asked.

The adult avem led them outside and pointed to another hole, this one having a curtain.

They walked through the hole and they found themselves not too far from the Homeworld facility.

TO BE CONTINUED...