"So, what are we thinking?"

Mechanical peaks rose out of the valley and went deep into a gorge. On the cliffs where a distant bridge swirled into the main entrance of what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient civilization, Nova winced at the constant light drizzle dogging their steps with their days of travel. In a line of survival, Izerva's ear flicked, their scout as they traced the rocks. Beside her, Neo stared into space, before tucking his hands into his arms without another word. Ulin held up their georegistrar, where it blipped out with strength.

"This must be the power source," they said.

"Are these the coordinates the Gate showed you?" Nova asked.

"They must be," Neo mumbled and stepped away from the edge to keep walking.

"Hunkering down in an ancient ruin wouldn't be my first go-to..." Thuni followed behind with his arms tight at his sides and ready for any sort of fight as Izerva took the lead from Neo with ease, who stomped along with an odd sort of petulance, his frown too close to a vicious scowl. He rubbed the side of his head with a soft scoff, and Nova kept a respectable distance behind him, observing his movements for any sort of weakness, though the conversation from before dogged her.

I don't want to push it. I want him to come to me. "Neo," she spoke as the others drew ahead, with Neo slowly lagging behind as they descended the spiralling, mechanical bridge. "Did it tell you anything about these coordinates?"

"No... at least, not that I can remember," he mumbled and kept his gaze straight on the glimmered horizon over the valley, where the clouds bloomed with ferocious dark greys. "If I do, you'll be the first one I tell." The storm reflected in the black hole full of glimmered silver stars, but his gaze drew off to the side and over the ledge when he faltered at the nearest peak. His scowl shifted into pulled confusion, before he sniffed and slowly continued forward. "All it told me was that these coordinates would take us home."

"Doesn't seem very specific..." Nova attempted to lighten the atmosphere as Neo once did without effort. "This place doesn't seem to have any inhabitants."

Neo stopped. "Yet they existed all the same. You can try to erase the past... but that doesn't mean it didn't exist." His words struck her across the cheek with the strength of a whip, but he shrugged and they caught up to the others, where they reached a flat platform which hung over the valley and criss-crossed into several of the peaks. Ahead, Izerva threw themselves around with a sigh.

"I think we are clear," Izerva signed with a tail-flick at the ruins. "Let us find a sturdy place to make a base camp and we'll work our way to the power source. Slowly." Their gaze flicked to Neo, who folded his arms. "You are an Anomalous Scientist, Neo Teimea... any thoughts you have here will be essential. You are the one who studied the Precursors."

Neo hesitated, then brought both hands sharp against his head. "Fuck, my Codex was on the space station."

Thuni raised an eyebrow. "Do you need that?"

Neo ignored him with a soft moan, before he scowled once more. "No. Forget it." He went to the edge once more and looked around the tall, billowing trees. "If it's not obvious already, this is some sort of old precursor site. As for its use, I'd have to take a closer look around to come up with any valid hypothesis." He raised his hand upwards. "But, I'll make a cautionary assumption that we are still, quite alone. More alone than we were up there." He pointed into the firmament, with the B.H Supernova long gone out of planetary orbit. "You know... apart from any critters."

"Anomalous critters," Thuni grumbled.

Neo turned to him. "Do you ever wonder what the first precursors thought when they saw the stars?"

Thuni hesitated. "No?"

"They probably thought it was strange to... until they experienced it for themselves," Neo said and headed to Izerva. "Let's look around, and I'll be able to tell you what I think of this place — seeing as I basically threw us here." With one last shrug, he descended a staircase into another lower platform, and Nova followed, the shiver along her skin biting into her like a ghost with teeth.

"I mean, this is some sort of highly advanced facility," Nova pointed out as she followed the weird architecture and piping. "What did they do here? If there's such a strong power center, whatever they were doing must have been... beyond comprehension." Hesitation dried her throat when she gazed at Neo, who hyper focused on a point far away — through a security camera which showed his target. All along... It was you. I just didn't see it — hindsight is a bitch, indeed. Thought chased out of her mind, she hurried to his side when they found themselves beneath the platform, where Neo slowed to a stop in front of the spherical wall which remained static on two diamond-tipped points.

"Power source?" Thuni questioned.

"Nope." Ulin came closer to it and held the geo registrar against it, but it continued to chirp when they redirected it to the highest peak at the edge of the valley. "It's over there, in that one, I think. It's something major too. It's full of power, but we just need to find an entrance to it..."

"This looks like some sort of fancy decoration... or maybe a precursor holomap of some sort?" Nova tried to find some sort of control panel, but stopped when Izerva's fur stood on end and they turned, wide-eyed to Neo, who had not said a word. Her heart slammed into the pits of a black hole when the nebula glowed along his irides and swallowed his pupils whole when he staggered, but held himself and his arms stiff as he released a soft gasp. Thuni stepped back from him.

"Hey, hey, what's happening?" Thuni hissed as both Izerva and Nova rushed back to his side.

"Neo?" Nova clung onto his forearms. "What are you seeing..." She followed his gaze straight into the core of the empty metal sphere. Stars, not again. Nova dug her fingers into his shoulder blades. Last time this happened you screamed in my ears! I can't unhear that sound. "Neo," she hissed out a monster's rage while Neo remained as still as a statue, following time's cruel whims for his fate. "Talk to me."

"It must be this sphere!" Izerva signed in one fluid, almost too fast motion. "We have to force him away from it, Engineer Nova!"

Nova hooked her arm around Neo's arm, with Izerva following the motion before twisting him around to face Thuni and Ulin instead, where both of them jolted. Nova checked back at the sphere, which remained static — frozen in time unseen. Izerva held out two fingers to Thuni and Ulin, an indication for them to step aside.

In an instant, Neo slumped when the nebula drained out of his eyes.

Nova sank to her knees when he hit the metal surface of the platform.

"What. The. Fuck, was that?" Thuni hissed at the elongated quiet which reverberated through the valley.

Ulin snapped their head up. "I think we have a problem."

Nova followed their gaze.

Peaks rose higher out of the cliff sides. Beacons of starry light as the entire planet took in a breath. Izerva's tail curled closer to their knees as Neo stirred and let out a soft groan, driving his fingers into his hair as the facility came back to life. Lights rippled across the walls and danced straight into the towers, and in the distance, the beacon seared into her mind with the ferocity of a newborn star. It plumed through the low-hanging mist which called for a storm. Claws extended out of the edges of the valley, and Nova flinched when a giant barrier anchored itself on all sides, protecting them from something unseen.

"What did he do?" Thuni asked, confused instead of accusatory.

Izerva glanced between him and Neo. "I do not think he did anything — on purpose."

"Neo?" Nova whispered as she sat him up, where he shook out his head with a wince. "Are you okay? What did you see?" Her hand rubbed his back.

"Garbage."

"What?" Nova found herself nervously laughing at the blunt tone.

"Garbage. Junk. Waste," he mumbled and rested his hands on his knees with another groan, wincing up at the newfound light crossing the facility. "Time garbage. I didn't even know that was a thing." He pushed his thumb into his eyes. "Ow..." He twisted on his hips, but Izerva and Nova slammed their hands down and kept him facing Thuni and Ulin instead.

"I would not advise studying that sphere until we understand what we stumbled upon, Scientist Neo," Izerva signed, before standing up and unholstering their rifle. "That might have activated security systems. We must be cautious and find a place where we can rest." Nova held on tighter to Neo when Izerva tread the entirety of the plain sphere before returning to them. "Away from this thing."

"What is it?" Nova questioned

"I don't know."

Nova nodded. "Can you stand, Neo?"

"I think so..." On his knees, Neo took her offer of assistance to pull him off the ground, but kept his back to the strange glass sphere, then brushed his eyelids again with a deepening scowl.

"Can you tell me what you saw?" Nova pressed.

Neo's face shifted into one of thought when he gave her a weary side-eye. "That would require me to know what I saw."

We all need rest. Nova checked on the other three as Thuni approached the sphere himself, tipping his head in confusion, the same confusion Neo had stretched across his face moments before a shift in space-time, a hand outstretched for its truth. "Thuni?" she asked, keeping one hand on Neo's back when he shook out his head.

"I'm coming." Thuni gave the sphere one last examination before shuffling over to catch up with them, with Izerva taking the lead with their rifle at the ready. Nova let him pass, trying to shove down the electric jolts around her neck, with Neo sending his gaze downwards to his boots until the larger man walked past.

"There is one thing I don't understand," Nova spoke before Neo could walk forward. He went still, so Nova took the opportunity to stand in front of him. "When you touched the Gate, and then I grabbed you, why am I not having the same issues you are?"

Neo's lips parted in thought. "I don't know, Nova," he admitted with a touch of irritation. "If I did know, I'd be able to make sense of whatever's happening to me. For all I know, you might have issues that are separate. Remember, I threw you into the loop." He brought a hand to the back of his head with a soft, space-tearing scoff, where the black hole's needle sharp teeth dug into its own formless jaw. Nova shook the sight out of her head.

"It was you."

"You knew that." Neo kept walking, but she caught up to him to stop him short from descending the next staircase, where Thuni, Ulin, and Izerva continued their exploration.

"No, I mean..." Nova bit on her lip. "The first time."

Neo blinked. "If you don't want to say it then just don't." He went down the steps, and Nova found her voice in the vacuum.

"The first time you died," she said, and Neo stopped halfway down the steps. "You were there the whole time, right? All those things, the fact that the Butterfly's sentience didn't attack me. And when I finally reached you..." Her words lodged into the back of her throat when he refused to turn around. "I wasn't seeing you, I saw—"

Neo released a soft breath and climbed back up the stairs to meet her. On her knees in the dark, with one half of Neo dead in her arms, with a gray nebula swirling into an abyssal black hole around a necklace of splattered, winged glass. She held her ground, and he began, "You saw what the Gate put into me. It's really obvious now that we have hindsight, yeah?" Weary irritation grew along his eyes. "When you explained to me that you suspected two creatures, yes, one of them was me, and then he—I—whatever—" Neo waved his hands. "Look, I was seeing a whole lot of stuff while you were seeing about the only linear track of time I could give you, and I wasn't really that smart. I just have a one track mind." He gave a swift, hard nod before heading back down the stairs.

"You're not a monster, Neo," she said. "I also said that the other creature felt different to the D.S Butterfly."

"Yet you were terrified of one of them, and it wasn't the Butterfly." He gave her a side smile.

"I didn't know it was you... and yes, you were a little scary even though you never tried to harm me..." Her own anger flowed deeper into her chest. Neo turned in full, the harsh smile dying when she joined him on the next level. "I know things were confusing, but if you think I see you as what you were forced to become to deal with the fracture, you're wrong. You will always be that guy who I thought had an ego to match his brilliance, who kept asking me stupid questions on the validity of ghosts being real, someone who would..." Nova swallowed pain. "Who would encourage me even if he had no idea what the void hells I was talking about when I had no faith in myself, still asking questions to understand, and I realised who you really are — someone who will ask questions to get to the answers people are too afraid to ask about. So, yes, Neo, you scared me, but not for the reason you think it is."

Neo's hard expression fell away.

In the silence, Nova bit on her tongue and nodded out her conversation.

"You have no idea how ridiculous it was," Neo whispered behind her. "Realizing I became the one thing I kept telling you wasn't real."

Nova stopped. "What?"

"You couldn't see me, or hear me, at least, not in the way I wanted you to," Neo said. "I was a ghost."

Nova felt the atmosphere shift. "Are you... saying I was right?"

"No." Neo smiled, softer and amused. "I never said that. I just said it was ridiculous, and since you were seeing a part of me then I wasn't fully your version of a ghost."

Nova turned to him in full and shook her head. "You're going to be pedantic?"

"As always, but time has a lot of ghosts itself." He shook out his shoulders. "Look, if I figure out what's going on, you'll be the first person I tell, does that sound fair?"

"Yeah," Nova waited for him to reach her side. "And Neo?"

"Hm?"

"We're going to go home."

Neo blinked a couple times. "We need to figure out what's up with this Precursor facility first."

But at least we're safe, relatively.