Planet Avalice. It has been two days since the invasion of Lord Arktivus Brevon, and the heroes that saved Avalice are taking some time to rest. The three heroes of Avalice had the help of from the rulers of the planet's three kingdoms, Shang Mu, Shang Tu, and Shuigang, and even though it seems like Brevon won't be gone for good, the citizens of Avalice will rest easy, including the three heroes of Avalice. Those heroes are Sash Lilac, Carol Tea, and Milla Basset. But there is still a high demand for energy, corporations across the planet struggled for substitutes even as far as leaving their planet to obtain them. While it is believed the Kingdom Energy in the sky is enough to fuel the entire planet, some are bent to get more energy for themselves. Mainly, those who are selfish, greedy and power-hungry. Fortunately, the three Kingdoms agreed to unify and rule the planet as one like they used to long ago, as decreed by the Ancient Dragon.
The Magister's voice narrated, "With the help of Lilac, the water dragon warrior, and her friends, we drove back our alien attackers… but the scars of war remain, the Kingdom Stone has been shattered, its fragments scattered into the very air around us, remnants of the alien attack force haunt us still, striking us at our most vulnerable, leaving us in a perpetual state of turmoil, and the world of Avalice needs hope, but more than that, it needs heroes, and it may require more than just Lilac, Carol and Milla to be among the heroes."
Some members of the Avalician press have spread the word of the Magister regarding the energy crisis, which then inspired a couple of top-tier energy companies on Avalice to act frantically, one of them being Karver Industries. An Avalician tiger, the company's namesake came up with an approach that no other energy company dared to implement.
"How goes the energy harvest machine?" Karver purred in a sinister voice.
"We have plenty of energy extracted from the Kingdom Spiral," reported the Karver Industries employee, "It seems like we're going to need more if we're going to want something better,"
"I'll come up with something," replied Karver.
An Avalician xenobiologist who knew a lot about even the aliens that attacked Avalice named Selma Fontana came to her mailbox and read a note offering her to work at Karver Industries, likely enough, someone who worked there but may have known her thought it would be a good idea to hire her, given her exceptional expertise. When she was around Spade's age as of that year, it may have been Selma's first job she had in her life and was probably new to how business works in practice. She accepted the job offer then headed to the building on her first day of work.
At the Treehouse, Lilac was relaxing on her bunk and reading an audiobook of Avalice in Wonderland.
"This is a good read," Lilac commented, "No wonder people really like this book." When she was about to read the next chapter, her best friend Carol entered their bedroom.
"Hey Lilac, how long until our interview?" asked Carol.
Lilac paused her audiobook, "In about three months, Carol," replied Lilac. She then resumed her audiobook, with Carol resting on her bunk, she was probably not feeling very excited about her next interview.
"I know the Scarves are cancer, but isn't pardoning both of us for our 'crimes' enough?" Carol muttered to herself. "Besides, I wonder what's for dinner tonight."
Carol spent an hour reading her electronic device out of boredom. Spade sent spam messages to Carol, saying bad things about Milla, she found out that Spade was still on her friends list then unfriended him.
"I bet Lilac would also get the same spam Spade sent me," said Carol.
Milla entered the bedroom and tried to hold her bladder as long as she could when she needed to go to the bathroom.
"Lilac, do you have a bathroom?" asked Milla.
Lilac paused her audiobook, "We don't have a bathroom, Milla," replied Lilac, "But you could use a privacy screen while peeing in the dirt outside,"
Lilac hopped out of her bunk and walked somewhere in the treehouse where the privacy screen is stored then grabbed it and then she returned to Milla and handed her the privacy screen.
"Thanks, Lilac," said Milla.
"You're welcome," Lilac replied.
Milla then grabbed the privacy screen and walked out of the treehouse then found a more discreet location for her to urinate outside. While Milla took her leak behind the privacy screen, she heard a strange howl but she continued, she left the privacy screen after she was done with the intention of reporting it to Lilac and Carol, she then ran into the bedroom.
"Carol, I heard a strange noise while I was taking a pee outside," said Milla.
"There's wildlife everywhere around here," Carol replied. "We're living in the forests, so that's normal, I suppose."
"Yeah, but they might also be remnants of Brevon's forces," said Milla.
"We're going to have to cool down for a week," replied Carol. "There might even be someone out here to clear out the leftovers,"
Milla decided to rest in the bedroom as well and stored some of her newly dug loot from the dirt, including written papers containing miscellaneous information, one of them was a note offering someone to work for Karver Industries.
"Karver Industries? Energy company?" Milla wondered.
"I don't usually follow energy companies," said Carol.
"From what I heard on television, Karver Industries is one of those top-tier energy companies that are doing something about our energy crisis," Lilac explained.
Milla decided to hand Lilac a dirtied job offer letter, "Maybe you know better about this than we do," insisted Milla.
Lilac read the job offer letter and it featured contracts with a construction company, with one of the said members, Colden Ashrock being mentioned in the letter. Since Karver Industries' office building was complete, the letter must have been four years old, maybe some employee left it in the dirt along with some junk.
"We should keep that in case we have something to investigate next time," said Milla.
"Not a bad idea, Milla," Lilac replied.
At the Karver Industries Headquarters. Selma waited in her new office, bored out by her constant flow of paperwork and eager to speak with her boss, one of her paperwork mentioned the consideration of rehiring Colden Ashrock to construct more buildings in order to accelerate the energy production in the race against Avalice's energy crisis. Selma's boss, Mr. Lan then walked in after five minutes of waiting and double checking her paperwork.
"Karver's intern would like to speak with you," said Mr. Lan.
Selma got up from her chair and followed Mr. Lan to the lobby, and at the lobby she saw a young adult Avalician tiger and shook hands with him.
"Hello, I'm Ryoma, the intern of Karver Industries," the Intern said.
"Welcome," Selma replied to Ryoma," you must be the one Karver sent for me."
"Indeed I am. I believe we shall work together nicely."
Ryoma told Selma about why Karver brought him in and how he would rely on him. While Karver has had a decade-long success in running his company, his demand for more employees has grown exponentially, with Now Hiring signs and banners placed in much of Shang Tu but competition with the other top-tier companies made this rather difficult. Unlike other companies in Avalice, they have some of the best trained Security Guards and they even know Kung Fu in addition to guns, sticks and shields used for security purposes but some of their buildings have the best security measures with the guards being used for back up if built-in security gets breached..
"What were you here for?" asked Ryoma.
"They figured they would use me in case we're gathering alien resources," Selma replied.
"More work needs to be done," said Mr. Lan.
Selma waved goodbye to Ryoma and went back to her officer for another couple of hours before going home.
Team Lilac had a discussion on what to have for dinner. As they had a poor supply of ingredients needed to cook something at home, they settled on takeout meals for dinner, usually an abundance of noodles, sushi, egg rolls and mochi ice cream. Carol was off to pick up the meals for each of Team Lilac. While Lilac and Milla were waiting, Lilac wrote several messages on another sheet of paper that she translated from Chinese as accurately as she could, found in another dug up letter. The messages in Chinese characters may have had some clues that would hold the key to something special.
"Can you tell me more?" asked Milla, "I don't know any Chinese."
Lilac said, "It says, 'One who would seek to live forever must first step into the device of divine yet extremely high technology called the Immortality Machine, through the Immortality Machine he or she becomes what is called a Xian, every new Xian is granted Static Telomeres, for telomeres are one of the key factors of living and every candidate will endure a long process that will further the examination of their worthiness of immortality' I tried my best when it came to translating messages like that but I kept 'Xian' intact, which can mean 'immortal' in Chinese."
"Immortal? You still ought to be vulnerable even if you're really immortal," said Milla. "With the Static Telomeres and all."
"Right," replied Lilac.
"We should keep the translation, too, I think," insisted Milla.
Lilac nodded then stored the translation of the Chinese writing. The green tomboy kunoichi returned in her motorcycle with the takeout meals to the treehouse. Lilac then ran outside to the entrance and noticed that Carol's hands were full and needed to somehow lift them up to their treehouse without dirtying the food.
"Carol, don't wall jump or you might ruin our treehouse!" Lilac exclaimed.
"How are we going to get the food up there?" asked Carol.
"Just hand some of them to me," replied Lilac.
"Got it!"
Lilac stretched her hands out so that Carol could hand some to her. Lilac slipped her hands through the rings of the bags and lifted them up so she can bring them inside. She could smell the food inside.
"Mmm, sushi," Lilac said to herself as she put the bags on a table.
"Now I can come up with the rest," said Carol.
Carol then climbed up with the other bags of food on one hand. She placed the bags of food in front of the entrance, then whistled to Milla to come down to eat between the ladder and the front door. Milla heard the whistle before she came down to the entrance to have dinner with the other two girls. She looked into one of the bags to find her food and also grabbed a fortune cookie, she noticed an extra fortune cookie, likely because Carol ordered egg rolls to share in addition to the meals meant for each person.
"An extra fortune cookie?" asked Milla.
"You can have it, Milla," Lilac replied.
Milla took the extra fortune cookie which she intended to have for last, Lilac had tuna and salmon sushi, Carol had General Tso's chicken with yellow rice and Milla had pork lo mein. While the girls dined, the telephone rang then Lilac rushed to answer it, after she answered it, the caller was ultimately a sort of scammer and then put the phone back into it's keypad and told the girls about it.
"It was a scam caller," said Lilac. "They may not know where we are, but I wonder how they managed to find our phone number."
Lilac then got back to her tray of sushi, she noticed that Carol ate her chicken and rice up pretty fast, with Milla still eating with several bites left.
"You must have been hungry, Carol," said Lilac.
"I haven't had anything to eat in a couple of days," replied Carol.
Carol wiped her face after eating her egg roll, Milla wagged her tail near Carol's legs, she was almost done with her noodles and was eager to have her two fortune cookies. Lilac was also full around that time then began to eat her fortune cookie, she stuffed her empty bento into the paper bag, Carol and Milla also stuffed their empty containers in there. The girls then started to eat their fortune cookies. One of Lilac's fortunes reads; "To be a better person, deny no immorality!", while Carol's reads "Nothing ruins your life more than making the wrong decision for yourself" and Milla had read some more vague fortunes but still had positive messages from two fortune cookies, the girls kept those fortunes because it would have reminded them about positivity when they would feel down. Lilac walked into the Treehouse and grabbed some fragments containing the information regarding immortality.
"Carol, check those out," Lilac said to Carol.
Lilac handed Carol the letter.
"Huh!" Carol exclaimed. "I never thought living forever would ever be possible in real life,"
"Of course, everything should be possible when technology advances," replied Lilac.
Lilac went back to her bunk to read more of Avalice in Wonderland and Carol went to the TV to play a first person shooter game. Milla then came into the bedroom and decided to read some books about science, since she was even younger, she sought to learn it and other academic sources just like her father and was even encouraged by him. Just like Milla, he had knowledge in Alchemy including potioneering and Phantom-based abilities both of which she started with, even for combat, though overall more skilled and experienced than her. After losing him and his cocker spaniel wife, the path to mastery of Milla's parents' said agencies became very difficult for her yet found success in being effective with them.
Lilac paused her audiobook and removed her specialized earbuds designed to accommodate her hearing aids and read the clock, she hopped out of her bunk and came downstairs to remind Carol to get to bed.
"Carol, I'm getting a little tired," said Lilac.
"Hang on, about to own this loser," Carol said confidently.
"You can save and quit, though," Lilac pointed out.
Carol paused for a bit. "Ah, you're right," she said. She turned off her game, luckily for her she was playing single player, then quickly ran to get changed.
Milla removed her Phantom Jades and her beige sweater. She liked being comfortable when it was time for bed. "Ah, much better," she said as she climbed into her sleeping bag. Milla hopes one day, she and Lilac can get her a real bed instead of having to sleep on the ground all the time. Lilac and Carol also went to their bunks and turned off their lights.
"I wish we could see Torque again," said Carol.
"Me too," Lilac replied. "Maybe we could find out his username and chat with him online," Then the girls fell asleep
When the sun shined, Lilac woke up then walked to the refrigerator then the pantry for something to make breakfast with, she was able to find a carton of eggs but the rest were simply miscellaneous food items including packs of instant ramen. Lilac thought that's what she and her friends are better off with. She grabbed a large pot and approximated the size for three noodles and flavor packets then poured three times the water needed for the instant into the pot then activated the stove.
Milla crawled out of her sleeping bag then put her four jades (the orange and green pairs of bracelets) back on. She walked down to the family room and took a seat on the couch.
"Do you have any tea?" asked Milla.
"No, but I'll make you some after I make some ramen," Lilac replied.
As soon as the pot boiled, Lilac began to put three chunks of ramen into the pot. While cooking the ramen, she added some eggs and herbs into the pot then added the flavor packets. Lilac ran up to the bedroom
"Up and at 'em! Time for breakfast!" exclaimed Lilac.
"Five more minutes," Carol yawned.
"You know, we don't always have five more minutes," Lilac replied.
"You heard her," Milla added.
Carol stretched her arms out then hopped out of her bunk to get ready to be changed back to her normal clothes. After walking down the stars she paused after quickly noticing the pot of ramen noodles.
"Ramen for breakfast?!" Carol exclaimed.
"Well, ramen often has an egg in it," Lilac pointed out. "That's what you're better of with and I'm going to the grocery store later because doing it on an empty stomach wouldn't do me much good."
"That makes sense," Carol replied.
Team Lilac began to serve themselves bowls of ramen then grabbed their chopsticks. A thought in Milla's head had sparked after her first bite of the ramen noodles.
"I probably ate ramen like once or twice," said Milla. "Before I got separated from my parents of course."
"I had a lot in my Red Scarf days," Carol added.
After Lilac made Milla a cup of tea as well as for herself and for Carol, she joined in and had a bowl of ramen with the other two girls. Milla grabbed her cup of tea and had a sip.
"What tea is this?" asked Milla.
"It's Matcha," replied Lilac.
Carol and Milla put their empty bowls with pairs of chopsticks away then went to the TV to return to her console FPS game. Lilac proudly thought outside the box when it came to cooking breakfast, she then left the Treehouse to go to the grocery to buy more food items including ingredients to cook future breakfasts as well as comfort foods and dinner.