"Hey! Get your ass back over here! Do I need to purchase a monkey leash?!"

Gon startled, and the guiltily slunk back over to the others. Ging slapped him upside the head once he made it. The younger hybrid smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his skull. He couldn't help it! He'd seen the glowy thing, and he'd NEEDED to touch it!

"It's just a plasma globe, have you seriously never seen one before?!" Ging retorted.

"No…" his son mumbled.

The five of them had entered Hallah's inner core, and were traversing the fourth sector. The sectors were divided up into what types of gas the humanoids present could breathe. Sector four had oxygen and nitrogen, just like Overworld. Other sectors had carbon dioxide based, argon based, hydrogen based, and even sectors submerged in water.

The entire place was a network of bridges and passageways connecting platform after platform. If you looked close enough, you could see that the general shape of the sector was curved. Technically, they were walking on the walls and not on the floors, but that was too complicated for Gon to wrap his head around, so he just ignored it and pretended that they really were just facing up and down, rather than side to side in disguise.

The sector was crowded, crawling with as many small businesses and hotels that could be stuffed into a sector a fourth of the Hidden Oasis' size. There were shops and market carts literally everywhere, and Gon was fairly certain that everything imaginable was sold here in one way or form.

The floors were made from black perforated metal, so that you could peek down through the floor to see what was on the platform below you. It was like a giant playground! But Gon had gotten bullied when he'd made that comparison out loud to Killua and Ryder…

The entire sector was lit by blacklights, positioned on the undersides of all the bridges as well as along the edges of every roof. The lighting made Killua's silvery white hair look like it was glowing, and it made everyone's teeth and eyes pop against the dimly lit space. Aside from the spooky lighting (once again, Gon had gotten bullied by Killua and Ryder for calling the blacklights "spooky") there were neon signs and lights in every color imaginable all over the place. Decorating the walls and boasting the wares of each store or cart.

It was muggy in the sector. One of the aquatic sectors was right above (beside) this one, making the air humid and warm. Condensation lined the metal platforms and railings, and occasionally a droplet of slimy wetness would fall down onto Gon's face or hair.

The place smelled like the bite of leather and metal, along with the reek of sweaty bodies and the sharp stench of gasoline. Then there were all the different food smells, smoke smells, and product smells. There was so much going on in Gon's nose that he could barely detect Killua's scent in all the madness! And that was saying something!

It seemed like every single platform had three smoke shops for every restaurant, and there was so much smoking and burning of hallucinogenic herbs that there was a hazy fog swirling about no matter where you walked. Walking through so many clouds of the stuff was starting to give Gon that familiar prickle in the back of his mind… no amount of time spent clean could break the urge, it seemed.

Gon definitely understood what Ging had said about not looking at anybody. It seemed like there was a drug or trafficking deal going down around every corner. Gon had never seen so many illegal weapons in one place in his entire life! The last time he'd seen that strain of Overworldian cannabis he'd almost gotten arrested by the city guard… and him and Meleoron hadn't even brought it in!

Seeing all this crazy stuff was making the hair along the back of Gon's neck rise. On Overworld, if you stumbled across a place like this you ran, because there was no telling how soon a squadron of Zodiac reserves would bust in and kill everybody in sight… There were no questions asked on Overworld, and growing accustomed to their being in space - where there was no one to enforce the laws banning all this crap - was taking some time.

But the discomfort was working in the favor of Ging's group. Just as Gon was ignoring everybody else, everybody else was ignoring Gon. Their group was incredibly suspicious, walking around covered in dried blood and smoke stains. Not to mention Ryder, who'd already had to branch off to "take care of something" twice already.

They needed to change into some generic clothing, and soon.

The general agreement to leave shit alone would only get them so far. Especially with all the tension the war on Chimera was causing…

"From the upper right," Killua murmured.

All five of them quickly slipped into the closest alley. They watched patiently as two Chimera Ant soldiers marched across one of the upper bridges. They were Squadron Leaders, Gon could sense their aura from here. One of them looked like an alligator, while the other was a squat little koala with beady eyes.

"Why are we hiding?" Ryder whispered once they were out of sight. "It's not like they'd care what we're doing."

"The Chimera Ants aren't stupid," Ging murmured, checking to make sure there weren't any more Ants around. "They're bred for war, and it's not like they don't see the King's next move coming. According to our contact, they're expecting a Zodiac and his subordinates to be coming through any day now. If they can prevent us from arriving, then they can throw a wrench in the King's plan.

"It's not like the Royal Guard actually needs our assistance, considering how our help is nothing more than a political stunt, but if the King's opposers can capture us and prevent us from making contact at the border, then they can stunt the King's plan indefinitely. As it stands, he's waiting on us. He won't move to the next phase of the plan until we arrive. The Queen and the insurgents' goal is to keep the King on Chimera, because if he leaves the throne is shot. He wins.

"The only way to unite the species at this point is to kill the King and place a new ruler on the throne. And if he escapes alive, not to mention succeeds in the final phase of his plan, that will never happen. So that is why we're hiding from the patrols.

"We're obviously not from around here. We're dressed in Black Whale spacesuits, a painfully obvious sign that we boarded a mainstream ship line to get here. Mainstream ship lines are the only ones that pass through to Overworld. So until we change into something more appropriate, we're exposed."

Gon whined, "That's really confusing."

"Did you expect interplanetary espionage to be a walk in the park?" Ging snorted. He slipped back into the crowd. "Come on, children. I know of a good supplier up here."

"You see it too, right?"

A hooded figure peeked out from behind the brick wall. "Yeah. Clear as day."

Their companion took a shuddering breath, "Shit, this is really bad!"

They earned a slap in the arm, "Bad? Moron. This is good. We found our mark."

"No, we found them! There's five of them! We were told we'd only have to deal with the one!"

"As if they'll all be grouped together at all times?"

"You're just trying to make me feel better. Those two will be impossible to split up!"

"Just shut up and pay attention, alright? We can't let them out of our sight. Once we get an opening, we won't get another one. We should consider ourselves lucky, that they have to focus on the Chimeras over all else."

A pair of eyes rolled, "Great. You know you're on a safe job when a civil war on the Moon of Chimera is working in your favor."

"That's enough out of you. Come on, we have to make sure we aren't noticed."