Louise had been to many kinds of places in her life, forests, wastelands, mountains, plains, hill country, and even underground mines. Her father had wanted to make sure that all his daughters had knowledge of different environments to make sure they understood how they all affected the nation and how battles were fought in them. The one thing she hadn't seen however, were islands. The only island in Halkeginia was the floating island nation of Albion which could only be accessed by a flying ship or animal like a gryphon or dragon.

As such Louise was not exactly familiar with what islands were like. She knew what they were supposed to be like. She just hadn't been ready for being on one, or more specifically a Massive number of island the sizes of small buildings so close together that you could wade from island to island.

"This is ridiculous," Louise commented as she beat her skirt with her hands in an attempt to shake some of the water off of them. "How the hell did we end up at an unguarded threshold alone with Kevris nowhere to be seen!"

Shil'ka shrugged her shoulders as water dripped off her body. "I'm guessing that he set it up to do so. And all we have to do to get to the main base on this planetoid is to follow this island chain."

"That's part of the problem! How many of these bloody islands are there? I mean if it was just a couple islands it would be no big deal, but these islands are so tiny and close together there's barely any land, it's more like a massive receded sandbar than an island chain!"

". . . You're not too fond of water, are you, Lu'eez?" Shil'ka asked as they entered another area of shallows and began wading through it.

"I'm fine with water, bathing is a wonderful thing, but dealing with shallows is not. At least you're tall enough on those legs of yours to be mostly dry!"

"What do you –," Shil'ka stopped herself as she looked to her side to see everything below Louise's shoulders under the water, and Louise none to happy about how hard she had to push herself to keep pace in the shallows. "Perhaps you should climb onto my back when we get onto the next island."

"Yes, perhaps I should. . . . At least this next one looks big!" Louise commented as she pulled her arm out of the water and pointed ahead of them.

Ahead of them, about fifty meters was yet another island. But unlike the past two hundred some odd islands they had already crossed that were mostly sand, dirt, or if they were lucky a tree with sand and dirt, this one was significantly large, and had a massive rock outcropping on it, and even had grasses in between the occasional spike of ichor.

Shil'ka sighed. "Let's take a rest on this island then, even I could use one so I'm sure you need one."

"A rest from all this wading through sandy water yes, rest from exhaustion, not really. I'm holding up pretty good on that end, I'm just tire of wading through water."

Shil'ka nodded and within the minute she and Louise were on the beach sitting down on the cool grass letting the ocean air waft by them.

After a significantly pleasing rest Shil'ka and Louise climbed the island rock outcropping and once at the top became highly confused.

" . . . . . . There's no more islands." Louise commented casually as she looked out from the islands top."

Shil'ka nodded in response. "Which is odd considering the information I pulled from the threshold we came through said to follow the island chain to the mainland where the base is on this planet."

"Could it have been wrong?"

"No, it's not very likely. It is possible that Kevris altered the information though."

Hearing this made Louise obviously angry. "Dammit, first he tries to kill me and runs off, then he orders us here, and now he gets us lost! I swear I'm going to kill him!"

"I doubt that highly Lu'eez. He's far stronger than you and you are not at full strength yet, it would be a one way fight in his favor."

"Then I'll find a different way to make him pay for all this, I'll just have to think on it is all!"

"Well, think about it later. We must find a way to get to the main base."

"Couldn't we just take the threshold back?"

"We could, but that would mean having left Kevris here when he ordered us here for assistance. It would not look good if it was found out, and knowing Kevris he would make sure it was."

"So he'll blackmail us, dammit!" Louise screamed as she punched a rock in front of her, shattering it completely and leaving her hand unscathed. "At least I'm feeling much better now!"

"I'd say the Hypercondences are coming along nicely. Could you have done that before?"

"Done what?"

"Never mind. Either way we must find a way to proceed so let us climb down and survey the island."

Louise nodded.

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Louise glared down the deep dark cavern before them and sighed. "So, this is it?"

Shil'ka nodded. "Yes, if my calculations are correct it turns and goes under the sea, toward the mainland. It's likely that it connects to another cave system that should get us there."

"So we go from wading in shoulder deep water, to spelunking in unknown's caves that have sea water splashing into them, likely making them damp and slippery."

"That would seem correct. Shall we?"

"I suppose so, though the hazard of slipping worries me. This cavern looks like it goes pretty deep and it's pretty steep too." Louise said as she slowly followed Shil'ka carefully down into the caverns.

The caverns themselves mostly what Louise expected them to be, hard layers of shoreline stone that held on to any moisture that struck them, rendering the entire cave both slippery, and sickeningly moist. The more they descended the darker it got, and Louise was beginning to think they would have to turn back to acquire a light of some kind. But before she could say it she noticed a growing quantity of phosphorescent moss growing on the walls and ceiling of the cave, illuminating the moist walls in a fantastic spectacle of light and reflection. As the cavern's angle lessened and finally leveled out the cave became even more boring that it had already been, changing little as they followed the only path available to them. But the more they travelled along the cave, the more something seemed out of place. It was a feeling that only doubled as they found a massive bowl-like clearing in the cave with a small stream of water coming from a tunnel on the opposite side and filling a pool in the clearing's center.

"I don't like the looks of this place." Louise said as she glanced around at the almost domelike walls.

"Why?"

"The walls, they're to smooth. It looks like they were formed this way by something other than nature."

Shil'ka looked around and nodded. "Your right, they do. Let's not worry about it though, I think I see a crystal of ichor in that pool we should check it out."

"Because we haven't seen a single bit of ichor in this entire cave system?"

"Precisely. That and I could use some physical contact, this cave system having little ichor radiation is quite draining, as I'm sure you noticed."

"Yes I did, I am quite drained." Louise admitted as she followed Shil'ka toward the pool in the center of the clearing.

As they entered the clearing the water began to ripple outward from its center, stopping them in their tracks. Before either of them could react the massive dark orange form of a large creature emerged from the water before them. The creature was obviously some sort of local crustacean, with its six shelled legs and four massive shell covered claws it glared at them and screamed, causing the crystal of ichor atop its shell to glow vibrantly.

"Um, suggestions?" Louise asked as she slowly shifted her footing.

"It has ichor upon its shell. It likely is a creature local to this planet that has underwent mutation, it may be friendly though."

"You say that as if it's unlikely!"

"It is, so we should- ,"Shil'ka stopped as the creature let out a strange gurgle and charged toward them, its four claws open and ready to strike.

Louise and Shil'ka jumped to either side of the creature, causing it to run straight into the hard cavern wall with a thud. "I think it's safe to say it is not happy to see us, do we kill it?" Louise asked as the creature crawled back onto its legs and turned itself around to charge at them again.

"We'll have to, otherwise it will keep following us in all likelihood. " Shil'ka said as she looked at the creature and noticed its hard shell not even scratched from colliding with the wall. "It's shell seems rather tough though, so this may be difficult to do with just our capabilities."

"What do you mean?"

"Unlike Kevris' body that can naturally create plasma discs, I cannot create any sort of energy projectile. All I have are my own limbs and claws."

Louise frowned as she summersaulted over the crab creature's ram once more and almost barked at Shil'ka as it turned around. "Well that's just great; can't you just punch it or something?"

Shil'ka shook her head as she leapt into the air and struck her legs into the stone ceiling, stopping her from falling. "I am not physically strong enough to kill an armored creature of this size; speed is my asset, not strength."

"Then please explain how we're supposed to kill this thing? There is no way I can! And get down from there!" Louise screamed as the creature rushed her even faster than before, not giving her time to leap over it. Instead she dropped to her knees and leaned back, allowing the creatures bulk to soar over her creating a wind that caused her hair to fly all over, and causing her proton tendrils to flail about, striking the creatures underbelly. As Louise got up, the creature having successfully rammed its head to the cavern walls once again, she looked at the creature in shock for a few moments before grinning menacingly. "Never mind, I got this!"

Before Shil'ka could say a word, Louise rushed toward the creature as it turned around to charge again, but would not have the chance. as it began to turn around Louise got in close and punched at a spot in between two of its legs, and the creature fell to the ground lifeless, blood spilling from all of its leg joints on that side.

Shil'ka dropped from the ceiling and landed before Louise as she stretched her arms and spoke." How nice of you to come down."

Shil'ka looked at the dead creature's corpse in a quick analysis. It's entire body was covered in hard chitinous plating, even around its legs and arm joints, but now every joint on the one side had blood seeping from it as if its insides had melted. "How did you do that?"

Louise fell to one knee and began letting out heavy drawn out breaths. "I – I saw it. How it was built, how it had mutated when it contacted some ichor. The armour in between those legs was weak and it's heart was right beside it. By striking it I caused it's heart to rupture." Louise said as she forced herself to stand and looked at the creature in slight shock at what she had just done. "I had seen everything about it as if reading a book and killed it."

"You saw how it was built and saw a flaw in its structure then? How much did you see?"

"All of it, down to a genetic level. I saw everything the creature was and could have been naturally, all with a slight touch. My cords struck it when it went over me, and I saw everything about it in an instant."

". . . Then can you move them now?"

Louise did not even say a word as the cords lifted out of her ponytail and pointed toward the creature's corpse, letting out thin pink beams that quickly cut the corpse into pieces. "It seems so." Louise said with a smile.

Shil'ka looked at her for many moments before walking over and taking one of her cords in her hand. "This is odd."

"What is?"

"The beams your proton tendril released wasn't a proton beam, it was comprised of high density superheated polarons."

"That's . . . . . . . insanely useful." Louise stated calmly.

"I think you're missing the point of it being almost impossible. You could cut through ichor composites with little difficulty. Hell, you could cut through most things with little difficulty given a bit of time and energy."

"What do you mean ener-, oh boy." Louise stated as she suddenly collapse causing Shil'ka to pick her up and place her on her back to carry her out of the cavern.

"That's what I mean; using such a thing will drain you very fast."

"So I noticed." Louise said with a groan. "Let's just get out of this cave already!"