Sorry for the one day delay. My schedule has changed, so I will be submitting new chapters every Monday now. Anyway, back to the naughtiest of siblings, while they near the completion of phase one of their 300 year goal.

Chapter 12: The End of a Long Wait

The pipeline had finally reached the entrance to the Catacombs, and now the tricky part began, getting the creatures to successfully navigate the tunnels and make their way to the Dark Eco canal. It was hard enough for the siblings to get out, so how would their servants manage? Try as he may to improve their intelligence, he still could never elevate them above the rank of imbecile.

They sent in the first group to scout around, but they never returned. The next several groups fared no better. Such an approach was obviously not working, so Gol set about devising another method. In fact, Gol had already planned ahead for the first leg of the journey. While these creatures, consisting largely of Dark Eco, should be naturally attuned to the presence of the substance they were composed of (Gol himself had developed a kind of sixth sense for detecting Dark Eco, and he was sure Maia had, as well), that ability was useless at great distances. So long before the construction of the pipe had ever commenced, he had enhanced this aspect of the creatures to guarantee half the trip. But even after so much time had passed, he had never been able to come up with an idea for the return journey.

After much thought and a little bit of trepidation, Gol did eventually voice to Maia some kind of plan involving a trail, even though she had pointed out how similar this was to a fairytale they had read as children. This particular story revolved around a flut flut chick who, after finding itself on a most unlikely quest to retrieve a magic egg from a treacherous forest, had managed to make its way there and back again by leaving a trail of berries in its wake (which were unrealistically abundant in this particular forest, even though Gol and his sister had hardly ever found any during their time in the woods as children, aside from the poisonous ones Maia had gotten sick on). But, that was the only idea he could think of, and his sister didn't offer any solutions of her own. She only proceeded to taunt him with the name "Flutlette" after the chick in the story for a week straight before growing bored. Honestly, she still retained the same verbal endurance she had as a child.

Despite the mocking directed at him, the Sage instructed the creatures to leave a trail of sand and pebbles as they travelled into the Catacombs to lead them back. And Maia could snigger all she liked, this was the one method that worked. As he had hoped, the creatures did indeed find their way back, and the work on the pipeline continued once again. They were so close, but Gol still felt something was missing.

The answer to his newest quandary came not in the form of a fairytale from his youth, but in a scrap one of the creatures had carried back with it. Many weeks later, Maia had found one of their servants wandering a section of the Wasteland it had no business being in. They could only figure it was one of the creatures that had gotten lost in the Catacombs and had managed to come out a different exit. And for whatever reason, it was dragging the remains of what appeared to be a Precursor robot arm behind it. It was from a robot smaller in size to the one they had used centuries ago, but it gave Gol an idea. He pondered in his lab for a while on the feasibility of this plan, drawing diagrams and writing notes, until he decided this might be the last preparation they needed.

Thoroughly satisfied, he headed out of his lab and followed the sound of Maia's voice to her room. He found her talking to her pet, which she had affectionately dubbed Teeth, now residing in a larger container. The container was sitting on an old, wooden table she had placed in the room, not unlike all the other furniture that resided in their citadel. Next to her pet's cage were candles and a medium-sized oval mirror, also with a wooden, simply carved frame, propped against the wall, no doubt for fixing up her cascade of locks. (Why did women need to constantly look at themselves anyway? She knew what she looked like, didn't she?) Her room was a sparsely decorated one, just as his was (not that they currently had the time for such pointless endeavors anyway), though he remembered a time when she had a multitude of plants and uselessly small pillows and dainty figurines. How truly frivolous she once was. And yet, sometimes he missed it.

He knocked on the open door, and she looked up from the creature that was currently trying with all of its might to escape its cage and gnaw on her. "Finally taking some time from your work to spare your dear sister a visit I see, my dear Flutlette," she said.

He frowned at her. "I thought you were over that."

Pet currently forgotten, she came closer to him in lazy steps, hands behind her back. "Not entirely, no."

"Anyway, the reason I came in here, dear sister, was to tell you of a new idea I have. But, I suppose if you'd rather make fun of me, I can return later." He turned to leave, and she appeared in front of him in a puff of purple.

"I don't think so."

"Then what do you say?"

She tilted her head to the side. "Please?"

"No."

Her head went to the other side, face scrunched up in confusion. "I don't follow."

"You should, dear sister."

"Please," she paused, as if considering teasing him again, before finishing with, "dear brother."

"Very good."

"So what is it?"

"Intrigued, are we?"

"Stop procrastinating and tell me!" Maia put her hands on her hips, a stern look on her face.

"Excuse me."

She stepped aside as he walked by, then, followed close behind as they headed towards the lab.

"I know we've tried it before, but I was thinking we could use something along the lines of another Precursor robot, dear sister."

She laughed. "Are you joking? We already tried that and look where it got us. The flimsy thing got destroyed by a little boy."

"I'm well aware of that, but I feel we're going to need more than just a bunch of mindless creatures if we plan to crush any resistance against us. We could use something more powerful, and if our servants can retrieve the rest of the robot, I can make it into something better." They arrived at the table in his lab, where he handed Maia one of his diagrams. She looked over it, eyebrows raised.

"What do you think, dear sister?"

"Not bad. You're going to make absolute sure it can't be destroyed by a simple boy this time, correct?" she asked as she handed the diagrams back to him.

"Don't you worry about that, dear sister."

"All right. As long as we're not humiliated again this time."

Of course not, he wasn't stupid. He would not allow them to fail again. Clearly their last robot wasn't as powerful as it could have been if a mere boy could destroy it, even with the aid of that vile Light Eco. This time would be different. He knew better.

As Maia sent out a group of the creatures to bring back what remained of the robot (hopefully there was more left than just a battered arm), Gol continued on with his own preparations. He worked more on his notes, drawing different models of weaponry and armor and whatever else they might need. Never would he have thought he'd spend time designing such things. Him, an Eco Sage, whose usual goal was the simple quest for knowledge. But, the world's stubborn insistence to believe his research was wrong had forced his hand, and so he really had no other choice left to him. Sometimes, you simply had to do things you weren't normally accustomed to.

Over the next several weeks, scraps of the Precursor robot started to pile up in their citadel (along with bits of random rubbish the creatures also decided to bring along, the stupid things). He had managed to find a much larger room in the old temple that would be better suited for constructing something of this scale. It was unfortunate this robot was smaller than the previous one, but he supposed it was a smaller target.

The Sage got to work putting the robot back together, while tasking Maia with finding the needed supplies for him. This caused no small amount of grumbling from her, but he just ignored it. Just wait until the robot crushed Spargus and Haven City, and she wouldn't be grumbling then.

Several weeks in, when the robot had taken on its desired form (but still lacking in its previous splendor, as it was still in abominable condition), Gol was startled by his sister (well, not startled exactly, he just didn't expect her) entering the room at a surprising speed. She flew up to join him where he hovered next to the robot's head, trying to repair some severed wires. What could have possibly put the robot in such a state?

"Dear brother, it's finished!" She sped around him in an excited circle.

"Stop it, you're making me dizzy!" he said.

"Did you hear me?" She stopped in front of him.

"The pipeline's finished, dear sister?"

"That's what I said."

"It isn't, really."

She paused to think over their conversation from the last minute, then continued, "Well, it's pretty obvious what I meant, isn't it? Now all we must do is turn it on."

She was off again, at such a speed he half wondered if she was going to ram into the wall like a bird. He followed her out of the room and through several more passageways. It was fortunate she remembered her way around because he sure didn't. There was no way he would ever tell her, though, the extent to which he had gotten lost just the other day, trying to find his way back to his room. Perhaps that was only due to sleep deprivation, though, as he had been working on the robot for several days straight. Yes, that was it.

Finally, they met up with the pipe and followed it to the top of a stairway leading down into a cavernous set of rooms even deeper within the temple. He had yet to figure out what the previous occupants needed such a large temple for, but it worked well enough for them. It was still most curious, though.

"Who gets to do the honors?" Maia asked.

"Seeing as you continuously claim to have been working harder than me, not that I agree, I suppose it should be you," Gol said.

She nodded, grinning widely. "You make a good point, my lazy brother." She put her hand on the lever built into the top of the pipe. "Ready?"

Before he had a chance to answer this unnecessary question, she pulled it down, and the pipe hummed to life. She moved to stand beside him, and they watched. After several minutes of this, she was tapping one foot.

"Come on, how long does it take?" she said.

"Patience, dear sister."

They waited longer, and despite the great distance the Dark Eco had to travel, neither was willing to leave and return later, for fear of missing this most momentous of occasions. Gol eventually sat by the wall, while Maia paced.

"That won't make it come any faster, dear sister," he said.

"Hmmph."

"What's a few more minutes after several centuries?" Indeed, this is what they had attempted to accomplish by opening the silo three hundreds years prior. Unlimited Dark Eco. They had come so close that time, only to fail. This time, there would be no failure. When Maia didn't respond, he continued, "Come sit with me, dear sister."

"I can't sit." She continued in this manner, heels clicking back and forth across their end of the hallway, before finally giving in and sitting cross-legged next to her brother, leaning forward, watching the pipe like a hawk waiting for a mouse to come out from its hole.

Finally, after a half hour, maybe more, but it certainly felt like longer, a gurgling could be heard from farther down the hallway. Maia sprung to her feet and Gol stood, as well, but more slowly (oh, his aching back!). Several moments later, Dark Eco was gushing out the end of the pipe, flowing down the stairs into the level below.

Maia squealed and hugged Gol tight, and as if transferring her enthusiasm to him, he hugged her back and picked her up, spinning her around, pain in his back forgotten.

"Put me down this instant!" she said through laughter.

"It's ours, dear sister! All the Dark Eco we could ever want!" Finally, it was really happening. All that they had worked so hard for. Now all that was left was to transform the world. Once all the fools that might stop them were wiped out, of course.

"I'm serious, put me down!"

He obliged and proceeded to cough and gasp for air from his excursion. Once he had recovered, they stayed some time longer in that passageway, watching the Dark Eco flow like an endless river into the depths of their citadel.

"Soon the Dark Eco will be ours!" Or already is. Ahem. Please review. And can you guess whose Precursor robot that was?... It's not important now, but can you remember?