Let's see what Gol and Maia are up to today. I'll admit the latter part of this chapter is a bit odd…. No, very odd.

Chapter 14: Work and a Break From It

What had previously been the lowest level of the temple was now quickly becoming a massive lake of Dark Eco. After some time longer of watching the pipe do its work and their dream quickly and tangibly becoming a reality (part of it, at least), they forced themselves to leave and continue their own tasks. The first thing to do was connect the growing pool with all manner of smaller pipes and hoses to transfer the Dark Eco automatically to their machines. With the creatures to collect the other colors of Eco they needed, that left Maia to spend her time assisting Gol with the robot.

All the while, the machines could now run unattended, pumping out an endless supply of new servants. Not only did this automate the creation of their army, but it also kept the level of the pool at a manageable level. Otherwise, the temple was at real risk of becoming flooded if the pipe was not turned off in time. Imagine that, they now had more Dark Eco than they knew what to do with, as the saying goes. Which was, of course, not entirely accurate, as he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it all.

As the weeks went by, their army grew to the thousands and then to the millions. Their citadel started to become so overrun with the creatures that the place was simply teeming with them before long, parts of the temple and its grounds appearing to the untrained eye as one, enormous squirming mass of blackness. Groups of the things could be found ambling just about everywhere except for the siblings' quarters, where they were forbidden.

At the same time, the robot finally began to take on a more acceptable appearance. Damage to its circuitry had been repaired, while its outer frame was restored. Once the initial stage of the robot's renovation was complete, Gol opened the hatch leading inside the robot's head and flew inside. Maia glided in behind him.

"You need to watch it from the outside," he said, as he started to press buttons and flip switches on the robot's console, lit only by a torch he held in his free hand.

"It's even more cramped in this one."

"We should also be spending much less time in this robot, dear sister." He pressed a few more buttons, and the lights came on, along with the view screen. A rumble could be heard from below them as the machine powered on, and a vibration could be felt through the cold, metal floor. "Go…"

She zipped outside, and he started to move some levers controlling the robot's limbs. Before he could inquire into the robot's movements, Maia's voice could be heard from outside. "It lifted its arm, if that's what you wanted."

"Perfect."

"What?"

"I…never mind!"

After more testing, he deemed the robot to be in working order. Now it was time for the improvements. They both worked together building weapons and enhanced armor. As the final stages neared completion, Gol's thoughts raced. It was nearly time. Time for them to create their new world. And no one was going to stop them. No mute boy. No Light Eco. No foolish Sages (as far as he was concerned, he was the only sane one of the whole bunch). Nothing. Those fools got lucky once, but it wasn't happening again. It couldn't. There was no possible way those idiots could beat the odds twice.

"So are you taking a break then?"

And they were far better prepared this time, as well. In fact, they really should be unstoppable. Weren't they? There wasn't anything he was missing, was he?

"Hello?"

Gol looked over to find his sister staring at him from across a large Yellow Eco cannon, made even more powerful than their previous one to compensate for the smaller size of the robot.

"Yes?"

"You were staring off into space."

He blinked at her. Had he been?

She continued, "A break might be nice, actually." She trailed a hand over the gun as she walked around to his side. "This can wait."

"We're nearly finished."

"All the more reason to take a break. We've been working for hours. I'm bored." She linked one arm with his. "Come on."

"Just a few more…"

She tugged him, leaving him with no choice but to follow or lose his balance. He dropped the wrench he had been holding, unable to set it down in a more suitable location, and left the room with her at a quick pace.

"I feel like a walk," she said.

"Must we walk so fast?" Before she could reply, he added, "And make no comment about my age."

"What makes you think I was going to?" She did slow her pace, however.

For the most part, they continued on at a more leisurely speed, except for the times Maia, guided by mere whim, it seemed, decided to pull him down a different passageway. He had no idea what time it was, but it was rather cold in this level of the citadel. Watching the candles, the only source of light down here, kept burning by their servants, their flickering could almost be mistaken for shivering.

They had walked in silence for sometime, through grand hallways that rose twenty feet up and large rooms with vaulted ceilings and intricate stonework gracing their walls. And cramped passageways with low ceilings and small, plain rooms completely devoid of any extra adornments that didn't seem to be meant for the same building as their more spacious counterparts. Deep in the temple, where nature hadn't touched, rooms were left about the way they might have been when people had lived here. Books and writing materials were left on tables, inkwells cursed to be eternally dried up, waiting for the user to return to chairs that had been pulled back. Storage rooms filled with unopened crates, the contents of which had not been seen in the Precursors knew how long. Once, they even spotted a pair of boots, just sitting there upright, as if still on invisible feet. What had caused them all to leave? And where did they go?

"Heading anywhere in particular?" he asked, trying a third time to grab a book lying open on a table, in case its contents held anything interesting, but Maia wouldn't allow it.

She shrugged. "Not really." They reached another room of the larger sort, pillars rising to meet a ceiling far above, and she stopped, staring upward. "All we've been doing lately is working."

"That we have, dear sister."

"We're always studying Dark Eco or building Precursor robots or some other kind of machinery, and whenever we're not, we're thinking about doing those things. We've been doing little else but work since we were young, it seems. But, ever since we came up with our current plans, it's only gotten worse. Now we have no time to relax at all anymore."

Yes, he supposed they did. Ever since the day they decided they had had enough of those idiots and their misunderstanding of Dark Eco and the people who studied it. No matter how much the two of them did for those fools, they still wouldn't accept that Dark Eco didn't need to be feared. Even when they saw what good it could do with their own eyes. It could harm people when they weren't careful, yes, but Gol was also able to heal them using the knowledge gained from that same substance. When you harass a Lurker, and it bites you, is it your fault or the Lurker's?

He remembered when people would show up in his lab, with burns or mutations from Dark Eco. And what was so baffling about it all was, despite the fact that they had come to him for help, many of them still practically cowered in his presence. He had tried to be gentle in his treatment of them, even when they looked at him like he was just slightly less horrifying than what had caused their injury. As the years went by, he had gradually given up in his attempts to be kind to the fools. Let them be ignorant if they wanted. If his sister and he couldn't change the people's minds through simple reason, then that left them with no choice but to force those idiots to see what they refused to accept. But, perhaps they had become a little too caught up in it, as Maia had pointed out. His dear sister, here she was beside him, and yet look at him, ranting inside his head again.

He looked down at her. She had a far-off look, as if she was reminiscing about something, as well. But, based on her forlorn expression, it was likely something of a different nature. "What would you have us do, dear sister?" he asked.

Her head jerked up as she was awoken from thoughts of long ago. "I don't know. You remember, when we were children. We would explore the woods outside our village. Just the two of us." She sighed. "Sometimes I miss those days."

He grinned at her. "Are you suggesting we play hide and seek again, dear sister?"

She laughed, the sound echoing about the room. "Certainly not, dear brother!" She grew silent for a moment, and he watched her, wondering what was currently in her extraordinarily mysterious mind.

Then, she grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him to the middle of the room. "What's going on now?" Gol asked. He was getting much too old for this.

Maia let go of him and skipped a ways farther before spinning to face him. "Dance with me."

"What in Precursors' name has gotten into you?"

"I want to do something, and this is all I can think of." She held out a hand. "Come on, then."

"You baffle me."

"Get over here!" Was that a command?

He crossed his arms. "Not while you have those heels on, I'm not. I won't risk you stepping on my feet."

"Then, I risk coming into contact with your feet. Have you cut your toenails lately?"

His feet were fine! They watched each other, at a standstill. She then pounced forward and grabbed his hands. "Dance with me, you bore!"

"You'll break my feet!"

"They're gross anyway!"

They absolutely were not! Maia forced one of his hands to her waist and put one of hers on his shoulder, and he relented, as deranged as her current behavior was. Their attempt at dancing was rather pitiful, however, as neither had ever done it before, and they had nothing but what they had seen to go on. They only succeeded in stepping around the room, lacking in anything whatsoever that could even, for a second, be mistaken for grace, Gol trying his best to keep his feet clear of his sister's very pointy heels. His feet were not gross.

"Just look at this, I used to have boys falling all over me, and here I am, dancing with my brother," she said.

"They're falling because you impaled their feet on your shoes." He could just imagine the damage those things could cause. She may as well be walking around with knives attached to her feet.

"Oh, you're rotten."

"I must have learned it from you."

She stuck out her tongue, and they mimicked "dancing", if that was even the correct word for it, for a short while longer, before putting an end to their efforts. For the first time in a while, Maia didn't feel the need to exert her will on him, and he walked with her, voluntarily this time, back to the room where they had left the construction of their robot unfinished and returned to their work. While his dear sister was correct that all they had been doing lately was laboring over one project or another, he knew there wouldn't be much more of it. Well, even after their current work was done, there would certainly be more to do, quite a great deal more of it, actually, but soon enough, they would be to the fun part. Frankly, he didn't consider what came next to be work at all.

Yeah, the end of this chapter was weird, wasn't it? Wait, don't answer that. Why does Gol not wear shoes, forcing people to see his weird, blue feet? Come to think of it, pretty much none of the dudes in the first game wore shoes. Only the ladies did. Anyway, some good stuff is going to happen soon. I promise. And please review while you wait for this story to actually go somewhere.