Far Side Adventure Extraordinaire

Chapter 2 : Welcoming Party

The entrance was easy to miss if you didn't know what you were looking for. It was a small opening in the side of the mountain, a simple cave.

Luckily, she was quite familiar with this place by now, so she slipped inside the cavern without hesitation, her crystal staff the only source of light in the darkness of the tunnel.

As she walked, the rough stone walls and ground slowly morphed into more refined surfaces, pipes beginning to line them seemingly from nowhere until the passage was more metal than stone. At an intersection, she resolutely took the path to the left, the tunnel becoming larger and larger the further she advanced before it finally ended in a large room. It was empty save for an enormous door on the furthest wall. A thick slab of metal with no apparent way to open it and etched with mysterious geometrical patterns. It made sure that whatever was outside stayed out, and vice versa.

The young woman ran her hand along the surface for a moment, allowing herself to take a deep breath, before revealing one large red spider-shaped crystal and sticking it in one of the indents of the door.

In a wave, every mark in the metal began glowing, and the door was soon sliding up, causing the cavern -if not the entire mountain- to rumble.

A slight draft of wind seemed to push her forward as she stepped inside the dimly lit facility.

In all honesty she didn't like this place. Not that she was particularly keen on the cozy aspect of...anything, but these dark industrial corridors filled with lukewarm stagnant air were exceptionally unappealing. Gross even.

After what seemed like an eternity of walking around in what could have seemed like a loop, she finally entered the room she was looking for.

Lining the walls were clear glass containers, most of them occupied by various...experiments preserved in a clear liquid. All of them dead, none of them in their original state nor even really recognizable.

"Oh, back so soon?" A deep breathy voice echoed from behind her. She didn't turn, nor did she remove the hood that obscured her eyes. "Is it safe to assume your infallible plan failed?"

"There were... Unexpected developments." She hissed.

"Were there now?"

The large cloaked figure brushed past her, activating the large monitor at the end of the room, chuckling darkly.

"You underestimated your enemies." He simply stated, a single red glowing eye darting around the strings of data on the screen. "Or perhaps... You overestimated yourself."

She had to keep herself from gritting her teeth.

"So..." He turned back to focus on her, and this was one of the very rare times in her life she felt intimidated. Not that she'd ever let that show. "What will you do now, Cyclonis?"

"I'm still here." She responded without missing a beat. "They will pay."

The figure laughed once more and went back to his screens.

"This will certainly be interesting."

—

The newcomer looked surprisingly okay with having various weapons pointed straight at her. Hands still up, she tilted her head a bit.
"Is that how you guys say "hi" on Atmos?" She questioned. After a moment of no one making a move, Aerrow looked at his teammates and gave them a small nod despite still being unsure of that girl's intentions. Once the blades, crossbow, staff and knuckle busters were out of her face, she finally relaxed her shoulders.

"Sorry about scaring you. I really wanted to see what this ship looked like on the inside..." The stranger explained, walking over to the controls and giving one of the periscopes a little tap. Stork reflexively interposed himself between her and the helm, muttering a "no touching" as he did.

"And you are...?" Piper questioned, getting more intrigued by the second. Especially in regard to the girl's appearance. Her dark purplish skin, glowing eyes and white hair gave her a ghostly appearance, and her equally dark clothing and hood had something eerily familiar she couldn't quite place at the moment.

"Right. The name's Tetra, imperial scout." She turned back to them and gave a small and nonchalant salute, not paying much mind to the fact that Radarr was sniffing her curiously. The leader of the Storm Hawks was relieved to see his co-pilot didn't seem to sense any hostility from her. Radarr was always pretty good at telling who could and couldn't be trusted.

"Nice to meet you Tetra. We're-"

"The Storm Hawks, yeah, I've heard. You know, we were this close to blasting you out of the sky..." Tetra stated almost teasingly, pinching her fingers together to illustrate. "Usually with unauthorized ships it's on sight."

"So, why didn't you?" Finn asked.

"The ginormous energy spike ticked us off. They said investigating would be wiser." She shrugged. "Personally I was all for exploding you but y'know..."

They all cringed at that. It was incredibly hard to tell if the young woman was serious or not.

"Anyway!" She exclaimed, turning away from them and walking towards the lower decks. "Gather whatever you need, I'll be waiting for you outside. There's someone you need to see before anything else... Oh, and welcome to Etherum!"

With that she disappeared as swiftly as she had gotten in.

"So this place is called Etherum..." Piper mused, immediately going to note it in her journal. She wanted to record as much as possible about this place. For posterity.

"I don't trust her." Stork immediately stated, still sour Tetra had dared get inside his ship uninvited and even touch the controls.

"Do you ever trust anyone, dude?" Finn remarked, earning a glare from the pilot.

"I think she's nice!" Junko observed.

Aerrow thought for a moment. To be perfectly honest he didn't fully trust this woman either, but he didn't want to let that show too much. As leader it was his job to make decisions, and they couldn't afford to hang around right now. "Don't forget that the main goal is to find Cyclonis. Maybe Tetra can help us with that... She's our only lead right now. We have to take what we can get."

Everyone seemed to silently agree with that at least.

After everyone had collected what they felt they needed (which mainly meant weapons), the Storm Hawks exited the Condor and gathered on the docking bay, not without some quiet protests from the helmsman beforehand. But even he was curious enough about this place to keep the arguing to a minimum.

Tetra was waiting for them, and her grin widened slightly once they joined her. That was when Piper suddenly realized what was so familiar about this girl.

As they followed her, she leaned towards Aerrow and whispered.

"Doesn't she remind you of a Nightcrawler?"