“Hurry it up, moonbutt!” Fafapan said. The pixie glowered at Selenia to her side as she steadily hovered through the air, struggling to carry a heavy pallet loaded with material for reconstruction work.

  “I’m moving as fast as I can!” Selenia said. She gritted her teeth as she tried to push her large, heavy wheelbarrow forward.

  “You have a lot of work to do to fix everything after the mess you made!” Fafapan said, huffing and puffing.

  “It’s not my fault! I don’t know what happened!” Selenia replied as she stumbled over the uneven ground and broken terrain.

  Fafapan, the tiny pixie, no larger than her hand, was comically small compared to the pallet that outweighed her and outsized her by literal orders of magnitude. She was surprisingly strong despite being only the size of her hand, despite being so small…

  “You were thinking I was small again, weren’t you!?” Fafapan said, shooting Selenia a glare straight through her head.

  Selenia snapped her head away. “I couldn’t help it!” She turned her head back. “Sorry!” She said, embarrassed. Fafapan seemed to have a sixth sense about knowing when people were thinking she was small.

  Both Selenia and Fafapan reached their destination, a ruined mess of a small settlement of Alsium Two. Fafapan let go of her heavy pallet with a sharp thud. Selenia picked up a shovel out of the wheelbarrow.

  From here, Selenia could see a wider view of Alsium Two, an agricultural district of the Lethea Labyrinth, one small part of the massive underground arcology buried deep below the surface of Gaia that the Despar Dominion called home. One of the key strongholds of the Gaia Sphere Federation.

  It looked like a hurricane of war had blown right through the place. Craters were scattered everywhere, and buildings were half in ruins. In the distance, mobile frames, demilitarized GMF-03 Exans, moved with purpose. The giant humanoid machines lumbered around, their heavy steps sending quakes through the ground as they moved back and forth, carrying equally large industrial equipment, materials, and supplies. They were outdated mobile frames, long obsolete on the battlefield, that had been relegated to construction and industrial work.

  It was rather ironic considering these particular models of mobile frames had originated from ones originally meant for construction and industrial use, then been repurposed for militarized use. Now, they were back to their original intended purpose in one big circle.

  More mobile frames were moving through the artificial sky, up above, near the domed ceiling and cavernous walls of Alsium Two. The superstructure of Alsium Two had been heavily damaged. The walls had massive chunks blown out of them. And other areas were melted. The ceiling itself had areas that flickered in and out of life, the simulated sky turning from bright sky blue to dark in flashing waves.

  Selenia began shovelling dirt from the wheelbarrow while Fafapan stretched her back. She scooped up dirt and tossed it into the crater by her. It was like taking a bucket of water and trying to fill a large swimming pool with it. Around her, people did similar manual work.

  The shovel was comically tiny compared to the massive equipment of those mobile frames.

  Selenia stabbed the shovel into the ground. Those mobile frames could do the work a million times more efficiently than this manual labor. One of them dumped an entire container full of dirt into an even larger crater off in the distance, repairing it with infantile ease.

  Selenia sighed.

  “Maybe you’ll have part of it filled in by sunset!” Aster said as he walked up to her, stumbling slowly along with his injuries. “You’re just going to need a couple million more wheelbarrows of dirt!” He laughed.

  Aster wasn’t wrong about that.

  Aster tossed her a drink. Selenia caught it with both her hands, taking a cool drink of water. The chilled liquid felt great as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

  “Better than some jail cell, right?” Garrod said to her side. His missing arm had been bandaged, and while he looked a little pale, he treated a missing arm like it was nothing.

  “Ya. You should be lucky that you’re not rotting in some prison right now, moonbutt,” Fafapan said. “Not after blowing so much stuff up after shooting off those Proto Particle beams everywhere!”

  Selenia laughed nervously. “Uh huh. Right…” Well, it was definitely better than being locked up behind bars. Some manual labor was well worth the price to avoid being imprisoned somewhere. Especially after all the damage she did to Alsium Two after destroying so much.

  What had happened mystified her. She didn’t know what had happened. It was like something had just exploded out of her and taken over her mind. Silver. Everything had gone silver. She could remember what had happened, but only as if it were some recording. It scared her.

  Off in the distance, shouting grew louder.

  They turned their attention towards the pair off in the distance who were yelling at each other.

  “You dumbass bird! That silo doesn’t go there. It goes there!” Captain Bernard said. The dragon in humanoid shape snarled, wisps of smoke emanating from him, as if he were about to explode and shoot fire.

  “No, you idiot lizard! It goes over there! Because that spot is better!” Captain Blanche replied. The phoenix in bipedal form roared, the flames of its fiery form flaring as it were about to attack.

  Captain Bernard and Captain Blanche grabbed each other by the collars of their uniform.

  “I know where it goes! And for that matter, you’re replanting those trees wrong! You need to space them out a certain way or they’ll just all wither and die!” Bernard said.

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  “Idiot lizard! Can’t you see recognize proper forest management practices when you see it!?” Blanche said.

  “Stupid bird! Say I’m an idiot lizard again! I’ll kill you!” Bernard said.

  “Not if I kill you first!” Blanche replied.

  They began grappling with each other.

  “Do they always fight like that?” Selenia asked.

  “Captain Bernard and Blanche are always fighting about something,” Garrod replied.

  “Gramps and Gramps just can’t ever agree on anything,” Aster said with a nod of his head.

  “Gezzz. Those two. If they had just gotten involved from the start, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened,” Fafapan said.

  Captain Bernard had regrown his arm after she had melted it off. By accident… Which she regretted very much.

  “Uh. I didn’t kill anyone, did I?” Selenia said.

  Garrrod shook his head. “No, you didn’t.”

  “That’s a relief,” Selenia said.

  “Well, no one died, but a lot of people are seriously injured. Missing limbs. Punctured torsos. You know, the usual. Nothing that can’t be fixed, though.”

  “Oh… Right…” Selenia muttered as the sight of limbless and heavily bandaged people around her reminded her. “Sorry…”

  Despite the severity of their wounds, people were still up and about. An eyeball was missing here. A hand was missing over there. Entire limbs gone. And so on. As was ordered by their superiors, apparently. Punishment it was.

  “Alright, you brats! Come and get it!” Titanetta said off in the distance. She had a team of medical personel with her who were busily looking into the medical care of those who were severely injured. Each of them wore white medical coats over their standard uniforms.

  “It’s about time!” Someone said as people began moving to the medical station.

  “Shut up! What do you idiots know about triage!?” Titanetta replied. The tall fairy glowered at all of the injured people approaching her, as they lined up. Her green eyes shone with annoyance at them all.

  Each received a cursory inspection from her, then was handed blue vials with liquid inside.

  “I’m busy enough as it is as a chief medical officer. It would be a lot easier if you idiots would stop making more work for me for one second!” Titanetta sighed, her glossmar wings twitching with annoyance as the line of people waiting their turn only grew as the seconds passed. More lines had sprung up with her subordinates assisting her, but even the lines expanded further and further.

  A loud commotion broke out in the lines. AXIS and SETI soldiers were bickering amongst themselves with no particular dividing line; each of them intermingled together. They were a diverse bunch of all sorts of species and races.

  “Your name’s Callie? Isn’t that a girl’s name?” said an injured AXIS soldier on crutches. He laughed heartily. “That’s hilarious!”

  “IT’S A BOY'S NAME!” Callie said, punching injured soldiers straight in the face, knocking him down, crutches and all.

  Selenia stared at the woman’s long blonde hair and green eyes, her distinctive, sharp ears making her stand out amongst the crowd.

  “Say it’s a girl's name again!” Callie said.

  Selenia’s eyes widened at the masculine voice. The woman—no, man, glared furiously at all those around him. Ah, she—he was an elf. Now, things made sense. On the orbital and lunar colonies, elves were rare but not uncommon. There were some individuals who had that problem.

  The crowd around them erupted in dispute over the minor issue as the line dissolved into a chaotic circle.

  “But it is a girl’s name!” Someone else said, bandages on them, and missing an arm.

  Callie kicked the offender in the gut.

  “You bastard! We’ll show you! It is a girl’s name!” Another said as multiple people rushed Callie, exchanging blows to the gut and face. They all stumbled and fell to the ground as they tripped each other.

  “It’s not!” Callie gritted out as they all grappled with each other on the ground, barely managing to hold off several people.

  “Callie is obviously a girl’s name. A boy version of it would be something like Terrie,” Another person said.

  “TERRIE IS A GIRL’S NAME!” Another person said, running in, punching the offender back into the ground.

  The person was the size of a young teenager with reddish hair and orange eyes. They had similarly sharp ears like Callie. Looked boyish but had a feminine voice. “Say, Terrie is a boy’s name again, and I’ll kill you!” Terrie said.

  “What? But it is a boy’s name!” The person replied.

  “Who are you calling a boy!” Terrie said, tackling the person to the ground.

  The commotion intensified as Callie and Terrie teamed up to fight anyone who dared say otherwise.

  “But it is a boy’s name, damn it! I have a nephew named Terrie!” Another person replied.

  “And I won’t let you insult my niece! That’s a girl’s name for sure!” Another person said.

  “They’re not!” Callie and Terrie said together as things began to devolve further into a serious brawl.

  Then, little motes of light scattered throughout the area. They were brilliant little shards of flashing color. Everyone stopped mid-fight to look at the shares floating gently in the air, captivated by them.

  “Cover your eyes for a second,” Garrod sighed.

  Selenia did so as Aster and Fafapan did likewise.

  Then, the motes of light flashed white as the brightness consumed everything.

  “Gah, my eyes!” A person said.

  “It burns!” Another continued.

  The crowd’s bickering halted as they all stumbled away from each other, nursing their new eye injuries.

  “That’s what you get, you little shits! A little temporary blindness should do you all some good!” Titanetta said, arms crossed, her eyes radiating her fury as she made sure her patients didn’t cause each other further injury.

  “Everyone’s awfully lively, eh?” Selenia said, taking some comfort in how everyone had enough energy to bicker over something so meaningless.

  “Ya. But there is no way I’m lining up in that line,” Fafapan sighed in annoyance. “Queueing up in lines is stupid.”

  Aster and Garrod laughed as they nodded their heads, agreeing.

  “That’s how things go around here,” Aster replied.

  “There’s a lot of internal fighting, but it usually ends fine,” Garrod said. “Usually.” He coughed. “Aside from the times we get an attempted assassination of a princess from the moon.”

  “That’s right. A little fighting between friends is good every once in a while,” A melodic voice said.

  Selenia felt a chitinous, clawed arm wrap around her. The sharpness of those claws felt like they could slice her as easily as tissue paper. Her eyes snapped from the claws to the one beside her. She paled as the face of a monstrous, demonic spider, in humanoid form, stared into her.

  “Hello moonbutt,” Lelesia said. “We can be friends, right? After all, what’s a little attempted murder between friends?”