Solar sprinted down the corridor, not caring if anyone in the vicinity could hear her heavy footfalls. Diana was counting on her, and more importantly, so was Moonbyul. She’d be damned if she let the only two women in her life who mattered down. As she rounded the corner, she spotted the sign placed above the main healing bay, and with renewed energy burst through its doors.

“Wheein!”

The blonde looked up from where she was seated at her desk. Behind her thick spectacles her eyes widened at the sight of Solar with her disheveled hair standing in the doorway. “What took you so long?” Wheein demanded, getting to her feet and striding towards Solar, her medical coat swirling around her legs as she walked. She glanced behind the pink-haired woman before slamming the doors shut. “And where is Byul?”

“They have her, Wheein,” Solar panted. “Hwasa has her… and Diana too.”

“Diana?” Wheein stared at Solar in disbelief. “What does this have anything to do with-” She stumbled back, recalling the building-wide announcement just moments ago about a test subject who escaped. They had to be talking about Diana. And if that was the case, the ones who helped her to escape had to be…

“You two broke Diana out of the lab?” Wheein nearly shouted.

Solar nodded, collapsing to the floor. “And now Hwasa has both of them,” she moaned, covering her face with both hands helplessly.

Wheein paced around the room, her mind whirling. This was an unprecedented situation, an unexpected variable that she never took into account. How was she to know that Solar knew about Diana? What did Solar even want to achieve by removing her from the stasis pod? 

Worst of all, what if Moonbyul had come into prolonged contact with Diana?

Wheein spun around and jabbed an accusing finger at Solar. “Alright. You need to tell me exactly how you’re related to Diana and what you want. Now.”

“She is…” Solar hesitated to answer, unsure of herself. All this time she had been chasing after Diana, convinced that they were lovers. But it was different now - it was different after meeting Moonbyul, after spending time with her. Her feelings had changed, and with it, her perspective on what her world used to be and what it was now. Lifting her head, she answered: “Diana’s a close friend of mine. She vanished one day, and… and I just wanted her back. I just want to see her again.”

“Well, congratulations. You did it. You saw her again,” Wheein snapped. “Did you even know what was going to happen when you took her out of the pod? In this kind of building, the headquarters of the Juris? It should’ve been obvious that everything was tracked and monitored!”

“I am sorry, Wheein, I really am.”

“Saying sorry isn’t going to do anything, is it?” Wheein growled at Solar, a murderous look on her face.

“You are absolutely right.” Solar stood up, her fists clenched at her sides. Storming over to Wheein, she grabbed her hands in a tight grip and kneeled down. “So please, tell me. What can I do to help them?”

Wheein looked down at the woman kneeling before her, looked into eyes burning with a fierce intensity. Fury rapidly draining from her body, she sat down next to Solar and heaved a sigh. “If what you said was true, and Hwasa had recaptured Diana, she would certainly have returned her to the lab. That much is obvious. I don’t know what she would do with Byul, but she wouldn’t allow Byul to leave the building. Perhaps…”

Frowning in thought, she grabbed a small cube from her pocket and placed it on the ground. It looked so familiar that Solar instinctively leaned in to study it. Her eyes widened and she pointed to the cube excitedly. “I have seen this before! Within it was the entire universe, and we could look closely at planets and stars to navigate space.” At Wheein’s raised brow, Solar shrugged. “At least, that’s what Moonbyul had said.”

“This one is pretty similar, except it contains the layout of Juris headquarters.” Wheein gently tapped the cube. The cube vibrated and glowed, then in front of Solar’s eyes, started to build a holographic image. From flat terrain rose an enormous building in the shape of a hexagon, floor by floor. Windows carved themselves into the sides of the structure, and a small red dot popped into existence on the fourth floor. 

“That must be where we are,” Solar said, squinting at it.

“That’s right. Now, because we don’t know where Byul is going to be, I think it would be best if you could somehow find a way to blend in first, like wearing a Juris uniform with a mask,” Wheein demonstrated, covering her nose and mouth with a hand. “That way no one would recognise you, and you’ll be free to search everywhere.”

Solar considered the idea, then nodded. “That sounds like a good plan, but where would I be able to get a uniform? Can I not wear one of your medical coats instead?”

Wheein pulled the left side of her coat to point at the left pocket. “Us doctors all have our initials monogrammed on our coats so you know who you’re talking to. Besides, if someone approaches you and asks you about medical stuff, I highly doubt you can give them a straight answer.”

Solar thought back to the way she panicked when she and Moonbyul crash-landed back on Hygieia and silently agreed. Medicine was definitely not within her field of knowledge. “What other uniforms are there?”

“The most common ones are guard uniforms.” Wheein expanded the holographic image of the building and pulled out a hexagonal layer from under the building. “If I remember correctly, the guards’ stuff are usually in the basement. There should be a few spare uniforms lying around or in a locker somewhere.”

Solar nodded and stood up. “Very well.”

“Be careful, Solar. If you see Hwasa, run,” Wheein warned. “I’m telling you this as her best friend - she is very scary when she’s angry.”

Solar made a face, recalling Hwasa’s wrath. “I know that all too well.”

“And there’s one more person you should be wary of, a woman with bright red hair named Chrystal. A long time ago, before Byul ran away, she used to be with Chrystal. I don’t know how to explain it, but she could somehow manipulate people into doing what she wanted with just one look, and that in itself is a problem. If she finds you, finds out that you’re looking for Byul, I don’t know what she might do.”

Despite the warning, the sound of this Chrystal woman intrigued Solar, not only because of her amazing skill of controlling people, but also due to the fact that she seemed to have spent a lot of time with Moonbyul. Solar wondered whether she could learn more about Moonbyul from Chrystal.

Maybe she was the key to unlocking Moonbyul’s mysterious past.

Taking the mask Wheein offered and adjusting it on her face, Solar slowly squeezed through the doors of the healing bay back into the open corridor. Looking left and right, there was no one in sight. Solar immediately started retracing her steps back towards the elevator she previously took with Moonbyul. The trek down the corridor was so long that Solar was both impressed and concerned that there was no one in sight.

She started to wonder whether anyone had realised that she was here before freezing at the sound of a familiar voice. “We’ve got both of them, sir,” she heard Hwasa say. “There’s just one more mouse on the loose.”

There was a pause, and then: “I don’t know her identity, sir, but she seems to be related to Diana and Moonbyul-yi somehow. We’re searching for her now.”

Pressing herself to a wall, Solar poked her head around the corner. She spied Hwasa standing in the middle of the hallway with her hand pressed to her ear. Next to her were a large group tough-looking men with guns and other unidentifiable objects strapped to their belts. She surmised that they must be guards, and took note of the uniform and boots they were wearing. 

Solar found it quite strange that all of them looked exactly the same, from their body proportions and alert stances down to the menacing glares on their faces. Not once did they shift or react while Hwasa was speaking, but only stood there like droids. Solar could almost have mistaken them as machines if not for the fact that they were clearly breathing and alive.

It was awfully eerie, to say the least, and the sight of them sent chills up Solar’s spine.

“Yes, sir, you’ll be the first to know when we capture her.” Hwasa fiddled with her earpiece and turned to her men. “We’re on the lookout for a pink-haired woman in a spacesuit. She’s not in the system, so we won’t have her data, but I reckon pink hair should be easy enough to spot. Two guards per floor. I want you to spread out and search. Got it?”

Solar watched in amazement as the entire group stood to attention simultaneously, their thick boots stamping the ground as they saluted as one. “Yes, ma’am!” Their shout echoed throughout the building as the floor shook under their feet.

In that moment, Solar understood that if she was caught by even one of these guards, she would essentially be dead, or at the very least, terribly screwed.

To her horror, one of the two guards who were stationed to the fourth floor immediately turned her way upon dismissal. She was tempted to make a break for it and run the other way, but the other guard had started off in the other direction. If she was right, they would eventually meet according to Wheein’s map.

This left her two options: fight and hopefully win, or hide somewhere and hopefully not get found out.

The first option was definitely more risky, and she knew she had a very slim chance of winning. But it also beat hiding and waiting it out. And Solar was tired of waiting.

However,  before she could attempt to launch a sudden attack on the approaching guard, she felt something in her pocket wiggle around. Confused, she stuck her hand in to grab it, and came out with a small metal ball. When the ball expanded and unfurled itself into a hedgehog, Solar grinned.

“So you were still here with me, little one?” In that moment, she found great comfort in holding the familiar metal animal. After all, it had reunited her and Moonbyul and saved them twice. Bringing the hedgehog up to eye level, she whispered to it: “Do you have any ideas on how to get us out of here?”

The hedgehog shivered in her palm, then leaped off her hand. Landing on the ground, it turned to take one last look at Solar before curling back into a ball and rolling off. Solar watched in horror as the hedgehog made its way to the guard, bumping against his boot to catch his attention.

“Ngh?” The guard frowned down at the metal ball at his feet, confusion apparent on his face. He lifted his foot to stomp on it -- to which Solar whispered: “no!” -- but the hedgehog ball avoided his boot and rolled circles around him. The guard’s eyes followed the hedgehog, causing his entire body to spin in place until he stumbled from dizziness. Frustrated, he knelt down to examine the hedgehog, but it quickly raised its quills and stabbed his face. Roaring in pain, the guard reached out to grab it. The hedgehog took this chance to flee from the guard, scampering in the opposite direction from Solar. 

Solar watched all this unfold, amused and amazed. When the guard stood up to chase after the fleeing hedgehog, she hurriedly took this opportunity to make a break for the elevator. The immeasurable relief she felt when the elevator doors closed after her was euphoric. She leaned against the walls of the elevator for just a moment to thank her lucky stars. This was the third time the hedgehog had saved her, and she wondered whether she would ever see it again.

She never knew that she could feel such gratitude towards a robot; but then again, Solar also never knew she was going to be saved by a human, then proceed to fall head-over-heels in love with her.

Now, it was time for her to repay them.

Solar pressed the button labelled ‘basement’ firmly and took a deep breath, preparing herself for anything that could possibly happen down there. She may have always been venturing into unknown territory, but Moonbyul had always been there with her, helping and guiding her. This time, she would have to find the strength to deal with things herself. “You can do it, Solar,” she mumbled, giving herself a pep talk. “They’re relying on you now, so you will succeed. You will find them again.”

The doors opened with a soft chime. Solar raised her head to stare into the darkness with a firm gaze. “Let’s go.”

When she stepped out of the elevator, a set of dim lights flickered to life overhead. Blinking to adjust her eyes to the sudden brightness, Solar found herself in a dingy hall with walls a sickly green-black colour, as if moss had grown there and then died. The lights didn’t look that great either - some were cracked or faulty, and there were unidentifiable patches on the ceiling. Puddles were randomly scattered on the floor, water dripping from the leaky ceiling.

And the smell… Gods, the smell! Solar’s instincts were screaming at her to turn back, and she had to collect herself before her feet could move forward. The hallway smelled like someone had tried to wash it down with antiseptic but gave up halfway. Beneath the sterile scent was a questionable stench that Solar couldn’t quite pinpoint, but it was vile and pierced the senses like a well-sharpened knife.

Forcing herself to power through the hallway, Solar surveyed the area in search for the lockers that Wheein mentioned. The occasional quiet sound of water dripping was unnerving, and Solar found herself turning back often to make sure that there was no one around, her surroundings making her more paranoid than ever. She eventually spied a row of lockers around the corner, and hastily made her way to them.

To her disappointment, she found each and every one of them locked tight. A quick glance around confirmed that there were no spare uniforms lying around unattended. Leaving her no choice but to tackle the locked doors, she tried both pulling and pushing at them, but they refused to budge. She attempted to punch through them, running up to the metal doors and throwing her fist with all the momentum she could gather, but even that only caused a small dent in the doors and a greater pain in her knuckles.

What else could she do? Solar paced around, racking her brain. Think, Solar, think. What would Moonbyul do? Closing her eyes, she pictured Moonbyul standing next to her, imagining herself as the powerless being she now was trying to solve a problem. If Moonbyul were here, she would have examined the lock mechanism on the doors and figured a way around it. 

Dropping to her knees, Solar peered at the lock, poking and prodding to try and make sense of it. There appeared to be two parts to the lock -- there was a screen and keypad that beeped when touched, and a simple keyhole under it. Appearance-wise, at least, it seemed a bit too straightforward.

But straightforward or not, getting through it was another story.

Tackling the keypad first, she pressed some buttons randomly, carefully observing the screen for any changes. Solar kept trying and trying different combinations of numbers. And before she knew what was happening, the keypad had locked her out, preventing her from pressing anything else. Solar gaped at it, dumbfounded -- this was not how she was expecting her first venture into hacking technology to go.

Shaking her head, she decided to take a look at the keyhole instead. This was definitely straightforward enough; all she needed was a key.

“And where are you supposed to find a key, Solar?” she muttered to herself. Standing up again, she paced around the locker area in hopes that a clumsy guard may have dropped their key somewhere. She searched under benches, in dust-filled corners, and even down the corridor outside, but to no avail.

Scrunching her face up into her best frown, Solar reassessed her options. If the Moonbyul method didn’t work, then she had to try… the Solar method.

Except she had no idea what the Solar method was, or how to execute it. What could she do? She was just a human now, not the almighty power-wielding goddess she once was. Gone were her days of natural firepower, gone were her days of superhuman strength. With a heavy sigh she knelt on the dirty floor in her spacesuit, leaned her forehead against the door of the locker, and did the one thing she knew how to do: pray.

She supposed it was quite ironic that a goddess was praying to other gods, but over her years as an immortal being, she had learned that humans who were struggling often prayed. They didn’t pray to a specific divine being, but to a general omniscient ‘God’, to calm their souls and grant them courage and success.

Solar was hoping that this miracle, this normal and human miracle, would come to her too.

She allowed herself to slow her breathing and calm her erratic heartbeat. Her body was running on pure adrenaline. It made her extremely jittery and nervous. As her mind slowly cleared, she suddenly recalled using her power, once, in this human body of hers. It was when Moonbyul was first taken away from her, wasn’t it, when they first met Hwasa?

Her eyes still closed, she recalled the events of that day. When Hwasa had kidnapped an unconscious Moonbyul, Solar was extremely enraged, and the anger that had built up in her had somehow come out as raw firepower. She willed herself to remember the feeling of power within her at that time. It was like a kettle just before it boiled, a volcano on the verge of eruption, like a sun before it went supernova.

She could feel it bubbling inside her now. There was too much heat inside her, and she needed to expel it before it consumed her. Solar pressed her hands, burning red-hot, to the cool locker door… and exhaled, channeling the heat to her palms. Opening her eyes, she watched in wonderment as the metal door began to melt beneath her hands. When enough had melted to form a sizeable hole in the door, Solar rummaged through the locker, pulling out a uniform. Hurriedly changing into it, she arranged the cap of the uniform on her head, tucking as much of her hair as she could into it. From what she could tell, bright pink hair like hers would no doubt attract a lot of unwanted attraction.

Reaching into the locker again, she took out a rifle, one similar to those she saw carried by Hwasa’s guards. Holding it carefully in her hands, she hesitated to equip it. Solar had never held or used one of these human-made weapons before -- and why would she, considering her previous godhood -- but she had certainly seen them in play, multiple times, in the wars that humans somehow often raged upon themselves, and so she understood perfectly the damage it could cause when wielded properly.

But Solar couldn’t just go around in enemy territory without some way of defending herself, and she was sure that she wouldn’t be able to summon her powers at will at any time. Acknowledging her weakness, she slung the rifle over her shoulder and secured it. 

She stared at the hole in the locker door with pursed lips. She should probably cover it up so no one would notice, not at a glance anyway. Pulling out another uniform from the locker, she awkwardly arranged it over the hole, then stood a distance away to admire her patchwork.

Well, it didn’t exactly disguise the hole, but it certainly was the best she could do right now.

Heading out of the locker room, she looked both ways before continuing down the corridor. She must have spent a significant amount of time trying to bust through the locker, as the stench lingering in the hallway didn’t particular phase her any more. Solar wondered where this hallway led to, and more importantly, where the smell was coming from.

“Hey! You! Come here!” Like a deer caught in the headlights, Solar froze at the sound of a deep, unfamiliar voice. Was he talking to me? She shut her eyes and willed for the owner of the voice to go away.

“Did you hear me? I said come here, you!” A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, causing her to yelp. She was forcefully spun around and came face-to-face with a bulky giant with thick brows furrowed in a frown. He bent down, peering at Solar from under his unruly mass of dark hair, his breath coming out in loud huffs. “Are you new here?”

Solar nodded meekly, too shocked to say anything. 

“Very well. Then you will work with me today.” With a grunt, holding her shoulder in a vice-grip, the giant steered her down the corridor. “There was talk of an attempted escape above ground, and the Juris are worried it would encourage the prisoners to do the same.”

“Prisoners?” Solar asked, but he refused to explain any further. Both of them continued to walk in silence, Solar occasionally glancing at the formidable hulk of a giant dragging her to a collection of prison cells.

Solar knew this man, this face, and silently thanked all the gods and goddesses that he did not recognise her. He was one of the predecessors of her kind, the ones that came before, and she had heard too many stories about him, none of them good. He was a powerful being, and his name was-

“Tartaros, you fool!” An angry voice bellowed. “Why have you chosen to side with the humans?” Solar shrunk at the sound of that voice. It was all too familiar, and not in the best of ways. She kept her head down as a provoked Tartaros stopped their walk.

“You dare to call me a fool? You, who were overthrown by your own creations?” Tartaros slammed his fist on the bars of a cell. “Helios, you do not have no control over anything, not before, not ever.”

Helios. Zeus. Sol. Hae-mosu. All the names that the god Solar knew as ‘Father’ took as aliases, adjusting his features to make himself more appealing to the humans that worshipped and feared him. Solar was taught to fear his name at a very young age, taught his stories so that she was aware of all his infidelities and chaotic nature, although she had never seen him before. And now here she was, standing on the other side of his prison cell.

“Who is this?” Helios demanded, pointing at Solar. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew he had no power over her, not like this. Yet still she trembled, keeping her gaze on the floor.

Tartaros must have sensed her hesitation -- and her fear -- as he shifted to stand between Solar and Helios. “It is not your concern.” Guiding Solar away from Helios, Tartaros leaned down and patted her shoulder encouragingly. “There is no need to be scared of someone like Helios. He is old and foolish, all talk but nothing to show for it. But if you are not comfortable listening to the ramblings of a delusional man, I will delegate you to the… nicer parts of prison. Would that align with your preferences?”

Solar forced herself to look up at Tartaros. Despite his infamy for being the guardian of the Hell beneath Hell, Solar could not help but feel thankful for his intervention. Finding her voice, she said: “I would like that a lot. Thank you.”

Nodding absent-mindedly, Tartaros pointed to a couple of cells a few metres away. “The prisoners over there are quiet and obedient. You may guard them instead.” As Solar bowed to him and turned away, he stopped her. “You know my name, hearing it from that cursed Helios. What may I call you?”

Oh. Solar had not thought of a fake identity of herself. Flustered, she stammered out the first syllables that came to mind: “Do-re-mi.”

“Do-re-mi?” Tartaros’s bushy eyebrows winged up, his voice laced with amusement. “Interesting name. May I shorten it to Remi instead?”

“O-of course,” Solar replied, slapping an awkward smile on her face. Making her way towards her delegated cells, she pulled up her mask to hide as much of her features as possible just in case someone in the cells recognised her and called her out for who she was. If she was being honest, she was quite hurt when Helios, her own father, failed to recognise her, but at this point in time, she was glad he didn’t.

Her quick observation of the condition of the prison cells explained the stench from earlier. There seemed to be no place for washing up, nor was there a proper toilet area for the prisoners. In fact, she hadn’t seen any washrooms installed in the basement at all, aside from the one at the locker area, and Solar was sure prisoners were not allowed to use them.

Which begged the question of how the prisoners went to the loo, and that was something Solar very much did not want to think about at all.

Arriving at the end of the row of prison cells, Solar settled herself outside the three cells she was assigned to. She eased herself down and heaved a sigh, grateful to be able to rest her body after a long while. She wanted to return to the part of the building above ground, with its bright lights and clean spaces, confident that Moonbyul would be up there instead of down here in this dingy place. It was a shame that she was stuck here now, but maybe she could take this time to plan out a course of action.

Of course, the first thing she had to do was to distract Tartaros long enough to leave this area. The legends had said it was impossible to escape from his domain, and once upon a time Solar would have relented to the ideas behind the legends. But now she was different. This tangible, human Solar understood that perhaps the stories were not always true -- and even if they were, who was to say that she could not change them now?

She quietly chuckled. Solar, you really are becoming more and more human with every passing day.

As Solar considered her options, a hushed whisper from one of the nearby cells caught her attention. “Solar? Is that you?”

Solar turned to meet the owner of the voice. Crouched in a corner of a cell was a lean old man, his face a map of wrinkles and lines. Atrophied muscle hung from his limbs, and his few strands of dirty white hair was plastered to his face. He dragged himself forward with weak fingers and clutched at the metal bars of the cell. 

Solar did not recognise him. “My apologies, but I don’t believe we’re acquainted.”

“You’re right, we’re not,” The man answered, slumping to the ground in defeat. “But we share a mutual friend, and if you’re here, it can only mean that she has been taken.”

Solar leaned towards him, a frown on her face. “She? Do you mean-”

“Moonbyul,” the man confirmed with a defeated look on his face. “Moonbyul of Mercury.”

He knows Moonbyul. “Who are you?” Solar immediately demanded.

The old man stared at her, a sad look in his eyes, and answered: “My name is Lars.”