A… Meteorite?! It seemed to be an object of some sort that was ignited on fire, and it was coming straight to crash at us!

“I don’t know what that is, but it’s coming at us! WE GOTTA RUN!” Dennis and I ran away to hide behind a corner, and as we looked around we didn’t notice Natalie.

“Where’s Natalie?” Blinking and gulping, I said, “Is she frozen in place? Crap, we gotta get her!”

When I stood up to go and get her, I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed with my very own eyes.

Natalie was holding Crystal in mid-air by using magic, while Crystal was covered in ashes.”

“What the… Hell? Crystal? How in the world did you end up in that situation? Uhh… Thanks, Natalie.” Crystal looked at me. “Ohi Matty-boy! Well one thing led to another and I lost complete control of my wings… That emptiness thing is serious business!” Natalie gently placed Crystal on the ground by her feet. “Maybe she wasn’t the best for the job, Matt.”... “Well enough about that, are you alright Crystal? Does it hurt anywhere?” Crystal shook herself up like a dog, removing the ashes from her body. “Nah, I’m fine, don't worry. I’m pretty thirsty though…” …How efficient, Mrs. dragon.

Dennis offered her a plastic cup with water. “Then here you go.”, “Thanks little Dennis!” Crystal drank the water almost instantly. Making sure to eat the plastic cup too. …Eugh. “Alright so, Crystal…” I looked at her while feeling worried for her, hoping she was fine. “What exactly happened up there?”... “Oh right! Well…” Crystal sat down on the ground. “Sit down with me! It’s story time!”. “...What?” I raised my eyebrow at her. “Why do we need to do that?” Natalie and Dennis sat down, with Natalie talking to me. “Come on Matt, let’s just get this over with.”

“...Fine.” I sat down with them, while Arthur watched us from a short distance. Crystal pulled out a flashlight out of nowhere and turned it on, aiming it below her chin to childishly give atmosphere to the story. “Alright, I didn’t get to see much, but I did maybe a bit of important info… The Emptiness… The Pred Squad is fighting it, but there’s also some scientists carefully capturing it. It’s a shame, they didn’t invite me!” …?! “Capturing it?” I couldn’t help but gulp unsure where that would go. The hell would containing such eldritch beasts ever achieve? We’re barely fighting back, how could we even find something to do with them?! Ugh… “I wouldn’t dare get to that point, but I suppose it has to be done.” R-right…

Arthur stressed, went on to say more than I had asked for. “Well, it took a lot of experimentation, research and work to get such a sturdy and resistant robot model like mine. I’m not surprised people would go to the extent of researching Emptiness that close.” Natalie, of course, visibly pondered and answered more responsibly. “Crystal, maybe you should get in contact with those scientists? See if you can help them out or find something to stop it?”... “Hm, I would, but aren’t we focused on building houses right now?”

“Yeah, but I’m starting to think we should split again, if we keep doing this the other shielders will do stuff on their own without telling us anything. Maybe you and Dennis could go find out more about this while Arthur, Matt and I stay here.” Dennis replied, a little bit nervous. “Oh? Me and Crystal again?” Crystal giggled like a little girl. “Yeah! We make a really good team, right?”... “Uhh… Sure. Sure.” Dennis blushed  a bit, stepped back slightly and poked his index fingers together.

Crystal and Dennis walked away from us, off to Silver T. Big I presume. Best of luck, you pair of weirdos.

...Looks like it’s that time again.

“Dennis! It looks like we have the lead again!” 

“Uhh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we’re the bosses again!”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about Crystal”

“Oh well, it doesn’t matter now, let’s just get this over with.”

I jumped off the ground and picked up Dennis, then took flight to Silver T. Big! Huzzah! “W-w-what?! C-CRYSTAL! You could’ve warned me!!” Dennis was shaking and trying to get himself off me. “Calm down pup, if you make me drop you, you could seriously hurt yourself and even die! Just wait until we arrive.”

“Agh, fine, sorry…” Dennis gulped, the funny scaredy pup… “It’s just… I’m still not used to this and panicked…”, “Come on, aren’t you a predator? A wolf? You shouldn’t be easily scared by things!”, “I don’t care about that! I’m just a dude!”... “Oh well, if you say so…” After arguing with Dennis about these funny little things, we eventually reached Silver T. Big and entered it. I quickly went to the chief’s office, that damn Robert! He’ll pay for not telling me about this!

I opened the door with all my might…

“MR. ROBERT SAILS!!!!”

There he was, sitting down on his office chair and gasping as he almost dropped his phone. “What the hell, Crystal? What are you yelling about?”. “Mr Robert! You didn’t tell me anything about The Emptiness activities we’re doing!”... “Oh, about how to destroy it and stuff like that? Sorry, it’s just you were busy with that house company so I figured I’d let you spend time with them.”... “NOOOO!” I slammed my hand on his desk angrily. “You can’t do that! Do you know how much science means to me? And you keep me away from it thinking it’s what’s best for me? Science is like my life! I want to help too!”

Dennis coughed. “Uhhh… was I even needed to come here with you?”

“Doesn’t matter! Please Mr. Robert Sails, let me help the other scientists with The Emptiness! Don’t you remember I was the one who discovered its contamination on Colderes?”... “Ah, right… Well, you see… Agh damn it, fine. You can go help them out. Go to the 66th floor, they’re working there. I suppose you can bring Dennis with you as well, as long as he doesn’t break anything.”. “You can count on us! Let’s go Dennis!” I held Dennis’ arm and dragged him off to the elevator.

“W-wait Crystal!” Dennis started to sound even more nervous. “Why do you have to hold me? I can walk on my own!”

This guy though… Well I just called the elevator, walked inside of it as I dragged Dennis with me. 

“Because I uhh…” Hm, I’m not sure what to say on this one!

“Well, let’s just say I have fun messing with you!” I smiled wide and looked at him.

Unfortunately, little Dennis just got upset at me. “What?! But I’m not a toy or something! I’m a person! You can’t just grab me everywhere you go!”, “Why not? People do that all the time with their dogs, right?”, “But I’m not a dog! And I’m a monster! Not an animal, an anthropomorphic animal capable of human inte-”  The elevator quickly opened and I grabbed his arm then dragged him out of the elevator, shutting him up as he whimpered. “H-hey! You can’t interrupt me when I’m talking to you like that! Crystal!”

Hanging on the wall was a sign that said “Emergency Research Laboratory”, well I guess Emptiness REALLY is important so… “Alright, it must be here. Be a good boy, alright? We’re going in.” Dennis gave up and just sniffed and sobbed… I opened the door and looked around. A few scientists, not many, but I’m guessing these are the best of the best. A Plasmatic pink dude, a cheetah gal, a Robot dude… Huh. “Excuse me… You guys are researching Emptiness, right?”

The cheetah gal turned around to look at me. “Uh yeah, you’re Crystal, right?”, “Yeah, that’s me! And this is Dennis, he’s giving me company.” ...“Ah alright, well I’m Matilda, the Plasmatic is Nitro and the Robot is MX-6.”

“Huh, nice names! So tell me: What progress have you made so far?”

“Alright, look at this.” She showed me a cage with a Usurper in it. “We’ve been messing with it for a bit. Stabbing it, setting it on fire, poisoning it… It doesn’t really seem to do much.”...  “Huh, really?”, “Well I suppose that stabs and hits would eventually kill it, but that just wouldn’t work too well. The fire doesn’t seem to do anything, and the poison even less!”. “Yikes!” I just looked at the little Usurper thing in the cage. “Maybe I could contribute some ideas, heh, heh!”

“Really?” She looked at me visibly curious. “Like what?”... “Let me think…” Well let’s see: These things come from space, and space is cold, so I assume they’re resistant or at least used to the cold. They feed from corpses and drain their life force, including their soul… “Do you think we could research these things more closely to find out if they resemble any species in our world? Like a spider, they look a lot like spiders to me, just uglier.”

“We could yeah, but that would take a while, and I’m not sure if we have enough time…” I couldn’t help but groan. “Well, in that case, while you do some research, I’ll start executing my own ideas.” …“Uhh alright… Hey guys, let’s compare this Usurper to animals!” I approached Dennis, he was just sketching on his notepad while he waited for us. “Dennis?”. “Ah! Y-Yeah Crystal?” He jumped a bit when I called his name and dropped his pen, then reached to pick it up and looked at me after that.

“You’re coming with me, we’re leaving.”

“What? But we just got here! Where are we going?”, “I’ll tell you later, come on.” I walked ahead of him.

“W-wait Crystal!” Dennis tried to catch up with me...

“Looks like our house building job is done for now, Natalie.”

“That’s great. Speaking of, I’m gonna go to Silver T. Big and check what everyone else is up to, alright?”

“Ah, okay. Take care, Natalie.”

“Seeya.”

Natalie just left me to work on this alone, giving me notes with information of the customers and the houses that we just built.

Arthur walked towards me. “Hey, Matt, don’t you ever worry about all of this? You’re taking this pretty calmly, and while I’m sure things will be alright, I can’t help but worry about you.”

“I’m fine Arthur, don’t worry.” To be honest, I’m feeling a lot better than before, this is more refreshing and… ‘fun’ than my previous jobs.

“Alright, just checking.” Arthur smiled, and then I spotted a couple of elderly terrans. The female full terran. The male, a human terran hybrid with tanned skin. Both walking towards us. “Huh? These people are…” I took a look at the notes and saw the faces of this couple.  “Alright! Those people are the ones that bought this house! Uhh wait...” I took another look at the notes, this couple was on the last page, but their surname… ‘Rose’. That’s Natalie’s surname, could these be Natalie’s parents? Did Natalie leave on purpose to avoid them, or did she simply not notice and this is all a coincidence?...

The couple then approached us, and the lady started speaking to us. “Excuse me, good gentlemen… You would be Mr. Arthur… And this is… Mr. Architect?” “A-ah yeah, I’m an architect, but my name is Matt Brown, you can call me by my first name if you want.” “Alright Mr. Matt… That rich looking boy over there told us this was the house we were assigned… Can we please take a look?” “Of course, go right in! It’s yours after all.”

“Thank you… So generous…” We walked into the house and Arthur and I just showed them the house in great detail. “So, this is gonna be all for us huh? It’s really good!...” The man commented, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Heh, thank you sir, please keep looking and make sure everything’s alright in case you two need any changes later.”. “Will do…” The oddly wholesome couple continued looking around the house, and then went upstairs to take a look at the bedrooms.

The man opened the door to an individual bedroom, and looked at me. “What’s this?... An extra bedroom?... We don’t have anyone else with us…”, “Sorry, it’s just the house follows the same family template I’ve been following after this whole building plan started, although now that you mention it, do you have a moment to talk?”

Arthur’s eyes opened wide. “Matt, are you going to talk about-”

“Sorry Arthur, I just really have to do this… My curiosity is killing me, and I have the feeling I really should make the effort.”

Arthur facepalmed and sighed, and the man tilted his head in confusion. “What’s this about, young man?... Do you have something to tell us?...”

“Yeah, errr… Natalie Rose’s your daughter, right?”

The couple froze and stood silent, as the man just looked down and the woman looked behind her to avoid eye contact with me. “Errr sorry I just want to talk about it, she’s a longlife friend of mine, I’ve met her since my childhood.”

The woman frowned as she looked at me. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to look for Mr. Matt… But our relationship with Natalie was… Not the best… We had a lot of misunderstandings…”

“Alright, how about we take a seat in the kitchen? I’ll get some coffee for us while we talk. I know it hurts to talk about this, but I’m really worried about Natalie.”

“Fine…” The couple walked downstairs.

Arthur put his hand on my shoulder and looked directly into my eyes.

“Matt, you better not screw this up. As someone who has touched delicate topics their entire life, you really are going into tough territory… I won’t get in your way, but I want you to just keep in mind that this is none of your business, so you’re on your own on this.”

“Don’t worry Arthur, I think I know what I’m doing.”

“You think?” …Well, to be honest, it has just come to my realization that I never got to know Natalie’s parents, but what the hell, I should try to get something to work out of this. “Yeah…” I looked behind me and rubbed the back of my head nervously. “Alright, let’s go.” We followed the couple downstairs to enter the kitchen.

“The seats are comfy, right?” I asked the couple as I reached for my phone. “Yeah, they’re pretty good... I can see why you have that Shielder badge, champ...” The man replied. Well, maybe keeping the badge on is doing something good for once. “Oh, right, well thank you.” I unlocked my phone and browsed through my contacts, then messaged Michael. “Hey, can you bring us some sandwiches and coffee, please? I’ll pay for it.” A few seconds later, he replied. “Sure Mr. Matt. I’ll cover the costs though, I gotcha.” Huh…