Just as quickly as Niela fell asleep, the morning came hastily. Niela was awakened by the voices of others outside. "Ugh..." She felt a slight headache as she came into consciousness. She turned to her left and saw that Chirlin wasn't there. "...I want a bed..." It was the first thing she mumbled to herself as she felt tired the moment she was awake.
After lying down for a minute, Niela sits up from her sheet. She slowly rubs her eyes as she yawns. She can hear that everyone is already outside, and by the sounds of it, they have been awake for some time now. 'I'm the only one left asleep' she thinks to herself. With that in thought, she slowly crawls her way to the zipper.
The moment she pulls down the zipper, the bright day greets her. She squinted at how bright it was outside. "Hey, good morning" Marve was the first one to see her, the others turned to her and greeted her. "Good morning, sleepy head!" Chirlin ran to her and greeted her. "I need more sleep, Chirlin" She said as she weakly reached for her sister, half of her body still inside the tent. "There, there..." The two embrace each other, with Chirlin patting her sister's head.
"If you think you're the only one, think again" Kirin appeared behind them, looking a bit more tired than Niela. "Good morning, Miss Kirin. You look funny" Niela said. Chirlin turns to look at Kirin and laughs. "Ugh... I can't have this, I need a bed, or even just a mattress on the ground would do. I would have to call Lonara again, that bitch...!" Kirin grips her hand. "Unlike you, Miss Kirin, this is my first time sleeping outside, without a soft bed" Niela was still in Chirlin's embrace. "Hey, this is considered a first time too! It's been long since I had to sleep outside!" Kirin grunts in annoyance.
"Anyway, you should eat up. We just finished, and once you're done, we're moving out immediately" Kirin told Niela. Niela let go of Chirlin and gets up from the tent. "What's for breakfast?" She asks as she brushes her hair with her hands. "Burrito" Kirin's reply made Niela lowly grunt. "You would really eat burritos in the morning?" She asked. "Don't worry, I had one too! It's not bad for breakfast, it's actually filling!" Chirlin cheers her up. "Maybe because you're small. I'm an adult, I need more nutrition than a child" Kirin sighed. "Just eat up, Niela. Be thankful we're not roasting Zakana on the first day" Her words surprised the squad.
"You roast Zakana...?!" Sterling asked, completely bewildered. "On times of desperation, yes. They taste like chicken, if you don't mind the texture of a Zakana flesh" Kirin chuckled. "Ew..." Chirlin shivered slightly in disgust. "Okay, I think I just got the appetite for a burrito" Everyone laughed at Niela's words. "Well, eat up. I will tell you our next location while you do" With that, Kirin works on her eyes. As usual, whenever she focuses on working with her eyes, she stares off to the ground. Everyone noticed this.
Niela walked to the lit fire and saw a burrito on a tray. She asked the others if it was hers and they nodded. She took the burrito and sat down on the sand before taking a couple of bites. "Okay, the next location will be a forest" "The fillings in this bread are so dry..." They look over to Niela as she complains about the quality of the burrito. "This forest is called Nagares. It used to be a habitat for various wildlife, but now it has become a nest for Zakana hives. Since the ground will be dirt, the Zakana will be mostly on the surface. They still can burrow themselves underground, however"
She pauses as she analyzes the forest. "Fortunately for us, the forest isn't that thick. The trees there are mostly large, so they're not packed into small spaces. There will be plenty of spaces to drive our Lancers inside" She analyzes the forest again. "Since there are hives, their aggression will never stop, and will most likely increase their number if their hives are facing threats. All of the hives cover the entire forest, so if one hive is alerted, the whole forest will be full of Zakana. So, our option here is rushing through the forest, which is a bad idea because the forest stretches far, it will be quite a ride, and I'm worried about your driving skills, there will be a lot of zig-zagging. If one of you falls, we will have to stop and help, and we will be at risk of being overwhelmed"
"Or we set down a temporary hideout, we will stay in the forest for a few days as we plan on silently taking down the hives on our direct path to the other side of the forest" Kirin paused for a second. "Or... we will have to go back to the open desert, travel north, go around the forest, and travel back south" She then waits for reactions. "I think the best option here is just rushing through the forest. The sooner we leave the forest, the better" Marve raises his opinion. "But then the Zakana will alert the whole forest and they will be chasing and firing at us" Terra spoke against him.
"It will take us more time, but we will be able to bypass the forest's Zakana hives completely by going around it" She suggested. "And have us back in the middle of nowhere, travel north and back down south? Don't you think just rushing through the forest is the safest bet?" "You're betting, I don't. It will take us more time, but we will be able to travel harm free" Terra continues to oppose him. "If my bet is right, we will be able to outspeed the Zakana's response. We will be long gone before they knew it" Marve defends his choice.
"Are you not going to speak up?" He turns to Sterling. "Well, I'd say burn the forest down with the Zakana" Everyone turns to her with stern looks. "Nagares is one of the nature of our planet and a historical place, you can't just decide to burn it down" Kirin raised a brow. "I was just kidding. Why do you immediately believe my words? I'd say... let's go in, build ourselves that temporary hideout, and kill some damned Zakana" Kirin nods at her. "I expected that answer from you" She then turns to Niela.
"Your idea, Niela?" They all turn to her. Niela felt pressure as she felt the stares of her squad. "Niela, you're with me, right? I will never 'bet' my life, having to charge through that forest and hope that the Zakana won't be able to catch up" Terra took a step forward at her. "We outmatched the Zakana with our Lancers with speed before, how different would it be now?" Marve asked. "The difference is that we will be in a forest! We can't go all out like we used to!" Terra turns to him to speak.
"Miss Kirin said the forest isn't thick, the odds are on our side. If we do this now, we will be out of the forest before the day is done" Marve said. "No really, I'd say just kill them all" Sterling joins in. "Niela" Marve turns to Niela, getting her attention. "I know it can be dangerous, but it can't be that bad. I'm talking about time efficiency here. We can get over this whole forest thing sooner if we just charge through. We can use our speed, right, Miss Kirin?" He looks to Kirin to ask.
"Their signals travel faster than our Lancers. If one of them decided to wake the whole forest up, they would be all over us... Oh, and sorry for taking a side, but I would like to go with Sterling-" "Yes...!" "-because I just realized we can record and report the other hives to the military and Lonara will be able to obtain intel on the forest" Kirin scratches the back of her head. "But of course, the plan will depend on you, Niela" They once again turn to Niela. "Why is it always me..." Niela sighed. "Someone has to step in and break up the arguments" Kirin crossed her arms.
"You're here, Miss Kirin, why does it have to be me..." Kirin tuts. "No complaints! I order you to break up the arguments and make a reasonable, peaceful resolve" She smiles at her. "If we're talking about reasonable, then obviously we will have to go with Sterling's idea, which Miss Kirin supported because of the convenience of gathering intel for the military at the same time. That's definitely better than going through or around the forest empty-handed, right?" She looked up to Kirin.
"Just say you want to kill some Zakana with me, Niela" Sterling smiles at her. "Not really, not when we're on limited supply" Niela replied lazily. Sterling's smile fades slightly. Kirin claps to get their attention. "Well? Any objection to Niela's idea?" She looked around to see their reactions. "If Niela says it's better to have something for the military, then I guess I'll go with her" Terra said. "We wouldn't be arguing like that if you had told us about intel gathering in the beginning" Marve crossed his arms and shook his head. "The intel gathering is optional, it's not like Lonara desperately needs it. It was merely a suggestion" Kirin tilted her head slightly.
"If you're blaming me, you're also blaming Niela" They looked at Niela. "No, no... I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just saying" Marve shook his hands. "Don't I get to vote?!" Chirlin spoke and they looked at her. "Obviously not" Kirin replied. "Whatever your sister decides, it will automatically be your vote too" The two sisters looked at each other. "Not fair!" Chirlin pouts at Kirin. Kirin sighed. "Look, just let the big sisters decide, alright?" "And big brother" Marve adds himself in. "We all know, including yourself, why I'm not allowing you to, right?" Kirin asked.
"Because I'm a child" Chirlin looks to the ground as she admits defeat. Kirin nods while everyone smiles at her. "You haven't ceased to age yet, so when you grow up to your sister's age, you can push your ideas to anyone however you like" Kirin chuckles. "So for now, we're setting up a temporary hidden base to clear out the Zakana's hives!" Kirin pointed at the forest visible from afar.
"Get your stuff together, put out this fire, then gather your stuff here. I will bring them back to my eyes" Kirin instructed and the others moved immediately. "Chirlin, can you get our sheets in the tent? Can you also disassemble the tent?" Niela ordered her little sister. "Okay!" Chirlin energetically ran back to their tent. "Ordering your little sister around like that? You're a bad sibling" Kirin smirks. "That way, she can have some sense of usefulness. In our home, if she were not in front of her computer, she would do house chores herself, and even try to help me cook meals or cook ahead of time without me knowing. You already know how she thinks, Miss Kirin" Niela said as they both turned to their tent.
The tent was open and Chirlin could be seen gathering their sheets. "If she's like this in her early years, she will be a workhorse when she grows up" Kirin crossed her arms. "She will grow up a hardworking person" Niela nods and turns to Kirin. "What is the forest like, Miss Kirin?" She asks and Kirin looks at her. "It's a very big forest, even if the trees are gigantic, you still can get lost. Only a few people dared to traverse through the forest in the past. The people were advised not to use the forest as a route, the military usually goes around it. Though, there will always be some people that went through the forest, either desiring a shorter travel time or just wanting to visit the place"
"Some of those people didn't come back, there were reports of missing people that were known to have gone to the forest" Kirin looks at the forest in the distance. "When people kept going missing in the forest, the previous leader had to restrict the civilians from entering" As they talked, the others had finished packing up their things and dropping them beside the fire. Kirin turned around and saw her tent gone. "Oh, thank you. I was going to do it myself" It was Sterling who disassembled her tent. Kirin proceed to put out the fire, her eyes made a beep before gushing out water with strong pressure that goes into the fire.
"Your eyes can also produce water?" Niela asked, fascinated. "Why yes. If they can fire lasers, they can fire water too" Kirin winked as she stops the water. The fire was quickly extinguished and smoke rises from the burnt woods and ashes. She then cast light on their things and brought everything back to her eyes. "It's amazing that you can store things inside you, like an inventory" Chirlin spoke with her jaw dropped in fascination. "Yes, these eyes can compress things into data, a bunch of codes encoded to its database" Kirin puts a thumbs up.
"Well..." Kirin faced the forest in the distance. "Off we go to the forest!" The others looked at the forest. From a far distance, they can see gigantic trees covering a wide area of that region. A faint gloomy purplish fog surrounds the whole forest.