[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 6: Veiled Sanctuary

• i am so sorry, but Zayne is so handsome. the only grown up among us, if you discount that Sylus was probably never a child.
  
• yup, it does feel an awful lot like what happened to you and yes, i also bet that Ever is behind it.
  
• okay, so Zayne feels that something isn't right in Hospital Land (subtext: be careful, Dorothy). The Fleet is too omnipresent for an agency devoted to Deepspace exploration and almost nobody has seen their actual ships.
  
• Operation: Find The Boy Child.  Mission: Wonder If Dog Plushie Knows More Than Its Saying
  
• ah, the dog plushie is also a recorder.  and Kevi might be hiding in 'the secret base'.
  
• Zayne, i love you so much. you are the greatest deadpan delivery ever.
  
• oooh, flirtation! in the main story! LOVE IT. lean in a little closer, Dr Zayne, i bet you smell lovely.
  
• Meanwhile, The Explosion Site:  woah!
  
• holy shit, little mini... portal thingie. Kevi, can you open little wormholes?!
  
• THE PARALLELS ARE KILLING ME
  
• oh, kid! what is on your face.. oh no. oh no, please don't tell me that's crystal breaking through his skin.
  
• /closes eyes in pain  "Granulated crystals seem to be growing around his eye sockets, almost engulfing his whole face."
  
• yup, just like the N109 and in Chansia when we were trapped in the overlapping reality
  
• eh? "I touch the crystals on his face. A sharp pain shoots through my palm, but the growth stops."
  
• oh, kid. you have a protocore fragment. and i am going to bet money i am saving for Xavier's next spicy myth that its from the Spatium aether core. he's warping realities just like the betacurve Wanderer was doing.
  
• ah. so the fragment was something left behind by mom and dad. Ever researchers? or Fleet? maybe those are nearly equal statements.
  
• oh, so mom and dad abandoned the kids?? left the fragment to Kevi and told him to take care of his sister and to hide using it?
  
• you are terrible parents. i am just going to say that out loud right now. just godawful parents.
  
• "people were looking for me and they were dressed like mom and dad".  yeah, that really isn't good from any perspective. at least mom and dad told the kid not to trust the other people in the same uniform. maybe they stole the fragment from the labs and thought they wouldn't get caught?
  
• oh, MAN.  the crystals on Kevi's face are *black*.
  
• Oh, Zayne.
  
• girlfriend, this is a terrible plan. admittedly the kid has held out for a couple of weeks on his own.
  

the plot is starting to look grim.