Admiration and Adaptation

“Ohh, we're gunna find a crystal, shiny shiny crystal~” Bouncing between the bone-white trees, June’s voice rings out as she walks towards the excavation site. “Bonnie oh please Bonnie, let us find your crystals and We will be so happyyyyy~!”.

June belts out as she looks down at Peewee and points finger guns at them. To finish off June’s good luck song to Bonnie, Peewee hops into the air playfully and squeaks. “Ah ha, good finish lil’ friend, really tied the whole tune right up!” June grins as she bends over to pat Peewee on the head.

“Alright, I think we're just about here, now get a good sniff to get an idea of where this thing might generally be. I’m gunna start picking up big ol’ heaps of dirt and you’ll be my little metal detector every time I do and let me know if I snagged the crystal or if it's still in the hole, Sounds solid?”

Peewee looks up with determination in their eyes, ready to be a metal detector for this crystal, even though it’s clear Peewee obviously has no idea what a metal detector is. Realizing their confusion, June reassures “Oh shoot, uhmm, a metal detector is like something that basically beeps faster the closer to metal it is, make sense?”

Peewee looks up, giving a look as if they understand completely, and looks ahead with confidence. Roughly thirty seconds later, June hears a short squeak. “Ya alright Peewee?”. After a couple of seconds, Peewee squeaks again and looks up at June, then back in front of them again.

Looking up from the ground, June notices that they are already standing at the edge of the excavation site. Realizing what Peewee’s doing, June grins and laughs, “See you know exactly what to do, you are my little crystal detector! You’re Pure Barry, clever lil’ thing!”.

Proud of themself, Peewee looks up at June confidently and then turns to the hole, diving straight down roughly 6ft to the bottom. “Hold on a second Peewee, remember I'm about to make this a whole lot easier! Hop out for a sec and I’ll nearly double our progress 'cause I’m just that awesome!” June smirks feeling a little confident herself.

“Gun!” June shouts as she snaps her fingers, materializing the gun in her hand only moments later. Aiming down at a section in the middle of the pit, June squeezes the trigger and hits the dirt with the blue energy.

“Alright, remember, I’ll move this out of the pit, off to the side here, and you tell me if I got it or not,” June calls out to Peewee as she grabs and pulls the dirt out of the ground and drops it outside of the pit and gives Peewee a look letting them know to start sniffing.

Little snout to the air, Peewee hops down in the pit and begins looking around. “So what are we feeling lil buddy? Did I get it yet?”. June watches as Peewee stops for a moment. Looking back at June, Peewee quickly hops out of the deep pit and sniffs the pile of dirt. Looking back at June almost with a smug look, Peewee lets out a short squeak followed by two more delayed squeaks very soon after.

June rushes over excitedly to Peewee. “Hell yeah, told ya this would be easier! Now I’ll start splitting up the piles and moving them away from each other so you can start narrowing in on that crystal!”.

Giving June an eager look of determination, Peewee looks back at the dirt pile, ready for June to proceed. “Alright step back a bit, I’ll move it over there and then we’ll see where it’s at.

Hitting the pile with the blue light, June pinches and manipulates the area where the blue light covers, changing the area affected by the gun. After properly adjusting it, June grabs the projection of the dirt and lifts the divided mound into the air, placing it on the other side of the pit to make it easier for Peewee to sniff it out.

“Alright go ahead Peewee, work yer magic! Let’s get that crystal!”. Peewee lifts their snout into the air, and after a moment, quickly turns to June and to the mound on the other side of the pit.

Hopping to the other side of the pit, Peewee quickly inspects the mound with their nose, turning to June moments later. With a cheeky look in their beady little eyes, five quick squeaks follow Peewee’s inspection.

“Oh, we're on a bloody roll right now!” June shouts out as she runs around to the other side of the pit where Peewee is. Looking at how much the mound has been cut down, June realizes she’s cut the massive mound down to just a small pile of dirt.

“Hey, We’re basically down to no dirt at all, just start digging, it’s gotta be right-”. Muffled rapid squeaks cut off June. As she looks down, she sees Peewee wagging their bushy tail with a big orange crystal in their mouth.

“AH YOU FOUND IT!” June shrieks out, shocked to see that Peewee already found the crystal. “Lemme take a look at this little thing if ya don’t mind, I wanna check out our treasure!”.

As Peewee drops the crystal in June’s hand, she notices a strange coolness coming from the crystal. “Woah wait a second, did ya feel that when you picked it up, Peewee? It’s a little cold! I wonder what that means! I’ll have to pop it in the analysis pocket and see what's going on with it.

“Now, I’m not positive but if ya remember, last time we found a cool crystal like this, we found a source nearby. Now this piece is a lot smaller than the last piece but that doesn’t mean the source isn’t somehow somewhere nearby, know what I mean?” June looks down and exchanges a mutual, excited look with Peewee.

“Ya smelling anymore anywhere?”. Peewee takes a moment to investigate the smells around them. Seconds later, Peewee turns back to June and shakes their head, unfortunately determining that no more crystals lay in the area that they can smell.

“Ahh alright well, I ain’t gun give up hope yet, We found one, theirs bound to be more. Let's head back to the rover, look around a bit, and see if we can find anything. If not we’ll go from there.”

The crimson leaves sway in a light breeze as the two esteemed adventures crusade onwards back to the rover. About ten minutes later, just as they get back to the temporary campsite, a little hologram projects from June's suit.

“No way, Peewee you fricking did it!” The message projecting from her suit read back the results from the crystal analysis. June reads out the results to Peewee, “Thermodynamic Properties. Potential Component in sustainable energy source, further research necessary!” June grabs Peewee and spins around in circles out of unbottled joy.\

After putting Peewee down, June looks over to Peewee and Reiterates what she means, “So basically, you found me exactly what I needed to find! I just gotta head back home and figure out what the heck makes this little thing thermodynamic, how to utilize it, and start figuring out blueprints for this thing!”

Peewee, a little confused, looks over at the solar panels on the back of the rover. Noticing the look, June realizes she hadn’t fully explained why she was looking for different sources of power.

“Oh, I suppose I only told ya about the solar thing. The silicon crystal you gave me along with the couple more we found was just enough for that single panel on the back of Rovy, but because the nights are so long here, It’s not a very efficient way to power the whole base, and because we haven't found any more silicon crystals since then, I haven’t managed to make any more panels. See the dilemma I been facing?”. Looking up at June, Peewee appears to understand a bit better but still seems to be a little confused.

June continues, “So basically, my hopes were to find a different way to gather power besides just using solar energy because of the limited panels I can currently make, and mainly because of the inefficiency of the day cycles.” Now seeming to understand June's thought process, Peewee hops over to their sleeping bag and lays down to rest.

“Y’know, Your incredibly intelligent Peewee. I mean, socially and intellectually too. You’ve stuck around me and managed to nearly instantly pick up on so many little things about me and the different things about me. It’s incredible, to be honest, lil buddy.”

Looking up at June complimenting them, Peewee seems to give a smug, confident expression as they barely lift their head from their paws. “And that too, you’re smug!” She laughs, fascinated by the sheer emotive personality Peewee seems to have, “I mean, seriously, you remind me of my-”.

June feels a quick, sheer pain in her stomach for a moment. June shakes her head and muffs out the anxiety, luckily catching it in time. “Never mind” June takes a deep breath and continues what she was saying, “Anyways, I normally find the majority of people and animals a drag to be around but you’re not so bad I suppose.”

June stops for a moment, remembering all of the times that Peewee has come in and out of the dome, realizing that Peewee’s physical body literally can adapt to whatever kind of environment they are in. Starting to realize this, June begins to see that Peewee is the most adaptable creature she’s ever seen.

June walks over and sits, leaning up against a tree, and stops to think for a moment. Peewee notices June seems to be lost in thought again, and hops over to where she's sitting, nestling up beside her.

“Not only are your physical adaptability abilities incredible, but your emotional and intellectual adaptations are like none I’ve seen in almost every human I’ve ever met.”. Peewee looks up at June, confusion in their eyes. “Oh, a human is the species of animal I am. Where I’m from we became the most intelligent life form and evolved into creatures capable of many things, one of which is what I do, colonizing the vast planets and traveling the universe.”.

June looks down from the sky and starts petting Peewee. “I haven't seen anything else other than you here, I wonder what you’re evolutionary story is. I have no way of knowing if there's more of you, or how old you are. You seem to have learned so much more about me than I have about you.” A solemn look sinks over her face.

June sighs and looks up at the sky again. “Sorry bout that lil’ buddy, soon I’ll take time to get to know you. I’m not really good at it, but I think with you maybe I can try to get over it.”, Attempting to bring false confidence forward, June's demeanor shifts “I mean, I’m clearly awesome at everything else so this shouldn’t be too hard for me!”

June chuckles a bit as she pets Peewee, who seems to just be listening with their eyes closed. Looking up at the slowly setting sun, June closes her eyes and drifts off into a nap.