Rust and Emprtyness

“I wonder if I could destroy a rolling boulder with a slap…”

“From where in the hells did this come from?!” Kuro straight-manned from the middle of the convoy. “And why is it the fifth time you say something random like this in the last ten minutes?!”

“I am training you to be my substitute straight-woman, you see? Lily is walking in the back, so she cannot do her side of the routine… And do not worry, the ‘straight’ bit is on a comedic and spiritual level only.”

“What does it even mean?! All of it!”

“Should I explain to you the intricacies of not having the, well, ‘adaptability’ of our wonderful era at your disposal? I am very sure this concept would be something to learn at a history…”

“Stop bullying the girls with your nonsense, Amy. This one was a comment too, by the way… Thanks for the donation, Desperoux.” The rearguard of their line called out her tongue-sticking partner while reading the last paid chat entry. “But I’ll warn you all again that we won’t be reading the chat until we’re out of this place, ok? Paying attention to these is way too dangerous right now…”

During the whole of their talk, the group was slowly creeping inside the abandoned building. Most of them weren't paying much attention to safety though. Half their members, nominally Henrique, Benjamin, and Shiro, were way too focused on their surroundings and their notes to do so. And the remaining three were pretty much engaged in small talk during the whole time.

That was, for the two idols, how they looked on the outside at least.

Be as it was, most of the talkative members of the group were as alert as everyone else. In fact, considering how focused on their notes some of them were, it was possible that they were even more alert. There was only an oddball remaining in the end, but it was hard to know what she was thinking for sure.

There wasn't much to see on the dilapidated corridors or at the many doors connected to them. The first few they entered were barely anything more than big empty spaces made of plain concrete, and some other doors and corners weren't even accessible.

It was notable that this place was even bigger than it seemed from the outside. It even made Amy drop extra signal beacons as they advanced, but it didn't seem to be worth it. Moving forward was only in play yet because they had managed to observe, even if only a few, some 'artifacts'. Almost every one of these was a huge machine in need of disassembling or some unreadable piece of decomposing paper, but they looked nice at least.

In summary, little of interest or value. Only abandoned rooms and rusted machines they couldn't do much about right now.

Their sole worth was knowing that this big building was some kind of factory like it seemed to. Not that the expedition went that far inside it at the end. They were yet to try the tenth door on this block, but it didn't feel like it would change much. How boring it was, for now, was half the reason why Amy was talking so much either way.

For all it was worth, it was as if this whole building was abandoned even before it was buried. Amy's theory was that it was evacuated and cleaned up at some point, but she didn't know, or couldn't remember, the reason.

It didn't change much what she had to do though and it wasn't as if she couldn't talk about it right now.

"What if those machines were meant to create an army of killer robots? It would be quite fun, would it not?"

"Now that sounds more like fun! We could fight an army of them and…"

"Please don't." Lily cut in before the dangerous idea the two leading their group could go further. "Last time was enough so I'm yet to trust droids again… And I'm not feeling like hating robots forever, okay?"

"Last time?!" The other twin left her notes the moment she heard something much more interesting. "What do you mean by that, Lily?"

"I mean that my partner is a certified troublemaker and way too fond of automated labor."

"But the cameras only attacked you a few times during that MV… and it was only because I forgot to let them be autonomous."

"I'm not talking about the video!"

"Then what are you talking about?" Three voices asked in synchrony, with one of them calling Lily's ire in special.

"Your memory is really selective, isn't it, Amy?

"I shall have you know again that my memory is very much perfect."

"Then you're only pretending, eh? Maybe I should punish you later then..."

"Sorry, my memory is not perfect at all and please continue without thinking about me." The pink girl retreated in such a hurry that Lily was even able to hear the laughs from the chat before she continued.

"Anyway, I wasn't always an entertainer as everyone should know by now. In fact, I was a cop until my debut." The ex-cop continued, using her own backstory as bait to gather some attention while nothing was happening. "I liked the job, but it was sometimes way too troublesome…"

"That's sooo cool!"

"It has nothing to do with robots though."

The two sisters answered in order, prompting Amy to jump in and go on with the history before her partner could say more.

"That is because she is yet to talk about how we met, you know? Lily was one of the cops at the scene back when NorCo blew up, you see? Things would be even more troublesome back then if it was not for the fast reaction her unit had." The frilly girl weaved through the truth while avoiding the most important details. "And although it did not go very public, the start of that whole debacle was a terrorist attack made with a robot army. Lily was thrown in the middle of the fight back then and we met while I was doing my heroics as a proper idol should... We got a very special connection due to that event, you know?"

“What kind of special are we talking about?!”

“And aren’t idols a kind of entertainer? What they have to do with ‘doing heroics’?”

“The specialiest! Yes! And we do because I said we do.” Amy answered the questions in order and while walking forward with her body turned to the woman she was talking with. “Did you not know that I am the one setting the rules about my job currently? Everyone forgot what they were before, so I am very pleased to use my authority here.”

A few eyes turned to Lily in search of any confirmation or explanation about what the pink girl was quipping about. The rearguard idol was somewhat against telling too much about herself though, and she couldn't say much too. A lot about that little secret society thing and all...

“There’s nothing ‘special’ going on other than we being coworkers, but everything else isn’t very far from reality…”

“We are an idol duo! Is there a more special relationship than this?”

“Yes.” All three answered almost at the same time, even drawing some nods from the professor and the lawyer at the corners of the conversation.

Only Amy was looking at them as if they were talking gibberish like she never heard. Her whole act and the random talk were doing well to keep the audience online and active though, so the frilly girl only had to keep going.

She also had to hunt for the movement she felt earlier by trying to look unguarded, but to no avail for now.

“Anyway, you should go back to paying attention where you’re walking, Amy. Who knows what we’ll find around this place…”

“You have no need to worry. It seems this whole place is empty by now, although I find it weird how some machines are still around.” She continued, now turning her body back to where she was going. “Should we turn back and try another place? I do not think we will find much more here…”

“We have any rooms we didn’t see yet? I’m sure this place had a second floor from the outside, so there should be some way to go there... Also, if this was a factory, then I feel we’re yet to see everything.”

“I agree with you, missy.” The quiet professor took his eyes away from the notebook and added his own observations to the situation. “All we saw until now seems to be the factory floor, and if this place works as we do now, then they must have a storage area and offices somewhere else. Those are prone to having more information.”

“Offices, eh? I’d like to reach these too. Maybe they’d have something about why this place was cleaned in a hurry…”

The other members of the group stopped the moment they heard Lily’s wonderings to herself and then turned to the purple-clothed woman. Even Amy was unsure of how to react to the idea her partner had just thrown in there. They couldn't see how the ex-detective managed to get to this conclusion.

For starters, what kind of clue about how hurried the people were back then when the whole place was falling to pieces?

“What do you mean, Lily?” The pink girl vocalized the doubts of the others in curiosity. She wasn’t exactly surprised her partner came up with her theory, but she couldn’t see how it came by. It wasn’t as if Lilianna had access to information that dated from the same era as these ruins.

“What do I mean? Isn’t it easy to see?” She asked while yet to pay much attention to her situation. “Everything around us is falling apart, but there are different reasons in some places…”

She then started to point to different parts of the walls and floors while also moving to some of the rooms they had already seen. And in each spot, there would be some kind of damage, most of them being gouges to the concrete or signs of something heavy hitting the walls of doors. Nothing that seemed special until it all clicked.

“These aren’t natural!” The twins were the first to say something, followed by their teacher and his own deductions.

“Gouges from something big being dragged away and bulges from the impact of this same heavy something… I see from where you’re coming from, missy.” He nodded while taking even more notes. “But why do you think these could show something interesting about our situation?”

“Why? There’s no why.” Lily answered bluntly. “We just don’t have many clues to go on with, and my intuition is telling me to bet on this…”

“Have you finally awoken your idol intuition, Lily?!”

“Can you try and take things seriously for a minute, please?”

“There is nothing more serious than seeing someone awaken their true idol potential. It is like the final form of the magical-powered highschooler, you know? Or fairy, or masked hero, or mecha warrior, or…”

“Ok, ok, we get it! I already explained my point here and we’re still on a timer, so can we move on?”

None turned to give Lily any negative responses after this. Some were even willing to charge forward already, so the two idols exchanged a little head nod and went back to moving.

“I only hope this place HAS some way up…” Shiro noted as their leader turned on another corner blindly. “It would suck to move around all this and not find any.”

“We could always climb from outside if needed, so where’s the problem?” Her sister was quick to answer with her eyes moving towards the ceiling. “In fact, we could even try and get through some hole in the ceiling, couldn’t we? They aren’t THAT high up.”

“Do you really want to try and step on someplace that already fell apart like this? And if we go on climbing walls and something breaks, we’ll be in trouble.”

“Well, if put it like that…”

“Do not worry, my faithful fans,” Amy called out as she reached the place she had in mind since they entered this one building. “I am quite sure there is a path riiiight… Here!”

Then, as if by design, the very next corner the group turned gave way to a decrepit and big door with what remained of some unreadable writing and the drawings of stairs.

The door seemed way too thick and way too heavy though, likely signing that it was an emergency exit or something of the kind. It also meant that it was a sure way to reach any other floors this place could have.

“Stairs…? Again?” Lily snickered at the fireproof doors and the obvious, and barely holding our, path for the emergency staircase. “Are these really safe, Amy? We don’t want to fall who knows how deep after a single step…”

“Do not fret. It should be all right…” The pink girl continued with her usual smile as she opened the big doors by applying some extra force and took the first step inside. “See? Nothing dange…”

And then, even before she could say it was safe, the impact of her door opening and the already damaged structure came down in the form of a pile of rubble.