"I guess you could call them one of my sisters," Zero-Nine said with a skip to her overlarge step

Petre trailed behind Zero-Nine with Blurb attached to his left shoulder like some deformed black parrot.

Zero-Nine flashed a malicious smile over her own shoulder revealing row after row of inhuman teeth. The menace of their white clashed horribly with her otherwise soft and motherly features.

"They're the reason for all of this," Zero-Nine said with a swirl. She smacked the papers out of one scientist's hands as he passed, and he made a frightened sound between a yell and a moan.

Half of Petre's unease had to do with the monster that led him. The other half had to do with the many stares their traipse earned. He had done his best to stay out of sight since his arrival at the evil organization, but Zero-Nine marched them down what had to be a main hallway.

It was hard to tell where was where in a place that seemed so identically white and sterile, but this hallway seemed wider and more industrious than the others, with small groups of scientists in lab coats and nurses in gowns wherever the eye fell. Every once in a while, he even thought he saw Trepe in the distance. The hallways were made even busier with the small army of black Roombas that marched up and down the floors. Zero-Nine seemed to go out of her way to step on them.

"They built all of this on top of their cave," Zero-Nine continued. She seemed to delight in the telling, though with each word Petre fell into a deeper worry. "It's been... oooooh... forty-five years? since I last saw them."

The facility had seemed oddly doctorly so far, like some enormous hospital for the othernatural (Which sounded an awful lot like a simple sanatorium), but as they rounded a corner, Petre came to a nervous halt.

Men in black military fatigues and enormous rifles (Petre had yet to see someone with a small gun since arriving on the island) stood in-front of a pair of sleek double doors. As if prepared for war, bags of sand had been piled high and an even larger machine gun rested on top of their weight.

"Don't be so nervoooouuus," Zero-Nine said, and Petre hastened to reach her.

The military men wore unusual respirators that seemed more sci-fi than practical. He could only imagine the murderous expressions that lurked underneath.

The double doors slid open automatically at their approach, revealing another stretch of busy white hallway.

"Thank yooouuuu for your service," Zero-Nine said with a salute.

"Blurb no like scary men..." Blurb said from her perch on his shoulder, and the relief that he felt! He was beset with a surge of warmth to hear someone voice his own unease.

"D-don't worry," Petre said, and he tickled her black goo.

"Disguuuuusting," Zero-Nine said, and Petre's eyes widened as he looked up and met her violent disdain. "She looks like vomit. Like v̴͕̄ò̷̪o̴̘͠o̷̲̅m̶̧̐i̸̥͛i̷̦͐i̸̤̍i̵̡̛t̵̥̃."

They continued their trek in relative silence after that.

The hallway may have looked the same past the checkpoint, but the mood around them had changed considerably. The scientists seemed scarcely to notice Zero-Nine and Petre. They muttered amongst themselves, their faces stark and hollow. Strange sounds sometimes appeared from behind the doors they passed (And Petre had developed a rather high standard for strange). At one point he thought he saw Trepe inside one of the rooms, but it turned out just to be Petre's reflection. Every so often, a pair of military men would come jogging down the hallway, their eyes intent.

Deeper and deeper they delved. Left, left, another left, and then a right. And it all looked the same. Petre had no idea how Zero-Nine could remember the route, or how any of the humans could either. The entire complex seemed designed to confuse (Which did not seem all that unlikely) with how identical it all appeared.

They arrived at a second checkpoint and then a third. Each set of doors opened without a word, and with each Petre could feel his dread deepen. Zero-Nine had mentioned... a sister? And a cave? The entity facility had been built on top of her.

But why? Because of her size? Or was it something else?

"Petre," Zero-Nine said, and he jumped with a small fright. He could not remember if she had ever used his name before.

"Y-yes?" Petre said, and he found some calm as he tickled Blurb's black goo.

They stood in a small stretch of identical white hallway, but one that felt comparably empty. Petre could only see one man, another scientist all in white, scratching away at a clipboard. With each checkpoint, the scenery around them had grown quieter and quieter.

"How are you feeling?"

"Hmm?" Petre was not sure he had heard her properly.

Zero-Nine descended on him in a snarl of violence. He could feel the heat radiate off her open mouth (You could toast marshmallows if she didn't eat them herself) as she violently pinched his cheeks. Her own smile stretched from ear to ear.

"Hooooooow are you feeeeeeeeeeling?"

"Fine! Fine!" Petre said, full of hurt.

Blurb bubbled with a frustrated sound from his shoulder. He could feel her flesh ripple with small spikes, though she made no move to attack.

"Good," Zero-Nine said, her smile baffling.

She released his cheeks and offered him a heavy pat on the head. She continued down the hallway as if nothing had happened.

"Blurb... Blurb sorry," Blurb said from his shoulder as his chest heaved with leftover panic. "Blurb so smol..."

He felt the first smile tickle his lips since Zero-Nine had abducted him.

"Don't w-worry," Petre said. He patted Blurb's goo and delighted at its faint jiggle. "You... You'll get bigger."

"Hurry up!" Zero-Nine shouted, and Petre hasted after her.

"How are you feeling?" Zero-Nine asked, for what had to have been the tenth time.

"I'm fine," Petre said, without any of his earlier confusion. He did not know why she kept asking, but he knew that there was a reason. And he had plenty of reasons to think something was wrong.

The hallways had been full of scientists and doctors and soldiers. Some had offered them stare while others had hastened out of their way.

But with each checkpoint they had passed, there seemed to be fewer and fewer humans. The hallways that had once bustled with scholarly conversation became silent. Where crowds had thronged, only one or two tired figures looked over notes or sat down with a steaming cup in their hands.

But now there were no scientists. There were no soldiers.

The hallways and its walls were the same pristine white, but the only company that Petre knew was robotic. The same black Roombas as before, but also some blocky white machines that rolled to and fro with unknown purpose.

"It reaaally pisses them off," Zero-Nine said as she stomped on another Roomba. It filled the hallway with a terrible smell. "They can't come and fix them this close to Zero-Zero."

Petre nodded mechanically, but then her words reached him.

"Zero... Zero?"

"My siiiister," Zero-Nine said with words dripped in honey. "She has a... funny way with humans. So they can't come and fix their machines this close to her."

"What kind of... funny way?" Petre asked, though he cringed at how freely he spoke with this monster. He looked at Blurb, but the featureless black of her body offered little comfort. She had grown unusually quiet the deeper they had delved.

"Petre, Petre, Petre," Zero-Nine muttered, and she swirled around to face him. Petre tried to back away, but she pulled him tight against her massive breasts.

"Are you nervous? Are you scaaaaared?" Zero-Nine said. "Don't be, don't- ouch!"

"Blurb bite!" Blurb said as Zero-Nine released him. She inspected her reddened hand and looked down at Blurb with a sneer.

Zero-Nine stuck out her tongue, made a childish sound, and continued down the hallway.

"Blurb protect!" Blurb said, and Petre could feel the warm victory radiate off her blackened form.

"Blurb is v-very strong," Petre said, his voice a whisper.

The quiet of the hallway filled with an explosion of noise. Petre jumped, but then he recognized it as Zero-Nine's mirth.

"We have arrived," Zero-Nine shouted, and she poked her head around a corner. She gestured him closer with impatience written clearly across her motherly face. "Come, come!"

Petre grit his teeth and stomped down the rest of the hallway with lead in his stomach. She still had not told him what exactly they wanted with her sister.

"This brings back memories," Zero-Nine said, and Petre turned the corner. He immediately took a step back, confused.

The same white hallway. But it ended in an abrupt wall. But when Petre blinked, he realized that it was not a wall. The hallway simply ended in a small uneven rise of... cement? It filled the entire hallway, leaving not even a crack to look through.

"The humans filled the whoooole thing with rebar and cement when I first tried to destroy them," Zero-Nine said, her voice full of nostalgia. "They reeeeally rattled the hornets nest that time. I almost died!"

And then it became all to clear what their assignment was, and the truth hit Petre's stomach like a brick.

"I don't remember much from that day, but it was such a panic," Zero-Nine continued, oblivious to Petre's creeping panic. "Humbling. It was a ḥ̸͑u̶̲̿u̷̪̔u̸̝̒ụ̶̀ṁ̸̢b̶̲͑l̷̙͌i̶̥͒n̵̗͝g̸͔̉ experience."

"But things will be different this time. Everything will be fiiiiiiine."