The two avali waved goodbye to their guest. They could have sworn they saw her reach for them just before she disappeared from view, but they figured that must have been a trick of their tear-filled eyes.

They were going to miss her, but this was for the best. It's what she wanted.

"I have good news. The translation software update has been completed." Their adopted Protogen packmade said as he approached the room with a happy expression on his visor. " I have just finished uploading it to S.A.I.L, and your own neural software should be receiving it momentarily. We can now understand what our guest is saying-"

He stopped mid-sentence upon seeing the two of them. Instantly, his expression changed to that of a concerned one.

 "Eilumi, Khan... Did I miss something?" He asked worriedly. "What's wrong? Where is Loona?"

".... Loona?" The brown-coated avali asked with a sniffle. "You mean our guest, Nine?"

"Yes, I refer to our guest, Eilumi." The Protogen, Nine, responded. "Who else would I be referring to?"

"I... I guess that was a stupid question." Eilumi replied.

"To answer your question, Nine, she's gone." The avali next to Eilumi, Khaun, sniffled.

"Gone? Why? You didn't..." Nine demanded. His expression quickly changed to an angered one. "Why would you do that?! Do you have ANY idea what you've just done?!"

The pair shuddered at his shouting.

"Nine, Calm down!" Khaun pleaded. 

"She was just starting to get comfortable here, starting to trust us, and then you two go and RUIN IT!"

"Nine! Please." Eilumi pleaded. "We didn't want to do it either, but we had too." 

"Why? And don't you dare tell me 'because protocols.'"

"She wanted to go back." Khaun sighed. "We couldn't very well hold her here against her will any longer." 

Nine stopped for a moment. His expression didn't change. At least, not the upper part. The 'mouth' portion changed from a depiction of an open one to a closed one.

"What in the name of the Nexus would give you that idea?"

"Didn't you notice how she kept staring out the windows, at her home planet? She was obviously missing her home." Eilumi responded.

"Besides, she had friends back home she wanted to help. That... 'Eevee' and that 'Shinx'..."

"And you two just sent her back just like that?!"

"Of course not! We would not be so callous!" Khaun replied defensively. "We gave her one of our spare shortswords to help her."

Nine just stared at them angrily for a few moments of silence. He crossed his arms, and sighed, his visor expression's eyes turning into straight lines as he turned his head off to the side.

"You two...." He paused "... Are idiots."

"Hey come on now, isn't that a little-" Eilumi began in protest, only for Nine to shut him down with a 'closed mouth angry' expression glare before he continued.

"She HATED her home world. She never wanted to return." The protogen argued angrily as he reached into his loosely-fitting coat. "And if you two had been a bit more observant, you would have realized that."

"Nine, Buddy, look." Khaun said, putting his own hand on Nine's side, since he couldn't reach his shoulder. "I know you're upset, we are too, but I don't think you're right about- Wait, what's that?"

He stopped as he saw Nine hold something out in front of him.

"Holotape. I convinced her to talk into it a few hours before you two sent her back. I gave it a listen just to test the translation update."

"Hoooooowww?" Khaun confusingly whined.

"Well, it took some doing to get her to understand, but-"

"You know what? It doesn't matter." Eliumi said dismissively. "Let's just have a listen, then."

"Yes." Nine said darkly, his 'eyes' tilting downwards slightly. "Let's."

He pushed a button on the side. The tape began to play the audio file contained within.

"So.... You want me to... Talk into this thing?" Loona's voice, now fully understandable and automatically translated thanks to the software update the group's neural uplink just received, flowed out of the device.

There were a few seconds of silence.

"I'm going to take a wild guess from your... Expression? ... That I'm right." Loona's voice asked. "... You're nodding. That must mean 'yes'. Okay, good. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right. Ehhem. "

Loona paused for a few seconds before continuing.

"Where to start? My name? I guess that works. My name is Loona. I'm a linoone from Dynamo Sands."

She stopped.

"Wait, don't you guys already know all this from that chair-thing? I'm still miffed about that."

Meanwhile in the present, Eilumi and Khaun exchanged uncomfortable glances at each other, and Nine looked off to the side. Once Loona's voice returned, so did their attention.

"Maybe I should start with what happened after that? ... That might work.... 
I've decided to forgive them for the whole 'chair' thing. I'm still not completely sure why they did it in the first place. I can only presume the purpose of it was to read my thoughts, history, or something. Though for what end, I still don't know. It's not like I can ask them. Well, I can, but we can't understand each other."

"If only she knew..." Eilumi sighed. "... That part of it was for updating the translation software."

"They apologized, at least that's what I believe. And that's enough for me at least. It's far better than any of the other bastards I've encountered down there have done to me."

They continued to listen to the tape in its entirety. As the tape continued to play, Eilumi and Khaun's eyes widened in shock, tears beginning to form in their eyes as it began to reach its conclusion.

"...Then, maybe, just the six of us could live a life out here. Amongst the stars, exploring this... Space. And the worlds it contains.

Yes, that would be great."

The tape ended with a click. 

"We... We..." Eilumi struggled to find words.

The dam broke. Tears flowed from their eyes as the two of them howled with sadness.

"We have just made a HUGE mistake!!" Eilumi yelled.
"... AGAIN!!" Khaun added.
"Yes. Yes you have." Nine responded harshly. "And might I take this time to remind you, that at this very moment, she is still down there, more than likely all alone, with only an aerogel blade to keep her safe? And that's the best case scenario..."

"We must find her again, and apologise! Now that we can." Khaun cried.
"Wait," Eilumi responded. "We should be able to track her easily, with the nanites we injected."

Both of his fellow crew members looked at him with a confused look.

"... We did give her the nanites, right?

They both shook their heads. Eilumi slapped his forehead with his palm, and brought his clawed hand down over his face.

"... Great. Just great." He groaned.

"Well, you said we were going to send her back, so I didn't think there was a need to give her those." Khaun argued, causing Eilumi to glare incredulously at him. "You know we can't just give those out willy-nilly. It's against regulation to give it to people that we don't intend to recruit!"

"Oh sure, blame this all on ME, why don't you?" 

"Packmates?" Nine asks calmly, a worried expression written on his LED face.

"Well you're the one who insisted she wanted to go back!" Khaun shot back at Eilumi, completely ignoring Nine.

"How was I supposed to know she wanted to stay with us?" Eiluni argued back.

"Oh, I don't know, you could have waited a few minutes and asked her yourself!" Khaun bickered back.

"How on Avalon's poles was I supposed to know the translation patch was done?! And besides, You agreed with me!"

"PACKIES!" Nine shouted, his voice reverberating off the walls. His visor showed a red, angry, yelling face for but a moment. 

"What?!" Both of them shouted back from their argument. When they saw his visor-face's expression, their own expressions filled with a bit of worry, and their hands rose in front of them almost involuntarily.
Nine's face reverted back to its normal blue color, and its expression back to that of a normal, calm one. This likewise caused the two avalis to lower their hands.

"We took her from a town, correct?" Nine asked. Both of his fellows nodded as he continued. "Then there is a high probability that she is still there. That is, if you sent her there."

"I did attempt to send her back to the exact same spot we took her from" Khaun responded thoughtfully. "However, there was a bit of interference at the last moment..."

"Interference?" Nine asked worriedly. Khaun nodded, then quickly shook his head.

"No, no I'm sure it's fine. It wasn't much. Not enough to cause a malfunction or anything."

"In that case, assuming that's correct, It is probable that she is in the process of seeking out one or more of her friends."

"Yes, she had two if I recall." Eilumi put his hand to his chin in thought. "A blue and black cat-like person with a star at the end of their tail... a 'shinx', I believe the memories called it?"

Nine nodded, while Khaun looked on.

"If memory recalls, he was taken by that raichu."

"Yeah... That guy... which one was that again?" Khaun questioned. Nine flashed an annoyed expression across his LED visor.

"The rat-raider." Eilumi sighed.

"And the last one... the Eevee. Veera, right?" Nine nodded in response to Khaun's query. 

"The one that looks a bit like a brown fox. Should be easy enough to identify." Eilumi added.

"Correct."

"So the plan is to search the town for Loona and this 'Veera', in either order, and then once we have both of them, try to find this 'Shia' person." Eilumi confirmed.

"Wait, why not go after the Shia one first?" Khaun asked. "Shouldn't the fact that he's being held captive make him a bigger priority?"
 
"Normally, yes, it would. However, I do not know where in this 'Maze' he could be located. If what her memories told us about that place is true, we'd be looking for a long time. " Eilumi responded. "And given the chance of the other two being in the same location being very high, odds are we'll find them far sooner than we would if we looked for Shia first then came back."

"That does sound logical." Nine added in.

"Then it is decided-"

 "Wait!" Khaun interrupted. "Should we take any special precautions? We are, after all, aliens to this world. Last time we got lucky that it was the dead of night. If we just wander about during the day..."

"Minimal precautions necessary." Nine replied. "This planet appears to be an anomaly, an indeterminate number of fully sentient species inhabit it at once. Far more than even the human homeworld before its destruction by The Ruin. As long as we do not take the dropship with us, we should be able to pass as strangers from another land."

"Actually, wait." Khaun once again interrupted, and left the room. Some noises could be heard in the back as Nine and Eiluni look at each other, both of them having questioning looks on their faces.

Some time later, Khaun returned, bearing three objects in the palm of his hand. Three familiar looking objects.

"Are those?" Eiluni asked, and Khaun nodded.
"Pin these to your clothes somewhere." Khaun ordered.