to the lab space is open!” Nami said.

They smiled at each other and happily made their way downstairs to embrace their friend. They were ready to tell him everything that happened and to make everything right again.

“Caiden! We’re so happy to see you!” Nami said. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs when she realized that the man standing there wasn’t Caiden.

“Who the fuck are you!?” the Hitomi shrieked. The girls tensed, ready to run back up the stairs.

“Hey, wait a sec!” the man said. He was in the training area, looking around.

The twins saw the new weapons Caiden had developed on one of the lab tables. They rushed to them, picked them up and pointed them with the intent to kill the intruder.

“This is just a big misunderstanding! Wait! Please!” the man pleaded with his hands in the air to show he wasn’t a threat.

“Who the fuck are you!?” Hitomi asked.

“Why are you here!?” Nami asked.

“Okay, okay! Just chill out! I can explain! I came here because of a friend! He gave me these coordinates!” Vantz took a piece of paper out of his pocket. “He said that when in doubt, or when my life is in danger, or if things got outta hand to just come here. Caiden, he… There’s something going on with him and I can’t figure out what it is, so I came here. But I wasn’t expecting to see all of this,” the man said.

“You know Caiden? Wait, is your name Vantz?” Nami asked.

“You know my name? Yeah, I’m Vantz. I’ve been Caiden’s best friend since we were fifteen!” Vantz said.

Nami and Hitomi looked at each other. They knew Caiden was far too cautious and meticulous to give the location’s coordinates to just anyone. They also took into account that he had very few friends apart from them and Vantz. What Vantz said added up. They lowered their weapons.

“Phew! You guys scared the shit outta me! I’m sorry for startling you,” Vantz said.

“Likewise,” Hitomi said.

“Yeah, so, you guys know my name. What’re yours?” Vantz pleasantly asked.

“I’m Nami. This is my sister, Hitomi. Nice to finally meet Caiden’s best friend,” Nami said.

“Yeah, that’s me. So, how’d you guys meet Mr. Antisocial?” Vantz asked, snickering as he said it.

“He is definitely antisocial. Where do we start? Well, we all kinda met under, like, really weird circumstances. Nams and I, we were kinda— Well, we were working at The LoveMaars,” Hitomi said awkwardly.

“The LoveMaars!? I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve heard so many stories about that place. Just never thought I’d meet a couple of, uh, employees from there. I’m sorry, please continue,” Vantz said.

“Well, how we ended up there is really a long story, but, we sent out an encoded message on CWR. Caiden managed to crack the code. Fast forward some time, and we ended up meeting face to face, and he helped us escape from there,” Nami explained.

“We’ve been camping out here, hiding from Chimera ever since, until recently. He promised to help us get home back to Rune Village, but so many things started getting out of hand. We tried to help, but we only ended up getting in his way. So, we left to get out of his way, and to try and make our own way home,” Hitomi said.

“But, obviously, we’re back here, so the latter plan didn’t work all that well. This is the safest place we know, and with Caide’s new developments, we figured that it was best to come back here to see what was going on,” Hitomi added.

“Whoa, man. This is totally insane! But hearing your story confirms a lot of things. Caide can’t just sit by idly and watch innocent people get hurt. He’s always been like that, which is why I find all this craziness about him being the person behind the assassination of Ren Krong to be complete bullshit. I know he has his ways, but he would never do something as terrible as that,” Vantz said. The twins nodded in agreement.

“No wonder Caide risked life and limb to save you,” Nami said.

“Oh, man. So, you know about the android situation, I guess,” Vantz said, embarrassed.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Look at us!” Nami replied.

“Yeah, I came here not because I’m in danger or anything, but because he seemed a lot more stressed lately. And now he’s nowhere to be found. I’ve tried calling him. I just hope he’s not getting himself into deep shit he can’t get out of,” Vantz said, concerned about his friend.

“Yeah, that’s part of the reason we… Huh?” Nami was interrupted.

On the computer screen’s security feed, a was a platoon of Psi-Corp soldiers, accompanied by a dozen Chimera Gang members who were rummaging about near the hidden entrance of Home-base. They were closing in, slowly inspecting the area.

“Oh my God! How did they find this place?” Nami asked, panicking.

“There’s no way they could’ve followed us! I thought we gave them the slip!” Hitomi replied.

“You guys were followed here?” Vantz asked.

“We were about to snag a hover sander and escape the city, but before we could make our move, this guy from Chimera showed up with a bunch of Psi-Corp officers and his own goon squad,” she said.

“We were almost recaptured, but we got away,” Nami added.

“There’s been so many rumors of a partnership between them, but this shows it’s true,” Vantz said.

“Slavo! That bastard! He must’ve tracked us using his optic visor augmentation,” Hitomi said in frustration.

Both twins picked up their weapons. Nami put in a command to Xandra’s security system to lock and seal the door to the lab space and to turn the power off upstairs. Their enemies were standing in front of the boulders at the secret entrance. The soldiers and armed thugs were equipped with scanners, attempting to find clues how the girls managed to vanish into thin air.

“It’s no wonder Chimera has been able to exist and run as freely as they have. If they’re doing joint-task missions like these, that means

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