Month One: The First Trial?

"I checked it before we got trapped. There were four people down here, including us, so two more left over, I think they may have fallen in the collapse," One of the injured workers had explained to Sky. Sky nodded, peering down the hole in front of him while Carl followed right beside him.

"That's a long way down. How far does this mine go?" Carl asked. Sky, on the other hand, immediately jumped to the very bottom of the hole. Carl was stuck at the top as Sky plummeted to the bottom, landing securely on his feet while looking around.

Carl used his gun to break his fall and grapple the rest of the way to the bottom, leading the lantern in front of him to observe his surroundings.

From all around Sky and Carl, there were stalactites hanging from the ceiling, dripping drops of water onto the rocky surface of the ground. The two were lost in the sight of the expanded cave. It wasn't a natural formation that came with a collapse, this had been here for a long, long time.

"What is this? How far did they dig?" Carl asked, looking around the slotted holes in the caves.

The floor consisted of droplets of water, soft rock, and dried blood that ran rampant through every single inch. Sky looked at it in disgust, attempting to rationalize what was wrong with the tunnel.

"This is weird... too weird... look, this blood is dried, not as if this just happened," Sky mentioned to Carl. Again, Carl had been surprised of his keen observation, looking around to try and one-up him.

"Footprints right there! They landed... safely?" Carl asked himself out loud, crouching closely to the floor and looking at the prints he could see.

"Stop... don't move..." Sky said. He held his arm out toward Carl, remaining silent as he pushed golden strands through the floor to highlight his surroundings. After turning a corner with the strands, Sky's eyes lit up in surprise, motioning to Carl to keep quiet.

"A Rubeki...?" Sky muttered. Carl had never seen a Rubeki in his life, but from the look of the creature Sky observed, it closely resembled the shape of War, a Rubeki who was capable of intricate thoughts and strategy. Sky studied the Rubeki closer, attempting to figure out what it was.

Sky gave up the silent act and took another step forward, sucking in a deep breath while looking out to the direction of the corner.

"Providia," Sky called out. Carl was confused by the name he called out, turning his head to see where Sky was moving to.

A bright flash of light emanated from the figure, lighting up the cave for Sky and Carl's sake as she walked forward. She was a stunning girl to Carl's eyes, clad in white robes. She had two different colored eyes, one gold and one black, along with vibrant red-orange wings behind her as she walked forward.

"I thought I had seen the last of you in The First Trial. What are you doing here?" Sky asked. He had his guard lowered, but Carl wouldn't falter, no matter what the person looked like.

"I thought of myself to be done as well, but shortly as Ali Asterio and Providence Achamo were done fighting, I had become the one who kept running The First Trial," Providia revealed to Sky. He tilted his head in confusion, not realizing The First Trial would keep running even without him inside of it.

"Wait, but that doesn't make any sense. What are you doing here, of all places?" Sky asked Providia next. As the light shot out through the cave, it moved past Providia, revealing an underground city of immense proportions that almost exactly represented the look of The First Trial's world.

"What the... how...?" Sky moved his hand to the edge of a rock, peering into the city to observe what had become of the world he had left.

"Something shook about a month ago... something had brought us here, and we've been trying to find resources to live, to sustain us. Just recently, we heard a noise in this direction and came as soon as we could," Providia said.

"We? What are you talking about, we?" Sky asked. From around the corner came another light, one that was a forest green.

Gabrielle was Headmaster Zach's secretary from The First Trial, endlessly healing everybody that she could during the fight with the Rubeki. She was thought to have died in the fight with the Rubeki but made her appearance to Sky and Carl.

"Miss Gabrielle! You're alive!" Sky called out. He ran beside her, crouching down to see her fixing the broken legs of both of the miners who fell into the hole.

"It's nice to see you again, Sky! I heard about what happened... with Illya and everything. She took you out of this world, didn't she? And your mom... oh, I'm so sorry honey," Gabrielle told Sky, rubbing the top of his right hand while continuing to heal the other two people.

"Illya and I made amends... but she ended up dying a month ago. And, it's okay, about my mom I mean. It's motivation, to assure myself that I'll never stop working to do the right thing," Sky admitted. He observed the process of healing from the outside, refusing to interfere with his golden strands in fear of what they would do if they conflicted.

"That's an awful healthy way of looking at things," Gabrielle said, smiling as the healing finished up.

"So, with you two being down here... along with the rest of that world, what's the plan for you? Are you going to stay? Move up to the surface?" Sky asked. Providia tilted her head in confusion.

"Surface? What's wrong with our home down here?" Providia returned a question. The question alone had struck some sort of uneasiness within Sky as he began to think about the different outcomes of their interaction.