The Neon Desert. The *Neon* Desert. The Neon *Desert*. *The* Neon Desert. Why does it seem to familiar to our greened protagonist? She's been able to traverse it so effortlessly, knowing every corner, every segment, as if a map was in her head. Why did everything seem so familiar *now?* Of all places...? Ika wandered outside the shack her and Mako were staying at for the time being, taking some of her belongings: her backpack, with all the survival equipment you would need, and of course, her blade. She took it out to make sure it was hers... she had recently needed to get a new one, her old one broke - thankfully, the dwarves could do the job. It was a pristine white blade, the guards some color of dark-green metal (they said it was an emerald-tungsten alloy, whatever that was), and the grip was wrapped in some kind of leathery pelt. *It's fine. I'm fine. Just clear your head. Just keep walking.* Ika kept traversing the dunes, which seemed to sprawl nearly endlessly. Still the same shade of purple. This felt wrong to her, in ways she couldn't describe, but also right, in ways she'd rather *not* describe. She looked behind her, the footsteps still tracing back to the cabin. She hadn't gotten too far, but clearly having asked to be alone, she didn't expect to be followed by anyone. *Would anyone even recognize me like this? Can anyone even see me?* She looked around. Not a soul in sight. To her right, the cabin. To her left, though, she saw something she had entirely overlooked. A light, in the distance. It was very faint, but still, she couldn't shake that it was important to some degree. She dropped her backpack on the ground and searched through it. *Water bottles... products... rations... aha! A telescope!* She pulled out the spyglass and peered through it, trying to get a decent focus. The light seemed to diverge into two, then four, then potentially four-hundred... *Is that... A city?* Ika swore she could have heard the concept before, but never actually thought the damned thing would exist. She tried to get as good of a look as she could... Tall towers, though not as tall as any of the mountains Ika's had to climb, and lots of bright lights in three colors - Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow. Ika tried her best to look at the tallest tower among them... There was just a large sign that said "Casino". She dropped the spyglass on the sand, letting it roll away into a divot in the dunes. She looked around again - just the shack, just the light, just the desert stretched in either way. A tear welled up in her left eye, which she wiped away with her hand. It stung a little, but she just needed to keep her composure. *That's home, isn't it? That's why I'm so different, isn't it? Why I don't belong, why I don't feel right... I've been far from home... So far... I...* She couldn't take it anymore. She just *couldn't*, no matter how hard she tried. She just needed an escape, she just needed to understand everything, she just needed answers, she just needed it to stop hurting. *Please, I just want to stop hurting!* She clutched her head and sat down on the sand, it being cool to the touch. It felt as if her brain was going to explode, as she was going to burst, as if- # "I WANT TO STOP HURTING!!" She had to yell it. It was like venting a lot of heat, it had to be done. She felt like she was going to fall apart, even though she had just discovered something vital, she felt like she was never going to be done, never going to be finished, she just wanted to know *now* so she could just go home and live the perfect life she was meant to have, so she could just rest for once in her *fucking* life, if she could just go back, [[Undo]] what she'd done, if she could just- Her pain felt only mental. She felt it needed justifying. If she could just feel it *physically*, maybe, maybe then it would be okay. Ika rustled through her backpack again, pulling out some bandages, a bottle of a clear liquid labelled "Potato Tonic", and another bottle, this time spherical in shape, with a red liquid and a heart embezzled into the glass. Ika pulled back her sleeve, revealing a number of other red marks, and poured some of the tonic onto it, making sure to rub it in, feeling the burn it caused, before drinking the rest from the bottle and throwing it a ways in front of her. She unsheathed her blade, let her arm rest horizontally, braced for some sort of satisfaction... ## "No!!!" At precisely that moment, Ika was tackled by an unknown force, being swept off the ground and sent tumbling downward with a reddish blur of some sort, unable to get her grips on anything. Out of panic, she thrashed against the foe, kicking, trying to evaluate the situation, but eventually, her hands were pinned to the ground, something sitting on her legs to make sure she couldn't get up. "No, no, no! Ika, no! Sweetie, no, please!" Ika tried her best to get the sand out of her eyes. She blinked, shook her head - it was still irritating her, but she could at least see now. "M-Mako?" Mako looked at her wistfully. "Of course it's me! Ika, what were you thinking? You could have hurt yourself!" Ika coughed due to all the dust in the air. Mako seemed unaffected. "I... does it matter? I hurt, Mako. You know this. I know this. Gramps knows this. Edgie and Toby, they know this. Yolk knows this. Everyone knows this. I hurt. Can't I just feel the pain, for once?" Mako slammed her hands down on Ika's forearms. "No! No, you can't just 'feel the pain', sweetie, you don't *deserve* that kind of thing! I'm here! You don't need to do that! Please, listen to me!" Ika closed her eyes to the flame in front of her. "I... no, Mako, it's useless. Pointless, all of this, it's worth nothing! I'm worth nothing! Why do you even bother to put up with me?" "I don't put up with you, Ika, I *love* you, I love nothing more than *being* with you, I... It... I..." Mako couldn't take it anymore and released her grip, collapsing onto the outstretched girl. Her tone shifted from something you'd say in an emergency to something downbeat. "It breaks my heart when you talk about yourself like this, Ika... The best person I know can't even see why I love them..." She started to cry, too. "I... I know you're broken, but you've been doing *so well*, if I could just... make you see it, if I could just make you feel it... I know you love me, Ika, but, can you love yourself?" Ika didn't know what to say. She felt bad for taking Mako's love for granted, but... it still was too much for her. The electrochemistry that wanted the pain had died down, in favor of... just wanting to be loved. Just wanting approval... "I'm sorry, Mako. I... I haven't been doing the best at loving myself, have I?" "No... I mean, I understand it, but... You're really important to me, you know that?" "I know. You're important to me too, Mako... I'm sorry..." "It's okay. Just... try to love yourself at least a little, okay?" "I'll try..." Mako arose from the ground and spotted the bandages that were dropped in the scuffle. She retrieved them without effort and kneeled to tend to Ika's wounds, wrapping up her cut arm with them, and scraping off any sand that had gotten on them in the blast. "You better, sweetie?" "I'm... fine, I guess. You do so much for me, I don't know what to say..." "It's because I love you! You love me, right?" "I do, but... here, hold on." Ika emerged from the sands, and ran over to where the spyglass was, handing it to Mako. "You see that light over there? Try looking at it with this." She pointed off towards the spark. "You see that?" Mako gasped! "Woah! That's big! Do you think that's..." "Synth City, the one and only. Seems to fit, no?" "Yeah... it looks amazing like that..." Mako lowered the spyglass. "But from here, it's just... ah! A gleam of light!" "Oh! But there's no ruins around here..." "Maybe not around *here*, sweetie, but over there?", Mako pointed towards the light, "Probably lots of stuff!" "Should we... depart there, then? Not now, but... perhaps tomorrow?" "Maybe in a couple of days. I still have to catch up with gramps. Let's just... get you resting, okay?" Ika nodded. "You too, Maks. You're a hard worker." Mako smiled brightly, beaming from her face. "Awh, thanks!" The duo walked towards the shack, perhaps planning a trip. They needed some rest, but they felt more connected than ever.