Mira looked away from Jelo, unable to meet his eyes. The blush on her face was still visible, and she seemed to be struggling with the same awkwardness that had settled over both of them like a heavy blanket. She cleared her throat and tried to inject some normalcy into her voice. "We should probably head out and try to look for the portal."

"Yeah," Jelo agreed quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Yeah, we should definitely do that."

They both started walking, their movements stiff and awkward. Neither one looked at the other. Neither one spoke. The silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and charged with the memory of what had just happened. Jelo kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, hyper-aware of Mira's presence beside him but refusing to acknowledge it directly.

As they walked, Jelo suddenly remembered something important. The reason he'd come to this building in the first place. With everything that had happened—the scientist, the monsters, the evolution, the spar—he'd completely forgotten the original purpose of his journey.

"You know," Jelo said, breaking the awkward silence, "it's kind of interesting. The search for the portal was actually what brought me to this building in the first place."

Mira glanced at him, grateful for the change of subject. "Really?"

"Yeah," Jelo continued, his voice becoming more animated as he focused on something other than their recent… proximity. "I just had this feeling, you know? Like the portal could be somewhere inside this building, or at least I'd find something that could help us escape this place. Some kind of clue or device or maybe even just information about how the portals work. And then…" He trailed off, his expression darkening slightly. "That's when I ran into the scientist and got captured."

Mira nodded, processing this information. "So your instincts led you here, and you ended up trapped in that bunker."

"Pretty much," Jelo confirmed. "Though I guess it worked out in the end. I mean, I evolved, got new abilities, and we're both still alive. Could have been worse."

"Could have been better too," Mira pointed out. "We still don't know where the portal is."

"True," Jelo admitted.

There was a brief pause, and then Mira asked, her voice genuinely curious, "What have you been doing since you got to this planet? Since we got separated?"

The question made Jelo stop and think. He turned to look at Mira properly for the first time since their awkward moment, and he realized something that hadn't fully registered before. This was truly their first time meeting here ever since they had passed through the portal together. They had been separated immediately upon arrival, thrown into different parts of this hostile world with no way to contact each other or coordinate. He'd been so focused on survival, on finding Dabba to consume, on not dying, that he hadn't fully processed how long it had been since he'd seen her.

Jelo sighed heavily, the weight of the past few hours settling onto his shoulders. "I've had quite an eventful few hours," he said, his tone carrying exhaustion and a hint of dark humor. "Eventful doesn't even begin to cover it, actually."

He began to explain, organizing his thoughts as he spoke. "After we got separated, I stumbled around for a while. I had this massive headache—I think it was from passing through the portal, or maybe just from hitting my head when I landed. Either way, my head was killing me, and I could barely think straight. But I kept moving because I knew stopping would be worse."

Mira listened intently, her expression serious.

"I was looking for three things," Jelo continued. "Looking for you, obviously. Looking for Dabba because I needed to eat to recover my strength. And looking for a portal back home because that was the whole point of being here in the first place. I wandered through a bunch of ruined buildings, avoided some Dabba packs that looked too dangerous to fight in my condition, and just… kept searching."

He paused, remembering those desperate hours. "Then I stumbled across two mutated Dabba. Bigger than normal ones, stronger too. They cornered me in this collapsed structure, and I didn't have much choice but to fight. It was rough. My head was still pounding, I was running on fumes, and these things were relentless. But I managed to kill them both."

"And you ate their hearts?" Mira asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah," Jelo confirmed. "Only then was I fully revitalized. The headache disappeared, my strength came back, and I felt… better than I had in hours. And then I leveled up. The system gave me XP for defeating them, and I gained a level."

He smiled slightly, though there was a bitter edge to it. "I even thought that would be my only level up on this planet. I figured I'd killed two strong Dabba, gained some power, and that would be it until we found the portal and got back home. I had no idea there was another level up waiting for me, let alone a full evolution. Life's funny that way."

He paused. "What about you? What happened after we got separated?"

-----

Meanwhile, back at the Military Academy, in a completely different world and context, Atlas and Ken were dealing with a disturbing realization of their own.

Jelo was missing.

They sat in Atlas and Jelo's shared dorm room right now, talking in tense, hushed voices. The atmosphere was thick with worry and frustration. Atlas had been the one to first notice Jelo's disappearance. At first, he hadn't thought much of it. He'd assumed Jelo was with Ken, or maybe just busy somewhere around the academy—training in one of the practice rooms, studying in the library, or even just taking a walk to clear his head. Jelo did that sometimes when he needed to think.

But as the day wore on and the light outside began to dim, signaling the approach of evening, Jelo still hadn't returned to their room. That's when Atlas started to actively look for him. He checked all the usual places first—the cafeteria, the training halls, the common areas where students gathered. Nothing. No sign of Jelo anywhere.

Then Atlas went to find Ken, thinking maybe Jelo had mentioned something to him about where he was going. But Ken said Jelo wasn't with him and hadn't told him about any plans. That's when the worry really started to set in.

They both went searching together after that, checking the common room where students played games and socialized, the game room with its various entertainment systems and combat simulators, and even some of the more secluded areas of the academy where students sometimes went to be alone. They couldn't find Jelo anywhere. He'd simply vanished.

That's when they realized something might actually be wrong. Students didn't just disappear from the academy. The place was supposed to be secure, monitored, safe. If Jelo was gone without explanation, without telling anyone, then something had happened.

As Ken and Atlas now sat in the room, the tension between them palpable, Ken suddenly got an idea. His eyes lit up with realization, and he turned to Atlas. "We should go look for Mira."

Atlas looked at him questioningly. "Mira?"

"Yeah," Ken said, already standing up from where he'd been sitting on Jelo's bed. "Jelo's been spending time with her recently. They've been… I don't know, hanging out or training together or something. If anyone knows where Jelo is, it might be her."

Atlas's expression immediately hardened at the mention of Mira's name. His jaw tightened, and something dark flashed in his eyes—anger, resentment, maybe jealousy. He didn't like Mira. He'd made that clear on multiple occasions, though he'd never fully explained why to Ken or anyone else. There was history there, something unspoken but clearly unpleasant.

Still, Atlas couldn't argue with Ken's logic. If Mira and Jelo had been spending time together, she might know something about his whereabouts. Personal feelings aside, finding Jelo was more important.

"Fine," Atlas said curtly, standing up as well. "Let's go find her."

The two of them left the room together, heading out into the academy corridors to search for Mira.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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