Kragon slowly lifted his head up from his work. Here he was, inside one of the mysterious Ponu vaults. A world of technology that he couldn't wait to figure out. That was what was killing him; none of it seemed to work without being activated by someone connected to Geeryo. He had put that together from the way the interfaces always rejected him, because as a scavenger, he was not one of their creations.

  He looked at the hole in the door they had blown open to get inside. He wondered if maybe the entire system, realizing it was an illegal entry, had simply shut down. It had taken him hours just to turn the alarm off, which blared and blared after the explosion.

  Still, this vault, number 20, had yielded few secrets. There were pods, probably sleeping units for the Ponu, he guessed. Still, there was no eating area, no break rooms, nothing at all that looked like living quarters. This can't be all, he thought. Maybe the pods are where they are made. It just didn't make sense.

  He thought of JaKaelath; somehow, she was connected to a place like this, but how? No one he knew had ever seen a Ponu as a child, or for that matter, an older Ponu. They all seemed oddly to be around the same age. Take JaKaelath out of the picture, he thought, and he would swear they were all manufactured. He had known JaKaelath since they were kids. It didn't make sense to him. Just maybe something in this vault would not only give him information to help defeat the Ponu, but maybe also to understand the woman he loved for so long.

  Then, he saw something else that didn't make sense. Looking at one of the monitors in the Vault, he saw....it was JaKaelath, in her Ponu suit, walking towards the vault. Why was she here, now of all times? Did she know he was there? He watched and saw something else that made his stomach drop. Coming from above was a Sky Reaper. Kragon stood up from his chair and slowly backed back. This was death approaching his former love. JaKaelath seemed to hear the Sky Reaper and began to run towards the entrance. The Sky Reaper dives, but JaKaelath tries to duck. The monster just glances by her, but it's enough contact to send her tumbling over and over before rolling against the side of the Vault building. There she lies motionless.

  The monster lands and slowly walks back towards his meal.

  Kragon, remembering the security alarm system he had shut off, reactivates the alarm. It blares out. The Sky Reaper stops, looking confused. He looks down at JaKaelath, blood dripping from her head, and with an almost arrogance that says she's not going anywhere, he enters the vault to see if there are even more Ponu possible inside who may have set off the alarm.

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  Kragon watches him on the monitor and waits until the monster has made it far down a hallway. Then Kragon uses a different route to bypass the approaching creature and make it out of the Vault.

  Heart racing, mouth dry with fear, he picks up JaKaelath and carries her back to the horse he brought, tied to a tree behind the Vault. He places JaKaelath across the horse, gets on himself and without looking back, rides as fast as he can to the nearest tree covering. He can hear the creature let out a skin-crawling shriek in frustration, still in the vault.

  After what seemed like an hour but was probably closer to 30 minutes, he finally stops, hands trembling, to look at JaKaelath, hoping she is not dead. The wound is on her forehead, and it is bleeding, but he soon applies treatment to it to help stop that. She is out cold. She looks ...different in a way, very much the same, but something just seems, feels different. There is a softness in this woman, even while unconscious or sleeping, which he had never seen in JaKaelath. She begins to come through a little. Her eyes open, "scavenger!" she says with shock before passing out again from the trauma of her injury. Kragon stands up and steps back, the higher voice is the proof, this is not JaKaelath, he thinks with horror. He remembers the Ponu twin that JaKaelath had told him about. This has to be her.

  He paces frantically back and forth in front of the unconscious Ponu, contemplating paths to take.

  He looks down at her. So identical that even he was fooled for a moment. Mistaking her for the same woman he woke up to every morning for years.

  He weighs his options. If he takes her back to the camp, she becomes proof that JaKaelath was a Ponu. Any possible defense of her goes out the window. If JaKaelath is later found, she would probably be executed moments after being returned to camp. However, maybe, just maybe, he thinks, there's a way to use this situation to help JaKaelath. Yes, a life for a life. Maybe there's a way. Besides, he thinks, what's the life of one Ponu compared to that of the woman whom he once, and still loves.

  He grabs Francesca, lifting her and placing her back across the horse. He has to get her back to the camp as soon as possible, but he must be secret about it for his plan to work; no one must see him enter the camp or his tent with her.

  He glows with an inner smile, wondering what JaKaelath would think if she realized the length he was going through to help save her neck.