Stephline let out a half shriek as he hit the floor in front of her. "Oh my word, Davhi! Are you okay? Please say you're not hurt!" She yelled as she dropped to one knee and half dragged him into her lap while searching for any potential damage.

Davhi grinned. "I'm fine. Nothing is damaged except for my pride." He said, getting up. He peeked into the next room, and gasped. The room was very large, but completely empty other than a large archway.

Stephline followed him out, glad he wasn't hurt: She'd never admit, but she had a habit of mentally referring to him as hers.

But she was kind of confused when he started gawking at an archway, until she remembered that he didn't see just light reflecting off of surfaces. "Davhi? What is it?" She murmured. "What am I missing here?"

"It's a portal." Davhi said, gazing at it. "It keeps flickering between destinations. They all seem identical, though. Should we walk through?"

She took his hand and started leading again, deciding to let her actions speak for her. There were times when it was really best to just roll with things.

Davhi grinned. If he had to go into a portal which may or may not throw them into peril, he couldn't think of a person he would rather do it with.

She smiled as she stepped through, running her hand through her hair as the other went to perch on her hip, and then she froze with horror. Slowly she turned and looked over her shoulder, shaking slightly.

She hadn't let go of his hand when she'd stepped through the portal.

Where the hell was Davhi?

As Davhi entered the portal, he was grinning. By the time he got through, it was gone, and in it's place was a look of horror.

Stephline was gone.

"Gone." Davhi said, not comprehending anything.

***

Taavi stepped through the portal. "Here's where the disturbance was. You know those two cyro-tubes? They opened." He said, looking about.

"The portal's still warm. They just went through it a few minutes ago. We should catch them." Kalei said. "Before they do anything that might ruin Davin's experiments."

Taavi sighed. "Okay. I don't sense anything living here. Let's go."

It was about three seconds before the news sunk in. She's lost him. Davhi wasn't here. The love of her life wasn't with her. She resorted to the only thing that made any sense to her.

Run right back through the portal, and hope that she found him soon.

¬¬¬

Tod looked over to Dot sharply. "W-What was that?" She choked as she felt something stab through her gut.

He grunted, adjusting his glasses before looking around. "C'mon" He got up, cricked his joints and started striding towards the nearest portal with his twin hot on his heels.

Taavi and Kalei were about to enter the portal when someone burst through the portal.

"Erm. Are you okay?" Taavi asked, sensing the discord in the newcomer's head.

Stephline looked at the two, and fear quickly turned into pure rage.

"Do I look okay to you?" She seethed, taking a slow step forward. "No, genius. I am not okay. I couldn't be less okay if I TRIED." She snarled, pulling a frying pan from nowhere.

These two would tell her where he was, even if she had to reduce them to pulp in the process.

"You're in the labs of Davin." Kalei said. "I recognize you. You were part of one of the experiments, I think."

"Oh!" Taavi said. "I'm thinking that you're looking for your children, right?"

That made her stop and stare.

"...Children? I have kids? What? No! I'm looking for my- I'm looking for Davhi."

She frowned again, and glared at Taavi. "You can explain what you meant by 'My children' when we start searching. And I do mean we because the pair of you are going to help. Clear?" She wasn't going to have any arguments from them, even if the word 'Davin' was trying to get her attention, along with 'Your children'.

". . .Oh." Taavi said. He thought that Stephline and Davhi didn't even know eachother when Davin picked them up.

Kalei nodded and said "Yes, ma'am. You split up when you went through the portal, right? There are hundreds of other labs just like this, and Davhi could be in any of them." He turned to Taavi. "Can't you do some sort of scan for him, to find out where he is?"

Taavi smiled. "I should, but it'd be in a different lab. Let's meet back here." He pressed a key combination on the arch, and then walked through and vanished.

Kalei turned to Stephline. "I'll explain how the portals work. When they're not set to anything, they randomly shift between labs. Each lab has a number, that you can enter into the keypad on the arch. What happened, I think, is that the portal shifted after one of you entered, before the other did. The number for this lab is. . ." He looked closely at some serial numbers on the arch. "865. As long as you remember this number. you can go back here at any time."

* * *

Davhi woke up. He looked around for Stephline, and then remembered that she was gone. He started to get dizzy and was about to pass out again when he stopped himself.
"I'm not going to pass out." He said to himself. "I'm going to find her."

He got up, and wandered out of the arch room. Then he tripped over a cable and fell into a machine. He was forcefully knocked out.

She nodded silently and looked back at the arch, and then Kalei again.

"Seeing as we have some free time, you can start explaining what he meant by 'Children'...And who's Davin?"

¬ ¬ ¬

The twins rounded a corner, Tod almost walking into her brother as he stopped. "W-What is it?" She queried as she ducked around him, and found the reason why he'd frozen sprawled on the floor. She blinked and started walking forwards, drawn to him for unknown reasons.

Dot fixed his glasses and slowly began approaching, frowning. This could end badly...