The bright sunlight reflected off of Oliver’s silvery flesh and green crystalline clothes. He clenched his fist and gnashed his metallic teeth. Of course he was sad to see his home, his entire village burned down and in ruins. But more than anything else, he was furious.

“Who did this?!” Jade was also angry but she felt more guilt than anything else, “Ollie… Am I cursed?”

“You’re not cursed… No, I guess we’re all ‘Cursed’…” He shook his head and breathed out a long sigh, “Come on. Let’s search for clues and try to figure out what the hell happened!”

The fires were out, but some buildings were still smoldering. Since most of the houses were made of stone, they weren’t completely destroyed. Just blackened and crumbling in some places. The windows were busted or even melted. Some remains could be seen here and there, especially the charred corpses. Anything that wasn’t burned, was already decomposed to the point where it was completely unrecognizable as well.

“These bastards must’ve been the ones that attacked Verde, but…” Oliver frowned as he knelt down and started sifting through the ‘wreckage’ of a few bodies, looking for any kind of identification.

“Aside from wearing black, they don’t really have any other features.” Jade sniffled and wiped the glowing green ‘tears’ from her gray cheeks with her forearm, though it just made the slimy liquid smear everywhere.

“Jade…” Oliver looked at her face that was dyed fluorescent green and couldn’t help smiling, “Here. Let me help you.”

With a little bit of effort, all the tears were sucked into the air above his palm, forming a swirling crystal that hardened rapidly.

“Thanks, Ollie…” She sniffled again and coughed a few times, “Sorry… I need your help…”

“Don’t be sorry, Jade. I love you.”

“I love you too, Ollie.”

The two of them looked into each others’ crystalline eyes for a moment, one yellow and the other green. Unlike Jade who only glowed in the darkness or when she overused her powers, it seemed like Oliver’s eyes were always very bright. Which didn’t seem like a problem at first glance, but realistically, it meant that he couldn’t safely be around normal humans. At least not with his eyes open. At least his hair was just the ‘normal’ white and didn’t glow green all the time.

“Can we… Can you hug me, Ollie?”

“Huh?” He looked at her in confusion for a moment, “Sure?”

Even though he was fairly tall, she was still about half a head taller than him. However, he was obviously much wider and now, much, much heavier. In fact, Uranium is 18.7 times denser than water. If he was made of solid Uranium metal, then he would be about 1,870 kilograms… Nearly 2 tons! With every ‘light’ step he took, he left footprints on the concrete and his feet often got stuck in the dirt on his way over to the village.

“Ollie, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know…” He buried his metal face in her stone shoulder and murmured, “I guess… Find that bitch-er, I mean, find Verna in Opal City?”

“You’re right! Verna should be fine!” Jade’s loud shout startled the metallic man and he almost sent her flying…

“My ears… You trying to deafen me?!” Oliver pushed her away and rubbed right ear, “We should hurry up and scavenge shit before anybody else shows up! We also need to move our base… Those bastards probably won’t let us go now.”

“We killed a Legend…” Jade nodded seriously, “He wasn’t a hermit like my Papa either. They sent him here to kill us! They should have some way to know what’s happening here… Right?”

“Ugh…” He groaned and nodded, “Come on.”

Instead of the warehouse or Verna’s shop, Oliver went straight for the clinic that used to be his home. Although a lot of things were destroyed in the fire, some of the more expensive equipment was stored in fireproof metal boxes or down in the basement, which wasn’t really affected much. There were also a lot of secret tunnels down there, which connected to Verna’s Shop across the street, the warehouse, Emerald’s house and even stretched all the way to right next to the entrance to their secret base. 

Instead of walking around out in the open, it was much safer to stay underground… Even though Oliver wasn’t a ‘Miner’ anymore and his Rank dropped down to 5, it didn’t mean that he was weaker than before. Uranium is incredibly dense, almost as dense as tungsten and gold. Hence why even if he wasn’t made of solid uranium, his body was immensely heavy. Being 5 times ‘stronger’ under those circumstances, meant that he was able to easily dig through tons of rock and stone with his bare hands if necessary. Ripping apart areas of collapsed houses was incredibly simple.

“Ollie… Why don’t you use your powers?” Jade waved her hands and an entire building was torn apart, then the gold coins, gold bars, silver and other valuables landed in a giant stone bowl.

“I’m saving my energy.” Oliver rolled his glowing green eyes and complained, “Besides, look at your hands! You barely have any Uranium in your body and you’re already on the verge of melting when you overexert yourself. What do you think’s gonna happen if I strain myself?”

“Ah, that’s true.” Jade nodded, then looked over at the handsome metal man who easily drilled through the wreckage of Granny Woods’ house. The bricks, wood and concrete were demolished without much effort at all. However, the efficiency was still very low. So she reached out and disassembled the ‘stone’ from the entire building in a few seconds. Even most of the wood and other materials were still connected to the concrete, so she could basically manipulate everything.

“Don’t waste your energy!” Oliver threw a small steel safe out of the hole that used to be a basement, then easily climbed out and caught the safe before it could even hit the ground.

“Don’t forget that we might have to fight another monster at any time!”

“Does the government have so many Legends?” Jade let the floating debris collapse back into the hole in the ground and splatter around randomly, destroying what was left of the garden out back.

“How the hell should I know?!” Oliver tore off the door of the steel lockbox and looked inside, “Check this out!”

“What is it?” The stone girl put her glowing orange hands on his shoulders and leaned over to look at what he was holding, “Hehe~! I like you a lot better this way, Ollie!”

“Uh, thanks…” He cleared his throat and picked up a bunch of passports, identification cards, currencies from random countries that neither of them had ever heard of before, even some special keys…

“This reminds me of those Spy Novels I used to read…”

“When did you ever have time to read?” Jade retorted, “Didn’t you start mining when you were a little kid?”

“It’s not like I was Mining constantly…” Oliver smiled wryly, “Anyway, I read books, okay?! Grandpa Greenstone used to give us homework sometimes and… Well, you get the point.”

“Sure…”

Author’s Note: May the Fourth be with you?