… Tuot landed on the ice, moved back a little and almost fell into the water, but the aura helped him stay upright. Etinnei held her hand on the surface of the water and thus supported a large ice floe.


    “Now we need to run there,” the Arctic fox girl pointed with her hand to a crevice between the rocks, the bottom of which was also filled with water.


    “Do you think they won''t find us there?” Tuot asked.


    “Yup.”


    “She relies too much on circumstances,” the dinosaur thought. “Even I understand that this is wrong.”


    Tuot looked up and saw three blue energy beams that flew over the sea and disappeared somewhere over the horizon.


    Etinnei walked across the water to the crevice between the rocks. The icy white-blue aura instantly froze the water under her feet. Tuot followed his friend across the formed “bridge.”


    "I think it''s easier for them to hit us in this place," Tuot looked at the crevice between the rocks. "This is not the best place to hide.”


    “They won’t find us,” Etinnei waved her hand, like animals wave their paws. “They are eyes, so they don’t see us.”


    Tuot didn''t believe his friend''s words. He looked in different directions and tried to notice the enemy approaching.


    But there were only two rocks around, which stood in the sea near the steep shore.


    "I have an idea," the dinosaur said. "If the ''eye'' appears here, I know how to destroy it."


    Etinnei looked at her friend and noticed with horror how an energy harpoon emerged from the tail part of the aura.


    "It''s the thing that grabbed my ear," the end of an icicle appeared from the sleeve of the Arctic fox girl. "I promised to destroy it when I saw it.”


    Tuot remembered the incident in the city of Tohsonun, when his harpoon pulled Etinnei out of her own ice, in which the animal girl was stuck.


    “You can’t do anything with this thing,” Tuot answered.


    “Why?” Etinnei couldn’t understand. “I’ll just cut it.”


    The Arctic fox girl hit the harpoon with an icicle, but it simply went through it.


    "Why can''t it be cut?" Etinnei frowned. "Tuot, do something about it!"


    “I can’t,” the dinosaur answered. “The harpoon consists of energy. It can''t be cut by weapons or ice. Energy can only be cut by energy.”


    “So I won’t be able to destroy this thing?”


    “Yes, you can''t.”


    “Why didn’t you tell me about this right away? I thought that when I saw him, I would be able to destroy it...”


    “It doesn’t matter now. Let me tell you the plan instead.”


    "I don''t want to. Tuot is lying. And this thing can''t be cut. First I want to destroy it, and then freeze you, and then talk."


    "How can I tell you what I want to do if I''m frozen?"


    Etinnei turned away and sat down. The ice floe beneath her feet widened slightly.


    “Don’t cry or the ‘eye’ will appear and pierce you with a beam,” Tuot warned.


    “It won’t appear,” Etinnei growled.


    A few moments later, a blue energy "eye" appeared above the rocks and began to accumulate a charge for a shot.


    "It''s already here," Tuot shuddered.


    Etinnei looked up, noticed the "eye," and then turned to her friend. Her cheeks were covered with a layer of ice, which her tears had turned into.


    “Tell me...” the animal girl said quietly.


    Tuot told his friend how to defeat the energy "eye". The arctic fox girl rose to her feet and began to concentrate a clot of white-blue energy in her hands. Due to the elemental aura, the clot turned into an ice ball in a couple of moments.


    Tuot grabbed the white-blue ball with a harpoon, raised it above the rocks, and then threw it at the "eye" while it was "charging".


    The "eye" tried to dodge, but the distance between it and the end of the harpoon was too short. The end of the harpoon pierced the "eye" and left a freezing ball inside it, which filled all available space with ice.


    Tuot released several feathers from the tail part of the aura, but they were not destined to reach the enemy. A beam of blue energy, fired from an unknown location, hit the frozen "eye".


    ***


    Kyotyoryon continued to walk through the ruins and search for her creator. She felt the presence of "extra" metal, but did not understand where exactly it was.


    At this time, Halankuo was already in a dark underground corridor, illuminated only by the light from her aura.


    “A good skill, Mom,” the girl thought. “It’s a pity that it can only be used twice in a row. Then the cooldown is half a day.”


    “This is the first time,” the voice in Halankuo’s head answered. “I was able to use it up to five times a day.”


    Halankuo looked around to see where she was going, but then she heard footsteps coming from the far end of the hallway.


    The girl slowly walked in the opposite direction from the footsteps, and soon came to a dead end, where a stone coffin stood. She had to deactivate her aura to avoid being noticed, and then lie down in the coffin to hide.


    The footsteps grew louder. Halankuo closed her eyes, although she could not see anything in the darkness. She was simply afraid of being discovered:


    "If it is not Kyotyoryon, at least I will not be ashamed."


    The footsteps became louder and then stopped. Halankuo realized that someone had approached the coffin, opened her eyes and was ready to see the scary monster from the games in front of her.


    But instead of the monster, she saw the doll''s face glowing with a purple aura.


    "I found you," the doll said. "I brought you a head. But you still have a head. Has it grown?"


    Halankuo didn''t know what to say. She felt both scared and awkward.


    "Older sis, get up," the doll continued. "Let''s go home."


    "I''m not your older sis," Halankuo finally managed to say something. "You''re wrong.”


    “She was not mistaken,” a voice sounded in Halankuo’s head. “This really is my little sister.”Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ***


    After some time, Noru was finally able to get to her feet. Taikuron was still motionless "hanging" in the air near the entrance to the mushroom spirit''s residence. The dog girl decided to retreat somewhere far away until the electric penguin noticed her again...


    On the shore of the lake, Noru found a doll''s hand with an attached shield.


    "What is this? Is this an arm and a shield? Why is it separate?"


    The dog girl stood for a long time by the severed limb and stared at it and the shield until she realized something:


    "There''s some kind of symbol here. What happens if you touch it?"


    The dog girl extended her foot towards the black symbol on the shield, but then stopped.


    "Maybe it''s better not to touch it? What if it explodes?"


    But curiosity was stronger. Noru touched the symbol on the shield with her heel, and only then returned her foot to its original place.


    For a few moments nothing happened. The dog girl had already decided that it was just a strange trinket, when suddenly the symbol began to emit a purple glow.


    Noru jumped back and barked in fear. The shield with the arm rose into the air and moved to the body, from which the sword stuck out.


    A terrible picture opened up before the dog girl: the arm connected with the body, after which it began to move. Then the rest of the limbs flew in from somewhere and stood in their places.


    The head with purple hair arrived last. It was lying on the shore of the lake and therefore took longer to get there. But it also stood on the neck, after which the limbs began to move.


    "Is this a new experiment of Myuryuri? Has he decided to do something again to attract the attention of his creator?"


    But soon Noru realized that this was not the case:


    "Myuryuri studies energy. But this creature is not made of energy. It is made of something unknown."


    The doll tilted its head first to one side, then to the other, after which its body assumed a vertical position.


    Footsteps were heard behind one of the trees. Noru looked there and saw another doll, similar to the first, but with green hair and a green mask that hid the lower part of her face.


    “Suturu, I collect myself together before you did,” the green-haired doll said.


    “There are already two of them,” Noru thought. “Who are they? Why are they here?”


    Suturu turned her head toward the green-haired doll, but her body remained in its original position.


    "Aibi, that''s not fair," the purple-haired doll said. "You can recover with pink energy."


    "What?" Noru thought. "Maybe Myuryuri is involved after all? But he hardly created these... I don''t even know what to call them."


    “But you don’t have acid,” Aibi objected. “She makes me smaller.”


    “You yourself asked the creator to give you abilities that I do not have,” Suturu said.


    “That’s because I don’t want to be like you,” Aibi said.


    Long-forgotten memories simultaneously returned to the dolls'' heads. It was the day they met the strange man with the carrot nose...


    … That day, they were ordinary twin sisters returning home from school. Their hair was black, like humans, and their clothing consisted of yellow-brown dresses with sleeves, stockings of the same color and boots, the usual school uniform.


    The road led down the mountainside through a coniferous forest.


    “Why are you smiling, Suturu, because school is ending soon?” one of the sisters asked.


    “Of course, Aibi,” Suturu answered. “Aren''t you happy? You can read, right?”


    “Yup. I learned recently. But it''s difficult. There are too many symbols. Each symbol stands for one object. Why didn''t they make symbols that stand for syllables? Then there would be fewer symbols.”


    “If they do this, then all schools will be closed and teachers will be left without work. Or children will graduate from school at ten years old. And we are twenty years old, and only tomorrow we will finish school.”


    The girls noticed a large stump near the road and sat down on it to rest.


    “Why did mom and dad settle so far away?” Suturu and Aibi asked at the same time.


    It was indeed far from home. The sisters began to examine the places around and suddenly discovered a gray carrot in a layer of pine needles.


    “I didn’t know that carrots grew here,” Suturu said.


    “They only grow near houses,” Aibi added. “But for some reason this carrot is gray.”


    “It’s low in some substance that we were told about at school.”


    Aibi stood up from the stump, then walked over to the carrot and held out her hand.


    "You better not touch it," Suturu warned. "It''s probably inedible."


    "It is edible," Aibi answered. "I''ll show you now."


    Aibi grabbed the carrot with her hand.


    "It''s hard and cold," Aibi thought. "I need to get it out, otherwise Suturu will do this."


    Aibi pulled on the carrot and was quite surprised by what came out of the ground.


    It was a metal object shaped like an icicle, with a sharp end and a round base.


    "It''s not a carrot," Aibi sighed.


    "What is it?" Suturu asked.


    "I don''t know. But for some reason it was growing in the ground."


    "I knew right away it wasn''t a carrot. Carrots have leaves on top, and this thing has nothing."


    Aibi looked closely at the object and found a small hole with a faint blue glow at the base. Soon a short beam flew out from there, which then turned into a small blue virtual screen with an inscription of red glowing symbols.


    “There’s some kind of announcement here,” Suturu noted. “This thing needs to be returned somewhere. There will be a reward for it.”


    “You’ve learned to read well,” Aibi noted. “You read all the symbols correctly.”


    “I''m almost done with school.”


    “I’m almost done with school too.”


    “Don''t repeat after me.”


    The sisters argued for some time about who was repeating after whom, so they did not notice how a robot-buyer with a black shell, similar to a beetle, crawled up to them.


    “Give me the antenna,” a thin machine voice sounded inside the robot.


    Suturu and Aibi screamed in surprise, got up from the stump and looked at the inanimate creature.


    “Give me the antenna,” the robot repeated. “My master lost her.”


    “Which antenna should I give you?” the sisters asked at the same time.


    “The one in your hand,” the robot answered. “It''s long, metal, gray.”


    “A-ah-ah... Carrots...” Aibi guessed. “But it says on the screen that there will be a reward for her return.”


    “The reward is too big to fit into me,” the robot answered. “I’m an ordinary robot buyer. I can only take the antenna, and for the reward you must come to my master.”


    "We need to go to the place shown on the screen?" Suturu asked.


    “Yes,” the robot answered. “Give me the antenna and I will lead you there.”


    Aibi held out the carrot to the robot. The lid on its shell opened, and a metal arm emerged, grabbed the antenna, and moved it into an empty compartment.


    “Now you can take the reward from my master,” the robot closed its shell and crawled along the road on skis.


    Aibi took a step, but was stopped by her sister.


    “This is somehow suspicious,” Suturu said. “It’s not written on the screen what the reward will be there.”


    “Maybe it’s just a secret?” Aibi suggested.


    Suturu did not stop her sister, but decided to go with her, so as not to abandon her...


    The robot led the girls to a large stone house, which stood on a hill away from the road. From here there was a view of a wide river, beyond which stretched a flat plain, partially flooded with water with islands of forest.


    "This is my master''s house," the robot said. “Go into it.”


    The heavy wooden door was unlocked, so the robot was able to easily enter the building. Aibi followed him, and Suturu followed her sister.


    The three of them found themselves in a large room, more like a train station hall. The walls were decorated with heads of girls with multi-colored hair and bulging eyes that sparkled from the sunlight that entered the room through the round windows. This frightened Suturu, but aroused her sister''s interest.


    “We have to leave here,” Suturu thought. "Otherwise, what happened to these girls will happen to us."


    "Why is their hair this color?" Aibi thought at that moment.


    The girls did not notice how a man in a hood and mask with a black hole instead of a nose came down the stairs. He took the "carrot" from the compartment of the robot-buyer''s shell and inserted it into himself.


    "Are you interested in dolls?" the man with the now carrot-nose asked.


    Suturu and Aibi looked from the heads on the walls to the robot''s owner.


    "They have hair that''s a color that humans don''t have," Aibi said.


    "That''s because the dye in their brain that colors their hair is altered," the carrot-nosed man explained. "They''re doll heads. I can make you the same hair. You want a reward, right?"


    “Yes!” Aibi was happy. “I would like green hair. And also green eyes, so that they match the hair.”


    “Okay,” the doll maker said. “What do you want?”


    The man with the carrot nose looked at Suturu. The girl wanted to grab her sister by the hand and run out of the house, but for some reason she couldn''t.


    “I want to finish school tomorrow and return to my parents today,” Suturu admitted.


    “In that case, your sister will stay here today,” the man with the carrot nose said. “You can go without her.”


    Suturu decided not to abandon her sister again. That''s how they became dolls...


    ... Suturu and Aibi were together again. But now they were looking at the dog girl with fixed eyes, just as they had once looked at the man with the carrot nose.


    Noru was also looking at the dolls and suddenly realized something sad:


    "It''s not fair. They have a sister, and I don''t."


    Noru looked up. The next moment, a fiery comet flew across the sky, leaving a pink trail behind it.


    "Little sis," Noru rejoiced. "I have to meet her."


    The dog-girl''s body burst into a bright flame, and then lifted off the ground and flew into the air in the form of a comet...


    Suturu and Aibi watched the two lights fly chaotically across the sky. The dolls were drawn to the symbols formed by the comet trails.


    “I think I could once read them,” Suturu said.


    "So could I," Aibi repeated. "I learned all the symbols, but now I don''t know a single one.”


    The comets made several circles, and then met and united into one bright fireball, which flew to the ground at great speed.


    Suturu and Aibi saw a huge bright mass of fire above them, which quickly covered the sky. The dolls pressed their shields together, and the symbols on them began to emit a blue glow...


    ... A large fiery comet fell to the ground and exploded. But the blue energy barrier formed by the sisters'' connection did not collapse...


    ... The smoke gradually dissipated. At the place where the comet fell, a dog girl stood in a fiery aura, with long white-yellow hair and two tails.