"...Somewhere I can be important," Bellona Three says. "And learn new things and all, but - I want to do things no one else could do." She's quiet for a moment, before: "I want to be unique - actually unique, not just someone that everyone merely thinks is probably unique." (She's been the most bothered by having other versions of Bellona.) "And... I don't think I want to get dropped on another version of El?"

Bellona One just hums. "I'd like to be important too, but - it's not as big a deal? And I want somewhere with a lot of options, I think - I... I want to date around, kinda." Separating from El felt very awkwardly like a breakup, for all that they weren't dating. "Somewhere with way more advanced science than our own home, too - I want to see what happens when everyone knows all the stuff Bellona Two traded Truth for." Also so she can learn it herself. 

"Actually unique, huh. How do you feel... about being the only living human?"

To Bellona One, "High tech, lots of cute girls. I think I know just the place."

"Huh. ...Positive, so long as there's a few nonhuman people around," Bellona Three says. "Though maybe not too many?"

Bellona One just giggles at Zera's description of her world desires. 

"All right. Hang on." She banks into a dive and they emerge into a ruined city, cracked concrete towers and bent steel ribs, fading into the tangle of an old-growth forest that is slowly but surely marching to the city center.

Zera sets them down in what was once an atrium for some more expansive building near the edge of the city, the long-since shattered glass dome roof allowing easy access. Some small group of animals bolts further into the underbrush.

Woah.

- It's weirdly beautiful, actually. Bellona Three hops off Zera and looks around in fascination.

There are the remains of a second story to the building around what's left of the perimeter shell, and a few half-collapsed stairs going up. Faint rushing water in the distance.

"The natives do exist, I promise. They can be a little touchy, though, and I don't have any pre-existing relationships here."

"I'm fine wandering until I find someone," Bellona Three promises. 

"All right. Call my name loudly if you ever want to leave. I won't be watching, but my ana-self can pick up on something like that."

She nods. "Will do."

"Good luck!" Unless Bellona One has any goodbyes left to make, they'll be leaving now.

The two wave at each other, but that's it. 

Then dragon and other girl disappear.

Leaving Bellona apparently all alone.

She's going to explore the ground level in the atrium first - she already saw the area from above when flying in, so she doesn't feel an immediate need to climb to the second floor - before looking for an exit. 

Based on the layout, this may have been a market or shopping center of some kind when it was still inhabited.

She sees two easy exits: one deeper into the forest and one closer to the sound of water.

She got a good look at the open area across the ravine when they were flying in, but the forest was more impenetrable to her - she'll go that way first. 

The forest is deep, dark, and slowly coming back to life in the wake of the dragon's departure. She can hear birdsong starting back up, and the chirruping of miscellaneous insects. There's a suggestion of a path leading from the mall into the verdant depths.

Standing nonchalantly in the shade of a thick oak by the side of said path is a dilapidated vending machine.

- That's very weird and out of place, going by the degredation of other structures - she walks up to it and touches it to analyze its contents. What exactly is this thing made of, if it's lasted when the building didn't - ?

It is made of thin shell of rusting steel over a highly advanced nanofiber composite weave, and an internal reservoir filled with various alloys and plastics and odd tools that she can only liken to those used in automail surgery, only they're not designed for anything external to manipulate.

Some kind of commerce thing associated with the mall - ? If you could extend automail concepts to automated construction, something like this could be used to create customized items on demand perhaps... The exterior of the weird box does seem to have some kind of interface - she can't really tell if it's meant directly for consumers or for the backend of some kind of manufacturing shop...

The interior doesn't seem to have degraded at all, which is fascinating - why have the exterior be more reactive steel, though, if they were capable of this kind of material science...

No helpful explanatory placards, unfortunately. No sign of any other supporting infrastructure in the immediate area either, come to think of it.

Officially weird!

She touches her hands together and then the box, aiming to alchemize the front open without damaging the contents. 

As the sparks from her reaction zap through the casing, an exclamation mark inside a triangle appears on the interface panel and a mechanical voice says "Alert: unauthorized access detected" and a quickly ballooning yellowy-orange field of some kind pushes her hands back and then her away entirely.

!!!

Unfortunately, she was in the early phases of deconstruction, immediately before instituting a controlled reaction - so as she's pushed back, her nascent reaction flares blindingly bright, loops in on itself, and kind of just. Minorly distintegrates the front of the box. 

Bellona very intelligently drops to the ground, rapidly throwing up a wall of hardened earth between herself and the runaway deconstruction, just on the off chance it explodes.