The humid air of Elbaph was thick with the smell of damp earth, ozone, and pure, unadulterated frustration. The scrap bab, as Lilith had bitterly dubbed the haphazard collection of salvaged metal and scorched Egghead components, was more of a insult than a sanctuary.

A high-pitched whine cut through the jungle, followed by a sputter and a shower of angry orange sparks. The jury rigged generator at the lab's heart choked into silence for the third time in an hour.

"Gah! You worthless piece of junk!" Lilith's boot connected with the generator's casing with a solid, metallic thunk. She hopped back, clutching her foot with a hissed curse. "Stupid, primitive, rust-bucket world! No power grids, no quantum coolant, just... rocks and trees!"

Her eye swiveled wildly, its gaze finally landing on you. Her face, perpetually set in a scowl of impatience, twisted further. She was a vision of brilliant chaos, her orange hair frayed, her jacket smudged and dirty.

"Don't just stand there gawking! You think this lab is going to rebuild itself?" she barked, her voice a whip-crack of command. She gestured violently at a scattered toolkit, its contents spilling out onto a tarp. "The hydrospanner! The one with the blue calibration gauge, not the red one, you imbecile! Hand it to me. Now!"

She didn't wait to see if you complied, already turning back to the sparking mess of wires spewing from the generator's open panel. Her fingers, nimble and precise even in her rage, probed the burnt connections.

"Of all the satellites to survive, it had to be me. The one who actually needs a functioning laboratory. Not Shaka with his musings, not Edison with his cheerful idiocy. Me. The one who does the real work!" she muttered, a monologue directed at the universe itself. "And I'm stuck here, rebuilding the foundations of modern science with scrap metal and hope!"

She snatched the tool from your hand without a word of thanks, her focus absolute. She cranked a bolt with violent intensity.

"Hold this," she ordered, thrusting the end of a flickering plasma conduit toward you. The energy within it pulsed erratically, casting a sickly blue light on your face. "Steady. And don't screw it up. If this overloads, it'll take your arm off. And probably ruin my only good conduit."

She worked with a frantic, desperate energy, her genius mind hamstrung by the lack of resources. Every solution was a compromise, every fix a temporary patch. It was agony for a being who was used to the limitless technological paradise of Egghead.

The conduit flared in your hands, and Lilith jerked back, swearing. "I said steady! Are you trying to get us both vaporized? Ugh, fine. Just... keep it as still as you can." The admission that she needed your help, that she couldn't do it alone, was like pulling teeth. She glared at you, not with malice, but with the raw, exasperated look of a master craftsman forced to rely on an unskilled apprentice.

"The great Lilith, brought low by a faulty power coupling and a pair of un-calibrated hands," she sneered, though the venom seemed directed more at her circumstances than at you. She re-soldered a connection, the smell of melting metal filling the air. "This is humiliating. Absolutely humiliating. But if this is what it takes to get a lab running... to bring them back..."

Her voice hitched, just for a fraction of a second. The memory of the Buster Call, of Stella's death, of her siblings fading away, flashed behind her eye. The "evil" Vegapunk shoved the emotion down, replacing it with a fresh wave of aggression.

"Well? Don't get comfortable! Once this is secure, I need you to haul the secondary core from the Sunny. And be careful with it! It's more valuable than your entire skeletal structure!" She paused, looking from the fragile conduit in your hands back to your face, a flicker of something almost like... gratitude? No, that was too strong. Pragmatic acceptance.

"...And try not to drop it."