gosh, this came out later than I thought, been rather busy I must admit. anyway, here is the next chapter. had to look at Scout's voice lines to see what insults he usually would throw a someone. it was rather fun.

In middle of the ocean, on a ship of the Magisterium is Nathan and although he is trapped and don't have any way getting away from his captures: he sure hell aren't making life easy for them. The crew quickly figured out that locking this young man into a cabin like the other kids and leaving him alone is just asking for trouble, in his life as the runt of a gang and often gotten into trouble Nathan knows how to get out from tight spots. So getting out from a cabin is child's play for him. At first he used the door, unlocking it by homemade lock picks and when out he kept on trying to get into the radio room in hope he could call someone. He did get caught and the Gobblers put a guard on the door but that did not keep this one down for long and in matter of days on the sea, the crew can be sure that the young adult is most likely out and annoying the shit out from one them.

The man that has been guarding the door checks and lets out a tired groan when seeing the room empty once again. "He's out again!" He calls out to the ship, more annoyed than actual worried about this. His daemon, a komodo dragon starts searching for Nathan's scent with her fogged tongue, leading the tired guard outside.
Another man hears the guard's warning and starts searching as well, muttering to himself. "You must've thought this brat soon will—Argh!" His complaining gets rudely interrupted by Nathan who has landed right on him.

The young man grins. "Look up next time chucklehead." And throws the knocked out man into one of the life boats with Nalini traps the man's Grey hound into a pile of ropes. That will slow the man down when he finally comes around. With that one out, Nathan easily sneaks past the guard who is still following the fake trail he left behind and without much trouble gets into the control room. One of the Gobblers is in there but it does not worry him too much. Nalini turns into a small bird, flies past the huge man, elderly man and starts reading the reports they have received from the place they are going. She does not find much of interest at first but does read further on the message of a stash of weapons they have received from Boston. She removes a paper to read on the next but is stopped when a pair of jaws appears in the corner of her eye. Nalini react by mere instinct and takes off, barely missing the huge wolf daemon teeth.

"Don't you ever learn?!" The man roars furies although he haven't yet spotted Nathan, but know this little pest is near with his freak of a daemon. The man spots Nathan when the young man takes off like a cannon ball with his swallow daemon right behind him. The man and his wolf follows but have no chance catching up to the swift Nathan. "Get back here you little freak!"

"Catch me if you can pancakes!" Nathan taunts back, yes he is aware that sooner or later he will be caught but until then he will make life hard for these thugs, them having their attention on him means they will leave the kids downstairs alone. His door guard jumps out from a corner but the only thing that guy gets is air as Nathan spotted the guy a mile away. "Too slow! Try sneaking the next time if you know what that mean!" And he's gone, much to the two's men's great frustration. More so as they cannot shoot him. Nathan learned from his last visit at the control room that their boss wants him alive and unharmed; giving him the advantages being a huge jerk to them.
"Are you even trying?!" He mocks another Gobbler and just to be a bit more annoying he uses the man's head as a ramp, getting on the roof of the control room. "Come on guys! I'm not even winded!" He taunts the men with spread out arms like he owns the ship— in his eyes he practically does. One of the guard follows him, but in a incredible clumsy and that is hilarious for this speedster, Nathan kneels down with his hyena Nalini grinning at the poor sight. "Nice hustle chucklehead, you really know how to make someone feel nervous." And with Nalini in her hawk form, they both take off in a carefree manner before the man trying to catch him can even get near. However just when he dodges the big man with the wolf daemon; a jolt of pain hits him and sends him sprawling to the ground. His whole body hurts, reminding of the time when Dean dared him to grab an electric fence, except this is way more painful than the fence.

"Did you kill him?" The huge man asks, almost sounding hopeful it has been the case.

"No, merely stunned him." Someone Nathan hasn't heard before says but accent does sound awfully familiar. He just can't place where he has heard it before because of the shot he took. "Take him back to the room."

Nathan feels the big guy pick him up and he's too much in pain from the attack to do anything about it, not even throw a snarky remark when the man says. "Pity, wouldn't mind if you had 'accidently' killed this nuisance." The man carries him back to the room where he gets thrown down onto his bed.

"Leave, I got it from here." The voice of the one who shot him command the bigger man there snorts in return. "You? Don't make me laugh Conagher."

And just by that name, Nathan knows why that accent sounded so darn familiar, it is a southern accent but there is no way he would shoot him! Dell would never work for the Magisterium nor shoot him like this!

"Get out, now." The man— Nathan refuses to believe this is Dell says with a dangerous low tone. This man is dead serious, even Nathan can say that. The other man's wolf daemon growls but she and her human leave the two alone. The man with the same last name as Dell let out a sigh and asks the slowly recovering young man. "What in Sam hill were you thinking boy? Are you trying to get yourself—"

"Shut up!" Nathan snaps; he can't take it! This guy even speaks like Dell! He gets his weaving sight under control and can finally see this man's face, to his relief it is not Dell; this guy is way too old. "Don't you lecture me like he does!"

The older man blinks. "Like who?" His daemon— much to Nathan's shock is also a beaver, except this one has the natural brown color like a real beaver compared to Naira's golden brown fur.

"No one." Nathan grumbles, as if he's going to tell this man about the closet thing he has gotten to a father figure.

"Your father?"

"Mo!" He snaps again which makes Nalini turn into a fox, sneering at the beaver who only gives her a leveled stare. "He's a friend, my boss actually." And kicks himself from screwing up by revealing this.

The older man takes a seat before him, eyeing him with his blue-grey eyes. At least this guys doesn't have Dell's brighter blue for if he has then Nathan would seriously has thought his boss and friend somehow has gotten very old very suddenly and turned evil. "I presume your boss has a beaver as his daemon as well?"

Nathan nods slowly, still glaring daggers at the man although the turns into a shocked one when the man let out a sigh and says tiredly. "Then Dell didn't do a very good job, if he had then you might have stayed in the cabin instead of going out asking for trouble."

"How the hell do you know him?" Nathan asks but he has a very strong feeling who this man is, the age and his last name sure are good evidence. "You're his dad or something?" The look in this man's eyes is proof enough. Nathan throws up his arms in disbelief. "Great! Now I'm held captured by Dell's old man— why the hell are you working for the enemy?!" He demands the man.

Mr. Conagher stays calm under the young man's small temper tantrum, only a small frown appears on his forehead. "Who to say I am the enemy?"

"You're working for the Magisterium, right?"

"Correct-"

"Then you are the enemy, your own son and his friends are fighting against the Magisterium." Nathan tells the older man hard.

Mr. Conagher's frown deepens. "I had hoped Dell wouldn't join the terrorists but," he let out a sigh. "It is to be expected; he did spend a lot of his childhood around my father no matter what I said."

"What's wrong with your old man?" Nathan asks, thinking that the Conagher family history is a bit more complicated than Dell ever let on. When speaking about his family Dell always praised his grandfather being a genius with a strange spark in his eyes while he always made only faint explanations about his father.

"Dell has probably already told you about my father's genius mind, even I admit; the man can build wonders but like my own son... he was too much of an idealist. A dangerous thing being in the world we live in-" Mr. Conagher explains very calmly that it is almost scary for Nathan.

"But aren't you like them?" Nathan asks slowly but from how he has seen so far; Dell's father might act very much like his son but his ideals is completely somewhere else.

"Every Conagher is the same boy." He replies, unlike Dell who merely shrugs it off with that sad smile of his. His father seems to fully believe that just how it is. "We are the builders, the greatest inventors the world has seen and the Magisterium has always cherished that talent and paid us well. Our ancestors have helped the Magisterium to rise and that's a title I proudly stand by like anyone else in the family has. My father and my son are unfortunately the exceptions and I fear that if Dell doesn't soon remember his place in the world; then he will get killed."

Nathan stares at the man, completely in disbelief that Dell's own father sounds like he has accepted being a mere tool for the Magisterium, worse, that he doesn't seems to mind that his son will be killed! "How can you say such a thing?" He asks the man, not hiding his disbelief. "He's your son for crying out loud!"

Mr. Conagher nods sadly. "Yes and my heart ache knowing he might get killed because of my own father's silly ideas of how this world should work. I can only hope that he will see reason and leave the terrorists before it is too late." His tired eyes lands on Nathan. "The same goes for you. Remember your place, stay in this room and no harm will come to you."

"Is that a threat?" Nalini asks, baring her teeth at the man in her cat form.

The man does not pay her any attention. "A warning and boy." He gets up to leave. "Daemons shouldn't speak to humans, it is very rude you see."

Nathan snorts. "Naira does it all the time." He remarks dryly and he admits that he kinda misses hearing the beaver's wisecrack comments. He eyes Mr. Conagher's daemon who is acting more like living ornaments than actual part of the man's soul. "Doesn't your daemon ever speak?"
He gets no answers for that and he is once again left alone in the room.

Nalini turns into her favorite form: a wild rabbit and jumps onto the bed with: "Have you noticed none of the daemons speaks?"
No, he haven't really. Nathan turns to his own daemon, frowning at her small observation. She continues, "I wonder why they don't speak, has their humans forbidden them doing so?"
"That's stupid." Nathan snorts, he lies down onto the bed, staring up to the ceiling. "It would be like making a part of yourself shut up." Why would anyone make their daemon stop talking? He won't make Nalini stay quiet; her quick-witted nature has helped him several times, not to mention that she has more than once talked him out from doing stupid stunts like bashing someone's skull with a baseball bat just because the guy pissed him off.
Nalini lies down beside him. "Maybe they don't wanna hear what their daemon has to say?" She suggests.
Nathan doesn't know and thinking about what these people doesn't want to hear about makes his head hurt, so he decides to drop it. "Well I am not going to listen to that old geezer." He declares.
"Good." his daemon says and adds much to his amusement. "If you did I might settle into fly just to piss you off."