More Human Than Human

"Talking"

'thoughts'

"Recordings, talking on the phone or singing"

"Speaking another language besides Japanese"

:Talking through the comm. links:

Rated T for language and anything else I might have missed.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my O.C.s, Starts after the events in "The Masked Brave, Dumpson" and goes from there with a few twists.

As soon as the remote went up, all hell broke loose.

Power Joe had the advantage of height as he was taller than his younger brothers but Dumpson wasn't afraid to push him out of the way, making the yellow mech lose his balance.

Drill Boy, however, jumped onto and off of a chair and used Dumpson as a step ladder to get higher. This, however, caused Dumpson to also lose his balance and three toppled over in a heap.

This all happened in a matter of seconds as the remote fell to the floor with a clatter, the batteries spilling out as the back of it popped off.

The three brothers stared at the pieces of the remote in shock for a moment before Drill Boy was the first to scramble out of the pile. "Oooh, you guys are in trouble now,"

Dumpson looked at him as he and Power Joe sat up. "What do you mean? You pushed us over so we couldn't catch it,"

Power Joe shoved the Wrestling Detective. "No, you pushed me over and then he pushed you over,"

"DOMINOES!" Drill Boy cheered, suddenly forgetting the trouble they might be in.

Dumpson got up and gathered up the pieces of the remote. "It looks like the batteries came out when this piece here came off. We should be able to put it back together again just fine,"

But then they looked at the batteries and Power Joe cursed under his breath. "They're human sized batteries. How are we going to get them back in?"

"Hang on," Drill Boy opened a compartment in his chest and a tiny little arm like the ones in the claw arcade games came out of his chest and hovered over the batteries.

"Whoa, how long have you had those?"

Drill Boy shrugged as he carefully picked up the batteries. "Forever, they're supposed to be for grabbing things and getting loose rocks out of the way when I'm tunneling in my alt. mode but so far I've only used them to help Boss put on his seat belt when we go flying but they should work. Got it!" he managed to grab the battery and pick it up.

"Alright, Drill Boy!" Power Joe slapped his brother on the back, causing him to almost drop the battery. "Whoops, sorry,"

Dumpson held the remote so Drill Boy could put the batteries back and Drill Boy started to put the battery he had back in but hesitated. "Uh, aren't these supposed to go a certain way? How do they go in?"

The three mechs just about fell over in shock at this realization so they agreed to set the remote and the batteries on the edge of the platform next to Yuuta's desk.

"If anyone asks tomorrow we tried to change the batteries and knocked the old ones out and into the trash but couldn't get the new ones back in, agreed?" Power Joe looked at his brothers to see if they were all clear on the cover story.

Dumpson and Drill Boy nodded. "Right,"

Then Drill Boy moaned. "But what do we do now?"

The three mechs thought for a moment, trying to find something to do to quell their boredom until it was time for recharge or they got a call, whichever came first.

Drill Boy started to take his soccer ball out of his chest but Dumpson pushed it back in. "No soccer in the Decker Room, we don't want anything else getting broken,"

Drill Boy looked down dejectedly. "Sorry,"

Power Joe then remembered something and went over to their smaller computer monitor. "Wait, I just remembered something," he took out some sheets of paper while he waited for the computer to boot up and the other two gathered behind him to read over his shoulder as he brought up a search engine and looked something up on the internet.

"What are you doing?"

Power Joe found the site he was looking for and started folding one of the sheets of paper according to the directions on the screen. "The kids showed me a game called 'paper football'. You fold a piece of paper like so…" he finished folding the piece of paper into a little triangle, adjusting the folds so the "football" ended up in their size.

"And flick it back and forth at each other and try to catch it like a football,"

After Power Joe explained how to flick the little white wedge, the three of them took turns flicking it at each other and catching it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, at the Tomonaga house

Yuuta kicked off his shoes and went upstairs to his room as soon as he got home.

He passed Kirumi on the stairs as she was going downstairs for dinner and she looked at him curiously. "Aren't you going to eat, Yuuta? We waited until you got home,"

Yuuta adjusted his backpack on his shoulders absently. "Not hungry, you guys go ahead," he slipped past the older girl just as Azuki came to the foot of the stairs, wiping her hands on a towel.

"Dinner's ready!"

"Not hungry," Yuuta repeated himself.

Azuki frowned sadly. "I still think you should try to eat something, Yuuta. Don't want you to get sick,"

Yuuta sighed in defeat and followed Kirumi downstairs to sit at the dinner table with his sisters.

He sat with his head in his hands while Azuki and Kirumi spooned food on their plates until Azuki said in a soft voice. "Yuuta…"

Yuuta jumped and figured he at least try to eat, if only to give his sisters some peace of mind, and dished smaller portions onto his plate.

Both his sisters watched him carefully and Kirumi asked. "Did you already eat? Is that why you're not hungry now?"

Yuuta shook his head and poked at his rice. "No, just not hungry,"

After a few moments of the sound of silverware against plates being the only sound in the room, Azuki asked "So, anything interesting happen today?"

Kirumi shrugged and paused in taking a bite of vegetables. "Eh, not much. A kid in my class got sick and had to go home early but that was about it,"

Azuki looked at Yuuta. "What about you, Yuuta?"

Yuuta shrugged as though his day was "business as usual". "A dragon attacked the city so the guys had Shadowmaru come get me from class so the others could unite and fight it,"

Both girls gasped. "A dragon?!"

Kirumi questioned him further. "An actual dragon, are you serious?"

Yuuta nodded. "Yep"

Azuki looked worried "Oh my, is everyone okay after that?"

Kirumi just got that look she always gets when she's daydreaming about something. "You know, now that I think about it… since they're covered head to toe in armor, the Brave Police are kind of like really big knights,"

The girl shuddered, there was no doubt in her siblings' minds that she was picturing the mechs from the Brave Police as knights in medieval times fighting a dragon but with swords instead of guns.

She realized they were staring at her and cleared her throat. "So, did you guys get to slay the dragon?"

Yuuta swallowed the bite of food he had just taken and said sheepishly "Actually, we lost it in the bay,"

His tone turned sour. "Some guys in a fishing boat thought that getting their catch to the market on time was more important than actually getting out of there alive so we had to save them when the dragon attacked the boat and swam away with the fish. Then Azuma called us back to the precinct to yell at us for making a mess and not catching Dragowan sooner,"

"Dragowan?"

Yuuta nodded. "That's… what we're calling the dragon for the police record. That scientist that made it was the same guy that made Gawan the dinosaur a while back,"

Kirumi crossed her arms. "If this guy is doing so much horrible stuff why hasn't anyone caught him yet?"

Yuuta stared at his food and stabbed a piece of chicken with his fork. Azuki looked at Kirumi and said pointedly. "Kirumi, I'm sure Yuuta and the others and the rest of the police are doing what they can to find him,"

Kirumi realized how what she said must have sounded and waved her hands in a "calm down" gesture at Yuuta. "Oh, I'm sure you guys will get him. I just hope no one gets hurt,"

Yuuta frowned and crossed his arms on the table and rest his head on them. "I hope Mr. Azuma stops being a poop-head and quits bugging us,"

Unknown to the three Tomonaga siblings, Deckard was listening in on their conversation as he sat in the garage in robot mode.

Normally, he would be in vehicle mode but he was drinking his fuel out of the gas can he had grabbed earlier since he didn't get to finish it at the precinct and Yuuta's comment on Co-Commissioner Azuma made him spill some of his fuel in his air intakes, making him cough on it.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Deckard looked in the direction of the voice and saw Sanae Itohata peering over the fence at him. "Oh, hello Ms. Itohata, I'm fine, how are you?"

The elderly woman smiled at him. "I'm fine, thank you," the smile changed to a worried frown. "Oh, we saw what happened in town today on the news. Are you and you're friends alright after all of that?"

Deckard paused for a moment, unsure how much he should tell her since Sanae Itohata was known for being a gossip, before saying. "Although the situation certainly could have gone better, Gunmax was the only real severe casualty and the technicians managed to have him repaired by the time we got back from combing the coast for the creature,"

Ms. Itohata smiled "Oh, that's good to hear…" then her smile disappeared. "Wait, Gunmax? Hmm, I don't think we've met him before, we all met the first three on the Build Team and I remember seeing that purple dog one here a few times but other than that the only time we've seen the others is on T.V."

Deckard tilted his helm to the side, the reason none of the neighbors had met Gunmax was because he was sure there was going to be a fight if the Motorcycle Detective ever did come by—and there wasn't a doubt in his A.I. that the mech would bait him into being one of the combatants—but he hadn't realized they hadn't even met Drill Boy and only caught a glimpse of Shadowmaru. "Shadowmaru can turn into a wolf, among other things. He doesn't like being called a dog,"

Ms. Itohata realized she had made a blunder and smiled apologetically behind one chubby, wrinkled hand while the other waved off what she had just said. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know,"

'That's a first' Deckard thought to himself. 'Ms. Itohata always seems to know everything that's going on,'

He smiled at her reassuringly. "It's fine… just don't call him that while he's in earshot. Power Joe made that mistake and the only reason that didn't come to blows was because Yuuta interfered,"

Ms. Itohata frowned. "Is this 'Shadowmaru' character the type to pick fights?"

Deckard thought for a moment, trying to remember a time when Shadowmaru ever did pick an actual fight with them. "No, that would be Power Joe and Gunmax's territory,"

The two neighbors struck up a conversation; Ms. Itohata asking more questions about the Brave Police and their work while Deckard politely answered and asked of few questions of his own.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Speaking of Shadowmaru…

In another part of town, Shadowmaru perched on the edge of the building overlooking a construction site.

According to the intel he had been given, there had been reports of suspicious activity going on in and around this particular construction site; mostly drug deals and gang activity that they would usually leave to human police officers, but there were also rumors of transactions of illegal or stolen robotic equipment happening which would fall under the Brave Police's jurisdiction.

Furthermore, there had been reports of human police officers turning up missing in that area, so he was sent instead of yet another human officer; the Commissioner said it was because of his skills but he knew the rest of the higher ups wanted to send in "the robot" so they wouldn't lose any more men and they could always review the information in his databanks to see what he found even if he didn't report back.

'Well, at least they assigned me something I'm good at,'

At around eleven o'clock at night, he spotted a person wearing a dark colored hooded sweatshirt and dark pants dragging a large plastic bag behind them. The load appeared to be heavy with the way the figure was dragging the bag across the ground, occasionally stopping to look around before resuming their drag.

Shadowmaru leaned forward, his curiosity hungry for the answers to the questions on his A.I. 'What's in the bag? And where are you going with it?'

The Ninja Detective zoomed in on the person to try to see their face when they looked around again. 'Come on, look this way again. There we go…'

As predicted, the mystery person looked around again and he saw under the hood; only to find the person was wearing a ski mask!

Biting his lip components to keep from shouting his frustration, Shadowmaru scanned the human's profile to see if he could find any defining features.

The person was wearing baggy clothes so it was nigh impossible to determine their build or whether or not they carried any tools or weapons on their person.

So Shadowmaru scanned the bag to try to figure out what was in it, at the distance he was at he could only determine there was nothing metal in the bag so it wasn't a robot parts dealer. He kept watching the figure until they looked around one last time before stashing the bag in an alcove behind a partially finished wall.

Shadowmaru watched the figure glance about as they scurried away from the scene into the night and shrugged. 'Probably just a litter bug dumping their trash, not what I'm here for,'

He looked around the construction site and saw a small group of people talking to each other on the other side from where the 'litter bug' had dumped his load. These people were also looking around cautiously in between making gestures with their hands.

Shadowmaru zeroed in on them but was too far away to hear their conversation and he couldn't tell what the gestures meant exactly nor could he see their faces because they had their hoods up.

'I'm really starting to hate "hoodies" right now,' the Ninja Detective thought to himself as he carefully climbed down from his perch and silently changed into his wolf mode. He crept closer under the cover of the shadows and hid in a narrow alley way close to where the three humans were standing.

Unfortunately, by the time he got there they were finishing up. Judging from what he heard from them this was a quick exchange to arrange another meeting. Shadowmaru peered around the corner as one of them—a man of medium height wearing a blue face mask who sounded middle aged—said "Alright kid, we'll meet here same time tomorrow night. You will have it then, right?" the man added with a sneer.

The second person, a young man who had his back to Shadowmaru, stammered and said. "Y-yeah, sure thing,"

The third person, a tall man wearing a red mask and appeared to be either the man in the blue mask's partner or lackey, grabbed the shorter man in front of him by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against wall.

"You'd better; we sure would hate to lose any more business partners, now won't we?" He released his captive with a sneer and laughed as he coughed and climbed to his feet without a word.

Shadowmaru watched as the two thugs left while the younger man waited until they were gone before leaving himself. He wasn't worried if they found him; if they did he would just arrest them for being under suspicion of illegal market dealings.

None of them found him and the third suspect pulled the sides of his hood to cover his face as he fast-walked away. Puzzled by this turn of events and frustrated that he was unable to identify any of the suspicious characters he had seen that night, Shadowmaru had resigned himself to the obvious.

'Well, it looks like I'll be coming back here tomorrow night,'

He waited until midnight before leaving; his orders were to be back at the precinct by one to check in—stupid paranoid board of directors only allowed him out after dark for his investigations as long as he kept letting them know he wasn't going to go rogue anytime soon.

When Shadowmaru got back he found the Commissioner in the Decker room sitting at Yuuta's desk. Curious as to why the man was there so late, he let the Commissioner know he was there by asking "You wouldn't happen to be snooping in Boss' things, now would you?"

The Commissioner stood up and looked at the clock on the wall before looking up at Shadowmaru. "Never thought I'd see the day where you would late for something. I was about to wake the others and send them after you,"

Shadowmaru cocked one hip to the side smugly as he pointed at the clock. "My orders were to report back here by one on the morning. That clock is ten minutes fast, I'm actually here a few minutes early,"

The man looked at the clock, then his watch and straightened his jacket as he cleared his throat. "Right, so you are. You can't blame me for worrying, all of the other officers that had taken this case mysteriously disappeared," he said the last part dramatically, like he was telling a ghost story.

Shadowmaru crossed his arm-servos, smug tone remaining. "Commissioner, you should know by now I only disappear when I want to,"

The Commissioner looked up at the mech, all business now. "So, what do you have to report, Detective,"

Shadowmaru stood up straight and said coolly. "Aside from a group of kids that cut through the construction site as a short cut home earlier in my surveillance, the only people that went into the site after the construction crews went home was someone that appeared to be dumping a heavy looking trash bag on the site and a small group of people that had a rather… interesting conversation that I managed to overhear,"

The Commissioner raised an eyebrow. "Interesting how?"

Shadowmaru took out another disc that he had brought with him that night and had copied everything he had seen and heard that night from his data banks onto on his way there. "Let me show you,"

He put the disk into the Brave Polices computer to play its contents on the monitor and fast forwarded to the part where the two men in masks made a deal with the third in the hoodie.

After seeing the footage, the Commissioner held his chin in thought. "Hmm, any idea what they were talking about?"

Shadowmaru shook his helm "Not sure but it's something to go on at least," he looked at the Commissioner. "Want me to sit in on that meeting too?"

Commissioner Saejima closed his eyes as he looked away and chuckled to himself "One step ahead of me, eh?" he looked back up at Shadowmaru. "Same thing tomorrow night, Shadowmaru," he waved at the mech like he was shooing a child off to bed. "Goodnight, Shadowmaru,"

Shadowmaru gave the man a two fingered salute as the two of them left the room. "You as well, Commissioner,"

Shadowmaru made his way to the maintenance bay, he was all for climbing into his maintenance cradle and powering down for the night, but once he got there he realized that things had been moved around since he had been in there last.

The American bots' maintenance cradles had been moved so they were along the walls with the others and everyone else's had been scooted over to make room for them.

Shadowmaru belatedly realized that all their cradles had been moved earlier but the change had been so subtle he hadn't really noticed it consciously but now he looked around at the new line up.

The Build Team was along one wall with Drill Boy on the end closest to the door, then Dumpson, then Power Joe, and McCrane on the end closest to the wall.

The new mech was against the far wall due to his size, if they had moved the others around so he could be against the side walls too someone would end up against the far wall anyway so it might as well be him.

On the wall opposite from the Build team, Artemis hung in her cradle next to her brother. The only other maintenance cradles on that wall were two empty ones, his and Deckard's.

Shadowmaru went over to his maintenance cradle, which was between Artemis' and Deckard's, and climbed into it and started to hook himself up to it. When he got to the power cable that would shut him down so the other cables he had hooked up to himself would recharge him, however, he hesitated.

He looked at the end of the thick cable like he had never seen it before and let his mind wander.

The Ninja Detective really couldn't get his thoughts to settle right then and he knew from experience that, while robots didn't dream, having too much on their mind when they powered down for recharge caused them to have "memory purges" where their subconscious minds replayed previous memory files in their data banks and there were quite of few that Shadowmaru didn't want to have to face again.

He looked around to see if anyone was around to see and quietly unhooked himself from his maintenance cradle. 'Maybe a quick walk will help me clear my head'

The purple mech snuck out of the maintenance bay, through the garage and outside where he transformed into his wolf mode and disappeared into the night.

A.N.: Quick shout out to the people that took the time to add and/or review; RedOpticsDA, BP-101Skyfander,