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, slash 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. This chapter refers to the episode "My Fairy".

Later that day, Yuuta woke up with a dull ache in his middle and a clouded head.

He licked his lips, wondering why his mouth felt and tasted like it was lined with cotton, as he opened his eyes and realized he had no idea where he was.

The plain white tile ceiling and all the noises he was hearing told him he was in a hospital but he didn't know much else. 'How did I…'

Yuuta heard someone else in the room with him and tried to sit up to get a better look at his surroundings and find out more but winced when his stomach started hurting and the tubes on the IV in his arm were pulled by the motion.

The nurse that was in the room with him, a thin and pale woman with pink hair that was tied up in pigtails and blue eyes, saw he was awake and went to ease him back down. "Easy there, you just had an appendectomy,"

Yuuta looked up at the nurse with confusion "Appendo-what?"

The nurse sighed as though she had forgotten she had been talking to a child that didn't know any better and elaborated further. "You had your appendix taken out last night, so don't try to move around too much,"

Her tone and expression softened as she smiled sweetly at him. "That said, you feeling up for visitors right now? There's someone here to see you,"

Curious, Yuuta nodded. 'Who could it be?'

The nurse smiled and raised the top half of Yuuta's hospital bed so that he was in a seated position before going to let his guest in.

However, instead of going to the door like Yuuta expected, she went to the window and opened it. After a moment of looking around she smiled "Oh, there you are. He's awake now if you wanted to talk to him,"

The nurse stepped back and Yuuta craned his neck to see out the window just in time to see Deckard look into it. "Yuuta?"

Yuuta grinned when he saw his friend. "Deckard!" Without thinking about it, Yuuta started to climb out of bed to go to the window but fell back against the pillow with a wince.

Worried, Deckard leaned as close to the window as the screen on it would allow. "Yuuta, are you okay?"

Yuuta gave the mech a pained smile and said "Yeah, just sat up too fast,"

The nurse helped him reposition himself on the bed and tucked the blankets around him. "You shouldn't be getting up at all just yet,"

Her pager beeped and she looked at it before looking back at Yuuta. "I'll give you boys some privacy," she pulled out a small remote that was attached to Yuuta's bed by a thick wire and showed him how to use it.

"These buttons here let you lower and raise the bed if you want to lie back down before I come back, and if you do need me to come back press this one here, ok?"

Yuuta took the remote from her and set it next to him before smiling up at her "Thank you"

The nurse smiled back and left the room, leaving Yuuta and Deckard alone. The latter broke the brief silence. "How do you feel?"

Yuuta shrugged "Fine… what all happened last night?"

Deckard dutifully filled the boy in on anything he might have missed. "You had appendicitis last night. Shadowmaru stopped by, he said he heard yelling while he was out on a walk and came to investigate, and went and got a friend of his that drove an ambulance,"

Yuuta interrupted. "Wait, who was yelling?" he tried to think back to the night before and remembered hearing Deckard's voice along with Azuki's and since Azuki never yelled… "Deckard, why were you yelling?"

Deckard looked sheepish. "I was worried… and I wasn't really yelling…"

Yuuta smiled "It's ok," Then he realized something. "Wait, were you waiting outside my room all night?"

Deckard laughed and shook his helm. "No, you were in surgery until sometime this morning and I got called away to help follow up on a lead to Dr. Madoh,"

Yuuta perked up. "Dr. Madoh, did you guys catch him?"

Deckard frowned "No, it was another dead end, this time he torched the building before he ran,"

Yuuta pouted. "Great,"

Deckard tried to cheer him up by adding "Your sisters were here earlier too but they needed to go to school. Kirumi tried to convince Azuki that they should just skip school and stay with you but Azuki wouldn't let her,"

The two laughed at this until a nurse, this one a little older with curly dark hair held back by a head band under her uniform's hat, came in pushing a cart.

She saw Deckard at the window and stumbled back, almost dropping the tray she had been taking off the cart. "Oh my…"

Then she seemed to recognize Deckard from somewhere and looked at the chart on the end of Yuuta's bed. "Oh, that's right; you're the Brave Police boy,"

The nurse gathered herself and smiled nervously at them. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Deckard reassured her with a smile. "It's quite alright, was there something you needed?"

The nurse looked at Yuuta and held up the tray she had almost dropped. "I was just dropping by to bring young Mr. Tomonaga his lunch, if you're up for it,"

Yuuta nodded. "Sounds great, thank you," the he realized what she said and his eyes widened. "Wait… lunch? How long was I out?"

The nurse set the tray on a little stand that held it over Yuuta's lap as she informed him. "You were in surgery for about two hours and were moved in here to sleep off the sedatives. It's almost noon now so you've been sleeping for about ten hours,"

Yuuta sighed "Geez" but then he saw what was on the tray when the nurse pulled the cover off for him; a bowl of chicken noodle soup, a bottle of orange juice, a pudding cup and a little bowl of ice cream.

That cheered him up. "Yum!"

The nurse went back to her cart and said over her shoulder "I'll be back for your dishes later. Did Joyce show you how to call one of us if you need anything or no?"

Yuuta looked at the nurse. "Joyce?"

The nurse smiled "The girl with pink hair that was in here earlier; that was Joyce. I'm Nanci, by the way,"

Yuuta smiled back. "Oh, nice to meet you,"

Nurse Nanci smiled over her shoulder as she pushed the cart she had parked outside the room away. "Be back in a few,"

After the nurse left, Yuuta immediately started in on his soup, crunching up the little packet of crackers that came with it and pouring them into the bowl and stirring them in as he ate.

He paused in taking a bite and looked at Deckard. "You said Dr. Madoh burned his lab when he left, was anyone hurt?"

Deckard hesitated before answering "There was no one inside when we got there but we went in to make sure of that, only to find a time bomb had been planted inside,"

Yuuta spat out his soup and stared at Deckard. "A time bomb?! Are you guys okay?"

Deckard held up his servos to calm to boy. "No one was injured, just a few scrapes but by the time we dug ourselves out the trail had gone cold,"

Yuuta looked at the tray in his lap guiltily. "I should have been there…"

Deckard frowned. "And you would have ended up here anyway when the warehouse went up,"

Yuuta sighed and took another bite of his soup. "Yeah, you're right,"

Deckard looked away for a moment and looked back at Yuuta. "I'd better head back before anyone realizes how long I've been gone. I'll be back to pick you up when they let you out,"

Yuuta nodded, not wanting his friend to leave but also not wanting for him to get in trouble. "Ok, tell the guys 'hi' for me,"

Deckard smiled "I will," he started to walk away but came back to the window almost as soon as he had left it.

"Oh, that reminds me, Shadowmaru and the Build Team send their best wishes and Gunmax wanted me to tell you to 'go easy on the ice cream' because when one of his co-workers from the Highway Patrol had appendicitis when they finally came back they couldn't stop complaining about how they ate too much of it,"

Yuuta laughed "Did he really or did you make that up?"

Deckard tilted his helm. "Well, he didn't actually say 'complaining' but I'm not repeating what he actually said,"

Yuuta smiled and waved. "Ok, I'll see you later, Deckard,"

Deckard waved as he walked away from the window.

Yuuta looked at the tray of food in front of him and realized he wasn't really that hungry right then.

He picked up the pudding cup "I'll save this for later," he looked around and saw his clothes in a pile on a chair and tossed the pudding cup on top of the pile and finished his lunch.

As Deckard walked to the parking lot he heard someone say "Whoa, mom look, it's Deckard from the Brave Police!"

He looked around and saw a young boy a little older than Yutta had come out the hospital doors with his mother and was now pointing up at him excitedly.

Not wanting to seem rude, Deckard smiled at the boy and said "Hello".

The boy's mother seemed nervous and reached toward her son. "Yes, yes, very nice let's go,"

It was obvious that the mom was nervous seeing a giant robot up close, maybe even afraid of him, but the boy went right up to Deckard and asked "Can you sign my cast, please?"

Deckard tilted his helm curiously until he saw that the boy was holding out his arm which was encased up to the elbow in a plaster cast.

The boy started searching his pockets with his free hand. "I think I got a pen here somewhere. Here it is!" He held up a pen but then the boy saw Deckard wasn't reaching out for it and his smile disappeared as he thought the mech was going to say "no".

But then Deckard knelt down and gestured for the boy to come closer as he withdrew a pen from subspace. "Alright if I use one of mine? I don't think I would be able to write very well with a human sized pen,"

The boy grinned and held up his arm. "Awesome!"

Deckard carefully wrote his designation, as small as he could while keeping it legible, on the boy's cast under the careful watch of the boy's mom. "There you go,"

The boy grinned and jumped up and down. "Awesome, the other kids at school are going to be so jealous!"

The mom, not knowing what to make of the situation and still nervous, put a hand on her son's shoulder. "Sweetie, we'd better get going, tell the robot cop 'thank you' and let's go,"

The boy smiled up at Deckard after looking over his cast as though to make sure he didn't just imagine having it signed by a Brave Police mech. "Thank you!"

Deckard smiled back "You're welcome,"

Deckard stood up as the woman lead her son to their car. As he transformed into his vehicle mode he thought about what just happened.

Even after everything they had done, the people of Nanamagari city were split down the middle; half the people loved them while others feared or hated them, and others still were indifferent to them—only caring as long as they did their jobs but they were still "just machines".

Deckard sighed through his vents as he drove away. 'Can't please everyone'

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Back at the Decker Room, Power Joe, Gunmax, and Drill Boy sat at their desks, maintaining their weapons, while McCrane and Dumpson were out on patrol and Shadowmaru sulked in the crawl-space in the ceiling.

The Ninja Detective hated missing out on the action and to say that he was upset over missing out the night before was one hell of an understatement. Had he been there they could have caught the crook's trail no matter how long it had been since he had left but he wasn't!

Which brought Shadowmaru to the second reason why he was isolating himself; Drill Boy had unintentionally let it slip that Gunmax and Deckard had asked about him when they found the trail, they hadn't even noticed he was gone until they needed him! Sure, he was a Ninja Detective but come on!

He was brought out of his depressed musings by a call from Power Joe. :Hey, where are you? Everyone else is here already.:

Shadowmaru pulled one of the ceiling tiles aside and looked down at the Build Team's table where Power Joe sat with his digit against his helm.

The Ninja Detective smiled to himself. 'Well, at least there's one good thing about being anonymous…'

He leaned down through the gap in the ceiling and said. "Up here!"

Shadowmaru grinned when Power Joe and Drill Boy both jumped while Dumpson and McCrane turned to look up at him and Gunmax simply glanced up to make sure nothing was going to fall on him from the ceiling but otherwise ignored him.

Deckard tilted his helm back and said. "Shadowmaru, if you would join us we can get started,"

"Ok," Shadowmaru held the ceiling tile so that it would fall back into place when he let go of it and jumped down through the hole, landing on his peds next to the desks and sat in his seat.

Deckard turned to look at everyone and said. "Alright, since Yuuta isn't here I guess I'll start," he looked over at the Build Team's table. "Dumpson, McCrane, did either of you find anything?"

Dumpson shook his helm. "No, nothing,"

McCrane turned his chair slightly. "I didn't actually find anything on my patrol either, but I stopped at the DMV to ask if there were any vehicles registered in Dr. Madoh's name,"

Deckard somehow knew from McCrane's tone that there was a good chance he was going to like what he was going to hear next. "And?"

McCrane held up a piece of paper. "Got the make, model and color of the car as well as the VIN number and license plate numbers. If they took the car that is in Dr. Madoh's name we should be able to find it,"

Gunmax looked at him. "And if they didn't?"

McCrane looked down at the piece of paper between his digits. "Then I just wasted paper… and that crabby lady's time by having her look up their vehicle registry,"

Deckard held his servo out for the paper and McCrane went to hand it to him. "Well, at least we have some idea of what to look for,"

Shadowmaru smiled at him "You mean aside from whatever trap or monster he has waiting for us this time?"

Deckard smiled back "Funny how you mention 'us', it's our turn for patrol. Gunmax and Power Joe will have their turn later this afternoon,"

The two mentioned mechs pointed each other and asked with dismay. "I've got to work with him?"

Deckard frowned "You don't have to stay together the entire time if you really don't want to, just as long as you stay in contact with us and each other," he looked around at the other occupants of the room. "Anyone have anything to add? Any further discussion?"

No one said anything so Deckard nodded "Alright, meeting adjourned… for now, we will have another one when Yuuta is released from the hospital, the Commissioner will be joining us for that one as well,"

Everyone nodded in understanding. "Yes sir,"

After Deckard and Shadowmaru left for patrol, everyone found something to occupy themselves. While Dumpson and McCrane finished their reports, Power Joe cleaned his weapons and Drill Boy spun around in his chair to see how fast he could go without tipping over.

Gunmax saw the remote on the edge of the human's platform and grabbed it, but when he tried turning on the monitor with it nothing happened.

'What the…' he tried the power button a few more times before noticing the remote was lighter than usual. He turned it over and saw the batteries and the back of the remote were gone. "What happened here?"

Everyone looked up and saw he was holding up the empty remote.

Drill Boy stopped spinning and looked at his brothers in a "Now what?" manner.

Dumpson just shrugged like he knew nothing about it and Power Joe just pretended he didn't hear Gunmax so Drill boy tried to remember the cover story they had come up with the night before. "Oh, uh… we tried to change the batteries last night. We knocked the old ones out and into the trash but we couldn't get the new ones in because they're… you know human sized,"

Gunmax looked at Drill Boy like he didn't believe him and leaned against Deckard's desk. "There was nothing wrong with them when I was using the monitor last night," he went over to the trash can and looked inside. "You said you put the old ones in here?"

Drill Boy nodded and Gunmax shook the trash can to sift its contents. "Don't see them in here,"

Drill Boy's smile became more forced. "Oh, uh… maybe someone changed it last night?"

Gunmax reached in and pulled out pieces of a broken pen. "Then why is the pen that Deckard broke last night still here?"

Drill Boy flustered; he was cornered and he knew it but he didn't want to give up. "Uh…"

Gunmax spotted the batteries and the back of the remote sitting where the remote had been. "Freaking morons…" he picked up one of the batteries, which was about as big as a Tic Tac to him, between his digits and put it in the remote before doing the same with the other batteries and putting the cover back into place.

Dumpson looked over. "How did you…"

"Practice" Gunmax tried the remote again and smirked when it finally worked. "Boys, if you're going to lie, lie well," he surfed through the channels until Power Joe got sick of hearing the clicking of the remote and snapped.

"Oh for crap sake, pick a channel already!" the Kung Fu Detective snapped.

Gunmax snorted, feigning irritation but privately enjoying the fact that he was pushing the other mech's buttons. "Fine, just let me find… ah here we go," he settled on a streamed American channel that was showing that same zombie show from last night.

Drill Boy looked over. "How can you watch that? It's just a bunch of zombies jumping out at people who scream and shoot them?"

Gunmax smirked, not looking away from the screen. "How can you watch soccer? It's just a bunch of guys running around in shorts trying to kick a ball into a net,"

Drill Boy gasped as though someone had insulted his mother, if he had one. "You take that back!"

Gunmax just held up his servos in a shrug. "Hey, at least I'm learning how to kill zombies," he slowly looked over at Drill Boy. "As crazy as this town is, you never know when one might show up…"

Drill Boy looked at him nervously and Dumpson cut in. "Ah, come on, it hasn't been that crazy,"

Gunmax counted off on his digits. "Killer robots, a giant panda, giant robot bugs, a cloned dinosaur, a dragon…"

Drill Boy started to protest "Yeah but still…" they all heard screaming coming from the monitor and looked to see what was going on just in time to see a particularly gory scene.

The Build Team averted their optics with cries of shock and/or disgust while Gunmax shook his helm. "Asshole probably had it coming,"

McCrane frowned "Your concern does you credit,"

Gunmax shrugged "They're just actors," he looked at the other mech's in the room. "What, you think if the zombie apocalypse did hit they wouldn't tell us?"

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Meanwhile, with Deckard and Shadowmaru

The two mechs drove along the street, Deckard in his vehicle mode while Shadowmaru followed behind in his patrol car mode.

After about several minutes of relative silence, Shadowmaru spoke up "You know, Deckard, I was surprised to hear that you changed the roster at the last minute. Power Joe was supposed to be with Drill Boy, not Gunmax, while I was written down to be with Mr. Motorcycle,"

Deckard answered automatically as he focused on the road. "Gunmax needs to learn to work with other people. Dragowan is still out there and we don't know what Dr. Madoh has up his sleeve next so we should use the buddy system so neither of them catches any one of us alone,"

Shadowmaru saw what was really going on. "Little Boss is in the hospital and you're not used to doing patrols alone,"

Deckard flashed his headlights in surprise. "N-no, that's not true!"

Had Shadowmaru been in robot mode he would have been shaking his helm with a smile on his lip components. "Of course not," they came to a stop light and stopped. "You do realize that this leaves Drill Boy the odd one out so he'll have to go alone,"

Deckard hadn't thought of that at first. "I'll go with him if none of his brothers want to,"

Shadowmaru scoffed "Double patrols? Deckard, you do realize a drill tank can't keep up with a car or truck, which I'm guessing is why you originally had him with Power Joe since they both have treads which aren't that fast. Furthermore, none of you can fly so if he decides to patrol from the air you will be the ones struggling to keep up with him. Let me go with him, I can keep up with him in the air and wait for him if he uses his ground-based alt. mode,"

Deckard smiled internally; although the purple mech would never admit it, he was gradually becoming a big brother figure to Drill Boy and would often show it when he didn't think anyone was paying enough attention to notice, like when Shadowmaru helped Drill Boy snap out of it during the Inti case.

One thing that concerned Deckard right then though… "Weren't you sick last night?"

Shadowmaru was tempted to ram the patrol car in front of him but then the light turned green and they started moving again so he couldn't even if he wanted to. "I just needed recharge to get my energy back. I'm fine,"

Deckard hesitated but knew he would get nowhere with arguing with the Ninja Detective; even on those rare occasions where he actually lost an argument there was still a chance he would go off and do his own thing anyway, he was like a rebellious teenager in that respect. "If you say so,"

"I know so," Shadowmaru changed lanes so he could get into a turn lane while Deckard continued going straight. "Well, looks like this is where we part ways for now, Master Deckard. Stay in touch,"

"You do the same, Shadowmaru. And be careful! Whoa!" Deckard swerved as a blue car cut him off to merge with traffic sooner than it should have.

Shadowmaru laughed as he called Deckard over the comm. links. :Maybe you should take your own advice.: he cut off the link before Deckard could say anything and drove away.

Deckard sighed and turned on his sirens to pull over the blue car for reckless driving. However the driver ignored him and not only did they not pull over they drove faster to try to lose him.

Deckard huffed 'Why do they bother trying to run? With as bad as traffic is they won't get far.'

He drove faster to pull up alongside the driver to signal him to stop, but then he saw the man at the wheel. "He looks familiar, but where…"

Then Deckard realized why, he matched the description of Dr. Madoh to a "T". He took a good look at the car and saw it matched the description that McCrane was able to get too.

He activated his P.A. system and all but shouted into it. "Pull over to the side of the road, now!"

The man at the wheel, Deckard was sure it was Dr. Madoh now, hid his face behind the collar of his shirt swerved to ram Deckard and went into a mob of traffic.

Deckard contacted Shadowmaru. :Shadowmaru, do you read me?:

:Yep, having troubles?: Deckard heard the sound of a jet taking off and saw Shadowmaru's jet mode appear above the surrounding buildings a few moments later.

Deckard drove after the car but traffic was getting thicker. :Stay on that blue car, the driver fits the description of Dr. Madoh to the point where he might as well be wearing a name tag with the scientist's name on it.:

:On it!: Shadowmaru flew after the street so he was above the car and stayed with it as it swerved between cars, even knocking a minivan out of the way so it could get onto an exit ramp that went into a parking garage.

:Deckard, he's heading into an underground level of a parking garage a few blocks from you on the right.:

Deckard huffed and tried to find a way past the traffic jam that the minivan that had been knocked into traffic had caused. :Copy that, I'll be there as soon as I can.:

He transformed and skirted the parked cars that were now honking angrily and apologizing to the drivers. "Excuse me, pardon me, official police business…"

The drivers just shouted at him, some used rudely colorful language, and honked at him some more until he got to the van and pulled it aside, dragging it by the front bumper.

Once the way was cleared he knelt down and looked at the driver; a young woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Are you alright, miss?"

The woman nodded, holding her head. "Yeah, going to be late for work now, though,"

"I'm sorry," Deckard heard gunfire not far away and took out his gun as he ran along the side of the road, jumped a barrier and ran down the ramp to the underground level of the parking garage that the ramp led to.

Deckard looked around for any sign of either Dr. Madoh, the car he had been driving or Shadowmaru. He didn't see any sign of the first two but he did see Shadowmaru using a pillar for support as he stood up, clutching his shoulder.

"Shadowmaru! What happened?" Deckard ran over and examined the other mech's shoulder, a mixture of oil and hydraulic fluid seeped between Shadowmaru's digits.

Shadowmaru winced as he moved his servo to reveal a decent sized bullet hole underneath it. "You were right, it was Dr. Madoh, and he had his assistant with him. I followed them down here but the little weasel got in a few lucky shots and got my wing,"

He pushed off the pillar he was leaning against and jogged stiffly towards another exit ramp. "Come on, they went this way,"

Deckard followed the hobbling mech and the two of them found themselves on the side of the same street they had just came off of, only a few blocks down.

They scanned all of the vehicles they could see but the blue car that Dr. Madoh had been driving was not among them.

Deckard sighed "They're gone, and the traffic jam they just caused is too thick for us to follow them in vehicle mode,"

Shadowmaru swayed on his peds but stubbornly stayed upright. "I'd try to track them from the air but like I said they hit my wing. Maybe I can track them in my wolf mode…"

He grit his denta as he initiated the transformation sequence but he couldn't stop a very canine-sounding whine from escaping his vocalizer as the change aggravated his injury.

Deckard shook his helm as the giant metal purple wolf tried to limp away from him. "The only place you are going is back to the precinct to get that shoulder repaired,"

Shadowmaru sat back on his haunches and looked at Deckard with wide red optics. "But…"

Deckard shook his helm "No buts, no matter which form you take by the time we get through this traffic jam they will be long gone and you need repairs,"

Shadowmaru growled "I've dealt with worse,"

Deckard just sighed and lifted the wolf-mech onto his shoulders and Shadowmaru struggled "Whoa hey, what are you doing?"

Deckard walked back through the parking garage and back out the way they had come in. "Bringing you back to the precinct,"

Shadowmaru slumped. "Can't I just walk? It's really not that bad… and I look like you hunted me!"

Deckard shook his helm, trying not to think about how awkward they actually looked and took a moment to be thankful that the precinct wasn't that far. Then he realized something disturbing. "This place isn't far from the precinct,"

Shadowmaru looked around and saw that they were in the parking lot he had asked Artemis to meet him in, two intersections away from the precinct. "No, it isn't. Why would they risk coming this close to the precinct if they knew we were after them?"

Deckard started to say something but Shadowmaru cut him off. "Don't give me that look, they knew damn well we were after them. The gun that the assistant used fired armor-piercing rounds and they had it all ready to go in the car with them. Why have a weapon fully loaded and at the ready if you don't plan on using it?"

Deckard thought for a moment and hummed to himself. "Hmm, you have a point there," he crossed the street so they were on side of the street they should be on. "Better tell the others about this, if the scientists are going to be waiting for us when we do catch up to them we'll need to be ready,"

A.N.: Quick shout out to the people that reviewed and/or added; Ironhide's Girl 103.