The Silvery White Knight finished set up of the teleport shortly after Django spotted Aaron coming to the front door. He'd been working on the teleport for a considerable amount of and Toasty were not long in coming inside with Earnest. Earnest looked considerably less enthusiastic about talking to Django.

"Guys! We think the Immortal took Lucian to the moon!" Aaron explained the situation back at Old Culiacan, the announcement Tolstoy made, and the ship blockade around the moon. "Can you help us get there? Do you know where they might be on the moon?!"

"The Dark Swordsman is a prisoner in Mahoroba, the Lunar capitol there. The sword he wields is there with them at the Vanargand seal."

"How did you know?!," Aaron asked. "I need to go help Lucian, right away!"

"The dark sword I found when scrying to find out what happened to Django's brother. I have good reason to believe the dark sword contains Sabata's soul. It may be that the Immortal intends to use his soul as a sacrifice again. Lucian is attuned to the dark power of the blade and may be part of the Immortal's plan..."

"No... Lucian..."

Django said, "Aaron. I won't let your brother suffer the same fate mine did."

Silver gestured to the active teleport circle on the floor. "This is the means by which you can get to the moon. I advise going while the city is still bathed in sunlight. If you permit him to accompany you, Django can activate Lunar technology for you."

"Thank you! Wait, is it all right if we bring him, Earnest?"

Earnest was thinking about it. "Is it really necessary to bring along a... vampire? He might have a grudge against Lucian?"

"We've been over this."

Silver did not blame the gunner for being wary. "You would be able to have my guidance either way when navigating the city. I am, after all, the Moon Guardian. Alice gave you an extra phone, did she not? There are shorter paths available with Django which would save hours of time and possibly allow you to surprise the Immortal. I know not how much time you will have to help the Terrenials and Dark Swordsman."

"Earnest, Dad trusted Django. I think he wants to help."

Earnest was still not convinced but Aaron's pleading look was working overtime. Aaron was dead set on doing whatever it took to save his friends.

"I trust Django," said Toasty.

Tove nodded. "I say we bring him along. He returned solar trees to this world. Even though it would have been easier to let them go extinct and solar trees weaken vampire dungeons."

Silver knew there was another important factor in the mission and should be brought up. "Django's loan is due in a little over a day. I do not believe he will be able to repay." He sounded resigned and a little disappointed.

"...Of course he took out a loan," Toasty muttered before exclaiming, "Wait, what for?!"

Django sighed. "I couldn't solar charge in the middle of the night, my energy station balance was low, and I needed to repay that pubmaster for the property destruction..." With all the robots that needed dark-enchanted attacks to destroy, there was no time to sleep during the siege. Doomy had been thrilled.

It wasn't long before the small crew Aaron and Earnest brought were assembled inside the ground floor of the tower. "Right," said Earnest, "We all set to go? Any questions?" The group was not a large one. They were focused on keeping a small and stealthy strike team. Carmilla had tagged along with a replenished supply of ammunition, of course.

Confused Guildsman went right to addressing the Elefan in the room. "He's a vampire!"

"Yeah. His name is Django. He's gonna be our door opener. I explained this twice already." He'd already explained this. Django had gone through the teleporter ahead of the team to test it and make sure nothing would jump them. This let him be out of the way while the plan was explained.

It was Soothing Guildswoman who raised an eyebrow. "The one Lucian fought?"

Silver sighed. "That is correct." He was glad Dumas left before Aaron and his friends arrived. That would have been even more difficult to explain. Django suspected his territorial vampire instincts had kicked in a little bit when kicking out Perrault and the Duke. That, and he didn't want to deal with Duke Dumas insisting on vampire mentorship. Silver felt insulted by the Duke trying to steal his squire. It did make him happy that his squire chose him over a suit of casket armor.

Carmilla said, "We need to save Lucian as soon as possible. We could use another element type in battle too."

The trip through the Lunar city on the moon was, without a doubt, tortuously awkward. The small crew of gunslingers were picked for their infiltration skill. They also were instructed to shoot Django if he started saying things like "...Run...the darkness-overwhelming! Get away!," or, "You look delicious, mind if I have a bite?" Django didn't like the justified worry about him turning evil on people, even if he understood their concern. The Guild Gunslingers did not trust a vampire to help save Lucian.

They say a good compromise is one where no one is happy. If you went by that criteria, this was a good compromise. Carmilla and Django were assigned to disable sol-absorbing force fields if they encountered any robots belonging to the Immortal. Aaron could taste the tension in the atmosphere.

The Silvery White Knight's voice guided them through an uneventful series of shortcuts, until finally they were almost to the seal. They had discussed their plans beforehand yet all were nervous.

Aaron was designated as the vampire-explainer if Lucian was conscious.

Tolstoy, although he would have preferred to get started right away, had to admit there were advantages to being forced to wait. The new moon forcing him to stop for a bit gave him time to work on two projects. He was not worried about the space battle going on at his blockade. The ships were not enough to break through the battle ships and drones he had around the moon.

The first project was figuring out how to control the sacrifice when he was fused to Vanargand. (Both Vanargands.) He was still working on that one. That could wait another moon day, if necessary. Messing that up would at least get him killed before he could feel the complete weight of his embarrassment. Lucian was unconscious after the latest attempt Tolstoy made to manipulate him.

The second project, one he'd found more success with, was making good use of the Terrenials' power for something fun. He went and borrowed from the designs of the casket armors. He had himself a nice giant mecha suit with not just one, but four elements to use. It had been a challenge trying to get the opposing elements to work at the same time. He opened the cockpit to take a look at the console again. His green hands moved over the screen.

The Immortal also, despite knowing Lucian was securely imprisoned in the tube contraption, kept casting glances at the unconscious Dark Swordsman. He told himself he was not scared of the unconscious pathetic human.

Absolutely not scared.

Nope. Not him.

Tolstoy jumped a good foot in the air when he heard the crash of Carmilla's rocket launcher hitting his mecha. His first worry was that Lucian was out, despite all logic saying escape was impossible. He booted up the mecha and scanned the battlefield. According to his readings, the rocket barely left a scratch on his modified casket armor.

Now that the Immortal, Tolstoy, had confirmed Lucian was not loose, he could do his speech. "So the earthlings have made it here after all? You dare to defy the Will of the Galaxy?" There was a mix of humans and at least one vampire. He was gratified to see the Solar Knight had come. It gave him an opportunity to personally crush Aaron.

Notes: For some reason I have trouble coming up with dialogue for Aaron. I don't know why.