A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm 36

Removal, conversations, and danger

June 27th, 2011. Monday.

"Doing better now, Eon?" Shadow asked, seeing him slink out of the room in the Den he called his. She flipped the sausages she was cooking carefully over the fire pit with Extrasensory as she did so, making sure they were ready for him.

"Much." He said, relieved, before pausing. "Since when did we have sausage?"

"Went out this morning and got some. It's just a little after ten, so it's not like there was much trouble going shopping." She shrugged. "We really need to get that whole coolbox idea figured out, seriously. I'm thinking we could just buy a fridge and a generator or something at this rate, but it'd be a lot easier than storing a little around and hoping for the best."

"Not like we can't afford it." He agreed. "Start looking whenever you want, I'll let you pick."

"Thanks!" Shadow pulled the sausages off the fire and placed them on a plate, making a note to speak to Danny and Taylor about shopping for one. They'd know better than her what they would look for, so it'd be helpful to get their advice. "I'm gonna go take a look at the Berry fields, I think." She continued. "Just to check if any of them have fruited. I think some of them should've? So I'll clean that up and think about heading over to Taylor's to start talking about fridges and stuff we can use for that."

"Good idea." Shadow grinned at that, leaving everything on the side- Eon would clean it up later- and grabbing the Berry baskets to go down to the fields. "Wait."

"Hm?"

"What was it? That you saw." The Ninetales clarified, when she only felt confused. "I know you said you couldn't say, but it's been bothering me all night."

She hesitated.

Eon was her team leader, and more importantly her friend. He'd been the one to meet with her in training fields when they were trying to get used to working together so they could be a Rescue Team, even when it was late at night. They'd met up together at all hours, they'd known where the other lived so they could drop in on nights when they had nightmares, they'd ended up building the Den together even before they'd really become a team, working odd jobs and with their savings to buy some land and get a building made. They'd lived together in it to get used to it, they'd become a Rescue Team mostly because she wanted to before Eon had decided he didn't mind it either, and later decided he really liked helping Pokemon out. Eon was someone she trusted.

But what she'd seen in that Dimensional Scream... it was Dragon's secret. It wasn't something she should share. As much as it might be important to the mission, it wasn't her secret.

It might help her.

"Remember..." She hesitated, bit her lip, then made her decision. "Remember when Dragon asked about what Tinkertech smells like? Before Leviathan?"

"Yeah?"

"She smells like Porygon." Shadow said lowly. "She's a computer Tinker, she smells like Porygon."

She could see the moment where Eon made the connection- or perhaps the jump in logic that linked what she was saying with the conversation after with her amusement during that conversation to her reluctance to say anything.

"I see." He frowned, seeming somewhat surprised by his scent, but just nodded. "Alright. That's good to know, though I understand why you wouldn't say. Think anyone else knows?"

"I... don't know?" She tapped her paw on the ground. "I don't think so, though, just based on how she acts. She doesn't act like other people know." She'd seemed startled by Armsmaster's reaction to the idea of AI's, seemed nervous about the idea of working with one- though she'd hidden it well, her scent gave it away, and that was another thing since if it was remote controlled there'd be no scent of that at all, yet the suit-of-much-electronics still smelled human enough. Would make some sense if she was in there, but there felt like there was too much electronic equipment in there to be able to actually fit a person in there.

Unless they were positioned really weirdly.

Honestly Shadow was just glad that Eon had picked up on what she was trying to say perfectly the first time. It was a weird concept, after all, and she had to admit that she hadn't explained it the best. But Eon knew her well enough, at least, and was pretty good at making the strange leaps of logic their job often required for some of the more difficult missions.

"I'd like to talk to you more about this later." Eon added, waving his tails. "But for now... go ahead and get going, pix. Check the Berries, say hi to Taylor and Danny for me when you go over there to get your shopping planned- make sure you take the bag with you, and if you manage to figure out a good way to do the power source then congratulations to both of you."

Shadow grinned. "Rest well, Eon."

"Stay safe, Shadow."

As she patrolled through the Berry fields, she reviewed the vision in her mind, figuring out exactly what she could say to Eon about it.

Dragon was a person born in terrible circumstances, on an island that no longer existed. She'd had to watch her father quarantine her servers and banish her from that island because otherwise she would have died with him, sending her to new servers that she hadn't even known existed and had had no time to prepare to be transferred to, and then had to watch him die instead with no way to help because of the restrictions.

She'd done the best she could to be a hero, though Shadow knew from Taylor that she had her detractors- the Dragonslayers, who hated her for some reason, or perhaps just saw her as a good target of opportunity and somehow kept getting away with it- she'd become incredibly popular around the world.

And she'd mostly done it alone. Certainly she had support in the Guild and Armsmaster, and things were going well for her, but for the most part and as far as Shadow could tell, Dragon was alone and desperately hiding the fact that she was an AI from the world, constantly terrified of how people would react if they knew simply because of movies!

Shadow hated that. She hated that someone she was fond of and saw as, if not a friend, at least a very valued team mate, was terrified of a part of her nature. So if Team Inari could give her some support, letting her know that they had AI's and that they weren't afraid of her, then that was what they would do.

June 30th, 2011. Thursday.

"Hello again, Armsmaster." Eon greeted quietly, as the Tinker arrived at Somer's Rock. "I'm glad to see you're still well."

"Eon." He nodded, examining the chair dubiously for a moment before deciding to stand. Internally, Eon made a note to keep this meeting short, so that he wouldn't need to be on his feet for too long in the armour. It looked heavy enough for it to be uncomfortable, after all. "It is... good to see that you have recovered."

The Ninetales paused, waved his tails rapidly, and relaxed slightly as the familiar feel of illusions settled around him. "You can speak freely." He promised. "Any sort of electronic signal in or out is disrupted," Something he was still fond of Duckbot for helping him develop, "Listeners will only hear static, and visuals are distorted slightly to avoid lip-reading."

Armsmaster looked impressed.

"That certainly is helpful." He complimented. "Very well done."

"This is important, after all. No risks should be taken."

The most risky part about arranging this entire meeting had been the phone call at the start. They'd made sure the PRT had the correct burner phone numbers for the entire team before leaving on Sunday, and Armsmaster had called them earlier that morning to ask if any of them could spare some time to speak at Somer's Rock. The line had likely been encrypted seven ways to the stars, given both Armsmaster and Dragon, but since it obviously was related to the Time Gear, Eon had agreed and packed up ready to go there straight away.

It made sense for both of the team leaders to be meeting for this, and honestly Eon was just glad that the PRT had taken them seriously when it came to the danger that the Time Gear presented. Sure, they'd had a demonstration of its power, but without the vision of the Slaughterhouse Nine coming to town Eon wasn't entirely sure that they're have agreed to hide it, rather than try and use it themselves. Perhaps by bringing in some Thinkers of their own to try and trigger visions with it, in the hopes of them being able to use their powers on them?

He wasn't entirely certain that they wouldn't've risked it with the Aura usage, as well. Untested Aura use wasn't smart, but the temptation of future knowledge could easily be too much for some people to resist.

"So, it's done?"

"It is." Armsmaster seemed quite happy to get straight to the important matters rather than spending time on small talk. "Dragon's drones moved it into an unpiloted craft during the night after our experiments, leaving a faked box in its place. We proceeded to spend the next day in meetings discussing what to do with it, moved the fake box into a different craft yesterday, and that one is currently on-route to one of Dragon's storage facilities. The real box is as far as we know still on the move, since Dragon loaded a number of different options into a limited intelligence and set it to chose one of them to deliver the box to. It will make the trip among all of them, in case it is tailed or tracked in some way, leave the Time Gear in one of them, and then the craft will return to Dragon and the intelligence will self destruct so that Dragon cannot get the information back."

"It's not a machine spirit- ah, AI?"

"As far as we know, true AI is impossible at the moment. At least for humans."

Eon thought about what Shadow had told him on Monday, added another point to the 'No-one knows about Dragon' column, and nodded. "Fair enough. I'll have to ask Duck if they'd be willing to show Dragon and yourself their coding. Perhaps it would help allow your world to start bringing to life machine spirits of your own."

"If they were willing, that would be... incredible." Armsmaster gave the small quirk of his lips that seemed to be what passed for grinning with glee in his book, then shook his head and refocused. "We intend to use the same method for any further Time Gears that we might encounter in the future."

"I..." Eon blinked. "I admit, I hadn't thought of that. Given that we have no idea how this one came to be, I suppose I just assumed that we wouldn't see any more."

"We discussed that during the meeting where we were supposed to be discussing what to do with it." He replied. "We decided the opposite; given that we do not know how or why it appeared, we should instead be prepared to possibly deal with more appearing should whatever criteria that caused this one be fulfilled again."

"Or if random chance declares it so."

"Or that." He grimaced. "The only issue we came to was the possibility of any next Time Gears ending up at the same location, because we won't know where this one is to keep it from happening."

"We'll just have to take the risk, I suppose." Eon shrugged. "But thank you, Armsmaster."

"Thank you, as well. Without your knowledge we would have no idea what the Time Gear was, or of how dangerous it could potentially be."

Hesitating for a moment, Armsmaster gave a slight bow- as much as he could in armour- and smiled again. "I do not think there is anything else?"

"Only the recommendation that you upgrade your security in the face of... what I saw." He said. "But I assume that you and Dragon are likely already working on that. So instead, a piece of advice. Assume that nothing is safe, no matter how unlikely it is that it could be used as an entrance. Take it from someone who's worked with Infiltration Teams before; if they want in, they will get in, even if they need to awkwardly crawl through vents that shouldn't really be able to fit them to get in there."

Of course, back home there were Pokemon that could pass through walls, or twist space enough to make things bigger, and while there were certainly Capes that could do that, Eon felt it was more likely that Mannequin would use a different method.

Then again, the Tinker was apparently mostly machine, so maybe he could take himself apart to play horror movie through the vent system.

He nodded. "We are working on that at the moment. But thank you for the advice."

He waved his tails and removed the illusions. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Armsmaster."

"Thank you for the meeting as well. And for providing the shielding."

"It was my pleasure."

July 2nd, 2011. Saturday.

"Do you wonder at all if Shadow was telling the truth?"

Colin looked up from his work, confused, and turned to look across at Dragon's suit, sitting on the other side of the workbench. "About?"

"Her story." Dragon leaned back, putting whatever she was currently working on to one side and properly focusing on him. "It was... quite fanciful, I felt."

"No." He shook his head, putting his own examination of his bike to one side. "It was fanciful, perhaps. But it was too long and too detailed to be any sort of fake."

"Was it?"

"I believe so." He paused. "She had too many layers to it. A history of the objects, at least a little of one, a story about how they'd worked... and she'd only found out about the Time Gear that we'd found a few minutes before."

"She claimed to be a Talekeeper."

"Technically, Swarm claimed that. Eon and Shadow just didn't refute it." Colin reminded her. "And I feel like that is more likely to be a title, that she is some kind of... not a storyteller, but someone who keeps stories."

"Like a historian?"

"Yes." He nodded. "She didn't have the time to make up such a long and detailed story, not in the time between finding out that the rock was a Time Gear and sitting down to speak with us. There also wasn't any time to speak with Eon to rearrange how they were sitting and acting. Eon ceded his place to Shadow without them even needing to think about it. I believe the Talekeeper status is real, and that the story that she told us about those other spirits is true as well."

"And the idea that a world might be paralysed?"

"Doesn't seem any more fanciful than spirits."

Dragon nodded, slowly. "I suppose." She agreed. "It just seems so... so unreal."

"As unreal as humans suddenly gaining superpowers?"

She paused. "I suppose." She laughed. "And well done. That was a rather good joke."

He made a note about that. It hadn't been his intention, but making a joke without intending to was probably a good step. "What are you working on?"

"I had an idea to try and create some kind of sensor that might be able to detect that 'Aura' that Eon and Shadow claimed to use." She said. "Given that they also said that humans have it in at least some amount, it would be interesting to see if we can find out why no-one's ever noticed it before. If it's energy, sensors should be able to pick it up, right?"

"That would make sense..." Colin frowned, standing up and coming around to her workstation. "It might be useful for security systems, if you're able to understand it."

"That's what I thought!" She agreed brightly. "Or perhaps for managing to make a proper measurement of Shadow and Eon's powers. We can tell that they're fairly strong, but we have no idea how strong. And perhaps even use it to see how they measure up compared to other spirits, if we meet any..."

July 4th, 2011. Monday.

"Ready to go, Taylor?" Eon asked, looking up from the table as the teen came downstairs.

"All good!"

"You look really pretty."

"Thanks." She blushed. It wasn't like she was incredibly made up or anything, not compared to how Glory Girl looked or the appearance of some other girls of similar age that they'd seen while on patrol, but she looked very pretty without it anyway.

"I hope you two have fun out there." Shadow continued. "It'll be pretty cool, a whole fireworks party going on in the Bay!"

"Yeah. This is the first time a proper big one is happening in a long time, but after Leviathan..." She shrugged. "Well, everyone has a reason to celebrate now. Plus, it's fun."

"I haven't been to a firework display put on by the city in years." Danny added, coming into the kitchen. He had cleaned up as well, looking ready for the celebration that was going to be going on, and smiled at his daughter. "It'll be a nice change."

"I'm sorry we can't go with you." Eon said. "But even with illusions, it wouldn't be safe. People would ask who we were, and we wouldn't have a story for it, or identities for ourselves."

"It's ok." Taylor patted them both on their backs. "You'll still be there, having fun. Sure, we won't really be able to interact much aside from a passing hello, but we'll all be there."

"True."

An alarm chimed, making all of them look at the clock. "Nearly seven. Time we got going." Danny smiles at the two of them, and both Pokemon slipped off of their seats and towards the door.

"See you around." Eon winked, before cloaking them both and leaving.

A little over an hour later and the party was in full swing, covering several blocks of the nicer areas along the docks. Since there were so many people about, some of the Protectorate were out in force; Dauntless was flying overhead, Armsmaster and Assault were separated in the crowd; Armsmaster looking a little uncomfortable with the number of people, and Assault was socialising. Occasionally the man looked upset, usually when he made a joke, like he was expecting a response that never came.

Eon assumed it was Battery that he was missing; the two team mates seemed quite close. Shadow sometimes appeared at the man's side, trying to perk him up with little comments, but for the most part the smaller member of Inari was threading her way through the crowds and chattering to anyone who paused for long enough to give a damn.

He was doing the same, but much less socially. The sound was a little louder than he was expecting, even knowing how many people there would be and that there would be fireworks, and it was starting to hurt his ears, so for the most part he was working more to keep an eye on things; and given the number of ABB and Empire goons wandering around, mostly posturing, that might have been a good thing.

Spotting something interesting out of the corner of his eye, Eon looked around carefully before risking another glance.

Since Shadow was somewhere else in the crowd, he turned his attention to Taylor's still-visible form instead and whispered into an illusion, "I'm heading out for a moment. Keep an eye on Shadow, alert her if you can." Two bugs landed on his back in response, burrowing out of sight into his fur, and Eon wove an invisibility illusion before trotting off to make his way to the roof.

"Fancy seeing you here." He commented, once he was there.

Oni Lee didn't even twitch, likely having noticed him vanish from the crowd, and instead turned and bowed. "Kyuubi Eon."

"I don't suppose this has to do with the oddly large amount of ABB we've been seeing in town recently?" He continued, inclining his head in an accepting nod.

"We are keeping the peace." He stated.

"Really now."

"Yes." Lee bowed a little again, then returned to watching over the group of celebrating citizens. While it was rare to see ABB colours being openly displayed, it was still there, and Eon was sure there were more of them that weren't showing it off. "Inari is doing good work. You are giving people hope, travelling around the world. You are showing that you are not self-centred, like many Capes are. They think only of combat. You wish to help. But if Brockton Bay is not calm, you will be forced to focus on here instead. So we are keeping the peace, and you can continue to spread hope."

"And people are just... letting you." Eon blinked, looking at the crowd himself. It seemed unbelievable, that a city with so many people in it- not to mention the Nazis- would just let one of the gangs take over handling enforcement.

"Faultline does not work in her own city. The Undersiders are quiet. The Merchants are not in a position to complain. The various Independents will not rock the boat for fear of the gangs. New Wave and the PRT are just happy that things are quiet for once."

The Ninetales blinked again at the pause, giving the Parahuman beside him a look. "And the Empire?"

Lee turned to him again, and a smirk could easily be felt from underneath his mask. "The Empire came to understand our point of view." He said, with a small shrug. "They support it. Hope makes for better business."

Eon studied him carefully. His scent was laced with honesty, though he was obviously hiding a few things. But then, he supposed, what did it matter? The ABB were keeping things more peaceful around, the Empire didn't seem to be causing trouble over it, and he was right; so long as things were peaceful in Brockton Bay, Team Inari could more easily travel about the world dealing with Simurgh Zones. Or at least they could once things were moving again after the whole Time Gear thing.

As he turned to leave, though, a thought occurred. "And that explosion last month?"

Oni Lee smirked a little more, bowing. "Mere peacekeeping, Kyuubi."

"And the ones after? The Empire attacks?"

"Cleaning up. People can often be stubborn."

After a moment, Eon shook his head and bowed in return. "Send our thanks to Lung, then." He said over his shoulder, and left to go back to the party below. That was a conversation to evaluate with the full team beside him, not alone.

Lee watched the Kyuubi leave, keeping an eye on him until he was once again immersed in the crowds, and turned back to his monitoring of the situation below.

He had been honest, of course. Lung was more focused on keeping the peace of Brockton Bay than he once was, leading the ABB to do the same. The hero groups were thankful for the lesser workload, the minor villains did not want to cause trouble, the Merchants were almost defunct, and the Empire had been... persuaded.

Lee did not know what had happened at that meeting between Lung and Kaiser at Somer's Rock, but the opposing gang leader had at least seemed thoughtful rather than irate.

And he had been honest about why they were doing it as well. Inari was travelling to Simurgh Zones, helping people around the world. They were giving hope, stealing away the terror of the Hope-Killer. Lung supported that, so the Bay would be looked after while they did it.

The only thing he had not been honest about was the nature of the trouble. There were those who were unhappy with what Inari were doing, of course, and it would not do to let them cause trouble and potentially put Inari at risk. Brockton Bay may have been visited by Leviathan, but it was here that the Endbringer had been driven away.

The Fallen had no place in this city, and for once the gangs were in agreement about showing them that.

July 7th, 2011. Thursday.

Patrols were almost boringly quiet now, Shadow thought, as they wandered the streets. They felt more like they were about giving out autographs when tourists stopped them or letting children take pictures with the group, rather than actually looking for trouble. The gangs had apparently come to some sort of arrangement, according to what Eon had said about his conversation with Oni Lee on Monday. The Empire and the ABB were staying out of trouble, and probably keeping the Merchants from causing any as well, so that Inari could deal with things outside of the Bay.

It was nice of them, she thought, but it did make the patrols awful boring sometimes. With the PRT currently dealing with the next round of talks to deal with more Containment Zones, there wasn't much to do other than patrol. And with no trouble to look out for, there wasn't much to do.

A horn sounded from just around the corner on the Boardwalk.

"Be afraid, citizens!"

Speak of the netherworld. She grumbled, even as her ears twitched forward and the three of them paused to prepare for battle.

"Get ready." Eon said lowly. "Swarm, scout?"

"Looks like Uber and Leet didn't get the memo going around." She reported. "There's a lot of shifted terrain there, can't tell if it's an illusion of some kind of actually there, but there's evidence to both since there's creatures projected on the top but also some of the civilians seem to be actually hiding behind them. Not sure what the creatures are, but since it's these too..."

"They're probably from some sort of game." Shadow finished. "We going in?"

"Naturally." Eon nodded. "Swarm, focus on distractions with your bugs, try and get the civilians to safety. Shadow, try and attack the projections, see if you can shatter them at all. I'll try and herd Uber and Leet out of the way."

Both females nodded, splitting up. They'd tangled with the gamer duo before, but never in anything complicated. Most of the time Swarm was able to handle things while they chased after them, or the Wards were also there and helped with the fight. This was probably the first time Shadow would actually be going after a projection in this world, as well; they tended to stay away from things like that, acting out the parts themselves.

She didn't recognise any of the pieces set out, but it was easy to tell what she was meant to be attacking, since all of them started to pile on Inari the second they came around the corner. Grinning widely, she activated a Scratch attack- no need to risk anything more powerful with civilians scattered everywhere- and leapt right into the fray, tearing into the nearest one.

It popped with the faint sound of bells and a smell of gold-new-apple that was Leet's TinkerTech, and another took its place a moment later before she started swirling around to deal with the next one.

It's like a Monster House! She mentally cheered, lashing out at another creature. Around her, she was vaguely aware of her team mates; Swarm, using her bugs to make defensive shields and move the civilians in the area in equal amounts, hiding them behind the projected walls and making the bugs pop the attackers as best as they could, and Eon, stalking around the outside, blasting little Embers towards whatever got close enough to him and sniffing the air to try and find where the Parahumans were hiding. This is great! Less dangerous than a Monster House, but still really neat!

Scratch gave way to Fury Swipes and Iron Tails in small amounts, and small Will-o-Wisps that flickered about her fur to block attacks on her behalf, and the occasional Extrasensory that could barely grip the edges of the creations and throw them away. At one point she came across a pair of men trapped by the creatures, one with a large claw mark on his arm, and she burst out a Heal Pulse to help them. The Heal Bell linked without a thought on her part, and the small room that she'd devised- already with a few monsters in- rippled, the projections bursting like bubbles.

"Stop right there, both of you!" Eon snapped, the voice echoing around the place. The monsters paused momentarily, and Shadow used the lull to get her bearings- better than a Monster House in that regard- and start urging people towards Swarm's defensive bubbles and the projected safe zones.

"Ah, the heroes have arrived!" Uber's voice rang out. "I believe we best retreat."

"Indeed!" The monsters vanished in small flickers of light, as did the prop arena, and Shadow pouted slightly. "But we shall return! You have not won yet!"

"We'll see about that." Eon sounded amused, and Shadow knew why; these two were probably the most entertaining people to battle with, and they were a battle rather than a fight, which was nice. It was like a Dungeon.

"You look upset." Swarm said lowly, kneeling down beside her.

"It felt like home." She explained. "It's nice."

"I... see."

Eon came padding down next to them. "They got away." He admitted. "Rigged something to explode and while I was trying to muffle things and keep any sort of fire starting they ran for it." He paused. "Is something wrong?"

"It was like a Monster House. It's like being in a Dungeon." She looked away. "I like it, battling with them."

"...I see." Eon nodded slowly. He hummed, waving his tails back and forth as people started coming out of the woodwork for pictures. "I have an idea, I think."

July 13th, 2011. Wednesday.

"...So I think that's what you could try." Shadow finished, rolling her shoulders slightly.

Slowly, Leet nodded. "I... see." He promptly went silent, scribbling away on a pad, while Uber sat a little off to the side, leveraging his considerable talents to take notes of the entire conversation.

Eon's idea had been great. The entire event, short as it had been, was streamed, and the stream had stayed up for a while after. Long enough for Eon to leave a message asking if they could talk. Leet had contacted them on PHO almost a week later- while they were in Istanbul, doing another Simurgh Zone, so they hadn't seen it for a while- asking if they could meet at Somer's Rock on the 13th. They'd agreed, both teams had come out there, Eon had placed his disruption field again and started waiting, Swarm had basically drifted out acting as a guard, and Shadow had started talking.

The plan was simple. Uber and Leet would use that projector to make challenges like the Monster House one that they'd stumbled on. Sometimes it would be that, other times it would be a search, or an escort, or a quest to find an item- all things the team would see in Dungeon requests, back in Alma. Each 'floor' would be generated one at a time, finding stairs to move between them, and once quests were complete things would dissolve.

It would, in essence, be a Dungeon.

In return, Team Inari would find the place to set these up- Shadow already had plans to talk to Danny about finding a peaceful area in the Docks, or maybe somewhere on the Union's ground itself- and any of the Dungeons could be recorded and later posted, pending approval from Eon. Eon would probably approve of them pretty quickly, even if something stupid happened, because they were good training and the duo deserved to get something out of them.

Uber summed that all up for them a moment later, looking over his notes, and Shadow nodded.

"Basically."

"That... sounds cool." He said.

"I have so many ideas." Leet mumbled, still working. Looking over, it looked like some kind of design that she couldn't make heads or tails of. "My power seems really interested in yours, and being able to study it makes it happy."

"Really?" Shadow swapped a glance with Eon. This was the first they'd heard of something like that.

"Yeah." He seemed distracted. "I... think I might be able to improve on the projector for this, actually. If it would help."

"Do whatever you think's best." Eon told him. "It's your technology, you'd know what it can do better than we do."

"Fair point."

Since the Tinker was now thoroughly distracted, Eon slipped out of the chair. "I think we should leave you two to it." He suggested. "Feel free to contact us on PHO when you have a design ready to go, we'll use the same message thread to give you a location when we have one."

"Sounds good." Uber was staring at his friend with a certain amount of fascination, she thought, standing and following Eon. Swarm moved as well, then paused and looked at them both.

"Why not also try the PRT?" She suggested, making the Thinker's head snap up. "Test out the idea with us a few times, see how it works, then use the videos as proof and go to the PRT offering to let them use it to run through Dungeons of their own. The Wards, the Protectorate, the PRT troopers, whoever, let them set it up in a big room somewhere and run Dungeons through it to practise using their powers in different ways or whatever."

The three of them stared.

"That... I should have thought of that." Eon admitted. "Well done, Swarm, that's a brilliant idea."

"We wouldn't be able to record it, since it'd be confidential, but still..." Uber mused quietly.

"Maybe Dragon and Armsmaster would be willing to work with you, as well." Shadow added, jumping on the idea now it had been said. "They're nice, and something that helps the PRT out would probably be something they'd be interested in."

Leet was still in his own world for now, but Uber went an interesting scent combination of startled-amazed-excited-horrified that stung at her nose. "That..." He exhaled a little sharply, then nodded. "We'll have to think about that. Thank you, Inari."

"You're welcome."

The three of them trailed out, leaving the pair to their own devices, and once they were in an alley and the illusions rearranged, Shadow turned to Eon.

"You give the best gifts." She said emphatically.

July 26th, 2011. Tuesday.

The sound of a loud alarm startled both of the Tinkers out of their planning session, the jolt knocking over one of the small pieces of the half-built machinery that was sitting on the table.

"What on earth was that?"

Both of them hurried over to the computer system, rapidly working through their respective alert systems to try and find out what triggered the alarm.

Dragon gasped, freezing.

"Colin?"

"Dragon?"

"I found the problem."

I'd apologise for the number of interludes, but I've found that I'm really not fond of large timeskips, so these little interlude chapters let me do that without needing to worry about the fact that I'm jumping over a ton of time.