A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm 43

Arrangements, worry, and setup

29th July, 2011. Friday.

Rebecca frowned heavily, thankful that the call was voice only, carefully keeping it out of her voice as she nodded. "Yes- yes, of course. Thank you. Yes, I'll see to it. Goodbye."

Ending the call before it could end up dragging even longer than it's original time, she leaned back and sighed, allowing herself a few moments of weakness. Glancing at her schedule as she sat up again, she saw that she had around ten minutes until her next meeting and sighed again, this time with relief.

"No matter how many times I do it, it's never easier..." She murmured to herself, reaching out for the mug of coffee on her desk. Taking a sip, she allowed herself to relax a little so she could gather her thoughts.

Dealing with the after effects of an Endbringer attack wasn't easy, no, but at the very least this time had a lot less death and destruction attached to it. There were still deaths, certainly, and there was still an unfortunate amount of buildings that had been destroyed during the entire thing that needed to be cleaned up and rebuilt, but things were moving smoothly enough. From the information she'd gotten, the vast majority of the dead had already been found, and the cleanup efforts were well underway.

It helped that a lot of the damage had been confined to a fairly small area, too. Less damage than normal and most of that being in one place meant that it was fairly simple for work crews- or assisting Parahumans- to get things done. And that meant less running around organising things, which was good.

Still, the fact that she was still working on things like that two days after the attack wasn't unusual. In fact Rebecca wouldn't be surprised if she was still working on things in a week's time, and the only surprise there would be if things stopped at that point. Normally the efforts were still going on by the time the generally accepted two weeks silence was over.

And we know who to thank for the lack of trouble... she thought to herself, caught somewhere between sour and grateful. Inari. Or at least, those new creatures that were working with Inari.

Rebecca had been annoyed to come back after the attack and find a memo in her inbox, buried among all of the Endbringer-related fallout that she had to handle, but fortunately it had been a short read. The annoyance mostly came from the fact that she hadn't seen it before the attack began; it had been sent only a few minutes before, and at the time she'd been busy in a meeting that had only ended shortly before the alarms went off, so she hadn't had the time to see what was in her mail box.

Coming back from the attack and seeing a memo from Piggot about her damn city and the strange creatures that they'd sent Inari and Dragon out to meet hadn't exactly been her idea of a pleasant return, though.

Because her train of thought had taken her that way, she moved her mouse and opened the message again, letting it sit on the screen so she could stare at it.

At approximately 7:46am EDT an unknown entity was captured on one of the Simurgh's monitoring cameras. The event triggered one of Dragon's monitoring subroutines, and once it was confirmed that it wasn't the Simurgh moving, estimations were made as to the landing zone of the falling object and cameras were dispatched to attempt to get a clearer picture for closer evaluation.

Inari's Eon and Shadow were also called to attempt to provide backup should something occur, and upon the camera drone's arrival at the site identified the falling object, which we discovered to be two different beings. They, along with Dragon, have been dispatched on a Dragoncraft to make contact.

That was all. There was no information about what Inari had said, no description of the creatures- spirits, she supposed reluctantly, if they were part of the same type of group as Inari- looked like, and nothing about the meeting that they'd had. Though that had the excuse of the message probably being sent before Inari and Dragon had touched down to meet with them. Still, there wasn't even any information about what had been said to persuade Piggot to send out Inari in the first place, which would've been nice to know as the PRT's Chief Director!

Breathing in slowly, she put her mug down before she shattered it and leaned back. The lack of information was galling, true, but it also meant that she could put together her own opinions and ideas about these thing's powers before she got given that information. She already had a bit of information from the fight, as well, and eventually they'd be able to figure out enough that they could decide how to use them.

For now, though, she had her next meeting to get ready for, which meant finishing her coffee and making sure the office was locked up so no-one could get in there while she was gone.

Leaving with a nod to her secretary, who would hold any incoming calls for her while she was busy, Rebecca left the building and slipped carefully into an alleyway. "Door to Cauldron HQ." She announced, stepping through.

"Rebecca." Doctor Mother greeted, inclining her head. Kurt and Contessa were there as well, and a moment later David stepped through a portal of his own to walk over to the table.

"Doctor." She returned, sitting down. "David, how's the situation in India?"

"Good enough, things are cleaning up quickly. I still don't see why I needed to be out there, there's no threat and I have better things to do."

She rolled her eyes at his sulk. "Because none of Inari has been back to help clean up, so it's a show that the PRT's strongest are willing to help out with messes they didn't cause while the people who were a part of things don't care."

Which had the benefit of being somewhat true, even if it wasn't her main reason for recommending that to him. The main benefit was that it meant David was out in public on the other side of the world, so he couldn't go wandering off to Brockton Bay to try and pick a fight with those beings that had shown him up during the fight. Given what they'd managed to do to Behemoth, she didn't want to know what they'd end up responding with if Eidolon tried to attack them, and she'd prefer not to have to help Paul clean up that mess as well.

"Do we have any more information about what happened?" Doctor Mother asked, interest piquing in her voice.

"Not much more than what we saw." Rebecca sighed. "Big purple shield appeared, trapped Behemoth, big flash of light inside it, and then Behemoth was gone. The shield went away shortly after, then cleanup started after the announcement went out that Behemoth was down." She gave Contessa a short glance, and the woman shook her head.

"Whatever they are, they can't be Pathed." She told them. "It's the same issue that I have with the rest of Inari; different to the Endbringers, but still unavailable."

And wasn't that just the kick in the teeth. Rebecca leaned back and folded her arms. "I'm going to try and bring them in for a meeting." She decided. "Or at least get Piggot to put pressure on that team to write up a report about what the hell went on on that field. It's absurd that we don't have any information about how those things managed to completely destroy an Endbringer, and they're just wandering around Brockton Bay freely for all we know!"

"Get a report on what happened first." The Doctor recommended. "We can use that to see if it's worth trying to pull them into Cauldron or if we should try and find out more about their powers independently of that first. The power to destroy an Endbringer like Behemoth…" The woman shook her head, seeming almost awed. "That sort of power could potentially even damage Scion greatly. It would be a wonderful boon to our side."

"If we can get them on our side." David said bitterly. "They're friends with Inari, after all, and that lot have those rules that they work by. If they work the same way then they'd be incompatible to work with us, you said it yourself."

"There's always the chance that they could be persuaded." She retorted. "Just because it was decided that Eon and Shadow were too attached to their morals doesn't mean that these ones will be so troubling."

Rebecca's phone buzzed with an incoming email, cutting off the argument before it could begin and making her pale slightly. Her phone was always muted during these meetings, with the exception of a few words that would allow her to get an alert. Most of them were related to the Endbringers, since there had been occasions where an attack had started while they were offworld, but one of the other ones was…

"Brockton fucking Bay." She snapped, picking it up and opening the email. She read over it once, swore, read over it again more closely, swore again with great depth of feeling, then slapped her phone onto the table so she could glare at the wall.

"What happened?"

Rebecca picked up her phone again, reopening the email- and feeling just a little bit glad that she hadn't managed to crack the screen again- and read aloud.

Chief Director,

Below is a summary of the events leading up to the Behemoth fight surrounding the two new spirits that arrived with Team Inari.

Summary of events;

While on route to the crash site of the two beings, Eon and Shadow offered us some information. This is in the summary below, along with information gained during the flight towards the fight. Upon arriving, they led the way into the confrontation, meeting with both Jirachi and Deoxys and introducing themselves and Dragon to the spirits. Both Jirachi and Deoxys communicated solely with telepathy; Dragon reports that she found Deoxys' method somewhat difficult to understand yet Inari had no problems with it, while Jirachi was apparently clear to all. When the Endbringer alarm activated, Eon requested the assistance of the two spirits, who agreed to side with the team.

Summary of spirits;

The larger of the two is called Deoxys. They can apparently travel on meteorites, being spirits that usually live in space, and their primary method of communication is via a kind of telepathy, though they can also see electromagnetic waves and communicate that way, and it is unknown if they can speak aloud. The orange body is in fact some kind of shell, with the lilac crystal in the centre of their chest being the actual primary body. They have the ability to shift 'Formes', which grants them different capabilities; the 'Normal Forme' is their default, the 'Attack Forme' is more powerful offensively, the 'Defence Forme' is more defensively based, and the 'Speed Forme' is known for moving incredibly quickly. They are also able to create clones, though the parameters of that are currently unknown.

The small white being with a yellow helmet-like hat is called Jirachi. He is apparently incredibly powerful with the same sort of abilities seen in Eon and Shadow, however his main ability is being something known as a Wish Maker, which allegedly allows him to grant wishes when the conditions are met. He is apparently unable to grant wishes continuously due to the power usage, and some things are too intensive to grant, as well as the fact that Jirachi is able to ignore requests. He also communicates primarily with a kind of telepathy, and it is also unknown if he can speak aloud.

It currently appears that both Jirachi and Deoxys intend to stay around Brockton Bay with Team Inari, and based on the lack of sightings recently it is likely that they are staying at Inari's base- currently an unknown location.

Director Piggot, ENE.

"Granting wishes?" Doctor Mother repeated, after a few moments of somewhat stunned silence. "How interesting…"

"That's something we should look into." David said decisively. "Who knows how dangerous a power like that could be?"

Rebecca frowned at him. "There's plenty of other powers just as dangerous." She pointed out, a little sharply. "But you're right. A spirit that's able to grant wishes like that could be extremely useful for the fight against Scion when that happens…"

"I wonder if that's how Behemoth was destroyed." The Doctor added. "Depending on what the conditions are for the being to use it's powers, that might be a valuable weapon against the other Endbringers as well…"

"Possibly it's only something that can happen with the help of the other spirits?" Kurt, who'd been silent and mostly focused on something else on a tablet the entire time, looked up. "We have no idea what causes it, but if it requires the other spirits in any way, then we might not be able to use it at all. Given that we don't think Inari would work with us without a lot of difficulty, and all."

"True." Rebecca thought for a moment. "I'll request a meeting with Team Inari… or rather, I'll request a meeting with this Jirachi, and tell them that Inari and this Deoxys can also come with him. That way we should be able to get some answers out of them, but it'll give them a sense of security having their fellows with them. I'll need to leave it until the end of the two weeks, of course, because of the amount of things to do until then, but then I can try and press them for more information."

"Acceptable." The Doctor nodded. "Once that happens, we should be able to figure out if we can use them as part of the fight against Scion- and see how far we could bring them into Cauldron when that happens."

Rebecca nodded her own agreement, mentally beginning to compose her email back to Piggot to try and get that meeting. Using the Director would be a good idea, since Inari already had a rapport with her, so they'd be less likely to turn down a request from her rather than one from the Chief Director…

And she'd need to bring Paul into it as well, even just as an observer, since he was the head of the Protectorate. Possibly also bringing in some other members of the PRT that were high up enough to be trusted…

There truly was too much work to do in this job sometimes.

"Are you alright, Colin?"

The way her friend jolted slightly when she called his name made Dragon even more concerned than she was, and she turned her armour slightly more to look at him. He was looking away from a computer screen and rubbing the bridge of his nose, now, and leaning a little to glance around him showed that he was analysing data on Behemoth.

Again.

"I am fine, Dragon." He assured her. "Just…"

"Concerned?"

"Somewhat." He admitted. "We don't have much data on Behemoth, but everything we do have says that he's so extremely durable that nothing would really be able to do much more than superficial damage. The fact that this Jirachi was able to destroy him is…"

"I understand." Dragon agreed. She shared a number of those concerns, but having met the small 'Legendary' she felt that they were, while not unfounded, less likely to be realistic than most people were worried. "Seeing Shadow and Eon both damage Leviathan so heavily was impressive and frightening, but Leviathan has been damaged before." By Lung, most notably, but even then not to that extent. "They did warn us that Jirachi and Deoxys were both much more powerful than they were, Colin."

"There's being warned, and then there's seeing it." Colin said dryly. "And then there's… the other thing."

"The fragments?"

"Yes." He sighed. "I know, in my head, that that was the right way to handle it. That they need to be hidden to stop people from using them and possibly getting hurt. But there's a lot of people that would disagree… and a part of me wants to use them again."

"I… wouldn't have expected that." The conversation was taking a turn into more introspection than she usually got from Colin, though that had been a theme for the last few months now. But the way Colin had reacted to the last time the Time Gear had been used- hearing about Mannequin targeting him, especially, though the vision of the tower had apparently worried him as well- she wouldn't have thought that he'd want to try using one of them again.

"Neither would I." He said. "But the chance to see the future interests me. Possibly too much… It's better that they're not here, but them being sent away and hidden without any sort of discussion and only on the word of Inari is going to cause a lot of problems."

"Only among the people that know, and currently that's us, Director Piggot, Inari, and the Chief Director." Dragon pointed out. "Inari isn't likely to complain since they're the ones that sent them away, we're not likely to complain because we know how dangerous they are, Director Piggot isn't likely to complain because it's technically out of her remit since it didn't happen in the town, which only leaves the Chief Director to complain, and she probably won't if only to avoid annoying Inari."

Slowly, Colin nodded. Dragon knew he agreed with her, it was just the fact that he was worried that was making him focus so much on the situation. She placed a gauntleted hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine." She assured. "Come on, let's look more into that preposition that Leet had for us. I'd be quite interested in working more with him if everything he can hand over is like this."

Her friend brightened, and shortly after they were both buried in the details of Leet's projection system, examining how it worked to construct those Dungeons that Inari had used a time or two for training.

It was incredibly interesting to see, as well as having the bonus of showing a bit more of why Eon and Shadow tended to work like they did- if this was the way things usually worked for them, then it explained a lot about the tactics that they used when they were out on patrol.

1st August, 2011. Monday.

Unit: Self (Designation Deoxys) found the situation… confusing. Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) appeared confused also, though he was able to navigate the situation well between the new units. Conversations between the four of them were going passably, while Unit: Self (Designation Deoxys) struggled to make themselves understood in most cases.

Allied Unit: Inari Leader Eon (Designation Ninetales) appeared pleased with the state of affairs, often conversing with Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) about the new world that the two of them had arrived on, giving him more information about the situation that they were both now in so that they could more easily fit into the area. Unit: Self (Designation Deoxys) was also using that information to assess potential local threats against Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi), as he was still vulnerable from his fight against Opponent Unit: Behemoth (Designation Endbringer).

Allied Unit: Inari Talekeeper Shadow (Designation Vulpix) also spoke to both of them often, usually in the form of gathering stories from the time that they were on, as she referred to it as, 'Earth Mystery Dungeon'. Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) enjoyed those conversations, according to their observations, spending long periods of time telling stories from before Dungeons had become common and they had left the planet. Allied Unit: Inari Talekeeper Shadow (Designation Vulpix) had also taken it upon herself to attempt to teach Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) new Moves, claiming that it was a poor idea to be travelling as they did without any abilities to heal. Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) had taken to it well, even though he was unused to using Aura in that way.

Allied Unit: Inari Third Swarm (Designation Parahuman) was more quiet than the two Pokemon on her team. She had a second life, Unit: Taylor Hebert (Designation Parahuman), that she was required to attend to and limited her time acting as Allied Unit: Inari Third Swarm (Designation Parahuman) with the rest of Team Inari. She also was interested in the stories that Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) and Unit: Self (Designation Deoxys) had about their travelling, and often attempted to converse with themselves rather than Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) for it, despite the issues that they had using their telepathy with her.

Which was potentially the most troubling thing about their new world, in their opinion. Before, most Pokemon could understand their telepathy just fine, even if Psychic types were the only ones who could get the full depth of everything, but here on Earth Bet, the humans could barely understand a thing they said. It meant that they were forced to rely on Priority Unit: Wish Maker (Designation Jirachi) to put what they were trying to say into words for them, and it was…

Irritating.

Much like right now, for example.

"Everything seems to be in order." Unit: PRT Director Emily Piggot (Designation Human) said, after a long period of silence (2.45 seconds) after looking over the report that she had been given. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Director." Allied Unit: Inari Leader Eon (Designation Ninetales) replied. "We're happy to be able to have been of help."

The woman sighed. "Indeed you have been, even if you've also given me a lot more paperwork now that my city is hosting the being who killed an Endbringer."

"Worth it?" Allied Unit: Inari Talekeeper Shadow (Designation Vulpix) asked.

"It's still not as bad as the Chief Director and Legend are dealing with, so I'll take it." Unit: PRT Director Emily Piggot (Designation Human) shrugged. "Keep an eye on your team mates after this gets out, Inari, they'll end up swamped with even more fans than Shadow got after the Simurgh happened."

"Maybe we should finally get a P.O box, then." Allied Unit: Inari Third Swarm (Designation Parahuman) muttered. Allied Unit: Inari Leader Eon (Designation Ninetales) gave her a look, which made her quieten.

"We'll leave you to your work, Director."

'Request: Priority Unit: Wish Maker inform Unit: PRT Director Emily Piggot of Unit: Self's gratitude?' They directed.

'Deoxys and I thank you, Madam Director.' He repeated for them. She winced.

"Yes, well, if that's all?"

"Of course." Allied Unit: Inari Leader Eon (Designation Ninetales) began to move towards the door, the rest of them following silently to meet with the guard that had escorted them.

4th August, 2011. Thursday.

"Can I talk to you two?" Taylor asked, kneeling down at the fire pit outside of the Den. Jirachi and Deoxys were out at the moment, wandering around the town and just generally getting acquainted with the new world that they were on, this time without any sort of escort from the other members of Team Inari- not that she had a problem leading the two Pokemon around her hometown and showing things off, it felt a lot like those first few weeks a few months ago with Eon and Shadow, but it was also nice to have a bit of time to talk with those Pokemon without having to deal with the others.

"Sure thing, Taylor?" Shadow rolled over from where she'd been lying on her back, staring contemplatively at the sky, and tilted her head. "Wazzup?"

"There's… something I need to speak about." She hesitated a little as Eon looked up from the laptop he was using to browse PHO- probably tracking the newest members around. "I've… already spoke to Dad about it, and he said I should talk to you guys…"

"You're not leaving the team, are you?"

"Wha- no!" Taylor startled. "No, not at all! Being a Parahuman and being in Inari's been some of the best times I've had in years- well I could've done without the Trigger Event, but otherwise it's been great!"

"Oh. Good." Eon relaxed slightly from where he'd sat up to his full height, and gave her a curious look. "Then what is it?"

"Ok. So. I was… I spoke to Dad because during Behemoth's fight I started getting worried that I wasn't being of any use to the team. I'd kinda felt like it before, and then when Jirachi and Deoxys showed up it got worse, because, well… They're both really powerful Pokemon, y'know? And then there's me, who just controls bugs around the place. And I felt like I wasn't really doing anything useful." She blushed and looked away.

"That's daft." Shadow said quietly. "You do loads. Sure, you're not the most combat-oriented team mate we coulda had, but that's probably more of a good thing. Eon and I pack plenty of punch, but you're the one who makes sure that we have information for when we're working around things."

"That's what Dad said, too." She admitted. "It's harder for me to do stuff because my powers are more structured than yours are, but what I can do I do pretty well."

"Which you do." Eon assured. "Giving us information is extremely helpful, I can't tell you the number of times missions have gone mad because we didn't quite have all the information we needed, or because it was wrong- or even because we didn't have any, which really sucked- so having someone that can reliably head into a situation before us is great. Before we'd enter the Dungeons and need a Ghost type to scout, and that was risky because they could get hurt and they'd still have to get back to us to be able to tell us anything. With you, you can be standing right next to us, which lets us defend you while you search, and since you're already there you can give us updates in real time. That's gotten us out of a lot."

"Maybe you could try figuring out a way to speak with your bugs?" Shadow suggested. "Less bugs, I mean. I know you can do funny kinda-sounds to talk through them, but that needs a lot of bugs and it's kinda obvious? So maybe you can figure out how to do that with less bugs, or quieter. Then you can pass on messages from further away. Y'know, if something changes while we're on a mission or something."

"That… could work." Taylor admitted slowly, running the idea around her head. "It'd be a bit difficult, but I might be able to get a hang of it…"

"So even just trying that might be a good start." Eon continued. "We can sit down and try to think of more ideas if you'd like, once we've got a good amount of time to do that. And even if you're not doing more things on missions, you can still help out in other ways. Like that deal you have with Parian."

Taylor started, glancing reflexively over to the collection of looms; rather more of them than she'd started with, and with much better fabric on it. She'd looked up some videos on weaving and how to do it during her downtime, and started applying that to her spiders, and it made everything look a lot better than the flat single layer that it had been before.

"That's a good point." She nodded. "I didn't think about that." She'd been putting a lot of work into that whenever she'd had downtime, and since she could set her spiders to keep working while she was away, she tended to have a lot of silk to hand over. It made quite a bit of money, even though she'd negotiated with Parian to give the tailor a very low price. It wasn't like it really cost her all that much to make them, so she didn't see a problem with it, even if the other Parahuman had been almost offended at the fact that Taylor was asking for so little money. But pretty much every other week now she made her way over to the tailor's shop in costume, taking a bag with all of the fabric over to her, and swapped it- occasionally ending up walking out with new scarves or something as a part of the payment, because Parian refused to let her actually pay for things when she was providing so much silk for the shop.

"It's been a small amount of money, but it's still been helpful, and more importantly you've been helping a lot of other people that way." Eon explained. "Back in Alma, there were members of Inari that did similar jobs to this; they were part of the Rescue Team, but they didn't actually participate in rescue missions, just handled things around the base. Looking after the Berry fields, for example, or making things out of silk or whatever. Ariados would do that sort of thing, mostly. Vespiquen would make hives and make honey, and we could sell that stuff to the Kecleon market or other teams or whatever. Or use it to bake things and then sell those. It was a pretty good way to get a little bit of extra money, either for the team as a whole to use, or personally."

"And even if you're not making a lot of money, you also need to think about what the impact of it is." Shadow added. "You're selling silk, which Parian can use to make her wares. Then she can sell them, which helps her shop stay in business, and it also means that the people who're buying them benefit as well. So it's good for a lot of people, not just us as a team."

Taylor nodded. "That makes sense. Thanks, guys." She looked away and blushed slightly. "I feel a little silly now… it feels kinda like I was worrying for no reason."

"I wouldn't say it was for no reason. You didn't feel like you were contributing much to the team, which made you worried because you want to be helpful. But you came to ask for help and didn't just bottle it all up, and we were able to figure out a solution together." Eon stood, walking over to pat her on the shoulder gently. "And even if you were right, and you weren't able to do much on the team, you'd still be the third in command. Just because Jirachi and Deoxys are more powerful than you, we wouldn't replace you with one of them because you've got more experience. You're more able to work as the third in command since you've done more missions, so you're able to judge things better- plus you're more of a scout than an actual battler, which is probably better for a third when you consider that both Shadow and I are mostly battle Pokemon, as much as Shadow's also a healer."

Shadow walked over as well, nudging her nose against Taylor's arm. "You did good, Taylor. You had a problem, you talked it over with the rest of the team, and we figured out a solution to the problem." She grinned. "And you're gonna need to help us show Jirachi and Deoxys around, after all. We compared a lot of things to Dungeons when we were getting used to things, but they don't have Dungeons as a point of reference for things. Plus Rescue Teams were kinda different back then, from what I know, so…" She shrugged. "We'll probably need to figure out a completely different way to explain things again, and you'll be really helpful for that."

"I can do that." Taylor agreed.

9th August, 2011. Tuesday.

"Of course, Chief Director." Piggot nodded, despite the fact that the other woman couldn't see her. "I'll send an invitation to them as soon as I can."

"Good. I want to meet with them as soon as possible." Costa-Brown said, somewhat sharply.

"It might take a little while." She warned, for about the fourth time in the conversation. "We'll need to make sure they can be flown up to D.C, and that requires Dragon being available as well as them."

There was an almost audible sound of someone waving a point away. "Just get it organised." The other woman ended the call without much fanfare, and Piggot spared a moment to scowl at the now-silent phone before putting it to the side to start writing an email to the address that Inari had set up for better communication with the PRT.

Team Inari,

The Chief Director of the Parahuman Response Team has requested that you meet with her in D.C in the aftermath of the incident with Behemoth during the Battle of New Dehli on July 26th. This meeting has been set for as soon as possible, and the presence of Jirachi and Deoxys is strongly requested due to their actions in the fight…

Back again! Chapters are going to keep being a bit wobbly for a while, I'm afraid; going back to uni in a few weeks, and SEW's been fighting me every step of the way to getting things finished. I'm actually fairly close, I think- if three arcs, some filler bits, and the epilogue stuff counts as 'close'- and it's pretty annoying that it's being such a pain in the backside, but hey. That's how it is. I'll do my best to keep it all going, though.