Interlude 1.x
"So then, you've nothing to report from your mission?" a voice that reminded the mermaid of sand grinding against rock asked from behind a desk sized for a creature hundreds of times her size. The furniture made it a bit difficult to see the figure behind it, which could serve to make him all the more intimidating to those who were unprepared. "Hmph... I suppose no news is good news." The deep, growling voice paused for a moment before speaking up again, "If there's nothing else, then you can feel free to head out for some downtime."
Coral chuckled around the bite of burger in her mouth, nodding along as she finished her debriefing. Swallowing the mouthful, she perked up as she remembered something and asked, "Hey, you ever heard of a genre of music called J-Pop?"
The figure behind the desk stopped in his movements, an oversized pen stopping in a claw as an orange eye locked onto her. The dragon eyed her, pausing in his administrative duties. "I am aware of the genre, but I'm rather curious at how you learned of it," the dragon was surprisingly grave as he questioned her, laying the pen down and clasping his claws in front of his snout.
Coral nodded, absently flicking her tail. "Well, when I was running escort duty, I made friends with one of the people on the ship and we got to talking about music. He ended up saying that he didn't really care for idol music or as he called it, 'J-Pop'. I forgot about it in the whole flurry of stuff I had to get done after that, but when I remembered, I figured I'd ask you since you're pretty worldly!"
"It's for the best, I suppose," he sighed, closing his eyes in thought as he decided on his explanation. He leaned back in his chair and took a bracing breath, before he continued, "J-Pop is not so much a genre as it is a sub-genre. In this case, being a way of classifying Pop music that comes out of the country of Japan on the planet Earth. I'm sure you understand as to why I am apprehensive? However, we have seen that certain beings have come through the Star Gate from worlds besides the Earth which we are connected. You were escorting them from Star Gate, yes?"
"Yup, no doubt… but there's also…" Coral began, a grimace of contemplation on her face as she kneaded a fist into her cheek.
The dragon nodded, his eyes closing for a moment before he gave her a steady gaze and spoke. "Indeed, there's a chance that he could be some odd attempt by the Star-vaders to sneak a spy by us, but something so far fetched as this is more than a bit outside their observed operational parameters."
"You mean disguising them as a human? Because they snuck a lot of agents in as humanoids before the invasion," Coral opined her normally bright voice getting softer as she continued, considering the dragon's words.
Tetra-drive nodded, but gesticulated with his hand to note that there was something else to his thoughts as he swivelled in his chair. When he was parallel to the desk, he continued. "There's more to it than that. Given the fact that they don't appear to be moving in a manner that should attract attention... From the patterns we noticed in the original agents, Star-Vader plants would simply appear near the general location of their targets, and try to assimilate into the culture until they were tapped and then proceed to wreak havoc. Where did they say they were headed?"
"They said they were headed to the edge of the Dragon Empire, where they apparently have family," The mermaid replied, brow furrowed and arms folded as she considered what it could mean.
The Blue Wave Dragon continued nodding, with his eyes closed, pieces mentally falling into place as he addressed them aloud, "It is a good place to land for access... Not just to the Dragon Empire, but also the Dark Zone and United Sanctuary. If they're saboteurs, it's a great staging ground. If the male is a human from Earth, then it could allow him access to meet with important figures like King Alfred, and, if he's from an Earth that has contact to Cray akin to my Vanguard's connection, he could be seeking out King Alfred in search of protection or a way home."
"But what do we do? We can't assume that they're Star-vaders, but we can't assume that they're not Star-vaders. That's the real issue," Coral murmured, crossing her arms beneath her chest as she pondered.
The dragon grunted, swivelling forward again, "Indeed. Actually, I have an idea. See to your own business for now, I'm going to make some calls. Should any missions come up that are suitable for you, you'll be notified."
"Yes sir, Admiral, sir!" Coral chuckled, spinning and leaving the office with her mind in a tizzy.
Were her new friends Star-vaders? Would they shuck off their personas and someone would need to put them down when they started to kill the residents of Cray?
Outside the view of others, Coral of the Bermuda ∆ clicked her tongue, frustration crawling up her features.
Interlude 1.x Coral End
AN ver 2: This is being updated because I took a look at the actual published version and it was an utter mess for some reason, why did no one tell me?!
