The A Team

Following the tracker was proving to take a while. Kay and Earnest left Bea to man the hideout and one had the tracker, the other had a general radar set to large sources of dark matter. The tracker, while accurate in the direction, had to be recalibrated every so often. It had a range, but they did not know how far it extended. This meant they got off the bikes more often than was necessary and spent more time on foot.

This meant that despite the considerable head start, Alice and Aaron were able to reach the Azure Sky Tower first. With hours of a head start.

Toasty made sure to ask them to refer to the tower as a tower. The Silvery White Knight was still a little sad about losing over fifty floors of the Azure Sky Tower to the giant monster equivalent of a small child with a block tower in front of it. When they reached the tower, there was no door to enter. This side of the tower was where most of the rubble had landed. The ground floor and second floor were nearly submerged in dirt, even on the clearer side. Toasty led them to where the elevator used to be. He thought that would have been repaired by now. The three had to walk around the place for some time before they found a spot they could get in and Toasty made sure to go in first.

They looked around the repaired second floor. Great pains had been taken to clear out the rubble and make this room passable for challengers. The hint panels which had been on the ground floor had been moved here years ago. A hint panel which Toasty did not remember hung right before the floor's freshly-swept elemental emblems.

The hint panel apologized for the lesser number of floors and promised that the challenge would still be worthy for brave souls.

As Aaron was reading the panel, Alice stopped, took in the room with one sweeping glance, and said,

"What a dump! You said this is the home of that Moon Guardian? If he's just here all the time, you think he could dust a little."

Alice and Aaron jumped when they heard the voice out of the air say, "I have been preoccupied. Who art thou? Are you here to test thy courage?" The deep voice echoed a bit, like the speaker was wearing a helmet. "Wait, is that the Messenger of the Sun?"

Aaron looked around trying to find the source of the voice. "We're here to ask you something!"

"Are you the Solar Boy of this age, then?" The voice sounded a little surprised. The Silvery White Knight had been expecting someone at least a little older. He thought Django had been young when he'd challenged the tower. "I have some things to ask of you too. The package I sent, did it reach you?" Normally Silver would not show himself to the unproven and untested but there were a lot of unusual circumstances. The girl did not look to be a warrior but she did have the courage to travel here and looked like an ally to Toasty.

The sunflower had not expected to see the knight armor appear in front of them, sword sheathed. The Moon Guardian nodded as Toasty said, "Silvery White Knight... Have you seen Django? Is he...?" The sunflower dared to hope he'd not lost another Solar Boy to Darkness. Hope was in his nature.

Silver nodded. "Would thou speak to him? He is worried about what happened when he was acting as my courier.

"No way." breathed Aaron. "The guy that dad saved when he was time traveling is here?! He's not evil now that he's a vampire?!"

As Aaron started to excitedly recount Trinity's adventures, Toasty decided not to bother disillusioning the kid. Trinity mostly told the truth to his son, but the world as Trinity saw it and reality could be very different things. Aaron kept talking so much, even Alice found it hard to get a word in edgewise as they waited for the Moon Guardian to bring Django downstairs.

Earnest tapped the radar screen. "Welp. Radar's close enough to show a potent source of dark matter."

"We've even got some time before sunset. I'll radio the backup. If Duke Dumas shows up and we didn't tell Lucian, he would never forgive us."

Earnest and Kay announced their finding, approached the Azure Sky Mound with their guns drawn, and began to circle the tower. They did not need to walk the whole circumference to realize the vampire was in the building. They would not have finished anyways since they found the bike Alice had driven. Earnest spotted something in the grass. It did not feel like a rock. Earnest reached down and picked up the small electronic button.

"Wonder what this is for?" He did not press it. He was one of those people in the world who wouldn't press every single mystery switch he found.

"Wonder why the vampire is in the Azure Sky Mound? Is this his bike?"

The two gunners crept towards the entrance and kept their solar guns drawn. They could hear voices now. The voices started to get louder. Kay took strategic cover behind a rock and Earnest hid behind a tree.

Alice and Aaron walked out into the sunlight with Toasty floating along.

"...think we can get the galactic rebellion going? Django's gonna be a big help in shutting up Ambassador Goethe. He'll eat those words about Earthlings being unable to work for the greater good. He always was like, 'Oooo you other species are so violent.' If he was an Immortal in past life I wouldn't be surprised. He is such a pompous jerk."

"Um, we still need to tell people about this, right?"

"I call 'not it' for telling Lucian."

Toasty decided not to have Aaron stuck doing that job. "I'll explain. Wonder what everyone else is going to say?"

Earnest emerged from hiding. "What were we going to be saying things about? Why are you two here?"

Alice said, "We were investigating who left the Solar Tree Seed for us. Toasty thought it would be a good idea to come out here. Turns out the delivery boy lives here. What took you guys so long getting here?" They had been chatting for a long time. The sol terrenial could have kept talking all night but it was better to travel before sunset.

Toasty said, "Well... It's more like he unlives here. It's all right, he's an old friend of mine!"

Earnest and Kay stared at Toasty as if he'd just turned into a marigold.

Alice tried to help. "He hasn't bit anyone living other than Lucian and Lucian did bite him first."

Toasty decided not to mention Django bit the neighbor's kid when he was three.

Lucian picked up the call and started driving when they called him about the radar reading. Vanargand could wait another day to be inspected by Sheridan. The Terrenials he had with him discussed their speculations about the current events. Alexander missed having Tove along but Tove was determined to have the tree growing as soon as he possibly could. It was strange too not having Aaron and Toasty to constantly bother Lucian with their questions and relentless optimism.

Lucian kept his attention on the road, which saved him when the monsters appeared. He swerved to avoid the suddenly appearing robot, then ran over a lizardman. A quick look around revealed Lucian and the Terrenials were surrounded. Lucian narrowed his eyes and got to work cutting his way out. This was an organized attack and perfectly timed to take him out. Lucian had gotten entirely too used to having cover fire assisting him.

The majority of Tolstoy's efforts at the moment were concentrated on Lucian. Tolstoy deployed troops in more locations than this to delay rescue. In other words, the assault had begun.