More Human Than Human

"Talking"

'thoughts'

"Recordings, talking on the phone or singing"

"Speaking another language besides Japanese"

:Talking through the comm.s:

Rated T for language, suggestive material and anything else I might have missed.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my O.C.s, Starts after the events in "The Masked Brave, Dumpson" and goes from there with a few twists.

By the time Deckard got Yuuta to school everyone else was already en route to the precinct so he met them halfway and helped escort the convoy sent to transport the American B.P.s since they couldn't get the femme to transform to be driven and they couldn't exactly drive a military jet down main street.

As it was, lot of people were on their way to work or school and a few of them stopped to look at the giant mech that was covered in tarps and strapped down to an oversized flatbed trailer and the big armored trailer; the last time anyone saw one like that was when Deckard made his big public debut and people were naturally curious.

Deckard flashed his lights at the others to let them know he was there and moved to the front of the convoy to clear the roads of civilian drivers and pedestrians. "Hey, guys, did I miss anything?"

Shadowmaru quickly filled him in.

"We got the two new bots unloaded just fine, although the mech didn't fit in a closed trailer like the femme so he's on a flatbed. Private Baker is already his way to the airport, courtesy of McCrane, and Dumpson took Ayako home. Both of them will meet as back at the precinct when they are done dropping the humans off at their destinations and all that's left for us to do is to get these two back in one piece. Other than that you didn't miss a thing,"

Deckard hummed to himself. "Too bad Private Baker already left. I wanted to thank him again for helping us,"

Power Joe laughed from his spot further back in the convoy. "We know, we all thanked him for you. He just said that it was fine, he wanted to do it and if anything happened to them under our watch he was going to come after us with a cutting torch and a shovel,"

Deckard turned one of his rearview mirrors to a better angle for seeing the power shovel. "Dare I ask what he would use those for if it came to that?"

Shadowmaru chuckled darkly. "Ask Drill Boy, we were originally going to have him bring the good Private to the airport but he asked that same question. Once he got the answer whispered to him he insisted that someone else take him,"

Drill Boy from where he was flying above them. :I don't think I like him anymore, he's scary when he wants to be.:

Deckard sent back. :He's just being protective of them.:

Power Joe cut in. :Yeah, we'd say the same thing to anyone that was supposed to look after you if you had to go somewhere else for a while.:

Then Drill Boy sounded slightly panicked. :What? Why would you guys send me away?:

Power Joe backpedaled to try to do some damage control. :I didn't say that…:

Shadowmaru cut him off before he could make things worse. :I think what Power Joe is trying to get at is that it's a brother thing. When we were at the base in California, Private Baker treated '101 like he already saw him as a person and seemed very close to him.:

:Oh, okay,:

They all made it back to the precinct without much trouble, except for getting caught in traffic a few times, but everyone was at full alert just in case; every single time they got a new team mate they got attacked and, with the exception of Shadowmaru and Kagero, it was always someone trying to either steal them or destroy them so they weren't taking any chances with these two.

Commissioner Saejima, Chief Toudou and a few of his technicians were already there waiting for them outside the garage doors that lead into the garage and the maintenance bay when they arrived and they gawked up at the mech on the flatbed trailer trailing behind the armored trailer.

Chief Toudou and the Commissioner looked up at the mech as the technicians unstrapped and uncovered him. The former pinched the bridge of his noise. "Azuma is going to have kittens when he finds out about this,"

Commissioner Saejima didn't even look away from the trailer, his face serious but his eyes betrayed the fact that he felt like a kid on Christmas morning. "Let him, we're making great progress with the Brave Police project and if he hates his job so much he can take that early retirement he's always griping about,"

Deckard walked up to the men. "You need any help getting them to the maintenance bay?"

Chief Toudou looked at his technicians working to unload the trailers and then back at the mech. "I don't know, we have equipment ready to unload them but getting the big guy unloaded might be tricky, he's a bit bigger than we thought he'd be,"

He looked up at the mechs who had gathered around to await further instruction in case their help was needed. "So how was your trip?"

McCrane nodded "It was fine for the most part; the plane rides were a little long though. Speaking of which, Power Joe…" he looked over and saw Power Joe was trying to sneak away and frowned. "Power Joe, get back here!"

The yellow mech in question jumped. "Uh, I just remembered I had something I needed to do when we got back, See ya!" he turned tail and booked it down the street, skidding as he turned around the corner.

Dumpson sighed and walk in the direction his brother had gone. "I'll get him," he started running when he got closer to the corner and the others could hear him shout. "Power Joe, get your aft back here. Boss wanted Chief to look you over when we got back,"

They could hear Power Joe shout "NO!" and the sound of screeching tires that was presumably a chase that ensued after.

Chief Toudou looked up at the remaining Brave mechs for an explanation; giving them the same look his father gave him and his brother when he knew they were hiding something.

McCrane resumed what he had been saying when Power Joe ran off. "Power Joe purged his tanks on the plane, twice; once going to Domingo Republic and then when we left it. He almost purged again when we left California but he was able to keep his diesel down that time,"

"Barely," Drill Boy cut in.

Chief Toudou sighed and raked his fingers through his hair; the Brave Police mechs were like his sons to him in every way except for biological blood relation and no parent liked to be told their child was sick. "Alright, he'll have to come back eventually so I'll have a look at him then,"

He looked at the two trailers that had been brought to them and saw that the mech was now uncovered. "In the meantime, let's see if we can get these two up and running,"

Deckard looked at him. "We got the femme to wake up on the plane at least,"

Both the Commissioner and the Chief looked at him so he elaborated. "Yuuta wanted to get introductions taken care of as soon as possible so we started her manually but she shut back down again shortly after because of low energy,"

Chief Toudou looked at him. "How did you know how to start her up?"

"The technicians in California sent a booklet back with Yuuta to give to you. Speaking of which…" Deckard transformed. "It's in my glove box, sorry if it got a little crumpled,"

Chief Toudou opened Deckard's passenger side door to retrieve the file from his glove box and looked it over while Deckard transformed. "Huh, at least we'll have some clue of what we're dealing with here,"

Commissioner Saejima read over the engineer's shoulder and saw he had turned to the first page of the femme's file. "A woman that comes with instructions, never thought I'd see the day,"

By the time they got both the American BP's in the maintenance bay propped up in their new maintenance cradles, the Commisioner had gone to his office to file some paper work and Dumpson came back dragging Power Joe by the helm fin.

The Kung Fu Detective struggled in his brother's grip. "Ow, ow, ow. Cut it out Dumpson," he looked at the others pleadingly. "Guys, I'm fine, really. Just some plane sickness, I hear it happens to a lot of people,"

Chief Toudou looked up at him. "Power Joe, you're getting a check-up and that's final. We can't have you guys getting sick on us so I need to make sure it's nothing serious,"

Power Joe pouted and Chief Toudou looked at him and then up at the new robots that were just brought in, weighing his options on how to divvy up his work load.

After a moment he sighed. "You guys go get your reports for your last mission written up while I get these two squared away. Power Joe, I want you back out here as soon as you're done, understood?"

Power Joe pulled his "ear" out of Dumpson's servo, which no longer had the death grip it had before. "Yes sir,"

Everyone went to the Decker Room. On the way there, Drill Boy looked up at Power Joe "Why don't you want Chief to look you over?"

Power Joe looked down at his brother. "I don't need him to look me over, I'm fine," he shrugged as he walked into the hallway. "Anyway, he's old, he'll probably forget,"

"I heard that! And just for that I'm making a note so I don't forget,""

Power Joe cringed. "Crap,"

They all stopped when a technician called out. "Hey Chief, it looks like the girl robot is all ready to go, she just needs some fuel and we can start her up,"

The Brave Police mechs stopped, deciding the wait and see if Chief Toudou could get the femme up and running better than they could, and Toudou looked up at the technician. "Just how low on fuel is she?"

"Running on fumes, sir,"

Toudou cursed under his breath and went over to the fueling station. "I'll get it. You guys make sure she's otherwise up to par so we don't damage anything when we start her up,"

He filled a gray gas can full of gasoline and climbed the steep steps on the scaffolding to pour it in the fuel tank cap in her abdomen. Now that he got a closer look at the femme, Toudou could see the course welds in her plating that were crudely covered by paint.

Toudou looked up at the femme's darkened optics. "Poor girl, what have they been doing to you?"

He quickly glanced at the file he had brought with him and found a note saying that the technicians at the California base ran test runs with their B.P.s being piloted by human pilots through simulated warzones to see how they handled combat situations.

The Chief Engineer looked up at the welds again and saw them for what they were; scars. He looked at the mech and saw he sported similar marks.

He looked back up at the femme as he finished fueling her up. "Well, no more of that, you two. We actually know how to treat a bot around here,"

He pulled the now empty can away and replaced the cap on the femme's fuel tank. "Alright, let's see if Sleeping Beauty will wake up for us,"

The technicians hooked a few wires to the femme's processors in her helm and brought her systems online. Just like on the plane, her blue optics lit up and stared blankly ahead of her and she otherwise showed no reaction to anything around her.

After a few minutes, no one said anything but then Drill Boy piped up. "Now what?"

Chief Toudou rubbed his chin and looked up at Deckard. "How did Yuuta get you going? You weren't able to walk or talk or any of that until he found you,"

Deckard thought, trying to remember everything he and Yuuta did when he was first developing sentience. "He taught me, little by little. It took a while but he was starting from scratch with me, with these two we'll have some sort of foundation to work with,"

He looked at the cables and wires inserted into the femme's frame. "Is it alright if we disconnect her for a while?"

One of the technicians looked up at him. "Yeah, why? What are you going to do?"

Deckard looked at him. "I'm going to see if we can get her walking for a bit. Just baby steps, don't worry," he reassured them and they disconnected the femme from the maintenance cradle so that the supports under her arm-servos were the only thing holding her up beside her legs.

Deckard moved forward slowly and when she didn't react he touched her arm-servo. As a result, her audio finials tilted towards him and he could tell she was scanning him to see if he was a threat. "Ears move, just like Yuuta said,"

Chief Toudou sighed. "She reacts to basic stimuli like loud noises or physical contact. The Build team did the same before we gave them personalities,"

Deckard looked at him and gave the femme a friendly smile. "Hi, I'm Deckard, we're the Brave Police,"

The femme said nothing, she just blankly stared ahead but if Deckard looked closely he could see her audio finials twitching from all the noises in the room they were trying to pick up.

Deckard tried a different approach; he stepped to the side and gestured with a servo to the space in front of the cradle. "Can you walk? Want to come out of there?"

The femme didn't move so he lifted her arm-servos of the arm rests and slowly started to ease her out of the cradle. "Come on, come on out,"

The femme wobbled on her pedes but Deckard caught her before she fell and Shadowmaru supported her on the other side and the two of them supported her until she could walk on her own.

As soon as they let go however, she stopped and they realized that once she got the hang of walking she had just been following them.

Dumpson pointed that out and Deckard looked at him before standing in front of the femme and coaxed her forward with his servos. "Come on, just a little further, you're doing good,"

The femme looked at him almost curiously before stepping forward until Deckard took a step back to get her to walk even further and stopped.

Power Joe huffed "This is going to take forever,"

McCrane looked at him "But they didn't give us any deadlines for them so it looks like we've got time,"

Drill Boy held up a digit. "Maybe she just doesn't know where to go. Is it alright if we show her around?"

Some of the others heard a few of the technicians grumbling something along the lines of "What's the point she doesn't have a mind of her own yet?" and they gave them "I heard that" looks before looking at Chief Toudou, silently asking permission.

Toudou smiled and help up his hands in surrender. "Fine, just be careful. We'll work on this other guy while you do that," he and the technicians all turned their attention to B.P. 101.

Drill Boy took the initiative and grasped the femme by the servo and pulled her along with him as he walked around. "Ok, tour starts now. This is the maintenance bay, this is where we get fixed up when we get damaged and where we recharge every night. And if you go this way…"

He pulled her towards the hallway and she dutifully followed like a balloon being pulled on a string by a child.

Deckard ushered the others so they followed behind them. "Come on, guys, those reports aren't going to write themselves,"

They followed the two bots as Drill Boy babbled about the Brave Police and Nanamagari City until they got to the Decker Room. "…and this is the Decker Room where we do all our office work and where we go when we're not out working on a case or patrol,"

They walked into the Decker Room to see Gunmax at his desk, face down in his paperwork.

Dumpson jerked his thumb digit at him. "…and this idiot is Gunmax,"

Power Joe went over to him and leaned down to yell in his audio receiver. "Hey, wake up!"

The Motorcycle Detective jumped and instinctively grabbed at the sides of his desk but missed and grumbled as he sat up. "Screw you…"

Then he saw who they had brought back with them, more importantly the femme they brought back with them, and stood up to lean against the desk, smirking his usual smirk. "Hey, I'm Gunmax, and you are…"

Shadowmaru crossed his arm-servos. "He certainly got his energy back in a hurry,"

Deckerd frowned at the mech. "Gunmax, this is one of the two bots the Commissioner told us to bring back with us from America. Chief Toudou is examining the other one as we speak,"

Power Joe sat in his chair and reclined back in it with his arm-servos folded behind his helm. "Apparently the people that built them want us to train them so they can have their own Brave police in the States,"

Drill Boy cut in. "Chief and Dr. Kindle, the guy that built them, says they already have personalities like we do but they don't seem to realize it yet so the guys in California want us to work with them so they can have hearts too,"

Dumpson snorted. "More like they don't know how Super A.I.s work and want us to deal with it for them,"

Gunmax lost interest when he realized the femme wasn't reacting to anything anyone said or did. "Keh, drones, they're basically drones," he waved over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.

Drill Boy turned to the femme, who has had no reaction whatsoever to anything since they arrived in the room. "Don't worry about Gunmax, he gets like that sometimes. Come on, we're not done showing you around,"

The orange mech grabbed the blue-and-tan femme's servo and pulled her back out the door after Gunmax. "The garage is this way, that's where Deckard parks J-Roader and Gunmax parks Gun Bike and…" The mech's voice trailed off as he went further down the hall.

Once they were gone, Power Joe grinned as he leaned forward to put an elbow-joint on the desk and rest his chin in his servo. "Well, well, well, looks like our little Drill Boy has taken a shine to the new girl on the block,"

McCrane took out a file and started filling out a report for their most recent mission. "Drill Boy is just excited to have a new friend and not be the 'new kid' anymore,"

Power Joe looked at his older brother. "What? Gunmax is newer than Drill Boy,"

Shadowmaru also took out his paperwork for the day. "New to the team, but Gunmax has been around longer than Drill Boy, we just didn't meet him right away,"

Everyone looked at the Ninja Detective and Dumpson asked "How would you know that?"

Shadowmaru grinned as he slowly looked up from his work and folded his servos in a way that reminded the others of a villain in a spy film or Disney movie. "You would be surprised how much information I am privy to,"

"Information? What kind of information?"

Shadowmaru smirked at McCrane, who had asked. "In addition to what I gather for missions, I also have a great deal of information on all of you,"

He waved his servo flippantly. "Mostly it's just basic personal information but I have also acquired enough blackmail material to have you all at my beckoned call…" he made a "come hither" gesture with his servo for emphasis. "…until Boss finishes high school, should I choose to use it in such a manner,"

Shadowmaru calmly returned his attention to his work—as calmly as someone who was trying so hard not to laugh could—while the Build Team gawked at him nervously; their optics pale and if it were possible for them their faces would be too.

Deckard smiled as he sat down in his seat to begin his own paper work. "Well, given your field of work that shouldn't be surprising, Shadowmaru," the smile went away when he looked at Shadowmaru. "You're not going to use it anytime soon, are you?"

Shadowmaru shrugged. "Haven't had to use any of it yet," he sent over the internal comm. links :Don't worry, Master Deckard, I'm not going to tell anyone about the time you lost an arm wrestling match to a work bot.:

Deckard clenched his fist around his pen. :I didn't lose, I didn't want to break it so I let it win.:

Shadowmaru showed no outward reaction. :I know, but the others won't see it that way.:

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After everyone got their reports done and turned in to the out box everyone dispersed; Drill Boy went to a secluded soccer field to play soccer before the local school teams got out of class, Power Joe snuck away to avoid his appointment with the Chief so Dumpson went to hunt him down, Deckard went to hunt Gunmax down to ask the mech what all went on while they were away and McCrane went to the Defense Forces base to visit Seia.

This left Shadowmaru to his own devices and alone with his thoughts; as he usually was these days. Normally, if he didn't have one of his solo missions to keep him busy during times like these he would go to the pier to watch the ships and boats come in and go out with the tides.

However, on his way out, Shadowmaru heard a noise coming from the maintenance bay and crept down the hall to investigate, careful not to reveal himself just yet in case there was an enemy about.

After a moment of listening to footsteps creeping away, the Ninja detective peeked around the corner and saw a shadow retreating from the maintenance bay. It was obviously a bot because the profile of the shadow wasn't small enough to be human.

'Who could that be?' He looked around to see what the noise had been and saw that the room had been deserted, not only were there no humans about but the femme was also gone.

The Ninja Detective searched everywhere in case Toudou had Drill Boy put the femme in a secluded part of the med. bay but found nothing, and not a technician in sight to ask.

"Where did everyone go?" he whispered to himself before slipping outside to see Chief Toudou and his technicians working on the big flyer mech they had brought back.

'Well, found the humans but the femme is still missing.'

As he thought this, Shadowmaru detected movement in his peripheral vision but whoever it was had gone around the side of the building

After making sure no one else saw, Shadowmaru transformed into his wolf mode and loped after the retreating figure until they were fully in his sight when he looked around the corner of the building.

As he surmised, the femme bot had snuck out and was out and about on her own. Shadowmaru narrowed his optics. 'What are you up to, little lady?'

The femme looked around to see if anyone was looking and transformed into an ambulance and drove away.

Shadowmaru considered his options; on the one servo, he could follow the femme without telling anyone else, on another he could tell the others but then she would get a head start since everyone else will want to come with, or he could just wait and see what happens.

He glanced at the entrance to the building before transforming into his patrol car mode and driving after the blue-and-tan ambulance. 'She probably just wants to explore. I'm following an ambulance that has never been to this city before, how hard could it be?'

A.N.: Comments, questions, suggestions and predictions welcome. Any Flames will be dealt with accordingly.