`More Human Than Human

"Talking"

'thoughts'

"Recordings, talking on the phone or singing"

"Speaking another language besides Japanese"

:Talking through the comm. links:

Rated T for language, mentions of suicidal thoughts 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.

Meanwhile, in the Maintenance Bay at the precinct

Gunmax stood in the maintenance cradle he had been placed in, bored out of his processors and just itching to get out of there.

Since it wasn't his cradle—he didn't actually have one at the Decker Room Maintenance bay because everyone assumed he had his own somewhere else when he was working with the Highway Patrol—he occupied himself by trying to figure out who it did belong to.

Drill Boy's? Gunmax checked behind it and found nothing there; he knew the kid always had a soccer ball or two stashed behind his cradle so it wasn't his.

McCrane's? He checked behind it again and checked the sides for concealed weapons since—despite being a pacifist—the Combat Detective always seemed to have some sort of weapon within reach at all times.

He found none so he checked for something else that McCrane might hide in his cradle; bridal magazines. Gunmax had no idea what McCrane wanted with those but the fact that Yuuta had been buying and smuggling them into the Decker Room for McCrane was one of the worst kept secrets in the Brave Police. He didn't find any anyways, so what did it matter?

Since there were no weapons hidden in the cradle, Gunmax figured it was safe to assume it wasn't Power Joe's either; the Kung Fu Detective was even more "weapon obsessed" than McCrane so it was no small guess that the mech would want weapons within easy reach at all times.

That left Shadowmaru, Deckard and Dumpson. In a last ditch effort, Gunmax looked to make sure no one was watching and sniffed the padding on the maintenance cradle.

It didn't smell like diesel exhaust so that ruled out Dumpson; the mech always wreaked of it, especially if he was worked up over something and his smokestacks puffed more than usual.

"What was that huge sigh for?"

Gunmax looked down and saw the Chief looking up at him and realized he had been caught sniffing the maintenance cradle but the man thought it was just a depressed sigh since he had just let his helm loll to the side for it.

Gunmax let his upper body slump forward and moaned dramatically. "I'm bored, let me out,"

Chief Toudou snorted and gave him a wry smile "If you're going to make it a habit of ending up here for repairs I'll have to ask Deckard if he's okay with you stashing reading material in his maintenance cradle so you don't get bored,"

The man turned around to look at a monitor one of the technicians was showing him and Gunmax looked over the maintenance cradle he was in. Deckard's cradle.

He then realized that the padding was stiff, like it hadn't been used in a long time, which would make sense if Deckard recharged at the Tomonaga's and only used the cradle when he needed repairs.

Then he realized that, by all intents and purposes, he was currently in Deckard's "bed" and since the Police Detective was the one that put him in here…

Gunmax grinned; he was never going to let Deckard live this one down and he was still giving him a hard time about the time he handcuffed them together by dropping the occasional handcuff themed innuendo but this…

Gunmax cried out when the armor formed by Gun Bike was pried away from his frame. One of the technicians looked up at him apologetically. "Sorry,"

Gunmax took a deep intake of air and let it out in a whoosh. "Don't be, that thing was pressing in on me like a corset. Glad to have it off for a while," he looked down at the pieces of armor that the technicians were taking apart to repair and put in back together as a motorcycle.

"So how long is it going to take to get fixed? Yow!" he jumped when a welder connected with the seams on the side of his chassis.

Chief Toudou frowned up at him. "Trust me, you're going to be in here for a while,"

Gunmax sighed but perked up curiously when his comm. link beeped at him. He checked the frequency and saw that it was Deckard. Curious, he answered the call. :Yeah?:

:Gunmax, how is everything going on your end?:

Gunmax smirked. :I'm tied to your bed waiting for you to come home, how do you think I'm doing?:

He heard shouting in the background and some strange noises that sounded like a crash on the other end of the comm. line. :Deckard, you ok?:

:Yeah, I… ahem, didn't see that fallen tree right away and tripped.:

Gunmax heard the disgruntled tone in the other mech's voice and did a quick triumphant fist pump; he knew why Deckard didn't see the fallen tree in time to evade it… if there ever was a tree to begin with.

The Motorcycle Detective tried to keep the satisfied glee out of his voice as he said. :Yeah, well Chief says I'm going to be in here a while. Sorry.:

Deckard sighed. :Alright, if Chief does let you out before we come back, could you bring Yuuta out here with you?:

Gunmax was somewhat confused by this; he couldn't remember a time when the boy wasn't with them on missions. But then he remembered Shadowmaru brought Yuuta back to school to finish some test.

He would bring the boy with him if he did ever get out there but he wanted to draw out the conversation. :I dunno…:

Deckard's tone became serious as he told him what he told Yuuta, only he actually told Gunmax what the "or else" was.

The technicians were surprised when Gunmax's cooling fan's kicked on and he blushed; none of them knew why and immediately assumed something went wrong but he waved them off when they started to get flustered.

:Alright, alright, I'll bring the kid if I ever get out there, sheesh:

:Thank you.: The call ended, leaving Gunmax alone with him thoughts and the technicians working to fix him.

A few minutes later Yuuta came in and looked up at Gunmax. "Hey, Gunmax, how are you doing?"

Gunmax shrugged. "Sorry, kiddo, but unless the guys plan on camping out on that island overnight it looks like we're stuck waiting for them to get back,"

Yuuta looked disappointed but smiled. "Oh, okay. Have you heard anything from the others?"

Gunmax shrugged, ignoring the way that the technician that was working on his shoulder cursed under his breath at being jostled by the motion, and said "Deckard called a few minutes ago, he said if I do get out of here in time to meet up with the others I'm supposed to take you with me 'or else'," he make air quotes with his digits on the "Or else"

Yuuta nodded "Yeah, he said the same thing when I talked to him on my way here,"

Gunmax stared at him and looked around before asking "He didn't tell you what the 'or else' was, did he?"

Yuuta shook his head "No,"

"Good," Gunmax said in a clipped tone and looked up when he heard something fall on the floor over by the entrance and saw three kids around Yuuta's age snooping about. "Yo! What are you kids doing here?"

Emily, Masaki and Kikumaro jumped when they heard someone shouting at them and Yuuta turned to look at them and trotted over to them. "Guys, I told you to wait outside until I asked Mr. Toudou if it was ok if you guys came in here,"

Masaki waved him off "Ah, c'mon, Yuuta. It's not like we're going to break anything,"

Kikumaro saw the technicians trying to fix Gun Bike. "Whoa, what happened there?"

Gunmax looked at the boy. "Dragon tried to frickin' eat me and my bike,"

Emily saw Gunmax and went over to stand in front of him, smiling up at him sweetly. "Hi, I'm Emily. What's your name?"

"Emily?" Gunmax thought for a moment then slapped the side of his helm. "Oh God, you're one of Power Joe's little fan club, aren't ya?'

Emily glared at him and puffed up her cheeks in a pout. "There's no need to be rude,"

Gunmax smirked at her and played innocent. "Me, rude? I'm not rude, I'm Gunmax,"

Emily turned on her heel and stomped back over to where the other kids were. "When you said he had an attitude, Yuuta, you never said he was mean,"

Yuuta spluttered for a moment and shushed the girl to get her to stop before she actually made Gunmax mad but the mech looked at him and feigned hurt. "Boss, you told them I had an attitude but you didn't bother to tell them who the hell I am?"

He looked at the other three kids. "By the way, Power Joe isn't here so you three might as well leave," Gunmax made a shooing motion with his servo. "Go on, scamper on back to Munchkin Land,"

Masaki shook his fist at him "Hey, we're not…"

"Whoa…" they all looked at Kikumaro who was looking up at the American Brave Police bots. "Are these the new robots you were talking about?"

"Yeah, they're the new guys," The kids all looked up and saw Chief Toudou standing next to them with his arms crossed, looking up at the American Braves. He looked down at the other three kids and at Yuuta. "Although Yuuta didn't tell me he was bringing the rest of you here to meet them,"

Emily and Kikumaro smiled sheepishly and Masaki spoke up. "Actually, Power Joe said he was going to bring us over to meet them after school but…"

Yuuta cut in. "That was before we got called away to deal with Dragowan so they came to work with me. I told them to wait until I asked if it was okay with you but…"

Chief Toudou waved him off. "It's fine. Just don't announce it to the world until they're ready to be indicted,"

They all went back to looking over the American B.P.s. Predictably, Emily went right up to the femme. "Wow, she's pretty," she put her hands on her hips smugly. "About time they got a girl on the team, there was getting to be too many boy robots,"

"Hey, I resemble and resent that remark!" Gunmax called over. "And I'm telling Power Joe you said it too,"

Emily turned and stuck her tongue out at him. "Go ahead, Gunmeanie!"

Masaki looked up at Chief Toudou. "So when are you going to start them up?"

Chief Toudou ran his fingers through his hair as he scratched his head. "See, that's where we're stuck. We can power them up but they don't seem to 'wake up' if you know what I mean,"

Yuuta looked up at the man. "When Shadowmaru and Power Joe were at the school earlier they said she…" he pointed up at the femme. "…had wandered off,"

Toudou looked up at the femme. "Yeah, the guys got her walking but it was more like she was sleep walking than anything," he realized what Yuuta just said and looked at him. "Wait, when were Shadowmaru and Power Joe at your school?"

Yuuta rubbed the back of his head. "Oh, actually Power Joe was the one that stopped by and Shadowmaru stopped to make sure he didn't get in trouble again while he was looking for her,"

"Do they have names yet?" Kikumaro was the one to ask.

Chief Toudou sighed. "Not actual names, for now the mech is 'B.P. 101' and the femme is 'B.P. 201',"

Masaki looked up at him with a smile. "Need help coming up with names?" he, Emily and Kikumaro looked up at Chief Toudou hopefully.

Yuuta waved his hands to get their attention. "Guys, how about we wait until they actually wake up and they can pick their own names like the Build Team did?"

Chief Toudou nodded "My thoughts exactly," he thought for a moment. "Actually, the only ones that didn't pick their names were Deckard and Drill Boy,"

All four children looked up at him. "Really?"

Chief Toudou nodded. "Yeah, Shadowmaru was originally going to be named 'Cerberus' after the hound with many heads that guarded the gates of hell but while we were coming up for a name for Kagero since we waited until we met them to give them names he said 'Shadowmaru… call me Shadowmaru,'. So we changed it,"

He looked over his shoulder at Gunmax. "And Gunmax…"

Gunmax called over. "Hey, hey, I told you I'm not going to answer to that name. If I hear it again I'm leaving!"

Chief Toudou turned around. "Good luck with that, you're strapped down and your bike is in pieces,"

Gunmax huffed and looked away and Chief Toudou whispered to the kids. "In all honesty, I don't even remember what we were going to call him before he woke up and said 'It better be something cool or I quit!'"

Emily giggled and Masaki looked at Yuuta. "Well, now what?"

Yuuta shrugged. "We could go to the Decker Room and wait for everyone else to get back,"

Kikumaro's eyes widened in realization. "Hey, that's right. We've never actually been in the Decker Room before, we saw it on when you guys were on T.V. but we've never seen it in real life,"

"Come on, let's go," Yuuta lead his friends into the actual precinct building and down the hall to the stairwell that would take them to the second floor where the door to the human section of the Decker room was.

While they were walking on the stairwell, Yuuta stopped and closed his eyes as he leaned against the handrail.

"What's wrong Yuuta?"

Yuuta looked up. "My stomach still kind of hurts,"

Emily put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you should go home until you feel better,"

Yuuta shook his head and kept walking. "No, I'm okay. I need to write that report from earlier anyway," then he remembered something and face palmed. "Darn it, I still need to write the report for when we were in Domingo Republic too,"

Masaki folded his arms behind his head as they walked. "Geez, do you guys really need to write reports every time you do something?"

Yuuta nodded. "Yeah, so the guys on the Board of Directors know what's going on… or else they'll just make stuff up about us and say we're the ones destroying the city,"

Kikumaro gasped. "But that's not true! You guys are the ones saving the city,"

Yuuta nodded. "Yeah but after all the giant robots that attacked the city, one of them being Shadowmaru's big brother because some bad guys took control over him, they think that the Brave Police might turn evil. If they get enough people to vote against us the guys will be… decommissioned,"

Emily looked concerned. "Decommissioned? As in fire them?

Masaki smiled and pointed at himself. "Hey, no sweat, if Power Joe wants to, he can work for me,"

Kikumaro shook his head. "No, stupid, they're robots. 'Decommissioned' as in…" he slowly pulled a finger across his throat and made a squelching sound with his mouth.

The other two gasped.

"No!"

"They can't!"

Yuuta looked at them. "They can and will if we give them half a reason to. They almost had Gunmax destroyed because they thought he was going around blowing stuff up but it turned out someone that he used to work with that did it and photoshopped a picture of Gunmax over the machine he used to make it look like Gunmax did it,"

Masaki scoffed "That sucks, why would he do that?"

"Deckard said Gunmax found out his old partner was doing illegal stuff on the side and when he lost his job because someone else ratted him out he thought Gunmax was the one that told on him. He wanted to get back at Gunmax by making him look like a criminal so we would want to get rid of him," Yuuta smiled. "Good thing we believed Gunmax and not the fake looking pictures or he and Deckard would have both been killed,"

Kikumaro looked at him. "Wait, how did Deckard get involved in that?"

"He handcuffed Gunmax to himself and wouldn't let him go until he told Deckard the truth. Deckard was with him when his old partner decided he was just going to take Gunmax out himself instead of waiting for us to do it,"

They made it to the second floor and found their way to the door that said "Decker Room" in brass letters. "Well, here we are," Yuuta let his friends into the room and they all went inside.

As soon as they were inside Masaki, Emily and Kikumaro went to the edge of the platform to see the whole room.

"Whoa, cool,"

"It's even bigger than how it looked on T.V."

Yuuta pulled out his chair and sat at his desk to fill out reports. Kikumaro looked at him. "Is that your desk?"

Yuuta rolled his eyes. "No, it's Deckard's desk. Don't tell him I'm sitting at it," it was quite obvious that the human sized desk was Yuuta's but the four of them couldn't help but picture how silly the mech would look trying to work at it.

Emily bounced up and down. "Eee, I'm so jealous, Yuuta. You get to come here every day and work with the Brave Police!"

Masaki poked her. "Ah, you wouldn't last five minutes. I'm not even sure how Yuuta does it,"

Yuuta didn't even look up. "You wouldn't last ten minutes doing all the paperwork we have to do, you'd lose your temper with Gunmax and maybe Drill Boy too,"

Masaki looked at him. "Are you saying we couldn't do your job as good as you?"

Yuuta threw up his arms and said. "You guys didn't even remember Shadowmaru's name, for crying out loud,"

He let his hands fall on the desk and laced his fingers like he'd seen adults do when they talk to him from behind a desk. "Deckard and the others are like the big brothers I never had, and every day I go out with them to fight some monster or catch some bad guy only to see them get hurt, sometimes almost killed, and when we get back I'm left wondering 'What if that shot hadn't just grazed him?' 'What if they had been closer to that bomb that went off?'"

Yuuta saw that they were starting to see his point and started using actual examples of the missions they had been on.

"What if Deckard and the others actually killed each other like those crazy clown scientists asked them to after they took me hostage? What if the Build Team didn't find us in time when those robot thieves shot up Deckard and then were going to shoot me and my family? What if we weren't able to stop those giant bugs from destroying Drill Boy while he was being built? What if the fight between Shadowmaru and Kagero ended differently and they both ended up dead? What if we weren't able to save Gunmax when he was slated for termination or when he was going to be melted down in the Hourglass?"

Yuuta had tears in his eyes as he looked at them. "You think all of this is so damn cool? Let's see you do it?" he stood up and stepped away from his chair to see if any of them dared to sit in it.

They all stood there not saying a word for what felt like hours until Yuuta's badge beeped, letting him know one of the Braves was calling him, and he took it out to answer the call. "Guys?"

Deckard's calm voice came through the comm. link. :Yuuta, we're on our way back now. At the rate we're going we should be back in a few minutes.:

Yuuta smiled. "Alright, I'll be right out to help you guys get out of your united forms," he ignored the others as he started to run out the door until Masaki asked. "Hey, alright if we come with?"

Yuuta's smile disappeared as he stopped. "Fine, Power Joe will probably want to see you guys when he finds out you're here,"

The kids all ran back downstairs, through the maintenance bay and outside to watch the sky until J-Decker, Super Build Tiger and Shadowmaru flew into view and landed.

As soon as Super Build Tiger landed he knelt down and Power Joe's voice came out his vocalizer. "Hey guys, when did you get here?"

The three kids said in unison. "Same time Yuuta did,"

Yuuta himself pressed the button on his badge that reversed the unification code and Super Build Tiger broke apart into the Build Team and Deckard separated from J-Roader.

As soon as he was free, Power Joe knelt in front of his friends. "So, what have you guys been up to?"

Kikumaro quickly recounted what they did. "Came back with Yuuta, we met Gunmax…"

Emily scoffed "More like Gun-meanie,"

Kikumaro continued. "…and we saw the new robots but they haven't been activated yet so we didn't actually get to meet them,"

Power Joe sighed. "Kind of figured that would happen," he changed his tone to mock-scolding as he shook his digit at them. "And didn't I tell you he was a jack…"

Deckard glared at Power Joe and actually scolded him. "Power Joe, remember what we talked about earlier?"

Power Joe slumped and slowly stood up. "Yeah, yeah, 'rude, sarcastic idiot is our rude sarcastic idiot',"

The kids all laughed and everyone went inside. The kids went back up to the second floor to go back to the human partition of it while the mechs used their entrance from the maintenance bay.

When the kids got there Yuuta went back to his desk and while Masaki, Kikumaro and Emily sat on the edge of the platform, the girl's legs swinging back and forth in the air while the boys sat still.

Deckard was the last one in the room since he stopped to check on Gunmax and ask Chief Toudou if he had made any progress with the American B.P.s; Gunmax would be fine as soon as they pop out all the dents—although it would take a little longer to fix Gun Bike—and no, there hadn't been any changes with the American bots since they had left.

When the Police Detective sat at his desk he smiled at the four children. "So, how was your test?"

There were a few mumbles of "It was ok" "Fine" and other such responses.

The Brave Police could tell right away that something was up and Dumpson asked "Alright, what's going on, you four?"

The kids all said "Nothing!" a little too quickly.

Drill Boy looked at them. "Did you guys get in a fight?"

Masaki looked at him defensively. "What makes you think there was a fight?"

The orange mech pointed at Yuuta "Because Boss has the same look on his face that Deckard gets when he and Gunmax get into fights… and those two fight a lot,"

Yuuta and Deckard both jumped at this revelation and said. "Do not!"

Then everyone looked at Yuuta and the boy said. "It's nothing really," he smiled and tried to change the subject. "So, you guys find anything?"

Power Joe leaned back in his chair and folded his servos behind his helm. "A whole lot of nothing,"

Suddenly a thick and brown whip-like object struck Power Joe across his face and chest, making him yelp and fall backwards out of his chair.

Shadowmaru pulled back the "whip" he had just used on the Kung Fu Detective and unrolled it to reveal a fish net. "You call this nothing?"

Deckard looked at Shadowmaru. "Shadowmaru, quit hitting people with evidence," he looked at Power Joe. "And we didn't just find nothing…" he looked at Yuuta. "We found the net that Dragowan stole but not Dragowan,"

McCrane cut in. "We did find some tracks on the beach and by a river but there was no pattern to them to help us figure out a trail. Either it finished eating the fish and left the island while we were back here or it found a really good hiding place that we can't get to,"

Yuuta nodded. "We'll just have to keep looking. Anyone say where it might have come from?"

Shadowmaru looked up from folding the net back up. "The Commissioner said a group of police men had located the hideout of Dr. Madoh, the scientist that created Gawan. From the sound of things they were in the process of trying to apprehend him when either he sicked the dragon on them so he could get away or they just stumbled across it by chance and accidently set it free,"

Yuuta nodded. "Okay, Shadowmaru, I want you to go there and see if Dr. Madoh's new hide out has anything we can use to catch Dragowan stashed there,"

The mech smiled as he tossed the now folded net onto the desk, somehow doing so without it getting messed up again, and stood up to lean against his side of the desk. "Already planned on it,"

Yuuta looked at McCrane. "Heard back from Seia yet on whether or not they're still going there tomorrow?"

McCrane sighed and shook his helm. "Nothing since I called her earlier. She did say she was going to change either the time, location or both for the training retreat but I'm not sure which one she'll be able to rearrange on such short notice,"

"I think you guys are forgetting something here," they all looked up and saw Gunmax enter the room, trying to disguise his recently acquired limp as a cocky strut.

Deckard frowned. "Shouldn't you still be getting repaired?"

Gunmax smirked as he went to sit at his desk, or rather on his desk. "I'm repaired alright, wish I could say the same for Gun Bike," he became serious. "Anyhoo, like I was saying, there's one important thing you guys are missing here,"

Deckard raised an optic ridge. "And that would be…"

Gunmax looked around for something. "Who's got the remote for the monitor?"

"Right here," Power Joe held it up.

Gunmax clapped his servos together and held them so that his palms faced out. "Pass it here,"

The Kung Fu detective did and Gunmax caught it in one servo. "Yoink!" he pointed it at the monitor on the wall and turned it on.

Everyone else turned in their seats as he brought up a map and zoomed in on the section of the coast that the island where Dragowan was supposed to have been.

"While you guys were going deep sea diving to find the dragon I made sure the fishermen got off the boat okay. I didn't get to arrest them like you wanted, doggie…" Gunmax glanced at Shadowmaru then looked back at the monitor.

"But I did ask them a few questions. Turns out your little island there is in the middle of a high traffic trade route and fishing ground," the map Gunmax had brought up was then highlighted by blue shaded areas and yellow spots.

"The little blue areas are the fishing grounds used by commercial fishermen and the yellow ones is a trade route between us and Australia and all those little islands around it,"

Everyone groaned as the realized what this would most likely mean. "That's a lot of fishing boats," Drill Boy pointed out.

Dumpson nodded. "And now every last one of them is a target if Dragowan is going to go after them like he did the one in the bay,"

Deckard looked at each of the others in turn. "All the more reason to find him and stop him, right?"

"Right!"

Yuuta nodded. "Alright then, any further discussion?"

Everyone shook their helms and Deckard said "Not on this matter,"

Yuuta nodded again. "Alright then, meeting adjourned,"

Masaki looked over at Yuuta. "If all the meetings are like that I don't see what you were whining about earlier,"

Yuuta glared at him. "I was not whining. You guys wanted to know what it was like working here and I told you,"

"Yuuta…"

Yuuta stiffened when he heard Deckard say his name in the same tone of voice his sisters used when he was in big trouble and slowly turned around to look at the mech.

Deckard frowned at him and said in a "Don't-you-dare-lie-to-me" tone. "You wouldn't happen to have been lying when you said you four didn't have a fight earlier, would you?"

Yuuta looked down at the floor. "Well, it wasn't an actual fight but…"

Emily took one look at the way all the mechs were looking at them and blurted out. "Yuuta showed us around when we got here and I said it would be cool to work here every day. Then Masaki said 'You wouldn't last five minutes. I'm not even sure how Yuuta does it,' Then Yuuta got upset and told us about all the stuff you guys put up with and all the times you guys got hurt really bad or almost died and that we wouldn't be able to handle it either and…"

Power Joe saw that the girl was starting to get upset and went to stand by the platform the kids were on and put a servo on her back to calm her. "Hey, calm down. Yeah, it would be awesome if you guys could work here too, and we always turn out ok in the end, right?"

The girl sniffled and nodded and Power Joe looked at Masaki, upset with his friend and defensive of his other friend and boss. "And you said what, now?"

Shadowmaru met Yuuta's eyes and said in an ominous tone. "Just say the word, Little Boss…" he let the offer hang as he cracked his mechanical knuckles.

Drill Boy stood up to see what the Ninja Detective was doing. "Whoa, how do you do that?" he tried to crack his own knuckles but ended up just squeezing his fist.

Yuuta pointed at Shadowmaru. "Shadowmaru, no, don't even think about it,"

He held up his servos in a "Who, me? I'm not doing anything," gesture before transforming into his wolf mode and trotting out his little side door.

Power Joe scoffed "Yeah, you better run, Dog,"

A ceiling tile over Power Joe's head slid aside and a purple arm-servo appeared in the gap left behind and threw a ninja star at Power Joe's helm.

Power Joe rubbed the back of his helm. "Ow, what the hell?"

"Wolf, not dog," Shadowmaru put the ceiling tile back into place and was gone.

Power Joe looked up at the ceiling tile and then at the doggie door and back again. "How did…"

Dumpson leaned back to look at the ceiling and then leaned forward again as he whispered. "Anyone ever figure out how he gets up there?"

Drill Boy leaned between them. "Aren't you guys the ones that built this place? How do you not know where all the ins and outs are?"

McCrane pushed his younger brother's helm down and held him there, indifferent as he struggled. "I'm not certain but maybe the extra-large ventilation ducts we installed to get the exhaust fumes out of here might give him enough room to crawl through,"

Ignoring the Build Teams' quiet conversation for now, Deckard looked at Yuuta and crossed his arm-servos "Care to explain what that was about?"

Yuuta bit his lip and gripped his knees. "Um, later," he looked up at the others and held up his fist determinedly. "Alright, guys, we've got a dragon to catch so let's go,"

Everyone nodded. "Roger, Boss!"

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