A little behind schedule, the four friends return to the armoury; the tigress is nowhere to be seen.
"Must be taking her longer than anticipated," Danny observes.
"It's been over three hours!" Rob exclaims. "What could… Come on, stay calm, don't panic…"
"Want me to sneak in, see what's taking so long?" Maria asks.
"No need," the tigress answers, appearing beside the group.
Maria jumps in surprise, tripping over her own tail and landing flat on her back. "What did you find?" she asks, pretending she meant to fall.
The tigress isn't convinced; she holds a hand out to help Maria up again. "The shell casing and sabot definitely match up to the dart," the tigress reports, pulling Maria to her feet. "And I can guarantee that it wasn't fired from any Red Scarf or Origin Kingdom weapon."
"Can you tell us what type of weapon it was fired from?" Danny asks.
"Not as such," the tigress admits. "But I can tell you the sort of thing to look for. Come; I'll show you what I found."
The tigress leads the quartet to a compact lab. The bench is littered with assorted equipment, among which lie the dart, sabot, and shell casing; off to one side is a rack of vials with small amounts of various coloured liquids.
"First, I want to assure you that the sedative used, while fast-acting, is one of the less dangerous compounds," the tigress assures. "So long as she got the stabiliser within an hour, she'll wake up with nothing worse than a slight headache."
"That's… actually rather comforting," Rob replies.
"Glad to hear it," the tigress smiles. "Though the rest of my news won't be so comforting."
"You mean you weren't able to identify the weapon?" Rob asks.
"No," the tigress sighs.
"I think I'll wait outside," Rob volunteers; he steps out of the room.
"He'll be OK," Danny assures.
"If you say so," the tigress sighs. "I can't identify the weapon, but I can at least give you some information about where it comes from," she continues. "Hopefully you'll be able to make use of it."
"Anything you have, we're grateful for it," Danny replies.
"OK." The tigress directs Danny to look through a magnifying device; it has the dart placed to allow Danny to read the markings on it. "As you can see, whoever made the dart has signed it; clearly they're proud of their work. Unfortunately, I don't recognise the writing system they used; it's nothing like any writing system used through the Origin Kingdoms. The black powder mix was unusual too; I detected significant amounts of potassium-sulphur compounds, which means the formulation is an older one. No black powder used by the Origin Kingdoms or the Red Scarves contains potassium or sulphur; our formulations are all nitrogen compounds."
"So whoever took Hanna is not from the Origin Kingdoms," Danny concludes.
"That would be the simplest explanation, yes," the tigress confirms.
Danny thinks for a moment. "Can you give us a copy of everything you found?"
"Of course," the tigress confirms; she hands Danny a small sheet of paper with a transcription of the dart's markings, as well as a summary of the chemical analyses performed. "Do you want to take the dart and stuff as well?"
"No," Danny decides. "We have what we came for. Thanks for all you've done; it's greatly appreciated."
"Just doing my duty," the tigress acknowledges.