In Ironside's absence, the Demon found himself sitting in his Summoner's seat on the sub's bridge, barely paying attention to the controlled chaos below as his Summoner's minions monitored their foe's activities across the country, and if they were lucky, they might find those big headed cartoon animals that lived in his Summoner's world. Mobians, were they? How fascinating.

The ambient hum of the submersible combined with the rhythmic tapping of the human fingers against their keyboards, and the beeping of the monitoring instruments and various systems of this craft came together to make a sound that wasn't quite something he would listen to, but it was better than cold, dead silence.

He sat back in the captain's chair, his form outlined by the subtle glow of the holographic screens. His expression, best described as bored out of his mind, was evident as he rested his head in one hand, elbow propped up on the armrest just next to the emergency console built into the chair. Emerald green eyes flickered with mild disinterest as he observed the drone recording on the holographic screen before him. Good news? They found the Mobian. The bad news? His Summoner had morals, so he couldn't just kill the innocent child.

He had to hand it to his Summoner's world. In the past when he was summoned, this world, which he thought at the time was the only world, was full of imbeciles and weaklings who didn't respect him or his power. But Ironside was no imbecile, however. He certainly was a weakling, but his intelligence certainly made up for the lack of might. Truly the trials and tribulations of his Summoner's world made praiseworthy stories, and with his knowledge of this vessel's library, or 'database' as they called it, he had many stories to tell.

Observing these humans from this other world, their diligence and duty was truly to be commended, especially given the incompetence of the minions of his last Summoners, them and their so-called Society. They cared little for his presence, likely due to the strange creatures that inhabited their world, only the occasional glances were directed at the Demon who, in turn, regarded them with an air of detached amusement. And this little child who managed to shake off such a powerful spell was certainly most amusing! "Let's see what else you can do, Cream the Rabbit. " Quite the childish naming scheme these creatures had for themselves.

This probably used to be a very busy gas station. Or maybe not. Whatever the case, the answer was lost to time, and to those who didn't want to commit to a five minute search of the area's history to find out. The abandoned gas station stood as a relic of a forgotten era, it and this entire neighborhood left behind by those who could afford it's once expensive homes, and replaced by many who had no choice but to live in these cheap, falling apart relics. The name of the station and the company who owned it had been removed from the building by time and weather. The faded gas sign was this close to falling apart, barely clinging to the corroded metal frames. Weeds, resilient and unchecked, had made a home in the cracked pavement, reclaiming the parking lot in its entirety. The pitch black of the night sky didn't help make this place look less creepy, and if anybody cared about this neighborhood, they would question why and how the lights were even on. But there were few people that lived here, and even fewer that went down this road, so the Phantom Society could camp out here as long as they wanted.

Though that was just the outside of the gas station. The inside of the building was a whole other story. Within the dilapidated structure, 44-year-old Konda Hisashi paced up and down the clean shiny floor as the perfectly intact and functioning lights shined down on him. The freshly painted black and yellow walls were nothing like the faded peeling eyesore outside, and the humming of the various computers inside the fake gas station pretty much solidified that this was nothing more than a front for the Phantom Society. All for the sole purpose of capturing that damn Mobian.

The doctor's machines were truly something special. He would say they were magic if the Mobian didn't show the Phantom Society the intricate details of how he programmed and design the robot that remade this gas station into a temporary base of operations…a base that was damn near useless thanks to the idiot talking to him on his cellphone's video chat!

[So in short, we screwed up, the rabbit alien's pissed, and we don't know where she is],Reynald finished over the video phone. [So we gotta pack it up. ]

44-year-old Konda Hisashi stared incredulously at the man on the other side of his phone. They chose this place for a reason. They had set this trap here for a reason! And now this stupid foreigner was telling him they wasted their time?! ". . . Why?!" This ugly, rundown, abandoned gas station took hours to find and even longer for the robot to fix up without disrupting the local power grid, and now he was being told it was all for nothing?!

[What do you mean why?!' We all knew there was a risk this wouldn't work! The doctor's from the same world as she was, and barely any of the higher-ranking Demons in the organization could barely get their mind-altering spells to work on him!] Even the ones that wouldn't scramble his brain, like Mind Charge!

"Of course they wouldn't work on him! He's an alien animal!" Now what species he was supposed to be, that was up in the air. "We went through with this plan because of course we'd expect someone as powerful as your Demon to be able to take over the mind of a child!" Especially when said Demon was one of history's most famous witches!

[Well, guess what? It didn't work! Now she's pissed, fucked off to who knows where, I barely have any Magnetite left! I couldn't even summon an Imp! And the second she even catches a whiff of our presence, she's going on the attack!]

"And why should we be worried about her?" Konda asked somewhat mockingly. "The doctor has given us our backup, remember?" I mean sure, what he gave them looked pretty damn stupid, but then again so was everything he made. "Or did you think you'd be enough for this?" Just because the lucky bastard had such a powerful Demon, it didn't mean jack if he didn't have the power to fuel it! Something as powerful as that witch would need more than Magnetite to fuel her powers! This wasn't going to make their punishment any less severe, they were all in this together as far as the higher ups were concerned, but at least their pay won't be docked. Hopefully. Small miracles. " So tell me, what's that child got that can-"

[-She's got a Shadow. ] Konda went stiff, suddenly very glad he was alone. [Yep. yellow eyes, distorted voice, it was definitely a Shadow. ]

All of Konda's confidence left him upon hearing those words. ". . . How?" He got out, his voice barely a whisper.

[How should I know?! My Demon made sure that her illusion was tied to the real world! The damn rabbit and her pet were trudging along down the road while they were under her spell, and then all of a sudden her Shadow appears in the illusion, and starts talking to the Pokemon!]

"I-I see. " Konda walked to a bench and sat down. This was a lot to take in, and just the existence of the Shadow necessitated some changes to the plan. "Start from the beginning. "

Outside the car shop sat three vagabonds, or rather a TV executive's idea for vagabonds. They had it all, wooden sandals, mohawks and pompadours, clothes with the sleeves ripped off, you name it. And they were also 30-40 year old men who didn't look or sound the least bit Asian.

-Man, how long we wait?- And their mastery of the Japanese language was about on par as their attempt at mimicking the clothing styles in the country, as shown by 32 year old Mike Summit. -Dumb duck say rabbit thing coming! It been 20 minutes! Where rabbit!-

"Motherfucker, we're the only ones here!" Said a 22 year old man from Queens, Arnold Wando, someone who knew their ability to speak the native language was limited- "Speak English!" -and so didn't even bother trying.

"He probably thinks he speaks the language on par with a native. " Said 28 year old Jonathan Thomas. "News flash Micheal: you really don't. If you spoke English with that level of proficiency you'd sound like the uncle from that old Jackie Chan cartoon. "

Micheal grumbled as he got off the ground. "Man fuck you guys!" The other two laughed at him as he checked his phone. "I'm trying my best to fit in with this country's culture, while you guys are doing jack shit!"

"Funny. " Arnold said, looking at his outfit. "That seems to be the same level of effort put into our disguises. "

Jonathan grimaced. "Tell me about it. " What was even the point of these disguises? They were adults, for Christ's sake! "I'm pretty sure these are just modified middle school unifor-'' He paused, his eyes catching a glimpse of something in the air. "What the fuck was that?" He removed his pompadour wig to get a better view. ". . . . Is that what I think it is?"

Micheal and Arnold looked up, the former immediately whipping out his gun and taking aim. "What're you stupid?!" Shouted the latter. "If it didn't work on the doc, it's not going to work on her!"

"Her?!" Micheal parroted as the object descended. "Wait, you mean-"

"Yeah, it's the target, you dumbass!"

An incredibly calm and not at all violently furious Cream landed in the abandoned parking lot of the gas station, Cheese hovering behind her as she gazed at the vulgar men who tried to hurt her. Well, they weren't the man or his partner who made her suffer so much according to Miss Margaret, but they were tangentially related to those people, and as Ms. Rogue said to Mr. Sonic plenty of times when they thought she wasn't listening -thank you rabbit ears- a technicality was the best excuse! "Good evening gentleman. " She said to them with a bow, Cheese too angry and too worried about Cream's mental state to do the same. "My name is Cream the Rabbit, and you have done me a great wrong tonight. "

"Cream the rabbit?" Jonathan mouthed to himself as he looked at the masked alien with the backpack. 'What kind of name is that?!' God, it's the same type of naming scheme the doc had, name followed by the word the, and then their species! Did these aliens even have a last name? Questions for later. "So you escaped our 1st trap alien. " He said, not even bothering to say a name that stu- 'Oh god that little blue thing's name is probably Cheese, isn't it?'

"Yes, alien. " Cream said with a smack of her lips. Angry as she was, she was doing her best to keep calm. An admirable effort, if it wasn't for her stomping a hole into the ground with her left foot. "I suppose that is quite the apropos descriptor for me from your point of view. " Jonathan and Arnold's muscles tensed. There was something in her tone that didn't sit right with them, mainly the undercurrent of anger and the lack of malice in her words. "We are aliens, yes. " And it was the lack of malice that showed the extent of how utterly furious she was. "And given our recent traumatic experience, caused by one Reynald Guto, in which we were forced to relive two of what had to be the worst days of our entire lives, which I was told your group, the Phantom Society, was responsible for, you can easily hypothesize the reason as to why I have appeared in front of you awkwardly dressed gentlemen. "

Everyone wanted to draw their guns and shoot her right now out of instinct. ". . H-how did you know about that?" Thankfully Micheal, being the youngest, had the brains not to do just that . "No one's supposed to know about us!"

"I am very good at making friends. " The rabbit answered, her months of having to speak only Japanese and very little English -Mr. Kawarimi-san didn't count for the latter- giving her a very keen insight into the context of subtext, like the fact that the youngest of these three was trying not to say the name of his organization. "Or so I have been told. And my most recent friend has given me a goldmine's worth of information about your organization. " The youngest looking human brought out a gun. The other two humans didn't even have time to admonish him until he was knocked flat on his ass with the alien's foot on the man's stomach. "Guns aren't nice. " She said coldly, crushing the weapon like paper with her hands. "And neither are you. "

Jonathan hissed in anger and fear, looking at Micheal as the youngest member of the trio begged for help. 'That was so fast!' He knew the Doctor was faster than a normal human or mage, but this?! This was ridiculous! "What do you want?" He had to keep calm, he had to make sure the target knew that he wasn't intimidated by her, the child, in the slightest. 'She's way too fast!' Faster than the Doctor! They couldn't use their phones to summon the boss's Demons or use magic without her getting to them first, so they needed to think of a plan!

Sadly, this weirdly proportioned alien with the even weirder name wasn't going to give them a chance. That mask of bravado he put on began to crack as the masked rabbit turned to him. Two red eyes shone out of the darkness of the visor of her helmet, and he could swear she was smiling beneath her mask.

Back in the gas station, Konda was…unsettled to say the least, and the reason why could be summarized in two words: "It knew. "

The Shadow knew about the Phantom Society.

The Shadow knew enough about the Phantom Society to know its name!

And the Shadow knew Reynald's Demon!

There was only one rule within the Phantom Society ever since the doctor moved up their ranks: don't refer to your demon by name. The more advanced summoning tools, the COMPs given to stronger Summoners to replace the cell phones used by the other members, regardless of rank, hid the appearance, voice and name of the Demon from all who saw it. Even the Summoner themselves weren't immune to this, as they required an incredible amount of flexible thinking, or youth, to be able to recognize the Demon, hear its name, or see what it truly looked like. Otherwise it'd just appear to them like it did to their enemies, as a cloaked, nondescript figure.

Nevermind the fact that a Shadow shouldn't have been able to manifest in the first place, the fact of the matter is that there was no logical way for the alien to have known about the Phantom Society, but the Shadow did! In fact the Shadow was even able to recognize that the Demon's Summoner was watching through his Demon's eyes, and he had a good hunch that the kid had no idea of their existence! And those last words she said…

Just remember Phantom Society, you're not part of this game, so stay in your lane

". . . Fuck it. " Konda announced. " Plan C. I'm going to activate the stupid robot and get this over with. "

[But we can't!]

"Well I don't have a choice, now do I?" Konda retorted mockingly. "The alien's traipsing around the city doing god knows what for that village, we don't know where she is, our spell to keep the population unaware of our activities is going to fail, and we haven't heard back from your partner at all!" He felt a migraine coming on. "Do you have any idea how much Magnetite we had to use for this stunt?! Just because the doctor's some weird alien super genius doesn't mean he's freaking Doraemon! There's a give and take here, and this spell's taking more than we're giving!"

[Do you have any idea how pissed the boss is going to be if you bring that stupid robot out?!] Reynald shot back, their shouting match masking the sounds of fisticuffs outside.

"Do you have any idea how much the bosses are going to ride your asses on this one if we decide to go with Plan B, and you can't manage to control that other Demon of yours?!" Reynald grit his teeth. "Yeah, I thought so. " That knight was a lunatic and overkill in this situation. He could beat the child…to death no problem, that was a given. The doctor recoiled on sight when Reynald first summoned the psycho, and Konda was pretty sure the knight was wearing the bones of the doctor's race as armor. So yeah, the knight could kill the kid. . they were supposed to capture, and if the kill was too easy, he'd just turn on them and kill them all. "Need I remind you our perception spell has a limit that we're close to breaking? We're already screwed, so I'm just going to boot up S-22, and we can blame the fallout on terrorists or something! " Now that he thought about it, not hearing the sound of gunshots and metal being crumpled up into balls, that did sound like a good idea. No one would believe a robot that stupid looking would belong to a criminal organization, not even the enemies of the Phantom Society. "Yeah, I'm going to boot the robot up right now. "

[But you can't!]

-Can you promise me that your knight will be able to control himself?- Konda asked, slipping into his native language. Reynald didn't have an answer to that. "I thought so. I'm activating S-22 right now, and that's final. Goodbye. " He terminated the connection and focused on the second window on his cellphone, the robot's controls.

Good god this UI was gaudy. He sure did love his stupid face, that's for sure. 'I wonder, if I show him a theme park animal costume, would he think it's one of his people?' Chuckling at the thought, Konda began the activation sequence, and that's when Micheal came through the window, shattering it upon impact while he screamed. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary, the moron probably saw a hornet or something. But there were a few problems with this situation.

"IT HUUUURTS!" For one, Micheal had a wedgie. And not a typical wedgie, but the ones you saw in American cartoons, where the victim's underwear had been stretched to fit above their head. Secondly, he was grabbing his ass like some shot it. Thirdly, he was hooting and hollering, his screams hitting notes Konda thought was only possible from opera singers. Fourthly, and this was most important, all of this happened after Micheal was thrown through the window like a baseball.

Also the alien was here. She just jumped in through the hole she made, and stared right at Konda through her mask as her little blue pet followed. You'd forgive him for his lack of reaction, but you had to admit that every one of these events sounded quite stupid, so forgive him for taking some time to process all this.

-Hello sir. - The rabbit said in his native language. -I take it you are a member of the illusive Phantom Society, correct?-

-. . . Yes. - Great. He thought this was something only her Shadow knew, but nope, the conscious self knew about the organization too!