Sorry about how late this update is, but I've been dealing with a lot of things.

Tails, Sonic and Amy belong to Sega Corporation, Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper belong to Chuck Lorre Productions and CBS, and Lara Croft belongs to CDE Entertainment. Need I go on?

"Disrupting the peace disrupts the people," I said into the speaker as we entered the Hangar.

Las Desbaratandas only agreed to let Ellie go, as she had the skills to edit all the takes. Carmel was too much of a gossip to be trusted with the secrets, and Christina might inadvertently provoke the avatars with her mouth. If I'm being honest, I wasn't too concerned about that, as they'd likely heard worse things in battle. But I didn't argue with the Desbaratandas' choice, especially since we were in a time crunch.

"Wow, this place is top-notch," Ellie commented as she came in. "Where do you guys do your internet stuff?"

"That would be the Cyberoom," Amos said, and we guided her there.

We came in to discover Tails and Sheldon in the middle of an intense conversation. Sheldon was making wide gestures around the Cyberoom. Leonard was ogling the Holo, perhaps trying to pick up Tails' secrets for operating it. Tails didn't seem to notice this, and I didn't think he and Sheldon were arguing about what operated it.

"Is that another friend of yours?" Ellie asked, pointing to Tails. "And what about those guys?"

"Some… visitors," I replied, still unsure what to make of them. "Analyzing our town."

Ellie considered this. It was the sort of thing that only made sense in the loony world of VLADJI. "All right, then."

I whistled a sharp Prrrr-eeeet! Enough to let them know we were here.

Tails wheeled around. "Ah." He assessed Ellie. "Is this one of the Disruptors I've been hearing so much about?"

"Ellie Asura," I said.

"Oh, is this the guy –?" Ellie asked. "The one from yesterday, crashing onto the –"

"Let's not bring that up again," Tails responded coolly. "What do you guys need?"

"We were hoping you could lend your computer to something," DJ said, explaining about our plan to send a video out to the public to warn them, courtesy of the Desbaratandas.

Tails nodded. "Makes sense. I've seen the power of viral videos, but – ah, we don't have the time, do we?"

"You already established that at lunch," Imira responded. "We only have time to do some editing on the feed."

Lara and her clones handed over the cameras. Lara then touched hands with each of her clones, vanishing them entirely. Good thinking – the Cyberoom got crowded quickly.

Tails worked fast, plugging each camera's memory card into the Holo's ports and downloading the card's data. Once he was finished with the video feed, he opened up an application on the Holo.

"Seriously?" Amos asked. "You set up a video studio on your Holo?"

Tails' only response to that was a shrug, like, you never know. He then beckoned to Ellie. "You know something about edits?"

Ellie nodded, and the two got to work. It was tricky, as we'd been working with different feeds. But I trusted Tails' judgment and his technical skill with computers. I knew that between him and Ellie, they'd find a combination that got people's attention quickly.

It wasn't a particularly interesting process. Or a quick one. Occasionally, I heard an "ah!" or "hmm" from Ellie and/or Tails when they found something worthy of being put on the video. Otherwise, it was dead silence and a bunch of things swapping around on the Holo.

After a few minutes of this, I turned to the geeks, mostly from sheer boredom. "How's it coming along?"

"Better than I thought it would be," Sheldon replied. "I didn't think a bunch of kids could come in with such a workable plan. And then there's what happened with Hollins at your house. I didn't think he'd consider you such a problem."

"Did Tails tell you about that?"

Leonard sighed. "Enough for us to really hate the sleaze bag. But I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have done that if you hadn't threatened him."

"I didn't threaten him outright!"

Sheldon raised an eyebrow. "You're standing for reason. You're the resistance. Therefore, you threatened Hollins."

He did have a point.

"Are you two okay?" I asked. Whatever they'd been talking about with Tails, it had to be serious.

"We only have so much time here," Leonard said. "We have at least until the afternoon tomorrow."

"¿Mañana?" That was the day of the protest! And they were leaving that day?

"We can stick around, to see how it plays out," Leonard replied. "But once we've got the info, the flight's due for us."

His words just made me more confused. I mean, I didn't expect to fully understand the guys, but I wasn't sure what he meant by the flight's due. I remembered the way he and his partner had arrived on as little notice as they did – as if they'd teleported. Were they using the same method to get back to Pasadena? I didn't really know. Besides, they probably weren't faking their jobs…

Wow. Total mind blower. I decided to stop thinking about it before my brain exploded.

"Just… don't go without saying adios, capiche?" I said to them, peering over at their notes. As they'd mentioned, there was a lot of praise heaped on us.

Resistance is more effective than Seattle and Chicago.

Way more directed. No chance of personal feelings triumphing for long.

A suspicion can be held that they were created for more than just advocacy.

One bit of the notes jumped out at me – they are surprisingly clever and organized for a bunch of adolescents. One member in particular has a knack for using technology, which she seems to share with their two-tailed fox researcher. A little on the wild side, but she's effective.

"What are you doing?" Leonard asked, quickly covering up the notes.

"Nada," I responded quickly. Perhaps too quickly. I glanced over my shoulder to notice Sonic and Amy had arrived in the Cyberoom and were helping Tails and Ellie out. Bueno – Sonic knew how to sway people, and Amy was a master psychologist thanks to her empathy. If anyone could figure out something that would get people's attention, it was them.

"Well, don't peek at my –" Sheldon began, but was cut off by a telekinetic shove from Tails, who didn't even look over at him.

"I'd learn to deal, if I were you," he said sharply to Sheldon. He understood how insatiably curious I was.

Sheldon frowned, then started scrawling in the notes. I guessed what he was going to write: Loony girl likes to snoop a ton.

I remembered something else: created for more than just advocacy.

"You'd be right about that," I said to Sheldon. "The Vortex commissioned us. To campaign for reason and keep the peace among humanity for the avatars."

Leonard whistled. "Sounds like a big task."

"It is when it isn't just humans causing trouble," I replied. "We also have monsters attacking us quite a bit. They're a total pain in the neck."

"And what's the Vortex?" Sheldon questioned.

I wasn't sure how to explain it to them. Most physicists tended to be atheists. Besides, I wasn't even sure I could call the Vortex a deity in that particular sense. So I decided on an explanation that fell somewhere in between. "Only the overseer of portal travel here. He's pretty powerful, and in touch with fate."

Sheldon frowned.

"Done!" Ellie said triumphantly.

"How does it look?" I inquired.

"Here's hoping it works," Sonic muttered. "Wanna give it a viewing?"

Well, I'm not spoiling the result. You'll have to see it next chapter.

Verse for the update: Luke 9:23.

Please review! No flames! And stay tuned for more!