Alright, I'm back...for now. Look, I'm gonna be honest this work gets updated on a 'when it gets done' basis. Sorry to those of you who thought a few months was so long it was abandoned, but writer's block can be that much of a bitch. More in the Author's note, for now enjoy Chapter 31.
During the meeting held after the titan had turned to rubble, and the insurgents scattered to the hills, news of radio transmissions saying that aid was arriving followed, and most of the town ran out to greet their saviors, bearing banners of the Gendarmerie, the Contingency Contract Organization, and Rhodes Island. It didn't matter anymore that some of these factions had come to blows within the city mere hours ago, help had finally come to Wolumonde in the form of the resources they had desperately came to blows over.
Indeed, for while crates of food and medicine were being passed out, the Rahtaus was witness to a slew of activity as Ayerscape pushed forward a disturbing theory.
"So, to summarize, I believe it can be concluded that Biederman, disillusioned and despondent after the townsfolk blamed him, and after Atro forced him out of his home, he committed arson to fake his own death and attempted to stage a revolt against Leithanien by colluding with the Winterwisps to take control of the town and its resources. Perhaps he was convinced that after the Great Rift, aid would fail to come and attempted to seize control of the situation through desperate means. Given Biederman's history not only with the Winterwisps, but also with certain factions within the Contingency Contract Organization, we can determine that Biederman was most likely the mastermind behind the murder, and the plot against Wolumonde. We are unsure, however, who taught the Winterwisp rebels to use the L-44 Gramophone, as Biederman wouldn't have had the knowledge. Sadly, it seems we will never know the truth since Biederman died under mysterious conditions during the riot, with no trails or evidence leading to any other indicator. While I try to avoid voicing my opinions in these reports, I believe another power was at play, a power possibly connected within Leithanien. The L-44 gramophone may be easy to use with good arts education, but it does not explain the fact only a core and no other parts of the device necessary to its operation were found. Whoever used it, had advanced knowledge of the gramophone that could only come from within Leithanien. This concludes the report, and Rhodes Island's investigation."
The room fell silent, and the slides went dark as Click finished the presentation.
"So…the full truth eludes us still…" Mudrock lamented as Suzuran sat in her lap, using the tails to comfort herself at this news.
"And what of Folinic, does she not deserve to know this part of the story?" Evan asked as he watched the display of the nine-tailed vulpo sitting in Mudrock's lap.
"I have concluded that Folinic's mental state at this time is not stable, and that her desire for vengeance should be satisfied, even if it means hiding the truth from her," Greythroat stated. "Now that aid is here, and most of our questions are answered, our focus should remain on helping Wolumonde recover."
Evan nodded and watched as Mudrock gently fluffed the tails, much to Suzuran's visible pleasure. The two simply existed, as though all were right with the world. It did warm his heart some, even if he had been helping to try and defeat Mudrock mere hours ago.
"Now then, are there any other topics, questions, concerns we should address?" Greythroat asked around the room, her gaze falling to each and every operator and employee. When no one said anything, she said, "Very well. Our orders now are to rendezvous with the caravan outside town and fill them in. Operators Click and Ayerscape will assist me in filing our reports on the situation. The rest of you are expected to write up reports as well. Evan, I am re-assigning you command of your unit as this has returned to a field operation rather than a combat one."
He nodded and Greythroat turned to leave, calling Ayerscape and Click before she left with them, and when Evan stood up, everyone shortly followed, including Mudrock.
"I wish to help, in order to repay our debt to Rhodes Island," she explained when Evan gave her an inquisitive look. He just shrugged and smiled before leaving, and the group, now with the addition of those who followed Mudrock, walked to the outskirts of town where an aid camp was already set up, where they met up with Folinic and Tatjana helping to provide aid. The two seemed to be not only busy, but the sight of the two chatting peacefully meant all that was exchanged between them was a brief wave.
"Oh, Evan!" a new voice called, and when he looked to the source he was surprised to see Grani, way higher in the air than she should be. "Over there, that's him!" she pointed to someone below her. A redheaded Vouivre with a cheerful smile nodded before jogging through the crowd with Grani on her back. Soon, the impromptu mount of the former mounted policewoman came to a stop and Evan just watched the two, a little bewildered at the sight. "Good to see you safe and sound. How was the emergency trip?"
He looked to the smiling redhead eagerly awaiting a response, then to kuranta on her shoulders before answering, "The trip wasn't too bad, the wait though…well…"
"Yeesh, something bad happened? Hey, who's that with you?" she asked, pointing to Mudrock.
"Oh, this is Mudrock…she's…" Evan began fumbling for words as he tried to think about how best to state the whole situation with the young Sarkaz juggernaut.
"We came to blows, but we have a mutual understanding now," Mudrock explained. "It's a long story."
"Well, I'd love to hear about it over a pint," Grani said before tapping the vouivre girl on the head, prompting her to bend down and let Grani off.
"And who's your friend?" Evan asked as he looked at the unintroduced vouivre. At this, the girl smiled and stood up straight, extending her hand before giving her greeting with a bright smile and cheerful voice.
"Codename's Bagpipe, former soldier of the Victorian Army. Grani's had a lot to say about you, so it's nice to meet ya Evan," she extended her hand during this greeting and he took it, only for his arm to be yanked around like a puppy does a toy as she gave several shakes with her smile.
"Bagpipe's a good friend, sorry I didn't introduce you to her earlier, the timing just never worked out."
"Hey, better late than never, nice to meet you, Bagpipe."
Bagpipe nodded, but her attention shifted and her joyful smile briefly faltered to one of genuine surprise before she smiled just a little wider and walked over to the target of her new focus.
"Ah, Reed! Hello!" Bagpipe greeted, and when Evan looked at Reed he was a little surprised to see a look full of panic and surprise as the draco tried to hide behind Provence and Dur'nar now that the former soldier had spotted her. The two seemed equally as confused as Evan, and as Bagpipe walked over she pulled Provence's tail up to try and hide herself from Bagpipe.
"Hey, it's ok, it's just me," Bagpipe tried to comfort as she looked with a few arched eyebrows which clashed with her smile to create a look of worry. "Sorry if I scared you, I…"
"...Please…don't…" Reed managed to mumble out as a reply. Bagpipe just gave her sad smile to Reed and backed away, taking a deep breath before talking again.
"Well, I've got to go help distribute food. I hope to see you all later."
With that, the redhead walked away, and Evan noticed the massive piledriver spear on her back for the first time, but he turned his focus back toward the hands that peeked out beyond Provence's floof and walked over.
"She's gone now, are you ok?" Evan asked Reed who didn't move an inch from having her head buried in the fluff. When she didn't answer, he looked to Provence and asked her, "Provence, can you take her back to the inn? She seems shaken up."
"...I'm fine…" Reed clearly lied with a muffled voice as she kept her head in the fluff. When they didn't respond, she finally poked her head out to see everyone's worried gazes then put her head back in before speaking. "I…can help, I'll be fine. Just, let me-"
Evan sighed then said, "It's not a request, it's an order. Go get some rest."
As provence moved, Reed followed, keeping her head buried in the tail as the two walked back to the town. He couldn't help but worry a little, watching the normally calm and collected draco girl hiding her head in Provence's tail like it was an emotional support tool.
"You know, that's the first time I think they've explicitly interacted with each other…" Grani chimed as she watched the sight. "...At least since…"
He was surprised to see the kuranta girl had a pensive look on her face as she watched the sight as well. Grani shook her head and patted her cheeks before redonning her energetic smile and looked to Evan.
"Well, the engineers are over that way. Anyways, I've gotta go find Skadi, make sure she's doing alright."
"Hold up, what's Skadi doing here?"
Grani just shrugged before replying, "Dunno, she volunteered. Though I will say her strength really came in handy busting open paths, which got us here a little ahead of schedule. Anyways, see ya!"
"Yeah, ask someone where we're staying and I'll see you at the inn later," he called as the cheerful kuranta ran off to go where she was needed. That's when he turned his head over towards where he noticed a bunch of logistics operators taking inventory of the cargo. Oddly enough, there was yet another familiar face there. "...Jessica?"
Jessica gave a 'hee' of surprise before turning around. When she saw Evan though, she visibly calmed down some then took a deep breath.
"Oh, Evan, I'm so sorry, y-you surprised me…"
He could only smile at the sight which made the catgirl's cheeks glow a little before she seemed to remember something.
"Oh, right, did you get the required information?"
"Oh shit, that's right!" he thought before chuckling a little then flatly saying, "No…too much happened to actually get to that point."
"O-Oh, t-that's fine, we still need to begin preparations with the local Schultheiß anyways."
"Yeah…about that…" he groaned before taking a hiss for courage. "They've decided to start electing a new Schultz, now of all times."
"W-What?! W-Why would they do that?!"
"Turns out the current Schultz, Severin Hawthorn, was infected, so the town's council are arguing over whether to elect a new one, wait, or keep Severin on board."
"O-Oh, I see…sounds like a lot happened…"
"You have no idea. Anyways, who's that behind you?"
Indeed, behind Jessica was another individual who gave a small 'eep' before hiding behind Jessica.
"O-Oh, this is Snowsant, she's our chief engineer for this operation. S-She's also…a…dear friend of mine…um…Snowsant, say hello to Evan."
"...Um…hello, Mr. Carvey…m-my codename is Snowsant…but you already knew that…um…"
"Why does every other person I meet give me mental diabetes?" he asked himself before deciding to place his hand out with a smile, "Well, nice to meet you Snowsant. Feel free to call me Evan, I'm not much for formalities anyways."
"U-Um…y-yes…nice to…um…meet you," she said as she gingerly took the hand. She immediately retreated it though as soon as possible and hid behind Jessica once more. "I-I'm sorry…I…"
"Miss Snowsant, has our help come? Pudding's having trouble getting the required power to-" A new person said. "Ah, is that them? Hello, I'm Purestream, a water purification expert. Nice to meet you all!"
Yet again, he was met with another roughly five foot tall girl, this time with pink hair and an unorthodox hat arrangement. She seemed to notice Snowsant hiding behind Jessica and then looked at Evan.
"Oh, it's Evan, I've seen you around Bioengineering a couple times. Pudding's trying to hook up the panels to a water purifier, but we're having trouble figuring out how to get enough power."
Evan looked up and then said, "Probably not enough sunlight? It's been cloudy for the last few days…"
"Ah, is that so? Well, Pudding's working on setting up the system, since you're the inventor we would love your help."
"Well…" he said, looking back to those who remained. Dur'nar gave him a little thumbs-up and a smile and he nodded. "Yeah, sure, where are you setting this up?"
"Ah, right over this way. Oh, Miss Snowsant, we could use your help too."
"C-Coming! Sorry Jessy, I've got to go now…"
"Bye Bye. Oh, and Evan, I'll show your team what they can help us with. I-If that's alright."
"Yeah, just don't overwork us. We're pretty exhausted."
"Y-Yes, I-I'll try!"
With that, they split off and made their way over to where yet another roughly five foot tall girl was fiddling with the chords of the water system they were trying to set up with a harp seal plushie
"Ah, Purestream, Snowsant, and…um…oh, you're Evan! It's nice to finally meet you. I'm Pudding, an electrical engineer, and this is Pillow," the girl said while bringing the plush to bear. If he weren't so used to copious amounts of mental sugar, Evan would've just collapsed right there after that greeting. First Snowsant, then Purestream, and now Pudding, did Closure just decide to assign him with the cutest engineering team?
Well, either way, he had a job to do. After recovering from the shock of his rapidly rising, but thankfully metaphorical, blood sugar, he walked up to Pudding and took Pillow's flipper before saying, "Nice to meet you both."
"Y-You know Pillow can't speak, right?" Pudding asked with an awkward smile.
"Well, you introduced him, so I'm just saying hi," he responded. After a blink, Pudding giggled and then turned her attention back to the system she was trying to set up. After a brief look, Evan worked to move the panels to face the sun directly. "Solar panels work best in direct sunlight, if possible you want them to face perpendicular to the sun to catch the most photons."
"Photons?" Pudding asked with an adorable tilt of her head.
"Light particles. I know, light is a wave, but it's also a particle."
"Really?! That's amazing, why is it both?"
"Well…I'm not entirely sure…I know a lot of its properties, but essentially the original theory I learned has to do with quantizing the energy of light into discrete, separate units."
"Oh, now those equations make sense…I see, I see…" Pudding said with a few nods of her head.
"Ah, it's starting up!" Snowsant said as she looked at the screen. "Hm…I-It's not a lot, but it's enough to get started."
"Great, now we can start water purification!" Purestream said with a pump of her fist. "Thank you so much."
Following Purestream's declaration of victory, Pudding raised a fist and squeezed Pillow while Snowsant gave a sheepish hooray, and Evan nearly felt his heart give out.
Overall, the rest of the day was tiring, minus the fact none of him or his team slept at all last night. Setting up power for the aid systems was his priority. And honestly, it was a pain. Everytime something went wrong with the power, he inevitably had to be called over to deal with it. Sometimes it was as simple as shadows blocking the panels as the sun moved, but other times they found out some weird kink Rhine Lab had added during the device's R&D phase which meant even he, the pioneer of this technology in Terra, had to consult the manual.
What was promising was how quickly Rhine Labs had realized the full potential of the device. Seriously, in just a few short months he had gone from a vacuum tube apparatus to something that resembled a modern day panel. They had also been quick to follow up on his notes that the tech could be folded like origami, meaning each panel was actually closer to a stick when it first got brought out of the transport vehicles.
But of course, more impressive was the materials engineering. He didn't know how, but they had already managed to mass produce something that would be a top end solar panel back on Earth. They had made sure the anti-reflective layering was clear as the vacuum of space and the absorption material was sensitive to even the smallest burst of light. That still didn't fix the amount of energy needed to make some of Terra's equipment work and the ultimate limitation was that it was cloudy and foggy, so their energy production was essentially operating at sizably lower percent capacity. This meant that for every solar panel they brought, they needed a fifth or more of another one to achieve the expected energy output.
For actual troubleshooting of electrical issues, Pudding had been indispensable. Her ability to comprehend electrodynamics as well as electronics was indeed her specialty, and she was very good at applying them to practice.
It wasn't until lunchtime did he reunite with some of the others, all of them clearly exhausted in their own way. Sadly, none of them really had the time to talk about why with those who had only recently arrived in Wolumonde since there was just so much work to be done. So, after scarfing down their meals, most left with minimal conversation to have been had.
One by one through the afternoon, however, each one of them would be sent back to the inn early, but by then it was an order from the actual organizers once Greythroat and her team had delivered their reports in full. Once logistics had organized their early release, they finally got a chance to rest. As expected, the most stubborn of them nearly had to be dragged kicking and screaming from her medical work before she finally admitted she needed a break.
When they returned to the inn, Evan and Folinic were surprised to see Provence sleeping upright on the couch with Reed clutching the tail, also fast asleep. Needless to say, pictures were silently taken. The sight was too adorable and wholesome to pass up anyways, and Folinic was too tired to care about any professionalism as she just looked at the image and silently giggled before pocketing her own phone.
More pictures had to be taken too for another duo fast asleep in their afternoon siesta. Folinic couldn't hold in her look of adoration at the sight of Suzuran cuddling up to Mudrock, even if it was in the room she was sharing with the little nine-tailed vulpo. It was rather bewildering for Evan to think how quickly the two had gotten along, and how Suzuran had been the first to become close to the enigmatic sarkaz. Still, it didn't make the sight any less sweet to look at. This left Folinic going downstairs while Evan went to go see Dur'nar, since she had gotten there long before them too.
Evan knocked, and an acknowledgement in the form of "Yeah?" sounded from the other side.
"It's me, can I come in?"
"Sure, let me just unlock the door."
Footsteps creaked the wood below, and soon after fiddling with the lock, Dur'nar opened the door, dressed in her pajamas with her cast under the shirt. This clearly didn't escape Dur'nar, though she aired her thoughts by waving to catch his gaze with a little teasing smile.
"Oops…" Evan thought to himself before laughing and rubbing the back of his neck before looking away. "Sorry…" he said sheepishly, probably more than a little red after having that pointed out. "H-How's your arm doing?" She blinked, brows arched up, a little surprised at the response. "I just wanted to check up on you, sorry if I bothered you."
Dur'nar smiled before grabbing his arm and dragging her into her room.
"Yeah, it's fine. Just be my buddy for a bit," Dur'nar said before she suddenly turned her face to a slightly mischievous smile before asking, "Is Reed still cuddling Provence's tail?"
"Yes, I have a picture," he said before pulling out his PDA phone thing and showed
"Oh my gosh, she's asleep now too. You've got to send this to me."
"Yeah, sure…um…" he said before running into a brick wall in the form that he noticed he had no connection.
"Oh, is this your first time sharing images outside of a net? So go to this app…" she pointed to one that had Closure's little icon on it. "Great, now I'll do mine…" Dur'nar said before pulling out her own PDA phone thingy before the design on Closure's T-shirt popped up and did a little animation wave before it said in a little text bubble 'PERFORMING RF SWEEP…" followed by 'FREQUENCIES DETECTED' the little demon symbol jumped and pulled down a list of frequencies followed by a search bar in the top with a little arrow and a second list of device serial numbers which led to Dur'nar shoving her phone into view with a system information page and she pointed the serial number to search by. Once that was done he chose the device and the symbol popped up, and Dur'nar then tapped her screen a few times and they set up a small popup came up asking: 'OPERATOR DUR'NAR WISHES TO ESTABLISH LINK' followed by two click buttons saying 'Accept' and 'Deny'.
He clicked accept and the icon spinned in place in a black and white animation before the head blinked out of existence and left behind a note saying, "LINK ESTABLISHED."
"Alright, now if you use the communicator app with the Amiya mascot on it, you should be able to send that to me." He did as instructed and soon the image was sent over to Dur'nar's phone and she smiled at it. "Alright, sweet. Also, if you can't get good range, there's a little emergency antennae to boost the signal with."
"Well, that's convenient. I wonder if it works like bluetooth…" he said to himself.
"Bluetooth?" Dur'nar asked with a tilt of her head.
"Oh, it's basically a networking tool that uses low frequency, low power radio signals to link two devices together over short ranges."
"I'm not sure, you'd have to ask Closure. She's the one who designed most of the programs for the Rhodes Island phones," Dur'nar explained with a finger on her chin. She then smiled and removed it before saying, "Well, whatever. I've been holed up here most of the day. How was relief work?"
"You mean me troubleshooting electrical issues until things were running properly. Take a guess. Doesn't help that electronics was never really my planned specialty to begin with. I'm basically running on fumes and coffee at this point," he said with a yawn on the last part.
"You can lay down if you want," Dur'nar invited by patting her bed.
"Ok…" he thought to himself before sitting on the bed then naturally lied down with his feet overhanging the end. "So when did they send you back?"
"Pretty quickly, thanks to this broken arm situation…"
"Seriously, sorry about that…"
"You're fine," she said before taking a seat on the bed beside where he initially sat. "You weren't all bad for someone so callously thrown to the lion pit, but I'd say it put you through a good learning experience."
"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?"
"I mean…no…and yes…but when the Doctor makes weird decisions, not many of us combat operators question it."
"I'm a little slow on the loop, but what's the deal with the Doctor?"
"Well…that's a complicated story. I mean, there's a lot of people who could tell the story better than I, but the Doctor used to be a commander and tactician under Sarkaz King Theresa during the Sarkaz Civil War. I was hired after Theresa died and her faction, Babel, dissolved into Rhodes Island."
"Huh, not really onto the whole world affairs thing. Was the Sarkaz civil war recent…?"
She raised an eyebrow at this question and gave a rather guffawed look briefly before she shook her head a little and answered, "Well…the civil war ended with Theresa's death a little under three years ago."
"Ah…" he replied in affirmation before sort of just thinking for a bit. He recalled his brief time in Columbia and how that old biggot had made a deal about Vigna being a sarkaz. He hadn't thought about the puzzle pieces, but a few things suddenly clicked.
"Enough about depressing stuff though, I think we've had our fill."
She could certainly say that again. Though, as Dur'nar and he spoke about the trivialities of the day, he felt his eyes slowly drift closed, his mind eventually following. It took a little bit of time before she noticed and she couldn't help but smile.
"Well, you've earned a rest. Might as well join ya," she said in a soft voice with a tinge of silkiness in it before pulling the blanket over them both and shutting her eyes to join him in a well earned rest.
Alright, I'll be honest, the hiatus was a lot of considering what I want to do from here with the story as well as contemplating other projects. This led to a huge writer's block. I usually just wait these out, but I also had this chapter done like a week ago, just didn't want to post or correct it until now. While I can't promise perfection, I trust whatever soul I put into this fun little project of mine that has attracted over 800 followers. Thanks for the support. I'm kind of tired right now, but 32 may get done before Summer's out if some things go well.
On another note, turns out I may need to see an endocrinologist as my hormone balance may be whack, hence the lack of motivation for much of the stuff in my life. I won't get into personal life details and spare you from the quagmire that is my life at the moment, but know I am getting the help and support I need to sort through my issues. Life is messy.