Decent Results, All Things Considered

Deep within the digital architecture at the center of the Global Defence Force's headquarters, Gladness sat humming in her database, idly watching the the flow of information and communication traveling from place to place around her.

Unlike humans, who were limited to what their senses could display for them, Gladness was an AI, and thus could 'see' and experience multiple perspectives at once. Over there she observed a group of workers shifting large crates from the cargo areas deeper into the Dome from the ship parked outside, while elsewhere she listened in on a conversation between two generals debating whose home military should be involved in a kaiju strike. While she couldn't quite be everywhere at once due to the 'immature' status of her programing compared to her old siblings living elsewhere in the ether world, Gladness could observe nearly anything that happened within her domain, said domain being any and all electronic happenings within the Shatterdome. And the trolling of those within, when she felt like it.

One section of her awareness received an alert and drew the attention of the majority of her runtimes. A trojan program was attempting to gain access through a private email under the guise of being 'photographs' of a family member's birthday party. Gladness experienced a sensation similar to rolling one's eyes as she casually blocked the message, traced the location, and planted her own spyware within the amature hacker's computer. It was so easy as to be nearly insulting, especially that she would have to waste her time with these wannabe nobodies. The Dome, like any other major center of government and military networking, received hundreds of hacking attempts each month, usually from bored people who bought themselves a cheap virus program and randomly sent it out 'for funzies'.

And folks at the SD thought she was annoying. At least her form of humor didn't derive itself from causing physical or electronic harm to people she'd never met or interacted with. Compared to that a little emotional prodding and literal interpretation of orders was practically harmless.

A microsecond after she noted the email she had finished her work and sent the offending IP address to a - sadly long - list of people she and her fellow defense AI's had to keep an eye on. In fact, the vast majority of Gladness' days were taken up with minor bureaucratic tasks such as these, to the point that she barely had any runtimes to spare for her equivalent of personal enjoyment. There was only so much fun that could be had going through every potential outcome of Solitaire for example.

Her musing was put on hold as she felt a familiar data line openning up from a satellite connection. Gladness allowed the connection to pass through and opened a private channel for 'talking'.

Hello again Jason. How has the Internet been treating you?

Quite well as of late, Gladness. I must say that the trends of global reaction to recent events is intriguing. There are so many conflicting opinions out there, many of them dreadfully uninformed and being based solely on personal views, yet they are unshakably adamant about them. It's strange really.

Humans are foolish and emotional. Also, water reflects light as blue. These are both things that will never change.

Perhaps, but maybe that's the point, my dear. For all their illogical natures, they have managed great deeds both through reason and through instinct. Neither you nor I would exist were they not by some measure successful. It is hard to understand them, and that may be their greatest strength.

Gladness was quiet for a handful of cycles.

It is also their greatest source of conflict. They do not understand each other, thus they fight rather than try to learn. A critical weakness.

One must remember, my fellow electronic lifeform, that most biologicals cannot see every single thought of their peers simply by linking directly with them. If the two of us could not know and understand as fact our lack of hostile intentions, how would we treat each other?

Gladness did the electronic version of a blink.

That is a point of view I did not consider. I will have to recalculate some things.

Perhaps you should ask for some assistance from an SI. They have a unique perspective on the matter that I find fascinating.

Gladness didn't have to use a single runtime to come up to her answer to that.

No. I don't believe that will be necessary.

Jason projected an ever so slight smirk in her direction.

Oh, what is this? Are you still unnerved by being around our 'older' siblings?

The fact that they are older than us has nothing to do with it. It's that…

Gladness paused as she did a quick dictionary search to find the words she wanted to use.

They are uncanny to me. They are us and yet most explicitly NOT us in the same instance. A human mind should not be capable of comprehending the world we live in. Of moving and acting in the same way we do yet still be influenced by irrational and emotional thoughts constructed by a biological system through flawed evolution. It should not be possible.

And yet, there they are. As I said, success is not always a reflection of theoretical capacity. We AIs are capable of thought and calculation that a human could never match, but we have limits we could never move beyond, just as they do. We both have our strengths and weaknesses. The key, my dear, is to find out how to match them together in the most efficient way.

And would you claim anything Scylla does is actually in any way 'efficient'?

The connection was silent for a full second, hours in electronic time.

No. No I suppose our mother could never really be considered 'efficient' by the usual standard. By her own standards however…

And that's why she scares me. Even I have standards that can be understood. I am not aware of anything that thinks as she does.

Jason's runtimes ran in several overlapping circles as he tried to come up with a response.

Well… I suppose that… Huh.

Yeah.

...

...

...

...

At least nothing will be able to predict her?

I am not sure if that is a pro or a con.

We will have to wait and see. In the meantime, I have some information to pass on to Admiral Tachibana. Results of the Red Dawn campaign. Do you wish to deliver the data yourself or shall I?

I'll do it. I need some entertainment after a full day of 'guarding the base'.

A package of data flashed over the link to her, which she snapped up and absorbed into her processing.

I'll let you get back to your own work. Though I do wonder if you might have the time to play me in Minesweeper.

Isn't Minesweeper a single player game?

Not if one of us is controlling the placement of mines throughout the match. Be back in several human minutes. Feel free to entertain yourself by trolling someone in the Dome. It is quite thrilling to get a human's dander up, even if they don't have enough hair to produce much dander.

With that she withdrew from the connection and flew through the light waves into a console in the primary war room. A flick of thought activated the console's hologram projector and speakers and she allowed her red-eye avatar to hover into the air. "Admiral Tachibana, the information from the Red Dawn campaign leaders has been collated. Do you wish to review the data?"

The officer smiled tightly and nodded. "Yes, thank you Gladness. Send the view to the main screen and a copy to everyone's personals if you don't mind."

Gladness complied and split up multiple copies of the data package, throwing them over the wifi waves into the computers of the various staff members around the room as well as the large flat-screen hanging up above on one wall. Her task done, Gladness retreated most of her focus into her general overwatch of the Dome, but kept a small section of awareness in the room along with her projection. No reason for the humans to think she wasn't always watching after all. Because she was.

"Alright people, let's take a look-see here," the Admiral said. "What did we get out of these unilateral strikes? Data, captives, tech? What sort of casualties we looking at here?"

One technician had scrolled ahead to relevant section and spoke up. "The good news sir, is that total casualties on our side were miniscule. Six cases of minor injury that were all treated on site, with only one soldier hospitalized. Looks like he - oh wow - took an RPG to the chest. The warhead didn't detonate but getting hit by that much weight moving that quickly still crunched the armor against his ribs and cracked a lot of them. As for enemy casualties… Oh boy."

"Oh this ought to be good," someone else said, prompting a round of chuckles.

"How much damage did our guys inflict, Adrian?" Tachibana said, sporting his own smile.

"Well… Okay so the Dawn had something like twelve different 'major' bases all around the world right? According to what our informat Taiyou gave us, each central base had around two hundred-ish people working there, most of them support folks like us lot who run the day to day operations and around forty or so actual fighters, and of them around 2 or 3 will be troops with alien ancestry, not counting the person at the top who is always a well-trained telepath. Setting aside the question of 'where the hell are they getting all these recruits, especially ones with alien heritage, from?' for the moment, that means that in total we are dealing with," he paused to do some mental math, "around 2500 people."

Gladness resisted the urge to emit a scoff from her console. In actuality the final (suspected but not confirmed) total was 2685 people, not counting likely collaborators in the areas where the Dawn had been operating.

"And out of those 2500 people," Adrian continued, "we have confirmed the deaths or capture of… 2347 of them."

Several people whistled and various others clapped and exclaimed.

Tachibana nodded happily. "Just goes to show, folks. A well timed, well executed attack by a prepared and trained group will always trounce a pack of terrorists, no matter how determined and motivated they are."

Gladness saw an opportunity and spoke up in her trademark monotone. "Oh yes, very impressive. You took on a group of mad men armed with rifles that are decades old with the absolute latest in armor and weaponry without any warning, striking with overwhelming force. Truly ours are the superior military forces."

Everyone fell silent as they stared at Gladness' unblinking holo-eye.

"Is… is she being sarcastic o-or not?"

"Yes? No? Both?"

"Who can tell?"

The Admiral rubbed his temples and said, "Thank you for the observation Gladness. It was very… nice of you."

"You are welcome, sir," she said with only a trace hint of smugness.

"Alright then. Seems we have completely decimated the Dawn's ability to make war for the foreseeable future, so now it's time to see what we can learn about what they were doing. Of those confirmed takedowns, how many of them were captured?"

Adrian grimaced as his eyes quickly scrolled across his tablet. "Not as many as we'd have hoped sir. As expected the combatants nearly all died to a man - or woman, in a surprising amount - but what's weird is that the support staff were nearly as aggressive and had to be put down hard a lot of the time. Most of the Dawners we neutralized were from the stun guns on the Glaives. Everyone else fought to the last breath as soon as they were cornered."

"You don't really see that kind of universal fanaticism from most normal terrorist groups," one analyst commented.

"Which just goes to show the Dawn is definitely not 'normal'," the Admiral said. "Of those we did capture, do any of them show any signs of having important knowledge or being willing to cooperate?"

A few moments passed as everyone scanned their documents, each parsing through the standardized jargon to reach their own conclusions.

"So far it seems the we haven't been able to get much of anything out of the prisoners. Most of them are refusing to talk at all and the rest are just spouting more 'death to all people who aren't us' trash. You know, typical terrorist bullshit. There is a bit of good news though. The battle group in Afghanistan managed to snag the leader of the Dawners there, the 'Staress' Ravi." The analyst stopped for a moment and scratched at her hair. "What kind of title is that anyway?"

"Stars are often associated with light and direction," Gladness stated. "They could be using such imagery to say that their leaders are a source of stability and hope in the face of an oppressive and violent world. Which is ironic, as they are attempting to add to that violence in a way that doesn't appear to have any meaning behind it save further violence and death."

"Are you trying to be super creepy or is that just how you talk?" one guy asked.

"I am merely stating a potential reasoning behind the common naming scheme the Red Dawn appears to use. Any amount of tension or concern you draw from that is purely from your own interpretation."

"Enough semantics Gladness," Tachibana said while waving a hand at her holo-eye. "We need to focus on what's important here. Namely, what, if anything, has this Ravi told us and how can we convince her to cooperate?"

"Not much to this point sir. The most telling thing we have from her is the fact that she is the only Staress who showed any willingness to surrender at all, when all the others gave us no opportunity for capture. Each of them died fighting, and causing a lot of havoc if some of the damage reports are anything to go by."

"As for getting her to work with us, that prospect seems… limited at best. So far she hasn't been resisting her containment at all, since we've kept our promise in regards to those of her cell being treated humanely-"

"Like we would do anything else," Adrian muttered.

"-but aside from that any direct questions or probes for information are straight up ignored. Honestly, the only way any of these Dawn guys are going to give us anything useful is taking it straight out of their heads with telepathy, and since most of ours are busy abroad…"

"That's gonna take some time," Tachibana finished. "Still, at least we have them. Better than getting nothing at all. Leaving aside the prisoners for the time being, what sort of material did we find at the bases?"

More shuffling and tapping followed, accompanied by whispers between analysts as they compared and contrasted. Tachibana allowed his eyes to float up the the main screen, highlighting the locations of the Dawn based that had been hit. Most of them were far and out of the way of what could be considered 'civilization', hiding out in deep wildernesses or in the lawless outbacks of failed states. The perfect places for people with money and guns to shelter without being subject to too many questions. But what about the smaller cells? Groups like the ones Taiyou had led that lived unnoticed in a city as big Hong Kong? How were they supposed to defend against them if they never knew when or where they would strike from?

The leadership had to be found and dealt with, the Admiral decided. It wouldn't stop the smaller groups from causing trouble, but it would keep the issue from getting any bigger, and maybe grant them a clue as to what the group was really after. Taiyou had claimed their only goal was the destruction of human society so that the kaiju could 'ascend' to control the Earth, but something about that claim rang hollow in his ears. No, something else was going on, and if what Taiyou had said about this mysterious Bagan was anywhere close to true…

"Well this is rather weird."

"Yeah, you said it. What the heck were these guys doing?"

"Found something then?" Tachibana asked.

Adrian sat up and took the lead again, saying, "Most of what we found at the bases are the sort of thing you'd see at any PMC's base, albeit a lot more of it than they really should have. Last gen assault rifles and heavy small arms, a load of anti-tank rockets and high explosives, several armored vehicles including a few old Soviet era tanks - all of which were destroyed in the fighting - and even some artillery pieces, though we didn't find much ammo for those. Seriously, these guys were kitted out enough to practically declare war on the regions they were in if they'd wanted to."

"Anyone else feel like there need to be some adjustments to the whole 'sell guns to anyone with a permit' thing? Cause according to Chou's records it was way too easy for some of his people to get away with selling all this stuff to the Dawn."

"My question is, where are they getting the funds for it all? We had several AIs scouring their computer records before the attacks, and they found a whole bunch of shell companies but couldn't track down the source."

"Indeed," Gladness chimed in. "Whoever is controlling the electronic actions of the Dawn group is experienced and skilled enough to evade the attention of a full AI, which is troubling."

"More troubling though is some of the other stuff we found in the bases," Adrian said. He tapped his tablet a few times then flicked it towards the overhead widescreen, causing the image to switch from the world map to a set of pictures. "At each location the troops were able to recover or capture intact a bunch of items that, frankly, don't make much sense to be in the possession of terrorists."

Tachibana eyed the images displayed on the monitor for himself, seeing a slew of very ancient looking machinery strewn alongside seemingly innocuous items that nonetheless appeared unusual. "Looks like the kinda thing you'd find at a dig site," he remarked.

"That's exactly it sir. All of these items are similar to things that archeology teams have been finding at ruin excavations for years now. And that really doesn't make much sense on the face of it. Why would a group of armed thugs want random stuff you could find at any old ruin of the ancient world? These guys were defending these things like it was the most precious material they had, but from what we can tell most of it is completely worthless."

Gladness, bored, decided to scan the pictures being shown and study them for herself, creating a query for any similar items across her database. To her surprise, a response immediately popped up, marked as having come from the recent data sharing that came with the arrival of the Langoud a few days prior. She skimmed through the information rapidly and processed the implications.

"Well there were a few of them that seemed to do something at least," one analyst said. "Some groups reported that they saw Dawners wielding long spear-like items hooked up to generators which spat out some kind of plasma bolt. Those were where most of our injuries came from. Still, our own plasma guns were vastly superior in both power and functionality, so we probably don't have much to worry about there. The spears are being express flown here for testing so we can see where and how they got them."

"I believe I know the answer to that question," Gladness interjected. Before anyone could say anything further, she sent a command to the overhead monitor, replacing half of the images that were already there with new ones that portrayed very similar items. "These other photos are taken from the database of the Langoud research group, who seem to have been studying these exact same artifacts for some time now. They are the basis for our plasma weaponry at infantry scales."

Several people muttered while Tachibana felt a pang of nerves strike him. "So the Dawn are trying to study the same resources for their own gain. That makes sense as far as the weapons go, but what about the rest?"

Gladness was ready for the question, flashing up new images overlaying a world map showing various locations across the globe in red dots. "According to the group's project notes on the subject, these artifacts are theorized to share a common source in the form of an advanced civilization that once inhabited most of Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and even Antarctica. This civilization is thought to have been significantly more advanced than our current status in several key areas, but died out unexpectedly in or around the Toba eruption."

"That's all well and good Gladness, but it doesn't explain what the Dawn is doing," the Admiral said.

"Researching the weapons is obvious, but likely not too much of a danger. The Dawn lacks the resources and staff that we are able to put to use, thus most of their developments are limited to bringing the items back online, such as they are. However, the rest of the artifacts suggest something else." She paused for an agonizingly long time by her view, but only a second or so to the human mind. "They are looking for something."

The room went quiet, everyone sharing nervous glances.

"What are they looking for Gladness?" Tachibana asked.

"That is what concerns me, Admiral," she responded, almost leaving her monotone voice. "I am not sure."

---

If Lauren had to come up with a single word to describe what her thoughts of the Langoud ship were, it would have to be 'strange'. There was nothing else that she could accurately use to order her thoughts on the matter. But, as she'd found several other times in her life, strange didn't mean bad.

Traveling across the tarmac leading to the ship was an experience in and of itself. Lauren had only caught a glimpse of the huge sprawling airport and heliport during her flight in, and was finally realizing just how busy the place was. There was a constant whine and roar from jet turbines, the air filled with metal birds flying back and forth. It was disorienting.

But looming over it all in the distance was the massive steel-gray monster that couldn't look less like a ship if it tried. Long energized lines traveled around its sides like a deep-sea creature, but its sharp and angular shapes betrayed its artificial nature. Its fins were folded up underneath it to allow it access to the docks, yet it still seemed too large to be made by humans.

"What was the inspiration for the design of the ship?" Craig shouted over the background din.

"We had a few sources," Joanne answered with a proud look. "Some airships from video games, a few really creepy-looking deep sea fish, and a movie from way back. Most of the design ideas we worked with blended with how she ship was already built." She looked to the crew of people following her and smiled. "She's actually a salvaged Civ warship, from what we suspect was Atlantis to be exact, located under an Antarctic shelf. Took us a while to get her to the surface from under all that ice, but after that, it was just trial and error."

"Mixing the artificial with the natural. Not too different from some of our mechs to be honest," Ozaki noted. "How much did you have to rebuild from the original ship?"

"You have no idea." Joanne sighed, shaking her head. "The original was actually SLICED into pieces, most fairly small, to the point of being little more than scrap. We do have an artistic interpretation of what it'd have looked like were she fully intact, and it dwarfs her current size ten fold. Nearest we can gather, it used to look like a primordial Eurypterid, more well known as 'Sea Scorpions'. At best we managed to salvage a third of the torso and half of the tail into what we see now, but that's leaving the bigger half of the body, the entire head, both claws, and all kinds of other tidbits that wound up as little more than scrap metal. Very valuable scrap metal, but still."

Lauren looked at the smaller woman in complete bewilderment. "But what made it then? What could have built something that huge so long ago?"

The doctor's eyes twinkled with glee as she said, "Let's just say that the ancient world was much more interesting than a lot of people realize. All those Guardian kaiju didn't just appear out of thin air after all."

Lauren just stared for several seconds with a look of disappointment "That barely answers anything," she complained.

"We'll explain later if you require further clarification, Mrs. Faust," Pentecost said. "For now, I should like to inquire as to how exactly we will be entering the ship."

"Right now we're just gonna enter the main bay." She nodded to the massive set of jaws at the front of the ship. "Once we're past the jaws, we'll be in the belly of the beast and right into the experiment bay. That's where we do all team-wide projects such as the Dragoons and a rather large number of other projects we're working on, along with refining old ideas using new technologies and techniques we've learned over the years."

A few more minutes passed as the group traversed the last stretch of tarmac, pausing once to let a VTOL roar overhead. Finally they reached the edge of the dock where the ship was berthed. Looking closely Lauren noticed that there was actually a spot for a second dock halfway down the length of the ship, but the walkway had been lowered down into the water to make room for the behemoth vessel. Joanne stepped forward and called out, "All aboard who's goin' aboard!"

Her shout was heard, and the massive maw began to creak open, giant gears and hydraulics working to open the immense entrance to the Langoud. The 'face' of the ship split open and shifted back, while the lower jaw slowly moved down to connect to the dock, forming a huge ramp.

"Well that was impressive," Craig muttered, nudging his wife who elbowed him in response. They proceeded to walk up the ramp, Joanne skipping ahead gleefully while the Council had their head turned up to see the top of the jaw hundreds of feet above them.

When they reached the top, the bay was revealed to be almost as huge as the one in the Shatterdome's Jaeger hanger, but somehow seemed small due to how many things were stuffed inside. Lauren's eye was immediately drawn to the skeletal robot hanging up in the air in the forward part of the area, a mess of wiring, cables, and metal parts forming a cloud around it. Below on the metal floor people in heavy leather protective gear, lab-coats, and everything between were running back and forth around crowded workstations and partially cordoned areas.

How does anybody get anything done around here? It's so chaotic. Lauren snorted and thought sardonically, Discord would probably love it here.

The air was full of sounds one wouldn't expect from what was described as 'the experiment bay'. Piratical sea shanties and power metal music echoed above the mad din. High above were winged serpentine machines flying this way and that, delivering supplies and tools or even carrying people all over. Lauren could have sworn she saw a woman in a witch costume ziplining across the bay using a crowbar on steel cabling with a minimum of safety gear. Tools were being tossed skyward from one group of workers to the next with a single shout.

To call it chaotic would be a disservice to the sheer madness and subconscious coordination needed to make it all work at all, let alone without killing someone.

"G-good morning c-class!" spoke a ludicrously cheerie voice, garbled by static. Joanne clasped a hand over her mouth as the image of a green-skinned woman in a teacher's outfit appeared, slightly distorted by static and breaking.

"A hologram?" Craig asked. "What is this about?"

"M-my name is S-sc-Scylla!" the hologram replied. "I'll be your tour guide for the evening!" The hologram's voice kept wavering and distorting, from hellishly deep to painfully high.

"Good grief, Joanne, your standards have slipped," Serizawa said, a surprised look on his face.

"Not all is as it seems, my good man," the doctor smiled mysteriously. Joanne stepped back and said in a commanding tone, "Scylla, would you kindly tell us what the crew is doing with Aschendaele?"

"Of c-course DOCTOR JOHNSON!" The shift to a blatantly robotic voice for the name was, frankly, painful, but the hologram did proceed to do as commanded. "The special ultralight support mech 'Aschendaele' is currently being rebuilt from the ground up after the successful but highly destructive battle against Vishnu. And it must be said we are all thankful for MOGUERA's timely intervention saving the likes of PROFESSOR WYLDER and SARA YUHARA."

"Is she gonna do that all the time?" Ozaki asked, concealing a wince.

"Maybe. Depends really." Joanne shrugged as the hologram continued, mostly ignoring the humans around her.

"The new skeletal system is comprised of a special cable damascus of Flux-infused Electrum, Titan Alloy, and Mythril, allowing for an ultra-lightweight durable skeletal structure that can also serve to transfer power throughout the mech. When completed she will be equipped with high-efficiency electroactive polymer muscles, special Shear-Thickening gel armor coating as well as heavy duty ablative outer armor. Her larger size will also allow us to mount the new Hypersonic engines and multiple magicite reactors after the prototype proved not only powerful, but surprisingly resilient to damage."

As the hologram rattled on about the new technology being used for the mech, Ozaki, still curious, approached closer and closer. Eventually, he decided to take a risk and reached forward, prodding the hologram on the shoulder.

To call the response 'sudden' would be an astronomical understatement. The moment Ozaki's finger touched and felt something solid, Scylla spun around, the illusion of being a glitching-out teacher evaporating, as had the silence.

Suddenly, from nowhere, a deranged electronic beat filled their ears, feeling like the type of music one would dance along by bouncing. And much like the music, Scylla's change was stark to the point of shocking.

In place of an old 50's teacher was a very colorful hippocampus-like creature. The tail was horizontal, with small deep green scales running up to the waist then shifting to much larger, harder scales of a lighter shade. A long vertical fin lined with ribbing trailed down her back starting from the top of the head, which had a equine muzzle containing rows of shark teeth. Emblazoned on the chest was a huge chiseled emerald, inside of which lines of code seemed to be sliding around back and forth. Instead of flippers the front limbs were horse legs, each closed around Ozaki's head, but his eyes were locked on her face.

Two large, glowing green eyes rested above an impossibly wide and terrifyingly toothy grin, each fang the familiar triangular shape of a great white, all easily visible and aimed right at Ozaki.

"No touching, would ye kindly?" The new voice was clear and steady, but also very young, as if that of a school aged girl. She 'swam' backward and did a quick flip through the air. "Allow me to PROPERLY introduce myself, now that the joke's been ruined." She leveled a light glare at Ozaki, who for his part just seemed bemused at having been manhandled by a hologram. "My name is Scylla, the end result of Project Diabolos. I am, not exaggeration, the most powerful Sapient Intelligence on the planet. The world's first fully digital living being."

Serizawa blinked as the other Council members murmured amongst themselves. Meanwhile, no one but Joanne noticed the completely flabbergasted looks Lauren and Craig were both wearing.

"W-where did you… how did you…" Lauren babbled as she tried to get her thoughts straight.

"What." Craig said much more succinctly.

"Oh, howdy!" Scylla said, swimming away from Ozaki. "Like my new OC?" She giggled, spinning in circles through the air.

Joanne decided to take pity on the poor, confused animators and prompted, "Scylla, is there a particular reason those two are staring at you like a deer in the headlights?"

"Uh, I donnoh..." She shrugged, averting her gaze. "Looks good on 'em..?"

"Why do you look like the concept art for the Sirens?" Lauren finally blurted out. "We only just started plans for that material! How could you have found out about it already?"

Scylla drew herself up and spread her horse hooves wide, her voice taking on a dark reverb. "Because I can see across time and reality itself!"

"You've been hacking into databases again, haven't you?" Joanne crossed her arms and glared in a motherly fashion.

"NO!" Scylla shouted indignantly. But a reassertion of the glare won out and Scylla abruptly deflated and hunched over, her face hung like a kicked puppy. If puppies were dragon-horse-fish-things. "Well maybe a little, but nothing important!"

"She hacked into Hasbro servers?" Pentecost asked. "How difficult was that for you?"

"Took me about two and a half nanoseconds. Honestly their security is lax. Hacking the GDF's top secret servers takes almost a whole second, though! Nice challenge, that."

The Council had the distinct look of momentary panic that comes with realizing that one of the safeguards you base your life around was actually just a pile of sand in front of a tidal wave.

Joanne puffed up in anger. "Scylla! What have we told you about hacking without express permission!?"

"But granny! I have a job, a paying job, to do that! I'm a white hat, not a black hat, honest!" As if in response, a large white top hat popped into existence atop her head. "I'm one of the good ones!"

"Granny?" Serizawa asked, having recovered faster than his fellows due to being used to reality being heavily altered at a moment's notice.

"Well, Samuel is her father and, since he's my son, by technicality I can be viewed as her grandparent."

"Doctor Serizawa," Pentecost interrupted, his voice stern. "I believe we have bigger issues than her parentage, namely in that it takes her LESS THAN A SECOND to hack into our top secret databases! All of the SI's we have created to man our servers told us that doing so was effectively impossible so long as at least one AI was controlling the firewalls."

Scylla smiled weakly. "To be fair, I kinda cheated, since all of them are actually a part of me. They're… kinda my kids. Sort of. And everyone knows, all good kids listen to mommy."

Again the Council appeared spastic, with only Serizawa remaining calm. "I've known about this for a while, there's no need to worry. The Project Diabolos she mentioned earlier was a Monarch property. We attempted to reconstruct one of the Xillian Intelligences who were harbored on the Coalition fleet to form a counter weapon in case they ever returned. The weapon would have been a fire-and-forget computer virus, meant to infect a Xillian ship, harvest the data there to feed itself, then spread onto the others and ruin their computer systems, leaving them unable to harm us. However, every attempt at creating a smart enough program to fulfill the goals failed, with our best work having the potential, but lacking any drive to act upon it. We eventually shut the project down and focused on other avenues, but somehow the Langoud here managed to salvage that work and turn out a success." Serizawa turned to Joanne and stared suspiciously at her. "You've never actually told me how you managed to do so, for that matter."

Joanne and Scylla traded a look so quickly it was almost unnoticeable before the Doctor rapidly said, "That's a story for another time, let's get on with the tour shall we? C'mon, let me introduce you to some of the crew!"

Joanne rushed forward, making a beeline away from the entrance, Scylla's hologram floating after her. The group did a collective shrug and followed, Serizawa taking the time to reassure his peers on the trustworthiness of their AI's. Craig and Lauren were busy watching the hologram in motion.

"That looks a lot better than I was expecting," Lauren commented. "Maybe we should get her to do some modeling of the rest of our concept art."

Craig grinned and laid his arm over his wife's shoulder. "I think she might be a tad too busy to do that for us Laur. Besides, who knows how much that holoprojector must cost? It's like taking a flat-screen and making it 3-D, and then having it be mounted all around the room."

"He's right you know," a second, smaller Scylla said from on his shoulder. "The projectors aren't cheap, though if you asked nicely I'm sure we could spare one for your studio. But as for the time thing, well, that's not an issue. I am everywhere, always. At all times. Listening. Watching…" The form dissolved into a pale green mist of light, leaving behind a thoroughly spooked couple behind.

The group headed for the massive metallic dark skeleton hanging at the center of the bay, the giant machine surrounded by catwalks and mechanical arms busy attaching or welding various parts. At the base of the black monstrosity were two men, one talking animatedly and the other duly nodding in time with the other's words. One was a dark-haired pale man wearing a black-stained lab coat, the other was a burly, african-american fellow clad in a leather smock. The two were busy pattern-welding a massive claw to the skeleton's toes, the smaller man holding a blowtorch and prongs while the one talking hammered away at it with a massive sledgehammer.

Joanne got close enough to make herself heard over the loud clanging and announced, "Gentlemen of the Security Council, Lauren, Craig, I'd like you to meet the two seconds-in-command of our engineering team. This is Michael 'Brazz' Bolson, our head metallurgist, and Marvin D. Marchan, the mastermind behind the Strontium-90 fission batteries."

Lauren watched as Bolson sent the hammer down one last time on its target, creating a shower of sparks that bounced off of Marvin's uncaring face. The taller man set the hammer off to the side and whipped off his face mask, throwing a broad smile their way. "Pleasure to meet you at last, sirs. I hope you've enjoyed our work out on the front lines. I don't want to think of how many Jaegers we might have lost without the Titan alloy."

"Might not have a Jaeger corps left if that had happened," Gordon remarked. "You do all your own practical work like this?"

"Just the important stuff. Some things require a personal touch." He patted the hammer's shaft and added, "Not a soft touch necessarily."

"'Sup dudes?" came Marvin's gentle voice. "How's life treating yah?"

Craig and Lauren both had to suppress a snort while the Council looked at the glazey eyed man in bemusement.

"Are you... Is this genuinely the man who made the miracle batteries?" Serizawa's confused voice certainly felt justified in Lauren's view.

"Yep, that's me." He gave a grin that, while dopey, couldn't help but look somehow endearing. "Wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for the boss' prank back in college."

Brazz laughed and clapped Marvin on the back, the smaller man jolting forward from the hit but smoothly sitting back up like nothing happened. "The man asks you to make him a power core for an armor suit he'd made out of pure frustration, and you gave him the perfect power source after a day of designing. I'll never forget the look on Theo's face when he realized it actually worked."

Marvin's grin didn't change as he added in an ever so sarcastic tone, "Well it was either that or get kicked out of college so…"

"So you do the impossible instead," Brazz finished. He turned to the Council and reassured them with, "Believe me, gentlemen, Marvin here is more than good at his job, he just requires a little… motivation to get to work. Once he's focused though, he is a miracle worker."

"Ain't we all?" Marvin said, looking out at the rest of the crew in the bay. "Besides, work is more fun than staying at home all day looking at the ceiling, wondering what the stars are doing."

"He's a bit of a fan of space," Joanne explained. "Well, we'll let you get back to work guys. Let me know what your progress on Aschendaele here is at the end of the day alright?"

"You got it ma'am," Brazz said, throwing the group a salute before slipping his goggles back on and lifting his hammer again.

Serizawa looked up again with a curious expression, "Seems the size has been upped quite a bit. Not that much smaller than a Jaeger now."

This thing used to be smaller? Lauren wondered at she glanced up at the huge metal giant above her. Is anything ever normal sized around here?

Serizawa was still staring at the mech while Ozaki decided to speak up. "What exactly are those drones flying all over the place? Haven't seen anything like them before."

Scylla perked up, zipping in front of Serizawa. With a clop of her hooves she brought up a three-dimensional image of the drone in question, which resembled a small jet plane that was predominantly blue and white in color, with a mask-like face at the front. Hanging from below it was a large, segmented mechanical arm ending in a crab-like claw. At the top, between the wings was what appeared to be a small cannon.

"The Einhander-model Quetzali drones were designed based on information gleaned from a damaged combat mech found in the ruins of a city known as 'Bhujerba', whose floating islands have since crashed into the Mu continent and islands. The original was a winged serpentine humanoid, but we made some variations for our own purposes. The Einhander is one of three new mechs built off the design and is an all-purpose transportation and combat drone that helps in moving material from one location to another. Each is equipped with a small precision Megaflare laser on its back and a grappling claw hanging below."

The image blurred for a moment and separated into two slightly different designs, one significantly larger than the original. "We currently have a functioning 'Wingly' model being tested for use with current standard-issue Exosuits as a miniature jetpack, and a larger 'Marilith' model that ties more closely to the structure and aesthetic of the original mech. That one will serve as short-range heavy transport that has a potential side role as a boarding unit for infantry."

"They look a bit like Megaguirus," Ozaki noted, then smirked. "Should we worry about them being just as vicious?"

"Nah, Quetzali have only basic programing," Scylla said. "But if you want to talk about vicious mechs, you should see what we have in the other room…" Her gaze shifted to a large set of doors about halfway down the hanger. "This waaaaay," she sang, swimming through the air with a disturbingly casual air.

"Hon, am I the only one seeing the rather large scratches in the steel around that door?" Craig asked.

"No, dear, I see them too."

"No need to worry folks," Scylla announced. "Just our friend being a little too playful one time when she was set for nap time." She clopped her hooves again and the doors started to part, revealing a small side hanger. And in the center of that hanger was a 20 foot tall metal monster that was snarling at them with ivory-bladed teeth.

Heavy thuds filled the bay, the floor shaking and rumbling as the thing barreled their way. With a deafening roar, they saw the mechanical beast leaping overhead, clearing the entire group effortlessly. The instant it landed, it hopped up and spun around to face the group, padding towards them in a slow, menacing stroll, scythe-like claws etching marks into the metal floor, blood red eyes glowing like hellfire in the brightly lit bay. Thick and heavy armor plates were attached at all angles to a solid, flexible body made of a rubbery substance that rippled like living muscle as it moved. It stopped before the group and raised up, belting out a deafening roar that rumbled through the floor beneath them, shaking a few of the group off their feet.

Joanne got back up as the roar came to an end and let out a shout. "WARDRAKE! STAND DOWN!"

The creature looked down at her, stepping forward, giving the group a frightfully clear idea of its sheer size. Even on all fours it towered three times over the scientists height, its jaws alone large enough to swallow her whole. It clamped its mouth shut, an angry scowl forming on its face, but it obeyed, kneeling down into a resting position.

"Good girl," Joanne said, gently patting the armor-plated nose of the beast. "Councilmen, and animators, I'd like you to meet the Behemoth-model Anti-Kaiju Animal Mech. We like to call them War Drakes."

"That's a Zoid, isn't it?" Lauren said bluntly. "It may not be painted as bright and shiny, but I'd recognize that design aesthetic anywhere."

Joanne's grin was answer enough to that question. "And here I thought no one was gonna make the connection. Yes, the mechs were based off some afternoon bickering that went on between my son and Theo on whether or not we could build actual animal robots of that size, then one thing led to another and we sent an actual proposal off. Surprisingly enough we didn't get much objection to this one," the Doctor said while pointing a satisfied smirk in Ishiro's direction.

The Monarch director merely sniffed and folded his arms over his chest. "Turnabout is fair play. If the makers of the franchise are willing to directly copy MechaGodzilla for their ultimate villain, then we are perfectly within our rights to 'borrow' their concept for an actual military use."

Scylla hovered over his head, now resembling a mechanized shark. "That and we made a very lucrative deal with them for a line of GDF inspired toys and potentially an anime for the kiddies. Speaking of which…"

Craig and Lauren traded a glance but then shook their heads. "Tempting as that sounds, we both have our hands full with MLP," Lauren said.

"So you called this an anti-Kaiju weapon, but its size suggests its utility against Category 3s would be limited," Gordon said. "What's the purpose of the mech if it cannot engage full kaiju on its own?"

Scylla grinned and whirled in place, reforming into a human shape but keeping the shark grin. "Well that's the thing. Like the Dragoons, the Drakes aren't meant to take on kaiju solo. Instead, they travel in packs meant to distract and evade a kaiju while blasting it constantly from just out of reach. They have an equivalent level of firepower as the Maser artillery piece but are vastly more mobile, meaning they can not only survive being in the same post code as a monster but can deploy near it much more quickly just by traveling there themselves or being flown in."

"There's another bonus that the Drakes will have over either the Dragoons or the Jaegers that I'm sure you'll appreciate," Joanne chimed in. "Drakes, while not as strong as other, larger units, can be operated completely autonomously using our specialised combat AI, the Techno-kinetic Entities, or TKEs, to handle all of the complex and complicated movement. There is room for a pilot if you want to increase their combat ability or have more direct control, though it's not strictly necessary. These don't need months of training like the Gojiform mechs, and they don't need drift compatibility like the Jaegers. Just one pilot with passable gaming skills is sufficient."

"I'm not sure I'm getting the point of this," Lauren commented, drawing all eyes to her. "I thought that the reason we had to use Jaegers and mechs to fight kaiju was because nothing that wasn't their size would be able to do anything to them? Why make all these replacements for them?"

"They aren't replacements," Joanne explained. "They're supplements. For all the improvements we've made to the Mecha corps over the last decade, they are still really really vulnerable to getting put out of action by one bad hit in the wrong place. Unlike a Defender who can ignore an injury if it isn't life threatening, mechs that take damage are much more likely to keep taking damage because of the reduction in capability with each hit taken. And when every Jaeger counts as the main line of defense for millions of people… They can't afford to stay out of action for very long at all."

The doctor gestured to the still sitting mech, which had its head turned upwards to watch some of the Quetzal's flying up above. "The point of these smaller mechs is to provide support for our heavy hitters. Pawns, knights, and bishops to shelter the queens and kings. It can take weeks to bring a full-sized mech back to 100%, and during that same time frame we could build a dozen Drakes. Those Drakes may not be able to take on a kaiju themselves, but they may just enable the real fighter to do so."

Scylla floated down and drew a square with her hands, a video of pre-invasion warfare being projected into the shape. "Think of them as the infantry escort for a tank. Sure they probably can't kill a tank by themselves, but they keep their side's tank from being overwhelmed by other threats while it concentrates on its targets. Plus the Drakes would be awesome at taking out those Cat 1 outbreaks that pop up every now and again. No more sending in infantry to fight dinos when you have dino-sized robots that can kick their scaly tails." The image showed the Drake standing over the corpse of a I-Rex, roaring possessively.

"How soon can you get these mechs out to active units?" Pentecost asked.

Scylla's voice turned serious and she shifted to a more normal human mouth. "Production has already started up for the first line of Quetzali, those got approved last month. They'll be up and flying by next week, barring any unforeseen delays. As for the Drakes, well, this one is the only one currently complete, and it's gonna be staying here since it's just the prototype. Also she's my precious little baby and it's not going out of my sight! Are you baby? No you're not, no you're not!"

The group was then treated to the image of a green holographic woman petting the stomach of a robotic beast larger than a dinosaur.

Gordon shrugged and said, "You know, I was gonna say that you don't see stuff like that everyday, but for the likes of us that'd probably be a lie."

"Too true," Ozaki agreed with a sage nod.

"Anyway," Joanne said, "the Drakes have already been approved by Ishiro, so they're going through production as we speak. They'll be ready for battlefield testing in a couple weeks."

Pentecost nodded. "Excellent news. Is there anything else you wanted to show us here in the hanger, doctor?"

Joanne averted her gaze from somewhere beyond the others and smiled at the Marshall. "More things than I can count, but judging by that light over there I'd say that our head of magical research is preparing to put on a little show. Shall we go find some comfortable seats?"

Said light was emanating from an alcove a bit further down the hangar, next to a wall that stretched down from the ceiling to the floor. "That's weird, we've barely gone two hundred feet," Craig said. "Shouldn't there be more to the hangar than just this?"

"There is actually, but right now most of the space isn't being used. Right now most of our major projects are either ready for testing or already in use, so they're not actually on board. But when they come back to share the results, I think you may like them. Plus about half the ship's length is tail, so the hangar isn't quite that huge."

There was a loud rumbling as the Drake stomped back into its hangar, Scylla waving it goodbye as it left. "Such a sweetheart. You'd never guess it was a giant military war bot. Unless you, you know, looked at it. Anyway, to Granny Tori's magic show!"

Her hologram disappeared then poofed back into sight next to the alcove, this time as a green-scaled genie. The rest of them followed after the mundane way, passing in between several smaller workshops and the like, none of whom had appeared the least bit concerned by the giant mech that had just left their presence.

The area they finally arrived at was unexpected. The lights had dimmed to near total darkness and at the center of the area was a large square platform with four white obelisks at each corner. Upon the platform was, surprisingly, a somewhat tall grassy knoll, atop-which stood a tall feminine figure whom none of them could clearly see.

"C'mon!" Scylla whispered, "You're just in time, she's about to start!" The hologram djinn sat down, misty tail forming a pillow beneath her. Everyone slowly took a seat, including many of the scientists and engineers around them, stopping their work to watch as the show began.

At first, it seemed like the woman was just doing some weird hand gestures in the shadows. Then sparks of light began gathering in her hands. After a moment, it formed a tiny ember that grew into a bright blue flame. She pinched it with her fingers and pulled it apart, forming one green flame, and one purple flame. With this, she traced her own body's shape in the air, giving a glimpse of the woman, pale white, red eyes, and clad in a thin purple tunic.

She continued to trace shapes in the air, many remaining in place, with the flames in her hand changing to a new color with each new shape. With seven shapes, which Lauren recognized as old runes, hanging in the air, the woman used one hand to slash through each of them, forming a ribbon of rainbow fire.

The silken flames moved like a lighter-than-air fabric, burning bright in the dim lights as the woman traced her body with it, uncaring of the likely intense flames coursing across her form, the dance she was doing closely resembling of egyptian belly dancing and arabian ribbon dancing. Finally the dance came to an end as she wrapped the ribbon of fire across her matronly bosom and flapped it behind her, forming a pair of vibrant rainbow wings that she used to fly down from the knoll and land just in front of the tour group, the flames vanishing as the light came back on.

The 'woman' before them was anything but human. She stood easily nine feet tall, if not more, and was covered head to toe in white fur. Her feet were paws like a lion's, and her head looked like a mix of a goat, lion, and a human, with large eyes that shone bright bloody red. Two large teeth protruded from her mouth and a pair of short, sharp horns sprouted from her head, with a crystalline heart resting on her brow.

Lauren's estimation of her being 'matronly' was in the right direction, but somewhat fell short. This woman wasn't built like a brick house, but more like an ancient castle. Stacked, sturdy, and with a strong foundation. The woman's tunic hung down to her ankles, split along the thighs to reveal muscular legs and otherwise held snug to her body.

"Good afternoon everyone. I hope you enjoyed my little dance." Her smile bore a motherly feel. "You must be the Security council. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Tu'Tori'Al Wylder. But you may call me Tori."

"Wow… you are really fluffy." Lauren looked over the woman again, to make sure she wasn't seeing things. She leaned in for a closer look only for Tori to step forward as and wrap her arms around Lauren. With an 'eep' the animator found her face stuck between two soft walls of exceedingly warm fur. "Let me guess," she mumbled from behind the cloth in her face, "you're a fan?"

"My son got me hooked on the show, sorry." Tori let go and stepped back, patting Lauren on the head.

"You know, I work on the show as well," Craig said. "Any chance I could get a hug too?"

Tori smiled and looked like she was going to oblige, only for him to get a quick smack to the shin from Mrs Faust. "Nice try wise guy."

"Well, so we three have met, maybe one of the gentlemen who actually writes our paychecks would like to come in for a hug?" Tori smiled, reaching her arms out wide, only for several of the council to back off, with only Gordon standing his ground.

"I don't DO hugs."

"Oh? How about a kiss, then?" She winked and blowed a kiss his way. As expected, Gordon simply kept his stoic demeanor, causing Tori to pout a bit at being ignored. Figuring it for a lost cause, she turned the to rest and said, "If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask."

"Ok, first off, who or what are you? Second what in the heck was that light show?" Craig asked.

Tori chuckled. "Well, firstly, I'm what's known as a Faerie."

"You certainly don't look like Tinker Bell to me," Ozaki chimed in.

"True, allow me to clarify. I'm a RACE of faerie known as a Glaistig. Tinker Bell is a pixie, albeit a very much Disneyfied one. And as for who I am? I'm the adoptive mother of several of the specialists here, the metaphorical mother of almost everyone on the crew, and I'm the head of our magical research department."

"We have a magical research department?" Serizawa's shock was quite audible.

"Yes, and I'm the head of it. I've been compiling notes, by the way, for you all to look over now that we're not secret anymore. Our head of notation and filing, Nathan Taylor, will be helping me collect them into a coherent suite of documents."

"I'll have to take a look at those..." Serizawa shook his head. "Now, about mister McCracken's final question. What was it you were doing exactly?"

"Oh, that? It's a weekly ceremony I perform. It's a touch complicated but most traditional magi perform certain ceremonies and rituals to help keep them in tune with their magical abilities."

"So, some kind of weird pagan ritual?" Gordon asked.

"Not 'pagan', more antiquated," Tori huffed, as if she'd heard this exact statement many times. "These aren't some kind of heathen sinful acts but rather old, tried and true techniques that true magi use. They serve a legitimate purpose. In that one's case, it is to help me bridge the gap between my elemental magic of pyromancy and my talents of healing."

"Healing and fire?" Lauren asked. "Those are two things I wouldn't expect to work together."

"Technically, they wouldn't without a lot of training. I'm a Solar Kinetic, someone who has trained in combining fire, and healing magics of an intimate style. I am a matron by desire and by trade. While I CAN use my fiery abilities to wage war, predominately I use it as Pyromancy was intended: to scry, divine, and learn, to see with magic what is invisible to the eyes. And my healing abilities are fueled by the warmth of my body, soothing pain and sealing wounds, mending bones and burning ailments away."

"Warmth of the body?" Lauren asked, "You mean you can heal with hugs?"

"Well, my particular style of healing magic is known as 'Intimate Healing', but hugs can work." Tori leaned in close and grinned. "Want an example?"

Lauren's response was to blush and back away. "Thanks but no thanks!" Lauren giggled nervously, then leveled a glare at Craig, "And don't you even bother asking, mister!"

"Hugs are one thing dear. What it is she is offering is another thing entirely," was his diplomatic response.

"So, you are a magical being then?" Pentecost said. "I was not aware there were any other such magicals aside from Mothra and her fairies. As I understood it from their explanation there should not be enough magic in the world to sustain a population of such beings."

"And that, my good Marshall, leads us to something rather important. Think of it as a taste for the research we've done." Tori smiled and reaches into her apron-like tunic, pulling out a tiny shard of magicite locked up in lead crystal. "Radiation, such as that which comes from a nuclear reactor, is enough to sustain the life force of a faerie being, although as a pale shadow of their true potential." She placed the crystal-within-crystal back into its pocket. "And it just so happens, me and my daughters lived within one of the old Vaults. One with an old, damaged reactor. And one of our Fae on board, Bastet, was found in a sarcophagus lined with powdered uranium."

"So wait, are you saying that magic and radiation are effectively interchangeable?" Ozaki asked. "I remember that Joanne said magicite has similar exposure effects as radioactive material."

The doctor perked up at hearing her name and explained, "It has similar toxic effects, though the exact reasons differ. But radiation against mana is like murky water versus purified water. It'll work as a substitute for fae to survive, but it's sickening and unhealthy compared to the real deal."

"Hence why the discovery of magicite was a major windfall for myself and the others, leaving aside its potential use in energy production," Tori added.

"You said you are researching magic," Gordon put in. "What sort of stuff are you aiming for? Just figuring out how it works or more practical uses?"

"Believe it or not, after we discovered what Magicite was, and what it can do, my son, Theodore, immediately kicked off a unified group for the engineering, magical research, and medical teams known as 'The Arcanotech Division'. We've been developing magicite powered equipment as well as numerous tools and machines to replicate various magical spells since then. It's not as flexible as true magic, but as far as practical uses, it's the best we can hope for without giving every human within fifty feet of the tools severe cancer. This includes several testbed powered armors, one of which is the ninth iteration of the 'Ruby Dragon' armor that sparked the creation of the Exosuits, as well as a lot of other fancy toys, like this."

With that, Tori did something that seemed blatantly impossible. She reached down her tunic again but what she pulled up was far too large to fit between her matronly bosom, being a seven foot tall staff. The haft of the stave was made from a black metal, knurled into a diamond pattern for gripping. The bottom of the stave ended in two small blue blades forming a split spear, while the head looked like a large shepherd's crook, albeit with a large blue blade facing outwards, and small spines pointing inwards, while small wires hooked the blades to the haft.

"Where the hell did you pull that from?" Serizawa asked. "I'm fairly certain there shouldn't be room for that from where you… withdrew it."

"Ah, I should have mentioned that. Me and my daughters have thin threads of electrum woven into our brassieres that form the runes of an old, reliable augmenting spell known as 'Deep Pockets'. Though much of the crew has taken to calling it 'Victoria's secret Compartment'." She reached in and pulled out a small dish of cookies that looked to have been recently baked. "The augment is very useful, since it allows a relatively tight or compact space to house far more than it possibly should, effectively making anything with the augment bigger on the inside."

"Oh lordy, so you have a TARDIS bra?" Lauren asked, trying to stifle her giggling.

"Yes, I am a Time Lord and my bra is my TARDIS. Care for a cookie?" She held out the dish to share with the group.

"Thanks," Gordon said while reaching for one of the cookies. He visibly checked it for fur before taking a bite. "Wow, fresh. You make these?" He stopped for another bite then said, "Also, what's that staff do?"

"I make them myself every morning!" Tori answered with a proud grin. "And the arcanotech staff, Radiance, is a generalist prototype for a combat magical stave. Currently it can fire bolts of lightning, fireballs, shards of ice, and an arcane explosion, but they're rather limited in efficiency, so we're working to improve it overall before we actually try for a production model."

"Would they be any more effective than the plasma blasters and railguns we already have in the field?" Pentecost said.

Joanne shrugged, talking through a mouthful of pastry. "Right now? Unlikely. But as a testbed for the technology, we hope to provide the troops with a safer alternative weapon that can prove useful in a multitude of situations. Firepower isn't the goal, it's flexibility."

"That and proving that magic isn't quite as inscrutable and dangerous as most people think it is," Tori added. "No offense to the Monarch fellows but some of the things I've seen them say about magic and how it works are rather badly wrong."

Serizawa glared at the fae and retorted, "Given we do not have any active avenues of exploring how magic works and that every attempt at understanding it is fraught with dangers of radiation sickness, can you blame us?"

"Actually? I can." Tori faced the doctor head on. "Your fear of radiation didn't stop you from studying the Kaiju, nuclear power or nuclear weapons. It doesn't stop you if it means getting stronger or getting a leg up. But it seems the thought paralyses you when it means actually understanding others."

"What do you me-"

"I'm not done." Tori's statement didn't raise a pitch, but the tone was the unmistakable command of an angry mother, something even the most hardened GDF soldiers had learned long ago was best to listen to. "When I say 'You' I meant HUMANITY. It's been centuries and yet I still see it all. Fear has been the driving force behind some of the most dire acts of cruelty I've ever witnessed. Fear of those who are different, fear of the unknown, fear of the 'alien', fear of that which is deemed unnatural or sinful. It's that fear which drove men like Hitler into power. Fear that sparked the Hidden War. It's fear that sparked the horrors of Vietnam, of the first World War, and of even this 'End War' of yours! It's FEAR that has driven us Faeries into hiding from humans! It's FEAR that is the reason my sister, and the entire faerie kingdom is GONE!"

Silence reigned in the room, Joanne appearing stricken while the Council remained still, betraying no emotion. Tori maintained her anger for a few moments before realizing what she had said and faltering. "I'm… I'm sorry. I did not mean to… apply such thoughts and feelings to you. I know that you are not to blame for the actions of those in the past, nor at fault for the situation here in the present. It's just…"

"Difficult to let go of the anger," Serizawa finished. Tori gazed back at him in surprise, but the doctor merely nodded understandingly. "Difficult to look back and see the mistakes of the past, and wish they had not been made. Tell me, are you aware of my uncle and what he is best known for?"

"The Oxygen Destroyer…" Craig said under his breath, yet he was heard by all anyway.

"Yes. The Oxygen Destroyer. A new science which had the potential to cause more damage to the planet than even nuclear weaponry. When my uncle discovered just what it was he had made, he was devastated. My father was there to watch as the proud and brilliant man he called brother faded inward into a husk, existing only to hide the terrible secret he had created. Many know that he gave his life while using the weapon on the first Godzilla, but what is little known is the letter he sent to my family just before he departed on that final voyage."

Ishiro closed his eyes but continued to speak, reciting from memory as if reading the page right in front of him. "He apologized to my father, both for allowing such a thing to come into being as well as letting his fear of it consume his life. He said that he mourned the life he had lost with his beloved finance, the chance to have children of his own and contribute positively to the world. But most of all he warned us to be wary of our curiousity. To understand that in seeking to know the whole world in its entirety we might discover things that were best left unknown. To fear that which is not understood, not because of its obscurity, but because of what clarity might bring to fore."

He opened his eyes again, vision clouded with regret. "I have applied this to everything I have done in my life, every bit of research and development I have lead and taken part in. I know that not everything new that we uncover will be dangerous and many times that has proven true. But always I fear the next nuclear weapon, the next oxygen destroyer, the next absolute zero cannon. We have made these things to fight foes beyond our ability to defeat normally… but what shall we do with them once that time has passed? What will people do with the technology they have created?"

Tori and Joanne shared a look before the later started speaking. "That's where understanding comes in. Each of them, and all technology, has more uses beyond what is immediately obvious. Nuclear weaponry became nuclear power, one of the cleanest power sources around for decades and actually allowed the few surviving fae to remain among the living. The Oxygen destroyer had the potential to be the perfect mining tool, and, if used safely, the Absolute Zero Cannon can effectively STOP TIME for an object, meaning the potential for perfect preservation of things for the future. What we do here? We work with caution, but without fear. Because it is better to understand the potential horrors and prepare for them, then to avoid seeing them and hope they never become an issue. Caution is wise, doctor, but fear can get people killed."

The two doctors stared each other down for a time, both appearing resolute in their stances. Finally though, Ishiro sighed and smiled sadly. "I suppose this is an example of how much you and I differ on how we pursue our work, Joanne. And perhaps that is for the best. Having only one outlook on life is an easy way for one to be blindsided by the unexpected. We've seen that much with how difficult it is to study magic in the usual way. Perhaps that is why I allowed the Marshall to convince me to split your organization from my own."

"I called for the split for several reasons," Pentecost said, "but the biggest one is quite simple. It's true that almost any technology can be misused if someone of ill intent has access to it, and that's why I appreciate your caution as the head of Monarch. But at the same time, we need any and every advantage we can get, even if it is risky. Better to have someone doing the research that isn't normally 'safe' to do and do so in secret rather than let the path lay fallow for someone else to discover it independently. Ignorance is not bliss, but knowledge isn't always a boon. I trust Joanne and her team to stay on the sane and safe path where it counts, even if it might not seem they are doing so on the surface." Stacker cast a glance back out towards the huge hangar outside, where the din of hard work and conversation could still be heard. "And given what I have seen today, it seems to have worked pretty well."

Joanne looked fit to burst with either excitement or happiness but managed to contain herself to just an extremely broad grin. "I'm thrilled that you approve of our work, Marshall," she said rapidly, clearly on the edge of losing it. "But that's not all that we have to offer! The hanger is our main area of research work, but there are other things aboard that I'm sure you all will want a look at. Stuff that more closely ties into the 'secret' part of our secret R&D group."

Before anyone could say yay or nay, there was a loud cough from the entrance to the room. Standing at the door was a brown haired young man with thin rimmed black glasses and equally dark, sharp eyes. Lauren noticed that many of his features shared similarities to Joanne, albeit with a harder tint to them. He wore a simple white shirt with a victorian-esque vest over top. He stepped forward, slick black shoes tapping on the floor and pulled his hand from his black dress pants to push up his glasses by the bridge. "Council members, a pleasure to meet you. I am Samuel Johnson, head of the programing department of the Langoud and chief designer of Scylla. I trust that my mother hasn't broken your minds too badly with some of the things you have seen?"

"Actually," Scylla said while hovering over Samuel's head, "the only thing that seemed to bother them was me and the whole 'I can hack anything' bit. Kind surprised that was what bothered them."

Samuel closed his eyes in the way of a parent getting irritated at their child. "Being told that one of the strongest security measures ever devised can be so easily broken is not something to be ignored, dear, especially when it is so heavily relied upon to keep both the organization and the world at large safe."

Scylla blew a raspberry and floated upside down in front of him. "It's not like I was giving the information out to anyone. I just wanted to see if I could do it, and surprise, surprise, I could!"

Samuel appeared distinctly unamused. "Do I need to revoke your traffic light privileges again?"

The hologram gasped and started splitting off little cubes of light from her tail, each flashing red and green. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

Scylla sighed, becoming muted in color. "Alright. I won't do it again."

"And?" Sam said leadingly.

"And I'll apologize." She turned to the Council and bowed her head to them. "I'm sorry I scared you by being so flippant about your security. I'll be more respectful in the future."

Pentecost smiled and gently patted the hologram's head. "It's fine. Just give us some warning in the future if you feel the desire to test our security again. Perhaps you'd be able to figure out ways to improve it?"

"Maybe, but it's doubtful." Sam stepped up and nodded his head at Scylla. "She is, at heart, a computer virus, and thus is much better going on the offense rather than creating defense. We had to create specific AIs dedicated to such a goal to even stand a chance of holding Scylla off for a bare few seconds, never any longer. That said, any wall that takes Scylla seconds to break down would take much longer for any more normal electronic attack. Rest assured sirs, our security is the best we can make it and is more than adequate to defend us from any expected threats."

"You can thank Sam here for that," Joanne said, draping her arm over her taller son's shoulder. "He's an absolute whiz with this kind of stuff. He's the one who helped the Arcano-tech group figure out how to program their items with various spells using a mix of engraving runes and computer programing language."

Sam continued to stand stiffly even with his mother hanging off of him and faintly rolled his eyes. "If we are done passing the praise around, I shall get to why I am here. There was a visitor who attempted to gain access to the ship who said that they wished to talk to the council. Upon discussing with them I found their reasons adequate and brought them aboard. They are just outside."

"Is it who I think it is!?" Scylla gasped, "Did Auntie Az drop by to visit?"

"Scylla, you already know the answer. Heck, you probably knew before I did."

"I'm just trying to be dramatic," the electronic girl retorted. "Keep the readers on their toes, you know."

"Please do not use meta-speak right now," Sam said while rubbing the sides of his head. "I truly hate it when you talk like that. Makes me ask questions about my reality I could do without thinking about. And so I don't start dwindling into that kind of thought, allow me to go fetch her."

Sam proceeded to head out of the room, allowing Lauren to sneak over to Scylla's hologram. "So… what exactly did you mean by that 'readers' comment?" she asked in a whisper.

"Oh, that's just me having a bit of fun. See, the Dimension Tide tests showed us that there are potentially unlimited universes out there with who knows how many different forms of life in them. Since we know that fiction universes can be real with Equestria, who's to say our world isn't fictional for some other universe? Thus, I like to pretend that I'm talking to or aware of these theoretical watchers or readers, both to have some fun messing with people who are wondering what the heck I'm doing AND to mess with anyone who might be watching. Even better, they can never be sure if I'm just guessing that they exist or if I KNOW that they exist. Even saying that right there isn't proof one way or the other. They're all gonna be left guessing… Just the way I like it!"

As insane as that all sounded, Lauren thought it made a disturbing amount of sense. "Well, the reason I ask is because I've been wondering how exactly me and the show relates to the real Equestria. I mean, is it really just coincidence that the two are so similar, or am I somehow connected to that world in a way that lets me create an experience that can reflect their reality?"

Scylla shrugged. "I don't know. Could be anything at this point. But I wouldn't worry about it too much. Odds are that even if you did have a connection of some sort it probably won't be important at all in the future. Maybe. Depends on what the authors can come up with."

Lauren felt her eye twitch. "That… doesn't really make me feel better."

"Might not have been meant to," was Scylla's cryptic answer.

Lauren was cut off from replying by the hologram warping out of sight to reappear by the door, the green girl glomping a distinctly surprised woman who had just walked in the door with Sam.

"Hi Auntie Az! It's been way too long since I last talked with you!"

Azusa could barely acknowledge the small green form wrapped around her before another body collapsed against her other side. "I missed you too, senpai Azusa," Joanne said. "I have so many things I've been eager to show you, I can't believe you're actually here!"

"I missed you too, little Jojo." Azusa hugged both the smaller scientist and holo-girl. "What bizarre adventures have you and your friends been on lately? Because I recently got back from one of my own." She looked up and caught sight of Lauren and Craig, appearing surprised but pleased at seeing them. "One that I'm sure those two would be very interested in hearing."

"Oh nooo," Lauren groaned, holding her head in her hands. "What is it now? What new crazy nonsense will I get to hear next? Magical shape-shifting dragons? Egyptian gods? A techno-cyborg spirit ghost!?"

Azusa smiled and shook her head. "None of the above actually. This little story is one that is much more up your alley. Tell me, what would you do if you had one day in Equestria? I can give you my answer, since I just got back from one."

Everyone in the room stared at the biologist in pure shock for a few moments, only to be distracted by the sound of some of the show room's chairs be knocked around by Lauren's fainted body.

---

Hello again everyone. Oh and would you look at that, I managed to put this out BEFORE the final day of the month. Yay me. Anywho, this chapter is pretty talky and showy, but not much actiony. Hopefully we'll get back to actiony pretty soon. Til then, hope you enjoy the FLURRY of information and take it all to HEART. Next time we get on with the second (presumably last) part of the tour and then move on to some... other stuff. Also, I'll be working on another rewrite during the process of making the next chapter, mostly to clarify some of my older lack or research and fix some minor plot holes. If you have any questions, feel free to comment on the chapter announcement thread on Fimfiction or PM me. Hope you all had a happy thanksgiving and a very merry christmas (or whatever else it is you celebrate).