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Moe crouched down and tried to peer up at the hunched over Nick, making noises that were and could be considered of a concerned nature. It tilted its head to the side to get a better look at the face of this woman when it miscalculated on the wet ground and slipped onto its back with a metallic squeak of surprise and a thud. This not being a terribly normal position for the little tyke, it flailed its stubby legs and tail wildly trying to right itself.

Though it did stop and squeak a happy chirp when the woman said she was okay. Yaay! It scared the scary squid things off! The little stump of a tail wagged wildly.


Now Talon, on the other hand, suddenly was distracted from the silver Curious Cuttlefish by the retreating school of other cuttlefish. More notably by the easily recognizable tattoo of the Imperial Seal. No woman he knew had that on her back. He'd have to go and look it up. Wait... Wasn't there that one chick who was supposedly the most dangerous enemy of the empire? Oh yeah...She was supposed to be dead.

He was about to say something to Nick when he realized that the silver Cuttlefish was smiling. He wearily smiled back and took a step away. Smiling MRZs, Zoids, and other mechanical things were never good. In fact, it probably meant doom.

Then, the mechanical creature of the deep leaped at Talon. Talon gave a very typical flinching reaction complete with, "Dear gods! NOOOOOOO!" He was protecting his face with the torch and a standard issue knife that he pulled from one of his many pockets... and there was a squid 'latched' to his leg. He wasn't sure how to react to that. So thinking that it would be similar to Moe, he re-sheathed the knife slowly and patted the cephalopod on the head. "Good, uh, Cuttlefish... thing..."

Moe, righted, nuzzled into Nick's hand in happiness, then made a small squeak of concern at her sudden facial expression. Poor human. He wandered around her feet for a moment, sniffing at the cloth remains and tried to be helpful by picking some of it up in his beak and offering it to Nick.

Pft... Moe may be Talon's but Moe liked keeping folks calm and happy and right now, Nick looked to be more upset than Talon was.

...Who was currently finger tied with a mechanical fish.

Talon did put two and two together rather quickly. This time, instead of vocalizing it, he was choosing to keep silent. 'Leyenda' seemed a little upset at the moment...and she was heavily armed, no pun intended. Wait...well might as well get the notice out of the way. "You fooled an entire nation into thinking your dead. Huh... Might want to cover up some. Getting taken out by a cold after that would be ironic and depressing. " And that was that. Talon decided that letting Nick know he was very much on to her and that he didn't care at all. It just proved his theory right.

And it gave him an excuse to talk to this 'Shun' person and hear the real story without sounding like a crazy. Speaking of crazy:

He was trying to figure out what to do with his new 'friend' . "Nice to meet you too...I can have my finger back, right? Sometime soon? Kay thanks? "

Moe was devastated that he wasn't being picked up. So he started sitting on his hind legs and begging. Probably was't the best thing to do right now but he wanted to be held and hugged and luffed on cause that's what made folks feel better, right? Right!


Talon, giving the woman a once over in a strictly engineering mind set, was frowning deeply at the scars and the metal plates. She had a reason to be upset. He nodded and muttered, "A welding burn seven years back. " That had hurt like no other for several months while it healed. Looked like the woman didn't get that type of relief.

He also understood her weariness and the potential thought of just killing him and calling done. Well, that's what he would have done anyways. "Don't worry. I have no intentions of talking or telling of this meeting. It make more sense if I stumbled here by accident on my own. " He grinned, though was slightly distracted by the cuttlefish clinging to his hand now. "I know better than to question the authority above me without proof. Honestly, it's better that the Empire thinks your dead. The cities are happier and the mood is high. Politically and militarily, its wonderful. "

Talon was again distracted by the cuttlefish on his hand, bouncing it around absolutely fascinated by the dexterity of the creature. He didn't bother to tell Nick that there was another slowly creeping towards her. "Though, as peaceful as this place is, we should probably get moving before the natives get restless. . . or get too curious. "

Talon smiled softly, watching her reaction with measured calm. Truly once she had been a great hero, still was from the way she held herself. Oh well... Her plan worked, that's all that mattered.


He shrugged his shoulders at her thanks, though Talon thought he didn't need it. Folks were strange in their thanks. This one would hunt him down if he spoke of his finding to anyone that didn't already know. Which, was a good and reasonable thing. He could totally understand if he ended up dead in the middle of the night.


Though, now that he had a cuddler on his hand, he was down to ...No free hands! Awesome. Wait. He could put this little guy to use. So he brought the silver cuttlefish to face level, "Mind being a shoulder parrot for a bit? Maybe hold this torch here for light too? " The cuttlefish gave a 'Squeeble-garrble' and slowly latched and moved from the fun fingers to the even more curious shoulder where there was this thing called an 'ear'. Curiously it poked at the dangly bit, bringing its eye close to get a good study. Nmm... Curious. Talon handing of the torch did little to sway the curiousity of the ear. But the Cuttlefish did know that dry burned so no getting fire by the dry hair of Talon.

Moe chirped at the patting and ran over to Talon, climbing back up and perching itself on the opposite shoulder, waving to the new friend. Yaay! Adventure time!

Talon nodded and followed after Nick, only to want to run around and stay in the cuttlefish tranquil land. Perhaps another test, but surely there was a reason for this. Gah...He just wanted out of here as soon as possible now.

Tyrant was probably getting really worried.

The splashes only confirmed that there was danger ahead. He sighed heavily and nodded. "Huzzah. " Talon said in dry amusement. These places were becoming slightly predictable.

Predictable as in there was going to be a trap around every corner.

The silver Cuttlefish gripped the torch and squelched menacingly as if ready for anything. Moe gave a similar chirp. Talon looked between the two and sighed heavily. Great! He had supporters of doom. What next?

Well, they could always fight their way out... yeah right. But what was the danger this time? The door obvious... but what else? had to be a reason for the door. Talon looked around, taking note of the number of statues in case any were to suddenly come alive. The odds of that happening were suddenly higher then normal, at least it was in his own mind.

And like any good solider, he stuck with the person that looked like they knew what they were doing... even if she looked ridiculous with that cuttlefish hugging their arm.

Well, Talon wasn't really one to judge since he knew for a fact he looked like a pirate gone rogue what with the cuttlefish and the little dino. The fact that the cuttlefish was holding the torch probably added to the weirdness. At least his hands and arms were free for the most part.

When he was told that next turn make a bolt to the right, he held up two thumbs, "Oak-doke, boss. " He contemplated showing off some teeth too, but a grin would probably make the woman laugh and right now they were trying to be sneaky-sneaky.

... Well, at least Talon wasn't humming theme music in his head. Yet.

He noted she paused by a large window, and found himself peering carefully inside. The pods made his throat dry, thus he swallowed hard. Ominous and foreboding pods looked dangerous and not happy. Moe flattened itself as much as possible on to Talon's shoulder, stub of a tail curling under as he recognized the danger.

With water potentially diverted randomly to flood the room, Talon decided to gently tap Nick on the fleshy shoulder and silently signal that they needed to move. Noise probably didn't trigger the pods' resuscitation, maybe heat did and they were kinda giving off a lot of heat. Though, hopefully more than half would be empty. That would be a wonderful, happy thought for an optimist.

He returned a grin, though ran his tongue over his teeth just to check his own canines. Nope, still the same. Eeeesh...Vote of confidence or something... He'd go for or something, but right now, that option was not available.


"Fantastic mental image. " he said dryly, and commented to the cuttlefish on his shoulder that chittered something in Talon's ear, "No. Not you. Angry metal cans with sharp pointy teeth of doom. You're a good torch holder, nothing crushworthy... Yes. She'd be depressed if you were compressed. Shall we? " He tried to give the cuttlefish a pat on the..er body, but was instead met with a high five of tentacles. Moe chirped in soft laughter and quickly silenced himself. No time to be laughing!


Talon really had no hope. Hope meant you had expectations of glory. He just wanted to make it out in possibly one piece.... Oh, and Moe too. Moe had to live. Yep. Moe first then one piece...wait... Tyrant would go on a rampage if something happened to him. Umm... Talon spaced out for a moment then realized spacing out now was BAAAAAAD!

Also on that train of thought, he was quite prepared to make a bolt for it, taking the right fork in the road like Goldy said to...Which in itself made no sense at all to the solider why they were following the orders of a ancient technological marvel.