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Than groaned sarcastically, the kind of groan you'd expect from a teenager who'd just been told he had to take his annoying little brother or his parents along with him to a concert. It wasn't meant to be serious though. "It wouldn't be very kindly of me to ask anyone to go with me on such short notice. Besides that, taking any of the robots with me wouldn't end well in all likelihood. From what I gather, Twice Royal is a place where shiney watches are the top of the line. They wouldn't take to kindly to something like an automaton. In fact, I'm pretty sure someone like myself will stick out like a sore thumb as it is. I don't need to draw more attention to myself." While he was talking, Than was packing a shoulder bag with several things. The first looked like bright colored, polkadotted clothes, and there were also several metallic objects that looked like steel ball bearings. "I made it from here to the dojo and back after a skirmish, didn't I? I can find my way around. If by the off chance I REALLY screw up, and I mean screw up a lot, to the point where I need the citadel's reinforcements, the mass driver can deploy some bots pretty quickly." He seemed amused at the thought of what he could actually do to merit such action, but hopefully even mentioning it was just a joke. Proto would interject with several beeps of his own before tossing Than a metal tube with a plastic cap of some kind, the tube itself being about the size of an average joystick. "Ah, right, thanks. But don't throw things like that around will you?" The tube was placed in the bag along with his other strange packings.

"Eh? Polkadots?" Than seemed baffled for a moment, since they hadn't been talking about what he was putting in the bag a moment ago. "Oh right this thing. I figure the party throwers aren't going to have too much entertainment going on, so I can do that myself if I need to pass time, especially if the people are uninteresting. Odds are that there'll be someone around who can appreciate a little humor. wouldn't be any fun if I didn't have my own antics." Than seemed to shrug off the idea that it was anything unusual. Of course he didn't want to say that being said entertainment was the way he planned to sneak into a party he wasn't invited to. The other equipment Nana had and hadn't seen that was in the bag would just have to fit under that same explanation. "Extreme? I don't plan nor want to assuming nobody else lays out the game first. If I wanted to start any trouble I wouldn't even need the bag here. I'd just set off the fire supression or something." That wasn't actually a bad idea, now that he thought of it. "I think it's more likely that we'll get invaded by aliens while I'm there." At least Nana probably didn't realize that Tegral was technically an alien in Than's view. "Now if you're talking about extreme dancing, that depends if there's anyone interesting there, like I said before."

"I saaaaaid I wasn't going to start anything, didn't I?" He chuckled and secured the bag around his shoulder. "With any luck it'll just be some entertainment, a few exchanges of words, and I'll be back in the morning with plenty of time to plant my face in a pillow." What she probably didn't know was that Tegral was also going to be at this gathering and was the most likely point of conflict for Than. Than considered him more a cyborg than an alien as well. In fact, he considered Tegral more machine than he was human, no matter what kind of organic bodies he had in stock "Well of course aliens are real. I wouldn't be here if they weren't." He chuckled, letting another odd comment boggle Nana for a moment before walking up to her. "Don't worry about me. I've handled myself well enough up to this point and I can do it again." Leaning up, Than would kiss Nana on the cheek, with unusual accuracy for a blind boy. Afterward, he would start for the doors; he seemed unwilling to change his mind about going. "I'll be back later Proto. Rest well and sweet dreams, mother." And with that Than was out the door and down the street like a dog after a car.

While Nana was talking to Proto, Than would eventually make it to the edge of the citadel, before leaving and bolting to the edge of the kill zone. If he had navigated his way out correctly, he should now be in a good position to start for Twice Royal. Truthfully, he was depending on sensing some familiar or obvious auras to guide him. He could roughly guess the direction, and sensing auras would tell him the distance and more precise direction. Before taking off, Than pulled the metal tube out of his bag and juggled it in one hand for a moment. "Hopefully this won't be necessary, but never say never...." He replaced the tube in his bag a crouched down, seeming still for several moments. Quickly, he would push himself off the ground and leap high into the air, his wings sprouting from their magically regressed state as he rose. "COME ON, ROCK AND ROLL!" A golden 'webbing' of energy began to form between his wings, their light gathering intensity until Than reached the full height of his jump, and the energy ignited like a jet engine and propelled Than forward through the air. Within a short minute, Than and the golden trail behind him would be gone.

Proto watched Nana's reactions to Thanatos. She was much more bashful and reserved than the others he usually watched. She tended to blush the most as well. Proto himself had never bothered trying to run a probability check on why she would ever be Mastema's betrothed. Sometimes he did wonder how they all perceived him, the one who seemed to be always present in the citadel but had never once directly communicated with anyone due to his lacking in an english voice. Given his advances, the lack of his ability to speak was in itself an oddity. Proto would beep several times in probably a sequence of sentences responding to Nana, even though she couldn't understand. He'd noticed that for some reason others would be at ease around him more when he made some sort of acknowledgement of the things they said or did, even if they had no way of understanding him. If he ever was able to communicate with others as freely as he could with Than, he wondered how socially adept he would be. For instance, it was a wonder how Nana would respond to the fact that Proto had just suggested Than might be a idiot and thus not thinking at all.

Granted, Thanatos being the only one Proto could talk with didn't mean Proto enjoyed any less his outings with the others. In particular, the children's birthdays had been memorable experiences. He found things he liked about each of the children, even if they probably weren't old enough to have given any thought about communicating with him differently. He was merely their centurion and guard for the time being. Perhaps more than anyone else in the citadel, Proto rarely had things to do, and it was more difficult to initiate things on his own, since spontaneously coming up with something to do was a computational nightmare in itself. So when Nana asked him for a stroll, he was glad to oblige, however gladness was represented to him. He affirmed her with a positive beep and the salute he'd given her from the day he was activated. Further, just in case Nana wasn't sure of the response, he walked to the door, turned around, and held it open for her.

That was one of the other things that made Nana slightly different from all of the other inhabitants. She seemed to constantly exercise politeness in a way the others didn't. Certainly he'd seen the other inhabitants observe politeness, and even the children were obviously learning now and then, but it seemed as if it was exemplified in Nana more than anyone else. It was merely too bad Proto couldn't communicate efficiently what a computation it was to make a response to her question. Not including the number of ways he could choose not to truly answer her question, there were many ways just to determine which direction was 'good.' What a bother for the A.I. given bot. He was about to settle on using a randomized form of decision, when Proto instead decided in a way more to take Nana down memory lane than anything else. Deciding, Proto indicated his choice by holding up his arm and pointing, while looking at Nana as if asking her approval.

For all the effort and research that had gone into the history of making a machine stand upright and walk on two legs, Proto had for every sense of the word mastered walking, and it was no trouble to meet Nana step for step. Although not far behind, some of the other droids had yet to move as elegantly as him, while V1, V2, and V3 had entirely different forms of transport all together.

If Proto had any suspicions that someone was going to be stupid enough to attempt a crime against Nana, he would have been armed to the brim non-lethal though quite painful weapons. However, there were few stupid enough who might live in the citadel, and none that Proto had any reserves about taking on. In any event, V5, Proto's brother unit, was still present, and for V5 there was no such concept as overkill.

As Proto came to one particular intersection, he beeped several times to catch Nana's attention, looking toward one building in particular as he did so. The shop on the corner was the one Than had made into his workshop shortly after moving into the citadel. Most of his crafts had been unmoved from their original places, although Than himself rarely frequented this place for any reason other than to crash for the night these days. Even though he didn't use the machines anymore, not being able to rely on his blind precision, most of the equipment was in good shape, and most of the replacable components were still new, some even unused.