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Orias, for once, waited dutifully outside the warehouse while Athalia did an initial sweep. After all, this part of town reminded him strongly of his days before he'd come into the senshi's care. It wasn't something he cared to think about, a time before his beer, his bed, his amazing and unfettered intellect. Dark days indeed.

That didn't stop the Mauvian from clambering onto a dusty pile of shipping crates and peeking through a cracked and grimed window while his friend peered about. When the all clear was given, the feline's bravado returned full force.

Dropping down from his perch and trotting through the entrance to the spooky warehouse, Orias planted his front paws on his flanks and rose to rest on his hindquarters. His little kitty nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply.

"Aaaaaah. You smell that Atty?" he responded to the query about his newest device. "That's the smell of opportunity. Opportunity and one-upsmanship, with just the barest hint of 'I told you so' in the finish. Subtle, yet bold."

His whiskers twitched and the cat stopped snorting air quite so aggressively, followed by a cough.

"Incidentally opportunity smells remarkably similar to a hobo that took a dump over in one of these corners. Careful not to get the two confused. This'll be great."

Eyes watering a little, the Mauvian jumped upward to swipe the beetle transponder from Athalia's grip and stride confidently forward. Approaching one of the support beams, he stopped and turned back to his friend while holding up the device.

"See this little round pad on the stomach area?" he asked, indicating a stretch of smooth metal the size of a small button. "You just press a thumb or something to it. It's actually a scanner. It'll detect that you're Order or whatever and activate."

To demonstrate, Orias pressed a paw to the scanner and grinned widely as the faux insect came to life: legs waved in the air and mandibles clicked. Its owner acquiesced and let in clamber onto the support beam, where the disguised transponder slowly climbed higher and higher to perch far above.

"See? It moves around a bit to not be suspicious, but not so much that someone wonders what the hell is wrong with that bug and comes over to see. The pad will even shut it down if someone with a Chaos signature picks it up! Genius, I know."

Orias waved a paw at Athalia.

"Now, grab your personal transponder and hit the key. This little guy should be transmitting now. The system will default to your immediate area using the closest node for pertinent scans."

He looked rather smug.

"You can do that little pinchy stretchy smartphone thing on the hologram that shows up to zoom in and out too."

"Oh, right. That'd be helpful wouldn't it? Guess you would've seen any youma when you were doing your Tom Cruise impersonation before I came in here."

Orias flicked the tip of a tufted ear and gave an exaggerated yawn, enough to show gleaming kitty fangs.

"Luckily for you, I plan ahead for these sorts of things. Behold!"

With a flourish, the Mauvian whipped a small crystalline orb the size of a golf ball from his little fanny pack. Inside swirled what looked like smoke if it had taken liquid form.

"Concentrated Chaos essence, semi-fresh from a dusted youma! Or it was fresh at the time. I guess a better term would be coagulated... or congealed. Either way, wasn't going to keep this thing in my sub-space. Get a smell in there and you'll spend years getting it out. No air filtration you know.

"Anyhoo, I spent a lot of time getting even this much. It doesn't really hang around when the monsters go poof, so I had to do a lot of lurking at battlefields. By the way, you're right. Today's senshi suuuuuuuck at beating anything up. So, like, compliment for you."

Jazz paws, and Orias nearly dropped his big ticket item. A quick fumble and it was secure between his forelimbs once more.

"Well that would've been embarrassing. It's only impressive when you mean to do it!"

With a gleeful grin the feline forcefully threw the orb to the ground between himself and Athalia. There was the tinkling of broken glass, a puff of smoke and what sounded like the world's most feeble death rattle, followed by a whiff of rankness that would put the hobo dump to shame.

"Weeeheeeeooo! That could strip paint off of one of those old barns you always see in those movies!" Orias cackled, waving a paw in front of his watering eyes. "Dayum. Anyway, it's doing the thingy! Look!"

The hologram on Athalia's transmitter now had a pulsing red dot on the map, placed squarely between two little white moons.

"Neat huh? The circle means a weaker hit, and obviously the little moons are us. An exclamation point is a strong consistent signal, which we'd get if there was actually a youma standing there. Soon it'll turn yellow, then fade away when the signal is completely old and gone. I really should write a legend or key for these things, but I already know what the symbols mean."

The cat shrugged, extending a foreleg and wiggling little kitty digits through the air where the smoke had vanished.

"Never really had Chaos essence before. Wonder if it's good for anything aside from burning out nose hairs. Maybe if I got a huge glob of it I could use it like the T-Rex pee in that one Jurassic Park everyone hated! Just yeet it at little youma and watch them run, that'd be great. Good thing there aren't any around here though, that weak little stench would've made us seem like the snacks."

"Pft, all's fair in the name of science and awesomeness Reggie," came the response. "Besides, if not for me you wouldn't know what squidgy youma fart smoke looked AND smelled like. That one's gonna stay with you a while eh?"

Orias chuckle snorted, elbowing the much taller man's shin as though they were sharing a good joke. Obviously he was quite pleased with the reaction, despite being a victim of the stench himself. Science wasn't always glamorous anyway.

"So, are you going to help me set these things up now? It isn't the easiest thing getting around the big city on my own four paws while carrying a bundle of fake bugs. It's a big place, and you have a car! I mean I guess I could have B.U.T.L.E.R. cart me around, but he's sloooooow..."

While the Mauvian chattered, he almost missed his companion's question regarding the new hits on the transponder.

"Huh? I don't hear anything."

Lifting a paw, he tapped a claw to the pendant that dangled from a new collar he'd fashioned for himself. Very classy and hip. His own display of the area map pinged by the beetle bot projected into the air in front of him.

"Oh yeah, you mean all these little blips around the edges here?"

Orias placed both paws on the hologram and did the pully thing to zoom in.

"Right at the edge of the range, but yep. Them's Chaos alright," he confirmed pleasantly. "See? It works! Now do your girly sparkly Power Rangers thing so we don't die before I get to revel in my own genius."

Not one to sit idly by, the cat rummaged about in his subspace pocket up to his shoulder until he found what he was looking for: a nice frosty beer bottle. Another success, his localized temperature reduction worked to keep his beverages from tasting like crap. He was on fire! A bit more jingling retrieved a bottle opener, and with a hissing pop Orias was free to take a swig of his drink.

"I'm way too sober for this," he sighed, taking another swallow. "But hey, more free youma essence!"

Orias chugged at his beer calmly, watching Atty do what Atty tended to do: hit stuff so hard it exploded. It was like his own brand of meathead magic, something only he could do. Enthralling in a way. That said, it only seemed to piss off all the other youma as they started crawling into the warehouse through every orifice.

Chug chug.

The Mauvian continued to nurse his alcohol with one paw while his other foreleg disappeared up to the shoulder into his subspace pocket. Nope, nope. Some more jingles and crashes, and he finally retrieved what he was looking for: a smaller six pack of beer and a lighter. To the casual observer, he might've looked as though he was about to fire up a stogie while having a comfortable night in the lounge.

"Ah, here we go. My disgusting hipster IPA batch. Got it off some guy who hangs out at Whole Foods."

Casually sauntering over to where Atty was standing and extending a claw to the dangling sash of the senshi's uniform, Orias sliced off six neat little strips of fabric and meandered back to his beer bottles.

"Pop pop pop," he intoned cheerily, knowing Athalia would still be swinging his rope like a barbarian while the feline worked to snap the tops off the IPAs. "And we finish with a dip in the pool!"

Having soaked the fabrics in alcohol, the Maine Coon stuck each one in the neck of a bottle and flicked open his lighter.

"Fire in multiple holes!" he cackled gleefully, setting flame to the cocktails and hurling them at the biggest youma entryways. "Heh heh, firehole. Get it Atty?"

Searing blazes roared to life where the Molotovs hit, giving the pair at least partial protection... or a future worry of being burned alive, but that was an issue for future Orias. Having drained the last of his good beer, he had a semi-buzzed epiphany and placed the neck of the bottle over his star like a focus.

"Never even thought to try this," he mused, taking aim at a few youma nearing Athalia from the side.

Focusing, the Mauvian fired his little star laser into the glass. As expected, the beam scattered like a prism akin to more of a kitty light shotgun... but also diffused its potency. Which was rather pathetic to begin with. None of the monsters even really staggered.

"What the hell is the point of this stupid laser?" Orias yowled, hurling the empty bottle at the nearest youma and clocking it squarely in the face. "I swear, if we live I'm going to invent something that makes that thing useful!"

Orias's eyes glimmered with the unshed tears of a joyful dream come true.

"For real, Atty? You're asking for something bigger than fire, like a bomb? Weeeeooo I always knew this day would come!" he hollered.

With manic grace the cat bounced from box to box to rafter to beam, clinging to the support pillar upon which his invention roosted and shimmying up to it lumberjack style.

"Gotcha," he squealed in delight, sliding back down to a rafter and flicking out a claw.

A little jimmying and the carapace-like casing popped off of the beetle, revealing the complicated circuitry within. Orias unceremoniously began ripping it all out.

"Your sacrifice will be remembered," the cat swore solemnly, his other paw disappearing into his subspace.

A jingle here, a rummage there... So long as it felt technological and not food-like he pulled it free and set it out in front of himself. It'd be enough. Thankfully he'd already had something to drink, as his muse had already whispered sweet nothings into the Mauvian's tufted ears. His paws were a blur as he performed his dream commission: building a bomb for Atty.

"Done!" he cried in glee, holding up what looked like a taped-up wad of... junk.

He was extremely proud of said junkwad.

"Look Atty! Your requisition is ready!"

Taking aim at the fiery melee below, Orias hurled the orb at the biggest mass of youma reaching for the senshi. It crash-landed with a crunch and sat inert. The Guardian cat landed spryly at Athalia's feet, looking upward at the man.

"I'd recommend some version of that dome thingy you do," he suggested. "That bug was the equivalent of nuclear-powered, you know. I'd say it's going to go critical in about four seconds or so."

Orias looked nothing short of ecstatic about that fact.

"BIGGER FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

Orias cackled madly at the burning interior landscape was consumed in a blinding conflagration of hellfire, only held at bay by Athalia's magical barrier.

"Look at it go Atty!" he squealed, his voice lost amongst the earth-shattering crash of rubble falling about them, not to mention the explosion itself.

As the rumbling settled, the Mauvian peered downward at the transmitter feebly waving its legs in the air from the floor.

"Little guy's a trooper," he murmured, picking it up in one paw and tugging his senshi's pantleg with another. "Here ya go. Reminds me of you. Too stubborn to give up, even in an explosion."

Ever alert to more things he could experiment with, the cat was excited to see just a little bit of gooey youma essence by a burning support strut nearby.

"Jackpot!" the Maine Coon shouted, scurrying over and producing another crystalline containment orb.

Just as he moved away from his prize, crackling debris fell to the floor in the exact space his head had occupied.

"Also I don't think this place was zoned for such spectacular explosions. Youma are splatted, but we're next if you don't man-mode our way out of here."