9.5

February 17th, 2011

You know, for all that I was a Tinker, I rarely experienced the phenomenon called a Tinker fugue - a state in which a Tinker entered a trance-like state, allowing them to create some sort of a physics-breaking gizmo. Oftentimes, even the Tinker in question could not make heads or tails of the inner workings of what they made while in that state.

Me, on the other hand? I could probably count the amount of times I entered the fugue state on one hand, as it only happened when I first made something belonging to an entirely new tech tree, so… Barriers, Yin-Yang Orbs, Persuasion Enchantments, Chameleon Circuits, Karmic Locks, uhh… Pretty sure this was it? All of my tech originated from those five, through development and experimentation.

Take for example Miko Dolls. The Floating Engines that comprised their bodies and the Camera Orbs serving as their 'eyes' were derived from Yin-Yang Orbs, and their dimension-hopping functionality - from the Persuasion Enchantment. Sure, there was also waveform research that went into them, including me continuously exchanging information with each Doll in real time - but it was a continuation of Karmic Energy research, once again derived from Yin-Yang Orbs.

And that's how science was supposed to be done! How PROGRESS was supposed to be made! Not by having consecutive breakthroughs creating new pieces of independent tech, but by finding new implementations for things already existing!

Except, apparently most Tinkers did not work this way.

Normally, a Tinker worked by entering their lab, focusing on a thing they wanted to make - and, if they were lucky, they entered a fugue state that allowed them to make roughly what they wanted. If they were NOT lucky, they made something unrelated, stupid and/or dangerous instead - or just fumbled around their lab, playing with tools and materials to no actual effect.

That? Was not science. It was literal artistry. As in, regular Tinkers were more akin to stereotypical artists, hoping for a Muse to send them the inspiration to make another painting or a poem - except, the Muse was likely an eldritch being from another dimension, and the painting was PROBABLY a very ugly suit of power armour with enhanced strength, super reflexes, and a coffeemaker codpiece.

Yeah, I finally had that tinkering session with Dragon and Armsmaster three days ago, how could you tell?

And as it turned out, the blueberry beardo was still somehow a POSITIVE example of a common Tinker.

Contrary to what I previously believed, Armsmaster's tinkering was not him throwing metaphorical shit at the proverbial wall and seeing what stuck - he had an actual engineering degree from before he Triggered, which meant he had the opportunity to apply superscientific mojo to the solid baseline he already had. Which kinda-sorta raised my opinion of him, if only a little - though not enough for me to ignore everything else about the guy.

Armsmaster's creative process included coming up with some weird-ass gizmo while in a fugue state, drawing up preliminary blueprints, adjusting them though his engineering know-how, and then cycling through the database of materials and solutions available to Protectorate members to find the best matches for what he came up with. In my opinion, it still deviated a bit too far from actual science, but it was not an ABSOLUTELY mind-bogglingly atrocious process.

Dragon, on the other hand, was the ideal lab partner for most other Tinkers. Her creative process was seeing a thing someone made, and coming up with ways to improve, modify and reverse engineer said thing, eventually finding ways to seamlessly integrate it into her own tech library. Which… was kind of impressive, as it probably required her to UNDERSTAND other Tinkers' tech better than said Tinkers did themselves.

If a regular Tinker was an artist, and Armsmaster applied little specs of science to artistry, then Dragon turned artistry back into proper science. And THAT? I couldn't help but respect.

Anyway, the three of us were working on a module that was SUPPOSED to fit into one of Dragon's mechs, as well as into Armsmaster's tinkertech motorcycle. Dragon translated all the technobabble into common tongue for my benefit, and the idea was that it was supposed to be a tinkertech liquid solution launching system - Armsmaster could fill it with containment foam, and Dragon could do so as well, or replace it with something more lethal, depending on which S-class target she went after. Armsmaster's miniaturisation and efficiency specialities were supposed to allow him to make the liquid launcher system as compact as possible, and my dimensional tech was supposed to expand these teeny-tiny containers the size of a walnut into something larger.

And yeah, there were no issues with the project. Dragon actually gifted me a REALLY narrow awl made of tinkertech material that was pretty damn brittle, but due to particularities of the material, compensated for microtremors like a human hand naturally had - and once I turned it into a proper enchanted tool, I was able to expand the insides of the walnut-sized containers until they could fit, like, a hundred gallons each.

I really appreciated the gift, and decided that she deserved a gift as well. Which was why, I went and looked her up on the internet, to try to find SOMETHING she would appreciate just as much as I appreciated a tool that allowed me to work on a REALLY tiny scale.

And, well. I was pretty sure I found the perfect gift. Or, well, found OUT about something Dragon was probably gonna appreciate being dropped all gift-wrapped on her porch.

There was this group of international criminals called Dragonslayers. And judging by their modus operandi, their name was not a coincidence. These absolute assholes were SOMEHOW able to steal a bunch of Dragon's suits, and now used them to harass her on a regular basis. Clearly, their leader (named Saint, after Saint George from Christian legend, known for slaying a dragon) had some sort of a vendetta against her, and…

No.

I was NOT gonna let this stand.

I was not gonna stand back and allow a bunch of assholes to bully someone, let alone one of the nicest and most sane parahumans in the world.

Which was why, I innocuously asked Dragon to show me her other suits, to which she obliged yesterday. Oh, don't get me wrong, I wanted to see them as well - her brand of tinkertech was so damn sensible it was always a treat to behold. And it was also amazing to listen to Dragon telling me what it did, her ability to explain the functions of her tech in plain terms once again showcasing the depths of her understanding.

What she did NOT know was that I also kinda-sorta scanned her tech with a new thing I made.

Remember my Karmic Sonar Goggles? Yeah, thanks to that enchanted tinkertech awl Dragon gifted me (I decided to call it the Dragon Nail), I was able to make an improved version of them. Instead of a single instance of sending and receiving a pulse, the newly made Karmic Sonar Visualiser Goggles sent and received multiple pulses at once, and kept sending them as long as they were on. And that 'multiple pulses at once' allowed me to actually DIFFERENTIATE between types of dimensional shadows,

Now, here's a million dollar question: why did most Tinkers enter a fugue state when they were making something substantial, and why was I the exception?

My best guess? Because for most Tinkers, it was a necessity. See, the 'fugue state' was PROBABLY an explanation for the moments when the eldritch abominations behind the powers took the wheel, and applied their 3.5-dimensional mumbo-jumbo to whatever the Tinker was trying to craft. As 3.5-dimensional beings, they could offload the necessary circuitry off the conventional planes - creating 'Dimensional Shadows' (characteristic of most tinkertech except for mine) in the process. And the reason Tinkers often failed to do anything substantial without entering that fugue state was simple - they could NOT replicate that dimensional offloading, and didn't know how to go without it because at the end of the day, they were artists, not scientists.

What did this fact have to do with me wanting to see a few more of Dragon's suits?

Well.

Imagine that the same eldritch abomination made a bunch of similar-enough pieces of tech from the same technological tree. There was probably gonna be some sort of a signature, the same shortcuts applied over and over again, because why fix what was not broken, right?

Exactly.

After checking a number of her suits, I was indeed able to find a pattern - and then, I sent three of my five Miko Dolls to scour North America for any signs of her tech. With the new and improved Karmic Sonar Visualiser Enchantment applied to their Camera Orbs, they were able to process tens of thousands of square miles per hour each.

There were a couple of hits already - but after investigating them, I came to a conclusion that those were suits still under Dragon's control. Also, I found plenty of parahumans and tinkertech in my search - but did not investigate any, because I didn't need to.

Well, there was that one time my network suddenly went blind for a couple of seconds while one of my Dolls was investigating a rural village, except I think I saw some gaunt woman for some reason (bad power interaction?) - but then a literal, honest-to-kami meteorite fell on the settlement, instantly reducing it to a crater and killing everyone in the process.

I… was not sure how to process that, so after trying (and failing) to find any survivors, I just moved on.

And, well, five minutes ago? I had another hit. This time, in a place that didn't even LOOK legitimate.

The state of Nevada was essentially a giant, nearly empty plot of land with tiny specks of civilisation here and there - with a large percentage of said population congregated in and around the city of Las Vegas. Which, from what I heard, was a rather popular spot for Thinkers and Strangers to come and try to swindle their way into being rich - there was a certified arms race between independents and villainous teams on one side, and the local Protectorate and commercial teams on the other.

A war in which the law-noncompliant swindlers (as opposed to the law-compliant ones) were indirectly aided by the history of the state, as it had many hiding places for their perusal, from abandoned villages to nuclear bunkers left behind by the Cold War.

And one of said bunkers had not one, not two, but THREE Dragon suit signatures, as well as a few other dimensional shadows. These other dimensional shadows did NOT look like they came from Dragon's workshop - hell, one cluster looked like it belonged to a parahuman clad in a bunch of tinkertech!

I converged all three Dolls on that location - luckily, they were close enough to only require a couple of minutes of four dimensional travel. Then, I had them all enter the bunker from different points.

Inside… was kind of what I expected a nuclear bunker to look like. It was sorta what Endbringer shelters were based on - heavy concrete walls hidden deep beneath earth and dirt and rock, with domed ceilings at the top levels to better sustain increases in pressure.

Yeah, it was a multi-story affair, and I could see why the Dragonslayers chose this bunker specifically - it had a large enough entrance to squeeze a couple of Dragon's mechs through it at a time, and all that earth and rock that supposedly provided insulation against nuclear fallout also probably blocked off any tracking signals from any conventional (and most tinkertech) electronics.

One of my Dolls went in through the main entrance. Another - through the opposite wall, and the third was approaching the parahuman signature hanging around a piece of tinkertech.

The entrance was… Hm. At some point in the past, someone with a Brute rating ripped the second vault door wide open, their inhuman-looking imprint still visible on the metal surface. Beyond that…

The shelter looked like a mess. Bent metal railings, knocked-over tables and shelves - a recent attack? Or maybe they were trying to pretend nobody was at home, judging by the flickering emergency lights.

On the other side of the complex, was a hangar for heavy machinery. Normally, it would've housed heavy trucks, or maybe even a few tanks - but at this moment, it had three mech suits that looked like someone took Dragon's beautifully made machines, and allowed an overgrown manchild with Tinker powers to maim them with their brand of barely understood dumbassery, complete with changing dragon aesthetics to religious motifs. One of the mechs had its face bashed in by someone's ginormous fist roughly the same size as the imprint on the vault door at the entrance.

There was quite a bit of blackened red splatter around the damage. No corpse though, probably taken out.

The attack happened relatively recently - the blood looked dry, but not particularly old.

The other two mechs looked untouched - meaning, only the damaged one's pilot made it here and got into the robot right before the attacker reached them.

Further into the complex, I saw SOME signs of habitation. A cafeteria, partially stocked with food cans and more perishable groceries. An ad-hoc training gym. Barely touched living quarters with a recently smashed portable heater - only three bunks looked like they were actively used, belongings strewn about. There was another large red splatter near one of the bunks - again, no body - meaning, probably just one inhabitant was unaccounted for at this point.

The two Dolls made their way through the complex, looking for any other info, and finding signs of fighting here and there. Not all was done by huge fists though - there were slashed gashes in some walls and floors, and some places had deep imprints of more regular-sized hands and feet.

Also, quite a few more blood splatters here and there.

Finally, the two Miko Dolls made it near where the one remaining parahuman signature was, to the other side of where the third one was already waiting. I did not know who I had to deal with, so I decided to play it safe, the three Dolls simultaneously converging on that position-

To find a tall, inhuman looking, ball-jointed figure working on some visibly broken tinkertech gizmo.

The moment the Dolls entered the room, the figure jolted and, after a moment, scampered into ventilation with the speed of a frightened cockroach, the tinkertech gizmo tucked under its arm.

And…

I was pretty sure I knew who this was.

My Dolls immediately gave chase.

The figure moved through the narrow space like a contortionist, bending at improbable, sometimes downright lethal angles and moving nearly as fast as some people ran. It was also impossibly silent as it did so - likely, the product of the weird material its white carapace was made of.

He also began spouting some sort of weird, thick gas that visibly stained metal and concrete, and turned plastic into a sizzling mess, but it had little effect on breathless and sometimes dimensionally displaced Dolls covered in 4D Barriers.

My Dolls could both move with the speed of a Mover AND phase through terrain. And with the Karmic Sonar Visualiser, there was no way for this guy to lose them. Still, he did his best, as he used the twists and turns of the bunker's ventilation system to try to juke them out, only to jolt and scamper when one of the Dolls silently appeared from the surrounding claustrophobic darkness to try to grab him.

The game of cat and mouse lasted for less than a minute, as the contortionist's movements became more frantic and panicked. At one point, he dropped the broken tinkertech gizmo - one of my Dolls caught it without an issue - and once he ran out of spaces to juke through, he tried to do like a lizard and drop his tail - in this case, head, as it detached, grew mechanical spider limbs and made a beeline for the exit while his body played possum. One of my Dolls just crushed the head with the vault door, while the other grabbed the torso - where his actual brain was located.

He immediately stopped playing possum, and began frantically trying to cut his way to freedom with the blades his arms could spout, but… yeah, 4D Barrier on a Miko Doll, yadda yadda.

"Hello, Mannequin," I said to the guy, the Doll holding him turning its head to the side. "Would you mind answering some questions?"

Mannequin, a Tinker of Slaughterhouse 9 fame stopped for a moment - before suddenly growing even more panicked.

I was about to ask another question, when he exploded, the power of the detonation causing shelter's entrance to collapse.

Ugh…

My Dolls were okay, but this bunker was probably done for. Also, it was gonna prove difficult for Dragon to retrieve her suits from here, so… maybe it was a good idea for me to just pack them in and do a proper delivery?

I sent one of the Dolls to the hangar to deal with the defaced mechas. The other two began gathering what evidence and personal affects they could find, including what could be recovered of Mannequin's body to claim his bounty. There were no other parahumans in the bunker, but… aside from the broken tinkertech gizmo the guy was working on, there was another tinkertech shadow - I sent a Doll to retrieve it…

…from another dimension, adjacent to that one spot Mannequin was hanging around?

Huh.

It was some sort of an old-timey portable computer, still working and even running some sort of calculations. I had no idea what it did, but I was sure Dragon would be able to shed some light on what it was, and why the Slaughterhouse 9 wanted it.

That is, if I didn't find them on the way back.

February 18th, 2011

Finding the rest of the Slaughterhouse 9 was not in the cards that day.

While Nevada as a state didn't have THAT much of a population, there was a disproportionately high, nearly 'Brockton Bay before Miko of Paradise' number of parahumans per capita in the state - mostly because of the ones visiting Las Vegas. And considering that I did not want to invade people's privacy even if I did so to check if a group of roaming serial killers was hiding inside their closet, I decided to approach things slightly differently.

Two of the Dolls checked over the entirety of the state in a grid pattern, looking into any parahumans and tinkertech signatures. As they found no signs of the Nine, they were sent back home along with everything I picked up in the nuclear bunker.

The last Doll was stationed in Las Vegas for now. Its task there was to look up any parahuman who was not on private property, in a hotel or a similar arrangement - including checking people on the street - and if they were not a part of the Nine, to mark their 'signature' - until I was 100% certain the Nine weren't hidden somewhere in the city.

Though given how old the blood in the bunker was… My guess was, that the Nine had had a day or two to leave the state, and Mannequin was supposed to catch up to them once he was done with whatever he was doing. Given how I did not know the 'signatures' of the mass murderers, trying to find them beyond these measures was probably a waste of time - and Director Piggot could inform her colleague in Las Vegas that they might want to draw up some search warrants just to be on the safe side.

Speaking of - I was done with school for today, had had my scheduled meeting with Mr. Unison, and was just about to meet the director and Dragon.

I was brought to the familiar room that was the director's office. The only changes in it were that there was a new plant in the pot in the corner, and a new coffee mug declaring 'Praiseth the Sun'. Then, there was a blueberry beardo standing in the corner. Dragon in one of her smaller suits was also present - I still was not entirely sure how she managed to bring it here. Maybe, through the window?

Dragon nodded to me as I entered.

"Hello, Miko of Paradise," the director greeted me curtly. "I believe you had some information you wanted to share with us?"

"Yes, I do. Now, I want all of you to listen carefully, and not to interrupt me until I'm done, or we might be here all day." I looked at her, and then at Dragon. There were two nods. "Okay, so I had been tracking the Dragonslayers. I don't want to disclose the method, it doesn't really matter. Eventually, I found their base in a fallout shelter in Nevada. As I began investigating the place, I came across three stolen and heavily modified Dragon suits, one of which was damaged and literally bloodied, as well as signs of fighting across the rest of the facility, including blood splatters suggesting at least one more person died there, the fighting probably occurring a day or two prior. And at the lowest level of the bunker, I found Mannequin - the Slaughterhouse Nine one - working on a piece of broken tinkertech. After seeing me, he tried to flee with the device. I retrieved the broken piece of tinkertech, and then cornered and captured Mannequin - at which point, he self-destructed, causing a cave-in at the entrance. After that, I searched the rest of the facility, finding another piece of tinkertech in a dimensional pocket - and then searched the rest of Nevada for any signs of the Nine, with the exception of any private property, hotels or similar places in Las Vegas. Unless they're somehow hiding somewhere in the city, they probably fled the state, and Mannequin was supposed to catch up to them later on. And I'm pretty sure that the Dragonslayers are either all dead or really, really wish they were. Ah, and I have some charred remains of Mannequin's body, three stolen Dragon suits, the broken tinkertech device, the device that was stashed in a pocket dimension and some personal effects of the Dragonslayers' with me." I thought about it for a moment, before nodding. "That's the explanation. Any questions?"

Silence.

The room was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Then, the director picked up her mug and downed what was left in it in a single swig, before looking at me with a look of a great sufferer.

"I thought you were not going out of your way looking for trouble?"

"I wasn't. The Dragonslayers were harassing my friend, so they were gonna get special treatment," I stated plainly. "And the Nine? Same deal as with Nilbog."

Speaking of… It was already a month since the start of the depowering experiment, and Rinke was still alive AND without powers. Which was good to know, even if he wasn't gonna stay that way for much longer - the observational period had probably concluded.

"Director, I'll inform the PRT directors in Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Utah and California about a possible Nine presence," Dragon informed her.

"Do that. Now…" She massaged her temples for a few moments, before finally deciding on something and nodding to herself. "As per the standard procedure, we need to verify Mannequin's remains. Armsmaster will show you to the room you can leave them in. As soon as we get confirmation, the bounty will be paid, either in cash or via transfer to an account you specify. Leave the effects of the Dragonslayers in the same room as Mannequin as well, we'll see what can be done about them. The Dragon suits are Dragon's property, so you can return them to her later on. And I'll leave inspecting the tinkertech devices to Armsmaster."

"I'll probably require Dragon's help in inspecting them," the blueberry beardo noted.

"Then ask for her assistance, you're the tinkertech expert here," Director grit out, before looking to me. "Please try not to dump so much in my lap next time."

"I'll try to…?" I looked at her unsurely.

With that, Armsmaster guided me and Dragon out - she actually somehow shrunk her suit just enough to fit through the door without any issue. Huh. Yeah, I guess it made sense to make such a solution, in case she had to enter normal-sized buildings, though… either there was some miniaturisation tech going on that tinkertechnically folded around the suit's cockpit, or the girl was about as tiny as Mr. Unison.

Eh, it didn't matter.

Armsmaster led us to an interrogation room on the first floor.

"Just drop the items here," he gestured to the table.

With a shrug, I had my Miko Doll appear (causing the blueberry beardo to flinch, huh), and she pulled out first a few duffel bags containing the Dragonslayers' stuff - that were set at the farther end of the table - and then a trash bag containing a large cube. It opened the trash bag, revealing a semi-opaque barrier box, through which one could see shards and pieces of Mannequin's body.

"While I was chasing him, he released some weird gas around the facility. Don't know what it was, but it was definitely corrosive, so…"

"Understood," Armsmaster nodded, then seemed to speak into the radio in his helmet. "Attention to the personnel verifying the bounty: high possibility of hazardous tinkertech substances, utilise level A protection."

Soon, in came a group of people wearing what I assumed to be tinkertech versions of hazmat suits, carrying a see-through containment chamber with a pair of gloves for access to the contents. They lowered the trash bag into the chamber, sealed it - and then, I finally deactivated the Barrier Box, allowing them to fiddle with what was inside.

After visual inspection and going over the thing with some sensors, they confirmed the kill, and I gave them the number for Land of Fantasy Ltd's bank account. It was not the Endbringer kind of money, of course, but every dollar helped.

A few minutes later, we were already making our way to the Rig - Armsmaster's proper lab was there, and we might've needed all the tinkertech scanners and whatnot we could get. Well, the blueberry beardo was riding through the somewhat busy streets on his extremely conspicuous blue bike, while Dragon and I were flying straight to the place.

"Um… Miko…?" I heard Dragon asking as we approached the Boardwalk. "Did you… Did you mean it?"

"Did I mean what?"

"That, um… You called me a friend…"

"Of course I did. I consider you my friend, Dragon, even if you don't consider me the same way."

"N-no! You're my friend too! It's just, um…" her suit fidgeted for some reason. Her suit could FIDGET! "I… I'll need to tell you something. You and Armsmaster, when we're in his lab."

"Okay," I nodded.

Whatever this was, it sounded serious. 'Mom, dad, I'm gay' kind of serious.

We arrived to the Rig a minute later, and had the time to place the three defaced Dragon suits under quarantine and observation before Armsmaster rolled up to the facility across the forcefield bridge. Then, we both followed the blueberry beardo through the corridors to his lab - the same one where we worked on the miniaturised sprayers.

"Before we begin, um… I have to tell you two something private." Dragon said.

Armsmaster turned to her and, after a couple seconds, nodded.

"Understood. I'm disabling all the recording devices in the lab for the next thirty minutes," the guy fiddled with the console in the corner for a few moments, before nodding to Dragon. "Done. Proceed."

I was not sure whenever to be impressed or annoyed with him. That's the blueberry beardo experience for you.

Dragon took some time to collect her thoughts. Eventually, though, she began speaking.

"There's something that only… only a few people know about me. I'm… I'm not a human being. I am a machine. An artificial intelligence, created by my father, Andrew Richter. He made me as an assistant, a test run for creating a fully fledged technological simulation of a human conscience. Except, before he could make one, Leviathan killed him. And I… I was basically what was left of his legacy."

"Ah. Okay, that makes sense," I nodded.

"What… what makes sense…?"

"I was wondering how your suit shrank so much to get through the door," I shrugged. "Thought you were under three feet tall, like Accord. Turns out, you're your suit, I guess…?"

"More or less," she nodded. "You… You're not mad…?"

"Why would I be? It makes sense to hide this kind of information from public eye, some people are just the worst," I blinked. "Oh, is THAT why Saint was harassing you? Did he watch too many Schwarzenegger movies or something?"

"Probably, yeah," she nodded, before turning to Armsmaster, who… was oddly quiet. "Um…?"

"I'm… I'm mad at you for hiding this from me for so long, but I understand why you did it," he said flatly. "I'll need some time to process this information fully."

"I understand," Dragon nodded.

"And Dragon?" I looked at her seriously. "If anyone gives you shit for this, tell me. Whoever they are, I'll make sure there won't be a second time."

"Thank you, Miko."

In the silence that ensued, I had some time to think about this. Dragon was an AI. This, of course, did not change anything about her personhood, but given the fact that Andrew Richter was a human being, he likely had some human-centric biases when he created her.

For example, there was the common knowledge of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: a robot could not injure a human being or allow a human to come to harm through inaction; a robot had to follow human orders, unless said orders came in conflict with the first law; and a robot had to protect its own being unless it conflicted the other two laws.

Now, Dragon was widely known as a member of the Guild - an organisation that hunted down S-class threats and Kill Orders - as well as the warden of the Baumann Parahuman Containment Centre (also known as the Birdcage, the prison for the worst of the worst - like Lung and Kaiser). So at least ONE of Asimov's laws was not hard-coded into her psyche, but…

Hm…

How DID a bunch of mercs squatting in fallout shelters manage to steal three mechs from an AI who designed said mechs as nigh-infallible monuments to ingenuity? I had a theory, but…

"I think we should start with the inspection of the tinkertech," Armsmaster noted.

"Okay," I sighed. "Let's start with this one. I think I know what it is, but maybe I'm wrong." With this, I had put the broken gizmo Mannequin had been working on onto Armsmaster's table.

"You want to avoid confirmation bias," blueberry beardo mumbled, before beginning to inspect the thing. A few seconds later, he was joined by Dragon.

"I think this is… Yeah, this is made by Dodge, a new Tinker from Toybox," she noted. "If the casing wasn't so damaged, we probably would've been able to find the brand on the bottom."

"Agreed. The damage is severe, likely from a fragmentation grenade. Mannequin had to supply more than 60% of the inner workings, and it's still missing some parts. The result was likely meant to grant exclusive access to a pocket dimension."

"Yup, that checks out," I sighed. "Meaning, he stayed behind to try to get his hands on this."

With this, I had put the device I pulled out of the aforementioned pocket dimension next to the broken one.

Dragon looked at me, looked to where a new device was, and then turned her attention back to the broken dimensional tech, even while Armsmaster inspected the new thing.

"I am almost certain that this is Richter's tech," he said looking the device over, and then looking at the screen, "And this data-"

"Richter's? No, we just agreed that it was made by Dodge," Dragon said plainly.

Armsmaster looked at her, and then to me.

"See this? It's probably how the Dragonslayers got away with harassing her. This thing is probably some sort of a backdoor created by Richter."

"I'm not sure it's just that…" blueberry beardo looked at the tiny old screen intently. "Why would her creator need a backdoor?"

"You think it's…" I blinked, before turning my eyes back to the device. "Is it safe to destroy this thing? It won't hurt her, right?"

"I need some time to examine the code to determine that," Armsmaster stated.

"Then let's get this over with," I sighed.

Like hell was I leaving a piece of tech around that could hurt one of my friends.