Day A20:
Gave a once-over on the completed half of the next chapter, as follows.
[spoil]16: The Weasel
“Okay, let me get this straight.”
Elliot was once again in The Lab talking to its resident genius scientist. He sat on the floor of that same section of the lab they had been in when the topic of Seina had first arisen.
“I designed and built an Ohki-type spaceship capable of merging with a Juraian core, and then…”
“Gave it away to Captain Seina Yamada of the Galaxy Police. Yes.”
“Really.” She deadpanned, tilting down on her hover-pillow.
“Yup!”
There was a moment of quiet as the scientist tried to justify in her head what ‘she’ had done. Well, according to a human teen slider, that is.
Washuu exhaled in consternation. “Maybe I just need to get out more.”
“Hah!” the boy snorted. “What makes you think you’d be any different out there around people after twenty thousand ye-“
“Time,” she interjected.
“Oh, yes. Sorry.” He had forgotten that they were potentially going to be in a bit of a time crunch. “Back to work…”
Washuu sat, facing the teen. “What details can you tell me?”
“Oh, goodness.” Elliot bit his lip and reclined on the floor. “Nothing. Nothing much. You made it. It had a form like young Ryo-Ohki, but was named Fuku-Ohki. Um… the core unit was affected by the emotional support of the crew? Or something like that. And Tarant tried to clone her.” That caught the scientist’s attention.
“Mm? What’s that?”
The boy looked at her. “Tarant Shank. He kidnapped her -I mean the Fuku unit- and unsuccessfully tried to clone her to make more ships.”
“The same Shank that captains the Didalos?”
The boy didn’t recognize the name, so Washuu pulled up an image of the ship on a consol screen.
“Oh…”
The redhead turned back to her notes. “‘Oh,’ you say? I thought I had noticed some correlations.”
“With what?”
“With your appearance,” She replied. “And, of course, the missing time-space that is now cleared up… almost…”
Washuu continued to type as she trailed off.
And look for me – now you won’t
Elliot was about to ask when the scientist cut him off. “Hang on. Just a second, there, cutie.”
He closed his mouth, suppressing a blush at the off-hand flirt.
Again a moment of typing passed before Washuu paused.
“You saw that ship when you were in transfer to this world, correct?”
Fear crawled across the younger one’s face as he looked at the sight again. He shook his head.
“y- yeah. What is it? I don’t remember it from the videos at all.”
“The flagship of Tarant Shank’s pirate rabble, if they can be called that. He’s led them into pulling off some vicius and downright surprising stunts, but what he was doing trying manifesting in your reality…”
Even the redhead now fell silent as she gave the image of the ship a rival’s stare.
“It’s alright, Washu.”
She looked to the boy. He remained sitting, staring at his clentched hands.
“I do remember Tarant, and I remember that he was- is, evil. I remember that he’s daring, yes, but I also know that I’m here.” Elliot smiled. “And that’s where I want to be. If Tarant had some weird plan in mind, I think it failed.”
The scientist frowned. “Or it’s on its way. What if he’s the reason behind this hole in all space-time connected Seina Yamada? You said yourself they were harsh rivals.”
The boy laughed. Maybe just a chuckling laugh, but it still caught Washu off-guard.
“Well, we’ll just have to face him down if that’s so, huh?” He grinned up at the agless redhead, eyes gleaming with mischief and adventure.[/spoil]
