27 Chapter Twenty-Seven: Don (1/2)

The week passed by as the team avoided going back to Shark City. In order to avoid more conflict while also waiting for Rose and Demetri to finish whatever strange project it is that Demetri has been working on, they stayed in Therio. If anyone had been looking for them, they were definitely looking in all the wrong places. No one from Wolf Pack or The Ly'Lum had come to them or started any trouble yet. When the weekend arrived, the crew went back to Demetri's place in hopes of the project being finished. When they arrived, they found Rose with what looked like a small machine wrapped around her head, with wires coming out of the back of the head.

”Hey guys!” Rose says excitedly when they come inside the house. Rose seemed very cheerful, which was a good change of the atmosphere.

Siran walked around Rose, inspecting the machine. ”Is it working?” He asks.

”If you consider someone else having the ability to turn vision on and off like light switch 'working', then yes” Demetri says as he's holding onto the wires and thinking.

”What still needs to be done?” Siran asks.

”Well” Demetri replies, ”I have sensors attached to brain from back of eye socket, which can act as way to send signals to brain. Only problem, I don't have definite power source that could even be considered remotely portable. It needs a charge to send signal to brain. No charge, no signal, no vision”. After speaking, Demetri flips a switch that shuts down the power to the small machine attached to Rose.

Rose begins to puff up her cheeks and pout. ”Aw man...” she complains.

Holly looks up at Demetri and asks ”Wouldn't magic work as a source of power? Not only would it be portable, but it won't require her to charge an external power source just to see”.

Demetri rubs his eyes and asks ”That would take immense amount of magic. Also, I don't know what magic would work as power source. I don't even possess capability of magic”.

”I'm pretty sure that digital magic would work fine” Holly says. ”It has weightless properties, but can react differently with physical matter. It shouldn't be too hard for her to find a way to use that as a form of electricity. Just combine that with the knowledge of some basic elemental magic to gain an effect similar to electricity, but without the overheating and shocking effects and it should suffice”.

”Yes, but next problem is” Demetri replies, ”where would you find such large amount of magic to keep digital magic running forever? It would take at least three people to-”.

Holly interrupts Demetri as she turns to Rose and says ”Go ahead and give it a shot. Won't know until you try”.

Rose nods and focuses for a few seconds. Before long, she looks back up and says ”It's working! Holly, you big dumb nerd, you're a genius!”.

Holly laughs and says ”That's an oxymoron, Rose”.

”I didn't know Rose could use digital magic” Finn says.

”I taught her a long time ago” Holly says.

Rose shakes her head in agreement and says ”I'm not good at it though. I can't make shields and stuff, but I can at least understand the basics of it”.

”Learn something new everyday” Alex adds.

Demetri scratches his head and walks over to Rose. ”Who are you people?” He asks. Demetri then begins to disassemble the part of the machine on the back of Rose's head, leaving the mechanical visor attached to her face.

”We're The Six Guns!” Rose says with a gleeful cheer. ”And we're back in business!”.

Demetri freezes in place, still not finished taking apart the machine attached to the back of Rose's head. ”This must be joke” Demetri says.

”Ooh, wasn't supposed to say that, was I?” Rose says with one finger on her chin, regretting her recent statement.

”You people have caused lot of trouble” Demetri says. ”Your heads must be worth a lot”.

Siran, slowly reaching towards his gun, replies ”What are you getting at?”.

”So you don't deny it?” Demetri asks. Siran stares back at Demetri, watching his every move. Demetri slowly reaches back at Rose and grips the machine that's still attached to her. One loud click was heard as the machine fell to the floor with a loud thump. Immediately, the entire crew had their guns drawn and pointed at Demetri. Demetri didn't seem to pay any attention to this though, as he stood up with his hands on his hips and stretching his back. Everything attached to Rose was now on the floor, with the exception of a visor. The visor looked like a small screen that stretched across Rose's face. Some light in the visors turn on, as what appears to be an 8-bit pattern making a drawing of eyes appear where Rose's eyes were previously. Rose stands up quickly, turns around to Demetri and bows her head slightly.

”Thanks, Doc” Rose says.

”You must be thinking about payment by now” Demetri says as he turns to the rest of the crew. The crew still had their guns drawn as Demetri continues to talk. ”Your heads are worth so much” he says. ”You must be good at escaping trouble. That must be why your bounty is so high. So instead of money, I want you to find me way out of here safely”.

”Excuse me?” Siran asks.

”I want to go back to surface” Demetri says. ”This place isn't comfortable for me. If you can take me to place where I won't be troubled for cybernetics without anyone knowing, then consider our debt settled”.

The crew lowers their guns and puts them away. Siran slowly walks up to Demetri, and holds out his hand. ”You have yourself a deal” he says as he shakes Demetri's hand. ”Under a few circumstances though”.

”And that is?” Demetri asks.

”Well, for one” Siran says, ”I don't want to go before letting Rose see Shark City at least once”. The rest of the crew takes one step back.

”H-hold on, Syr!” Zia says.

Siran holds up a finger as if to say wait. ”Second” he continues, ”I want to know if you have any information on the Wolf Pack there in Shark City”.

”You have business?” Demetri asks.

”More like unfinished business” Siran replies. ”They attacked one of my people, so I have a score to settle”.

”Well, I don't know anything about where they operate” Demetri says. ”All I know is they have vice grip on Marina, or as you call it, Shark City. Anything they say, goes. That's about all I know”.

”In that case” Siran says, ”just wait here for now. Give us a couple days and we'll have you out of here, no problem”.

”That is acceptable” Demetri agrees.

”By the way” Finn asks, ”what was that machine attached to Rose that you took apart?”.

”That was power source and performance monitor” Demetri replies. ”I use it to test and diagnose cybernetics efficiency”.

The team leaves Demetri and his place and go back to the hotel on the other side of Therio.

As they walk, Rose looks at Siran and asks ”What's up? You said something about trouble?”.

”Yeah, why go back and look for trouble?” Finn asks. ”We can just bail and never come back!”.

”Because this place could be a valuable resource” Siran replies. ”This place and Seeira seem to be the only two places that aren't looking for The Six Guns, so they make a good place to retreat to. Now think about it, after a while, don't you think The Ly'Lum will eventually catch on to us using Seeira as a retreat? They've already found us there once and have had their outposts there destroyed by us. It's only a matter of time before they try to tighten their grip around Seeira. If and when the time comes, we might need a place to fall back”.

By now, the team has already gotten close to the hotel as Finn asks ”That makes sense when you put it that way, but I think we already blew our chance-”.

”Hey guys” Tanya interrupts with her sudden appearance. ”Looks like the thing with Rose went well”. Rose waves happily in response.

”This is bad timing” Alex mumbles.

”Hey Tanya, I have an important question” Siran says.

”Hold on a second there!” Finn says, ”are you out of your mind!?”.

”I need to know” Siran says. ”You were a part of Wolf Pack, so do you by any chance know where their boss might be? I have something important I need to discuss”.

”Umm...” Tanya replies, ”I know where a few places he might frequent. Why? Is something wrong?”.

”We'll cross that bridge when we come to it” Siran replies.

”I don't like the way that sounds” Tanya says, ”and they probably won't take kindly to people they don't know showing up on their doorstep... but I guess if you're adamant on the idea, then I'll try to take you”.

”Trust me” Siran says ”they'll know who we are”.

”Okay” Rose jumps in, ”I'm very lost here”.

Tanya leads the crew to a few places. As they walked, Zia asked Rose ”So how do the new eyes feel?”.

”Well” Rose replies ”my field of vision feels... wider. Which is nice. But while the visor is pretty light, it still feels weird having extra weight on the front of my face”.

The crew walked and talked for a while. A few places they went to didn't seem to have anyone there anymore, and so they kept moving on to a few other places with Tanya being the guide. Eventually, they came up to this metal door in an alleyway, with a slide at eye level. When they approached the door, suddenly more people seemed to creep up from behind the crew and circle around them. Each of them with a familiar wolf patch on their clothes. One of the men pulled out a gun, pointed it at Siran and said ”Knock on the door”.

Siran looked over at the man, and his eyes shifted to the door as he nods his head. Siran slowly raises his hand, and knocks on the hard metal door three times. The slide on the door opens up as a man peeks through the slot. The slide then closes and the door opens. The man from behind the door then guided them to another room as the rest of the gangsters followed behind them, keeping the crew hostage. As they entered the room, a man sitting in a chair, giving off the impression of 'I've been expecting you' suddenly shifted to a face of surprise.