Kahli squinted to look down at the robot chef lifting themselves into the air with jet-propelled feet. "Yea, that's got to be Unit 5a23. I wonder where he's going?"

"Strange," said Sahdi, "I didn't know he was a chef."

"Maybe he's in disguise or something," suggested Kahli. "We don't know what all has happened to him, maybe he's been captured or brainwashed."

Froufrou squelched in agreeance from the comfort of her bag - she thought that both of these situations seemed quite likely.

"Regardless, I'm glad we finally found him," said Kahli. "Alright, G'athoong, let's get down there and see what's up!"

So, about that, G'athoong started, We, um, may have a bit of a problem.

"Problem?" Kahli frowned, cracking the ever hardening plaster around her mouth. "What do you mean?"

Look in those clouds up there. Something's coming towards us. Something sinister.

"Sinister?" Kahli looked to the clouds. "What? Where? I don't see anything, G'athoong."

Right there! By that patch to the left!

Kahli looked to the right. "Where?"

G'athoong raised and pointed a talon, which destabilized everyone on her back for a moment. There!

"I'm sorry, but I still can't-"

Kahli suddenly had the wind knocked out of her as Sahdi pounced on her like a leopard, pinning her painfully to G'athoong's scaly back.

"GET DOWN!" cried Sahdi.

Kahli looked deeply into Sahdi's eyes. "Yea, um, difficult not to at the moment. Talk about overkill, Sahdi."

Before Sahdi could defend herself, a large blast of electricity shot through the air in a crackling torrent from the direction of a nearby cloud.

"Theseosus' pincers!" Kahli blurted in fear, accidentally spraying some saliva on Sahdi's face as she realized that a mega bone dragon was approaching them with malintent. "That mega bone dragon is massive!"

I think it's with a young bone dragon, too, added G'athoong. Which isn't great news. From what I know about us dragons, we usually get a [skill] or two that specifically are available to us in order to protect our young. I can't imagine bone dragons have it any different, irregardless of the fact that young bone dragons never get older or anything. Kind of a, can't teach an old dragon new tricks kind of thing, except the trick is actually super powerful [skills] and the dragon's only old because it's been dead for, like, five centuries or something. Give or take.

"Great," said Kahli. "Let me just check on Froufrou real-"

And then, Kahli screamed so loud that birds scattered from the trees that they were far, far above. For she saw none other than her purse, and Froufrou's glorious tendrils writhing around within, tumbling down off the side of G'athoong.

"FROUFROU!!"

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Silash loomed over the tauman, raising his canon arm. He felt a little bad for her, cowering there in the alley, but that was just as well. It was natural that she was to be scared, but it was worth it to him to proceed anyway. After all, if Silash did indeed to proceed in harvesting her soul, he'd be able to continue with the all important task of charging up the Tesserator. And that... that had to be worth it, didn't it?

"Please don't kill me!" cried out the tauman with a shiver.

Silash charged up the energy in his canon. It was time to do this. He'd have to act quickly.

"Excuse me!" interjected a cold, atonal voice from afar amid the smell of fresh toast and the buffeting sound of jet propelled robot feet. "I have a few questions for you!"

"Unit 5a23!" the tauman's voice suddenly raised about three octaves, and her eyes that had once been full of fear were filled with some other strong emotion. "You're here to save me!"

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Unit 5a23 jetted over to greet Silash, completely ignoring the tauman. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt whatever is going on here, but I've got to ask: are you and I... well... are we robo-kin?"

Silash refocused his visual sensors. "Pardon? Did you just ask me if we're robo-kittens? I am a taumanoid automaton, as you too appear to be, so I would say no, we are not robo-kittens."

"Sorry, that's not what I said," replied Unit 5a23. "I was, well, to put it into different terms, I was wondering if you and I are alike. Cut from the same cloth, if you will. Possibly, that we share the same creator?"

Silash... wasn't sure how to feel about this. Sure, this robot looked similar enough to himself. There could very easily have been some sort of situation where Tim had made this... Unit 5a23. But Silash wasn't rightly certain. He knew Tim had made other automatons, but Tim also struck Silash as more of a money and idea guy than he did a construct intricate robotics guy. Whether that was really true or not was anyone's guess, but with that Silash felt that there had to be someone else involved. Of course, that didn't really sum up or answer his question, now did it? Silash imparted all these thoughts to Unit 5a23 as off the cuff remarks, however, the robot chef was not considering it a full answer.

"Here, maybe it'll be easier if I ask him," said Silash. With that, he pressed a small pressure point on his chest and watched as the hologram of Tim shout out with perfect clarity and brilliance. "Hey, Tim!"

"Silash!" Tim turned around to greet the automatons. "Oh, I see you'e brought a friend with you today. Are you on a play date?"

Silash looked at Unit 5a23, who looked back it him like a lost puppy. "Look, Tim, will you tell me if you recognize this automaton? He's seeking his creator and think it could be you."

"Sure, sure, no living wood off my back," said Tim. He glanced at Unit 5a23 studiously, squinting, raising his eyebrows, opening his eyes wide, lowering his eyebrows... Finally, he shrugged. "Gods, I don't know. He looks like an automaton, that much is for certain. Ugh... What did you call him again? Unit 57b?"

"Unit 5a23," said Silash and Unit 5a23 in unison.

"Hmmm," Tim scratched his goatee. "Yea, if I made him, I don't remember doing it. Sorry. Honestly, I have produced a lot of bots, but I can't say for certain whether he's one that I've made or not. Can't be certain. Usually I remember my creations, but that's not always the case. So I can't really say."

Unit 5a23 looked as crestfallen as an automaton with a static face save for harsh, metal eyelids could look.

"Any other questions, or can I go back to playing strip poker with Hilu?"

Silash grimaced inwardly. "That's it, thanks."

The automatons watched as Tim's form shrunk down to a small speck of light, and then zoomed with a slam back into Silash' chest.

"Is that a holophone?" asked Unit 5a23. "If so, it looks super cool."

"Yes... I think so," replied Silash. He was admittedly feeling a little off-put by this robot's seemingly endless sociability. What was this Unit 5a23's problem? It seemed almost like the robot had some sort of strange version of amnesia, or more aptly, hard drive corruption. "Look, uh, I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but would you please let me harvest the tauman's soul already?"

"What? You're going to harvest Shammy's soul?" Unit 5a23's metal eyelids shot up into his tin head. "Why?!"

"I need a full soul core to power up some... powerful technology, I'll leave it at that," said Silash smugly.

Unit 5a23 couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had to do something!

Unit 5a23 placed a cold claw on Silash's shoulder. "What's your name, again?"

Silash pushed the claw away with a staticky groan. "Silash."

Unit 5a23 placed his claw back on Silash's shoulder. "Silash, I'm going to go deep into meditation to ruminate on the implications of you harvesting someone's soul. It is my sincere hope that this makes you rethink your actions, and choose peace."

"...What?"

But that was that - Unit 5a23 sat in a cross-legged stance and began lightly hovering in the air, humming at a low tone. His mind was suddenly... somewhere else.

Silash didn't know what to think. He'd gotten so used to everything trying to kill him in some way that he was beside himself at the fact that Unit 5a23 decided to just... meditate... instead of, well, taking any action. It made him start a bit of as mechanical chuckle that reminded Silash of his lost taumanity. It was a bittersweet feeling. Then, he raised his arm cannon. Time to take out this tauman.

Wait.

What tauman?

Silash scanned the area and soon realized with ample frustration that the tauman he'd been planning to harvest a soul from had run off. Great. Now he needed to find her, and fast - if his assessment of Unit 5a23 was correct, the robot posed no threat, as his memory was far too unreliable, however the tauman he'd been planning to harvest from would certainly retain her memories. Unless Silash found her and took her out, that is.

----------------------------------------

Omar squinted up as he watched Kahli's purse tumble through the air. "Well fuck me diagonally. A mega bone dragon's attacking and she dropped her purse; that awful squelching thing she drags around with her is probably still inside."

Omar considered this for a moment as he watched Kahli dive off the side of water dragon after her pet. He felt impressed to see her take such a risky dive, although he also knew she had the ability to send herself flying through the air with those boomeranging rocks she could summon up with her [skill]. With that, Omar had an idea of his own.

He activated his own [skill] and sent a burst of flaming energy through his posterior. In a methane-odored burst Omar shot into the air at a rapidly increasing speed. He powered it up once, and then twice! He had plenty of [STM], and it was more than worth it. He was going to catch that purse before Kahli did, and then he was going to get some real answers from her as to just what in the hell was really going on.