Kinou was at a loss for what to do. Getting away was a piece of cake. Sure, they tried locking things down and trying to pen him in but he was able to get around those well enough. A mental illusion covering over his visual illusion meant that no one would recognize him as he was fleeing and he didn't need to change shape. And he even walked right through a checkpoint undisturbed. He then spent the next hour or so walking through the streets in a somewhat random matter to make sure that there was no one following him and then finally headed over to his hotel. Thankfully, they didn't know where he was staying. They knew what he looked like and that he was here but not what his name is. He cursed himself somewhat for being sloppy and wonders how much faith in him his subordinates would have had if they had seen him mess up like that. He should have done much more homework on the group. If he was able to pace himself a bit more he would have been able to learn they had a telepath on staff. That person might not have even been a telepath and was a front, a test of his character. At any rate he blew his cover badly and was now on the run in a station that very likely is at least complicit in the goings on of this group. Leaving the station is going to definitely be difficult. Thankfully they don't have any real tracking software on this station so he has that advantage. Means he'll likely have to sneak aboard a ship in order to leave.

He very easily could simply change his appearance again. It'd be a simple enough task all things considered. But his skill wasn't that good in recreating exact appearances and the travel documents were made to his current appearance. Even small imperfections may end up forcing him to blow his cover even more. Getting off this station is one thing, but without functional travel documents he'd have to travel as an undocumented, which creates a lot more complications. He'd be travelling around being suspected of being a criminal and would have to expend a lot of funds trying to bribe his way into anything. At least until he can get some new travel documents. But this far away from the station and with the anti-Foznetal sentiment going around that could take a while. He'd have to find one of their more long-term informants and hope they have the equipment for a new set. Once he had calmed down a bit and was sure no one was following him his mind focused on the task to see how likely he'd be able to proceed. Finding their facility was fairly simple all things considered. Knowing what a few of them looked like helped considerably as well and we was able to hack into the station's database and found that they were all staying at one building in one of the warehouses. It is a very strange thing to see that they had built an actual building inside of a space station, but that simply made it easier to find. As to their facility, he won't be able to get in on his own, even with all of his skills they are way too guarded. He counted easily two dozen people defending the facility, all heavily armed and who knows how many other defenses or mages they might have. And all he has are some knives and the gun he had pilfered. Another option would be to put in a call to some of the other Shadows to go raid this as a group. That would guarantee their success, but there's the issue that he can't be entirely sure that this is where they'll find what they need. It is just as easily possible that one of the other Shadows would be able to get the same information without the same level of risk. And finally, there is the option of him just abandoning this location entirely. After another moment or two of him considering his options, the disguised human is startled out of his thoughts by a loud knock on the door. His hand instantly moves to his gun, just in case.

"Package delivery," a voice shouts over the door.

Kinou stares at the door in confusion. There should be no one that knows he is here and even they shouldn't have been able to track him here. But then again, they could just be very thorough and checking on everyone that had arrived onto this station over the last few days. He stands up and holds his gun behind his back and moves up to the door and looks out the display to see what the cameras say about who is at his door. And it does look like just an ordinary delivery man. He hesitantly holsters his gun behind him and opens the door, putting up some barriers just in case. But the human seems completely nonplussed as if it was perfectly normal.

"Sign here," the human holds a plate in front of him.

Kinou takes it and looks at the invoice, finding that it's something that came from Foznetal and is addressed to the name of his current identity. But hiding his confusion as best he can he signs for the package and hands the plate back.

"Have a nice day," the human hands over the box and walks off, leaving the very confused lynx staring at the box.

Seeing nothing else in the hallway he takes it back into his room and wraps a barrier around it in case it is a bomb of some sort. The box actually has a good deal of weight about it and moving it around doesn't feel like there are any moving parts. He steels himself for a moment and then carefully opens the box using Sym magic, taking care to open it as gingerly as possible and keeping his ears tuned to the sound of a trigger activated. But there isn't anything there. When he opens it up he finds of all things a piece of paper. Paper is still sometimes used for very official documents or when people want to paint or other recreational activities. But it's very rare to see a sheet of paper. Just far too many languages in the galaxy to really make much sense for it. Far more practical to have a data plate that can simply translate things for you. He picks up the paper and sniffs at it a moment, trying to see if there are any chemical compounds that may have been placed on it and still finds nothing. Finally he turns it to try and see if there is something on the other side and finds something that actually surprises him far more than the fact someone sent him a package here. It's written in his language, the language he grew up with. He's learned a few more since then but it's the first time he's really seen print in his own home's language.

‘Thought you might want this. Prince Mige Se Yieno."

"The feral?" Kinou exclaims out loud.

Of all of the things he would have expected, that the feral would have sent him a package is the last thing. He'd be more willing to accept a package being sent by Ret than the feral. He has checked on the feral's activities, but other than drawing on walls and exploring the station he hasn't really done anything of note beyond routinely coming across that TD14 and Ret. The feral never receives any outside calls and only sends out an encrypted signal to Earth every so often and no way he should be able to know that Kinou was here. And though it didn't say his name, it was written in his homeland's language. But as the feral has shown no indication of being hostile and it's too unbelievable for someone to fake the feral sending him a package he lets down his barrier and reaches into the box to pull out the contents. It seems to be one large, solid object wrapped in a second, smaller box to protect it and when he opens it up he finds a large brown substance. He picks up and looks it over in his hands, wondering why this was sent. But then he finds a charged phasic cell and is able to track it to a few others and it finally clicks what he was sent. The feral had sent him a Clay Doll.

Kinou was confused. Though they are common enough they are either difficult to make or expensive. And for the feral to just randomly ship this out to him here, he had no words. But it could be definitely useful if it was the genuine article so he takes it out and takes a deep breath before breathing on it and placing it onto the ground. And after a few seconds it begins to expand and shift until it creates a very real likeness of his current appearance. The other Kinou looks around, staring at the room they're in and then at his hands. This is the first time he's ever used a Clay Doll and was actually somewhat concerned that there was more to the trick of activation.

"This is certainly weird not having any magic," the other Kinou says.

"Is that going to be a problem moving forward?" Kinou's mind was already working on whether or not he could use this to storm the facility. A single person against that many would be nearly impossible. But just having a second act as a decoy could lighten the workload enough to make it doable. And he knows that as they are the same person the doll would be thinking the exact same thing.

"No, it'll just take some getting used to. It's just strange not being able to draw upon that bit of extra security. But I do remember reading dolls can use Con Magic. So give me some of the items to help obscure myself and I should be fairly sufficient to be bait. I have no guarantees I'll be able to survive being the decoy without magic."

"That should be fine. It just means that we'll only have one shot of this. If you can get out then do so, or at the very least die in a location that I can collect the clay. I'm not sure what conditions the feral has in mind on giving us the doll are, but I imagine given how expensive these are that we at least attempt to get it back to him."

"I would agree. Though all things considered, do we thank the Feral? But getting this to us here and now, right when we're at an impasse is definitely strange. I can definitely see how he could have beaten Ret in Clairvoyance now. But the timing is still too perfect. Unless…"

"You think he found Teddy?" the main Kinou asks, finding it odd asking another him about thoughts going through his own mind. Puts an entirely new perspective on the concept of talking to oneself.

"Well it would fit. Teddy is way too chaotic to really be seen as a reliable source of information but if the feral had found him at just the right moment of clarity and believed it well enough that would explain how he could get this here on time. But even still that's a lot of investment made on a Teddy prediction. If it was even slightly off it would have meant a lot of money lost for nothing."

"At the very least when I get back I'll make sure to leave Teddy a meal. It's not like doing that could do any harm. But for the time being our highest priority right now would be to figure out how best to use you. While you have charge left we should probably split up and go scout out their facility once more. Find out everything we can for the best approach. Then we hit it tomorrow night once I have you fully charged."

Both Kinou's stand up and move towards the door to leave, the doll reaching into a pocket and then realizing it coughs in an embarrassed manner. "Forgot the doll doesn't copy all Con magic. Can I have your invisibility spell? It probably wouldn't look all that good to have people see suddenly two of us walking out of this place, especially if we want them to think there's only one of us."

"Oh, right. Yeah, that would probably be a good idea," Kinou reaches into his pocket and hands over the device.




Richard wakes up once everything is over and gets out of his pod. He looks at the clock on the wall by the door and frowns somewhat. Thankfully for him tomorrow isn't a day they're expected to really do much. There is another little training session in the afternoon, but they aren't scheduled for any patrols. It's time for their ships to be taken in to make sure that all of the proper maintenance is done correctly. And to be fair, Richard is fine with that. Not only does it excuse him being in the pod for almost four hours and likely to get very little sleep before he should really get up, but he would most definitely prefer that they make sure that the only thing keeping him alive in space is working correctly, regardless of how normal it all is to them.

Edgar also opens up his pod and stretch a moment before going to work on massaging out his two tails. It was a common complaint from the russet furred kitsune. That the pods aren't exactly perfect and that the means to maintain the body so that it doesn't atrophy from the reduced gravity doesn't do well for his tails. That it's a common problem for his species to come out of the pods with a bit of a cramp from the musculature in the limbs. And since they were in there for four hours, even if it wasn't working them out for the entire time would still take its toll. It's definitely a good thing he doesn't have a tail.


"So what did you think?" he asks once he's gotten his two tails back in order.

"It was, different," Richard shrugs."

"You'll have to give me more to go on than that."

"Well it'll probably take me a little while to just process everything. I mean, I kind of get some of the references and how your minds work a bit more now than before. But it was far more akin to chaos with friends than it was anything I could actually learn from."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. It was fun, though, right?"

"A little bit. A bit exhausting, though."

"You'll get used to stuff like that. It's a more casual event we could do, to be honest. What you saw is actually a bit toned down. I know Allenpo can at times choose to try and change things up so quickly that we can barely keep up with what all is going on. One time on a bet we let Allenpo dictate any change and we went through about two thousand movies in a two hour stretch. And if you think this was exhausting, imagine the effect on your mind trying to keep track of the scene changes. They admitted afterwards that the only reason they didn't go to even more was because of safety features. It's taxing on the mind to handle changes in the entire scene. When I asked one of the engineers on it they said that too much changing too fast can cause dysphoria and headaches and it's limited to the physiological states of the people involved. If Allenpo was alone they could probably go much higher because their brain works differently than ours. Mijhanero's mind can handle a lot more than ours, but it would exhaust him more than us."

Richard shrugs, knowing if allowed Edgar will go on about his findings about all of this for another hour. So instead he goes over to their dining area and pours himself a glass of water. He would offer but there's no guarantee that Edgar would want water or something else. There are times when the kitsune will take water, sometimes drink something else and sometimes even refuse anything at all. It's supposedly a religious thing or something, but Richard has always just felt it far too awkward to really ask about someone else's religious values. Instead, after consuming his drink he went about putting his glass away to be cleaned by the station and then turns towards his room.

"As fun as that was, it is very late now, so I think I'm going to go ahead and call it a night."

"All right," Edgar waves, heading back over to Richard's pod. "Sleep well. I'm going to tinker with the settings of your pod a bit, let you have the option of going back there yourself only when you want to. But we should do stuff like that again. Even if you do eventually decide to go back to your own time, for the time being you're here and should thus learn to live in the present."

Richard chooses not to respond to the comment, instead going into his room. It's not a very big room, but then again he is effectively just a government employee. There's enough room for his bed, his clothes and that's just about it. He does have an independent climate control feature for his room, allowing him to keep the room at his desired temperature, though getting that thing worked out correctly took a bit of trial and error. They seem to use something very close to the metric system, just no exact. These also allow for him to change the air composition if he had so chosen, but never felt the need. He figured it was probably to do with the fact that they like pairing off fighters of other races to bring more understanding, not to mention different planets have different atmospheres. So the main room and the station is designed for what would work best for the most people, but here he could change it to reflect specific inclinations. But the normal air was fine enough for him and it looked too confusing to figure out, especially since he's still learning the language that everything on the station is written in.