After the just-in-time arrival, the doctor had quickly brought the weary and disheveled group to his base of operations, putting the miles behind them as they left the underwater base that, even though they were given not one, but two items of victory, they still received a new threat in the process. Yet now it was a time for recuperation for whatever new goal would be laid before them in the coming days, arriving at their new, temporary home, tired, but alive.

Between the ocean fortress and the present location, the contrasts were great. Where they were once surrounded by the waters of the ocean, the lab they had first arrived at was now encased in rock and dirt, though it was not visible from anywhere within it. Dreary, darkened corridors and rooms were replaced from their vision with sleek and pristine interiors, every floor appearing to be well-polished, white being the prominent color throughout the lab and living areas that lay above it on the surface. It seemed the doctor wanted any future, or in this case, present guests to live comfortably, evident in the selection of design throughout his home, and the service provided.

Service as in a varied assortment of advanced machinery.

There were many gadgets and doo-dads the group managed to find within the first hour or two, ranging from the helpful (efficient-looking butler-bots and cleaning machines) from the completely nonessential (a machine that could assist the user with the tying of his shoes, for example). Whatever the members of the group thought of the new living spaces, it was still somewhere safe and clean, with all the necessities they probably required at that point.

At the moment, with a full night of rest behind him, a certain hedgehog made his way through a carpeted hallway bare-footed, dressed in now saltwater-free clothing. He avoided a small robot that wheeled by him, carrying a tray of what appeared to carry an extra-large pizza, steaming as though removed recently from the oven. Sheffer debated if he should snatch a piece or not, but let it roll by anyway, deciding to order something himself later as he entered a vast room.

It was well-lit, mainly thanks to the ceiling high windows that looked out to the ocean and the morning sun, a semi-circle of couches, chairs, and tables at its center. Sheffer promptly plopped down onto one of the large couches, noticing a large TV sitting to one side of the room. With only a mere glance to the piece of technology, it suddenly conveniently rolled into a position where the hedgehog could receive the best view of the screen, hearing a small beep before an automated voice followed it.

"GOOD MORNING, MR. HAWKINS," it began, making a few more small adjustments. "WHICH CHANNEL WOULD YOU ENJOY VIEWING THIS MORNING?"

"Er..." He shifted slightly in his seat, still in the state of learning to cope with all the speaking technology the house had to offer. "I think I'm good..."

Giving a disappointed sounding series of beeps, the television returned to it's previous position against the wall, Sheffer giving a sigh of relief. Some of the machines he had encountered tended to be very persistent, having been chased around his room earlier in the morning by a robot wielding a pair of clippers, insisting his quills needed a trim. He'd managed to lock it within the bathroom, but he feared that it would soon escape and return to its determined nature...

For now, he would just wait and see if any others would join him in the room.



(OOC: Picture! http://www.autojogja.com/2009/10/05/min ... manhattan/)


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"I'm very glad you like our home, Mako!"

What was that? Did Dr. Henshin just understand someone and call said person by his proper name? True enough, he did. Flattery went a long way with the old moth, at least as far as his inventions went. He had just winged in with an energized hum from his cybernetically-enhanced appendages a moment before, soon enough to catch the short-lived conversation on the sly. He'd been buried in his lab all morning, and had just emerged with a mug of coffee in hand. (It said World's Best Scientist. It was a gift from Hoji. There's that flattery thing again.) An odd sort of wiry, mechanical arm was extended from over his shoulder, and was projecting a volumetric image not far from his face, with text, graphs, and all sorts of data.

"So," he began thoughtfully as he plopped down on the couch a few cushions away from the hedgehog, still studying his display, "How is everyone today, hm? Feeling recovered yet? Healed up?"

Was he asking for a purpose?... Maybe.

"Oh, I have a lot of things in mind!" he declared with a certain pomp that begged further questioning of his incredibly fascinating mind. "In fact, I've learned a lot of things since we got back! Haven't slept a wink! Too... ! Too... !!"

He seemed unable to find the right words. He was hovering up out of his seat, waggling his fingers in the air in front of him with great enthusiasm, as if struggling to gesture some sort of... nebulous, but fantastic thing.

"Too full of exciting revelations. Let's put it that way," he finally settled. He buzzed up over the white, glossy coffee table, where everyone could see him, and whacked his head-mounted display with the flick of a wrist. The volumetric, glowing midair monitor turned and expanded, floating next to his head so the others read it easily. ... It almost looked like a text box floating over an RPG character or something. Perhaps Dr. H had been playing video games again lately...

On the screen were the following entries:

• Things I discovered about the Chaosol Emerald
• Where another emerald is located
• What I made at breakfast this morning

He folded his hands behind his back and floated there expectantly, beaming widely.

"Come on. Come on. Select one."

It was as Badge was about to add his two cents that the old moth interrupted with a noisy "Ahah!" He thrust a finger at the hedgehog, ignoring his own protege entirely for the moment (probably because he didn't hear him over the noise of his own rambling). "Excellent! You know, you can learn a lot about a man by the way he makes dialogue selections! Yes sir!" Completely derailed from the topic, he explained further. "See, the shark is impatient! He wants to find the next shiny collectible rather than enjoy the meat of the story! For shame! And the fat one—" "Hai em noht fffeht," the tortoise quickly interjected,"—was only interested in the third option because he thought it involved food! Terrible!"



He turned to the hedgehog once more. "But you chose to further explore the story! Your selection delves into the science behind our world! Most excellent, most excellent. Yes. ... Ah. Hm."

He cleared his throat, straightened up a little, changed to a completely serious-business tone, and proceeded as if that whole outburst never happened.

"I have positively identified the jewel collected yesterday as a Chaosol Emerald. Interestingly, it really does seem to be a fusion of a Chaos Emerald and a Sol Emerald. It took some digging around and networking to figure it out, but basically, the Sol Emeralds are like an alternate-dimension inverse of the Chaos Emeralds, from a multiverse offshoot of our world. In a thermodynamic sense, the Sol component's entropic tendencies are in absolute diametric opposition to the ordering effects of..."

He went on for a little while longer, but ultimately trailed off, scratching his chin and observing the faces around him. At the very least, he was certain there was a glazed lens forming over the turtle, shark, and raccoon's eyes.

"... Ah. Let me say that... they're... like...mirror images of one another, mashed together, and they are actively interfering with one another in such a way that the Chaos and Sol radiation is sporadic, powerful, and potentially dangerous. It's quite possible that the waves could have caused mutation in Sheffer's genetic structure, or perhaps altered it in such a way that some latent property was exaggerated—I'm not sure but I would love to run some tests sometime if you can spare the time and blood and tissue samples and such."

"But in closing, this Chaosol Emerald is very revealing, and definitely gives new insight into how Chaos Energy itself works. It's all incredibly fascinating."

He perked up again. "Next!"

"Ah!"

Dr. Henshin dodged the harmless crystal shard, then wagged his index finger threateningly at Sheffer. "I will not tolerate you shedding your... your... unidentified organic lattices in this house! You pick that up!"