Ace was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of a hooded assailant. He had grabbed Rika from behind, and rendered her completely helpless. His first reaction was to reach for his sword, but before he even gripped the hilt he stopped. Who was this? The man asked what their business here was, but the more pressing issue was his identity. "Pretty face? Am I in high school again? Honestly..." Ace said, relaxing his posture. He didn't want to endanger Rika's life, but in the case that this man was a potential enemy he couldn't tell him everything right away. Ace looked at his surroundings, the man did not seem to have any others with him, no one was coming to arrest them all. The man's attire was drab and ragged, as if those clothes had seen years at sea. The chances of him being affiliated with the empire were slim. He gauged the distance between himself and Rika, he could prevent her from being shot if the man pulled the trigger, but only barely. He didn't want to risk it. "What was it that woman said?" Ace said, pointing towards Rika. [i]That Rika has family here, and that the person we would be looking for would find us.[/i] He repeated in his thoughts. Ace looked to the man holding Rika hostage and scratched his head. "The name Masaki wouldn't happen to mean anything to you, would it? That's no way to treat family you know. We're here to help take care of the empire. We aren't your enemy here... So you can let Rika go, even if it is hilarious seeing her this shaken up." [center]____[/center] Before they had time to even think of getting back to the gummie ship and escaping, Nomis pulled one more trick out of his sleeve. More of his machines showed up, miniature robots that scurried across the ground like rodents. If not for the fact that they were ignoring her, Asahina would have burned the entire deck to ashes, she was not a fan of rats. The tiny machines surrounded the ship, their only way off the warship that didn't involve a high dive and a perilous swim through the ocean. "You wouldn't happen to have another ship, would you?" Asahina asked. "Not on me... We'll need to break through that cage and hurry through before it closes again." Shizuka said. She eyed Asahina, and thought of something. "Hey, do you remember that time we were paired up in combat fundamentals?" She said. Asahina shuddered. "You threw me like a baseball at the training dummy, that wasn't what our master meant by teamwork as well grounded as a pro baseball team's." "But it worked didn't it?" Shizuka said with a shrug. "It won't here!" Asahina shot back. As the two of them bickered, the others had already sprung into action. Through a coordinated assault Cerden, Flora and Dominic destroyed the cage, leaving an easy way back to the ship. "See, [i]that[/i] is teamwork." She said. "Bet they wouldn't have gotten an A like we did though." Shizuka said derisively. Asahina shook her head, and looked back towards the entrance to the warship. Could they leave now? "What about your other friend, Shinto? He's still down there, isn't he?" She turned to Dominic, hands clasped together in a pleading gesture. "You have a mental link with him, don't you? Can you see if he's alright?" She asked. "We don't have time." Shizuka said, picking up Jasmine. "I'm not looking forward to dealing with whatever else that guy has to throw at us, so come on." She said, hurrying up the ship's ramp. Begrudgingly, Asahina followed after her into the ship. She recognized the brightly colored interior. Ships made from gummie blocks had always been a tad strange, as you could create all kinds of shapes and still manage to have a flyable ship. This ship in particular had been modeled after a UFO, so it was round, and had various flashing lights on it's exterior. On the inside there was a high degree of blue and green, with the floor looking green and the walls and equipment being blue. "Alright... umm." Shizuka mumbled as she sat down at the pilot's seat, having buckled Jasmine into a bed in the back. "You guy's might want to buckle up, because there's a lot of stuff flashing here and I only know what half of it means." She flipped the ship on, and something in the innards of the ship crackled ominously. "was that... oh, yeah that was the warp drive... err." With shaking hands she pushed a lever forward, and the ship lurched ahead. The gummie ship popped up like a jumping bean, causing Shizuka and Asahina to nearly swallow their heart in panic. "Who taught you to fly!?" Asahina screamed. "I'm gonna have to plead the fifth on that one. Hold on, we're gonna crash into the ocean!" The ship splashed into the blue waters of the sea, and kept going forward. Shizuka hurriedly pulled back the lever, and it began to move at a more steady pace. She looked back at the others with a confident grin. "Well, at least we've got a boat, right?" [center]____[/center] Ryoko sat patiently as Shinobu gave out orders to the Turks. He split them up into teams to perform specific tasks on different worlds, essentially acting as his personal investigation squad. Once they left the room, Shinobu requested that she continue. She let out a quick breath and looked at him. "You always know just what to say, You cannot possibly imagine how frustrating that can be, Shinobu." Her voice was placid, and she was speaking with a nostalgic cadence. "You haven't changed at all since highschool." She said, remembering a simpler, yet infinitely more angst filled time. She remembered barging into Shinobu's home buzzed off of a bottle of some cheap alcohol, forcing him to listen to her ramble on about her latest break up. That was the first time she'd opened up to someone, and to her surprise she didn't regret it later. In spite of how aggravating she was at the time he bothered listening to her, and managed to say just the right things to help her. She ended up crying with him patting her head like a child, it hurt just to remember. Ryoko stood up, and walked around Shinobu's chair, standing above him. She leaned downwards, and wrapped her arms around him. "Sorry for always doing this, I swear I'll repay you for always indulging my proclivities..." She was silent for a minute, her eyes closed and her mind taking in the tranquility of the room. She often did things like this, she had never told him why, just that she needed to. It let her forget herself, that she was herself, if only for the moment. If it wasn't for Shinobu, she'd have gone on a killing spree long ago... off the clock that is. She let go of Shinobu, sat back in her seat, and let out a sigh. "I'll handle Gavin, he's essentially a terrorist, one that I have a feeling plans to assassinate another General. And I'll handle Nomis, either he falls in line with my demands or I'll kill him myself."