Lily sat with Mouse in her lap for what felt like hours, when in fact it was only a few minutes of her gently running running her fingers through his fur. His wound had healed, the flask she'd gotten as her first prize having worked wonders. Assuming that every victory gave a prize of some sort, Jiang should also have had something, but he hadn't used any. Did that mean that he didn't have any, or did he simply not get a chance to use it? 

"Brucie," she said, pausing mid-pet, addressing the augmented shark currently fiddling with what looked like an old engine block, "go look at Jiang. See if he has anything strange on him. Something that's not his clothes and that baton of his." 

Brucie shrugged and stood up, the heavy clunks of his footfalls receding as he stepped out from their little metal hideout, and onto the sand. Meanwhile, Mouse had started pushing against her hand with his nose, as if requesting further petting. Something she was happy to oblige with. 

It was strange, she thought, how calm she seemed whenever she sat with Mouse. She'd met him not even twenty four hours beforehand, and in that time he had gone from a cautious dog, to something of a familiar. He trusted so easily, and his mere presence had a noticeable effect on Lily herself. She mulled it over quietly as she dragged her nails through his fur, eliciting something of a satisfied sigh from the, in this case literal, lapdog. 

A short while later Brucie came trudging back, a small object gripped between two of his metallic fingers. "This it?" He asked and held up his findings, alternating between giving Lily and the object a blank look, as if he didn't quite understand the significance of the item he held. The motion brought it into the light and revealed golden hues of reds and oranges that should have been impossible. 

Lily gasped and was on her feet in moments, rushing over and taking hold of the feather before Brucie had much time to react. Even Mouse had barely hit the floor, and managed to whine his disappointmene before she was there, clutching the golden-orange feather in her hands. "This... This is impossible. It's a phoenix feather, Brucie! Even where I come from, Phoenixes are rare, and they [i]never[/i] moult." She swallowed, holding the feather reverently up against the sunlight, watching the coruscating light flicker with each movement. "There are rumours that a phoenix feather can heal a mortal wound or even bring someone back to life, but they burn to cinders the instant they are pulled free." She looked up at the shark who still seemed somewhat lost, but was beginning to connect the dots and see the significance. "It means that this feather should be impossible," she explained, "but... then again. This world is different from my own. Souls can be taken without instant death, discs can be traversed without going through transports." She clicked her tongue and stowed the feather away in the pocket of her jacket. 

"So... If I died, you could bring me back with it?" Brucie asked, leaning sideways as if to get a better view of what was on the inside of Lily's jacket, and subsequently the tip of the feather sticking up, out of her inner pocket. 

Lily nodded but said nothing further. She instead stepped past Brucie and headed for the still-smoking corpse of Jiang. The stench was horrible, but nothing new. Once she would have puked at it, but now... Now she just covered her nose with her sleeve. "We should probably bury him, I suppose. It's the only decent thing, really." She turned to Brucie who still stood by where she had rested. He was awkwardly trying to pet Mouse, using his metallic hands to scratch him along the back. The fact that Mouse remained where he was, evidently meant that it was good enough. Even so, it was a strange thing to witness. "Brucie," she called, "go see if there's something to use as a shovel somewhere. Start digging a hole to bury this guy in, I have something to take care of. Be back in a bit." 

Though disgruntled at being told to do some menial grunt work, Brucie nonetheless obeyed and went about looking for a piece of metal that either resembled a shovel, or an actual shovel. Lily, meanwhile, went looking for the drone Oren had used. The whirring sound of small rotors lead her to a place not far off, hidden behind a piece of rubble from the building opposite her resting place. It lay in a heap, still clasping a small box which she assumed to be the prize for her victory this round. She crouched down in front of it, hoisting up the drone in a single hand and just looked at the camera incredulously. "Your toy doesn't work, Cactus," she told it, assuming it still worked given that the rotors were still turning, albeit not fast enough to provide lift. One had stopped completely. "Anyway, you mentioned something the College needed help with? If it'll help someone who actually [i]needs[/i] it, then sure. But I'm not gonna go on a wild goose chase to entertain you. So? What is it?"