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[@Scarifar][@cosmiccowgirl][/center]

Annika had flinched imperceptibly. Fingers tightened around the edges of her datapad, the minute clench of a jaw and flared nostril as she blinked at the feet of the person who’d appeared mere inches beside her. Not arrived, not showed up, but appeared without any noticeable displacement or friction.

[color=#009BFF]“... Don’t do that.”[/color] She spoke evenly, eyes staring at the feed of her drones recording the dragon rearing more in annoyance than what seemed to be pain; though Annika couldn’t attest to knowing much about the anatomy of what was, effectively, a myth.

[color=#009BFF]“That is unacceptable variance,”[/color] She paused, turning to the young man, deliberately looking past his shoulders in an odd angle. [color=#009BFF]“For [i]me[/i].”[/color] She adjusted her visor with meticulous care, the gesture precise enough to be grounding. Her jaw unclenched by degrees.

[color=#009BFF]“Announce proximity next time.” [/color]Annika said, quieter this time. [color=#009BFF]“Verbally. Or audibly.”[/color]

She turned back to the feed, adjusting some variables that made Ike and Omar whirr lower to the ground; narrowly avoiding the sudden fiery cone that radiated off the dragon’s form, the feed flickering with the sudden spike in temperature before stabilising.

Annika’s gaze flicked past her screen for a moment, landing on the black-and-white woman’s shoulder first, the singed fabric, the way she held it slightly off-angle, then back to the tablet in her hands. [color=#009BFF]“Repeat,”[/color] Annika said. Not curt. Focused. [color=#009BFF]“Smudged how.”[/color]

Slender fingers flicked, a pinched gesture flicking outward onto Omar’s feed for digital zoom as her eyes picked up on the oddity. The damage around the creature’s neck and shoulders more like smudged paint than an expected gash or tear. [color=#009BFF]“No visible vascular response,”[/color] Annika observed. [color=#009BFF]“No particulate shedding. No biological fluids.”[/color]

[color=#009BFF]“Possibility one,”[/color] Annika said evenly. [color=#009BFF]“Synthetic construct or projection with tactile interaction.”[/color] She tapped again. [color=#009BFF]“Possibility two, layered illusion over a solid core.”[/color] Another pause. Shorter this time. [color=#009BFF]“Possibility three, staged engagement.”[/color]

[color=#009BFF]“If you re-engage,”[/color] Annika’s voice was louder, firmer now. [color=#009BFF]“avoid repeated strikes in the same area. We need variance.”[/color] Then, after a beat. [color=#009BFF]“And stay clear of the flame radius. It is real.”[/color]

Her gaze landed back on the man with the beret and camera, he was smiling. She noticed and locked it.

Wrong.

[color=#009BFF]“You,”[/color] She jutted her finger to the speedster, then to the new variable she had previously omitted. [color=#009BFF]“Maintain support role, keep proximation to civilian.”[/color] She gestured at the strange man. [color=#009BFF]“But do not approach recklessly.”[/color] Her eyes flicked back to the dragon proper now, past the feed and observing it from her own viewpoint. Ike and Omar whirred upward, one drone charging and firing its laser more precisely at varying points; testing theories, watching how the dragon responded.

She huffed, fiddling with another electric charge and sliding it to the young man beside her. [color=#009BFF]“Click once to prime, twice for five point three second timer.”[/color] She blinked, turning to her feed again as she typed another command. Ike hovering closer to get a better view of the strange man. [color=#009BFF]“Ike will distort with noise if necessary.”[/color] Annika’s lips twitched slightly, pride, before adding; [color=#009BFF]“He’s got sixty-three audible distractions.”[/color]