1/3 early AM The Felix-Feline Adventure

[Luna]

After having left Lucan’s company, Luna quickly made her way through the palace heading for the tactical helipad as she had been directed. It didn’t really take her long to scurry through the empty halls. Considering the fact that most everyone was asleep, she didn’t even have to worry about someone almost stepping on her. She took every short cut she knew about and eventually found herself at the helipad.

She was somewhat surprised to find the copter already ready to go, but then she supposed she really shouldn’t be. She should have known that the helicopter would be ready to fly at a moment’s notice, especially in the face of an emergency.

This was the first time she had ever been quite so close to a copter before. The first thing Luna discovered was that they were even noisier then she had thought when standing this near. She flattened her ears back, not particularly liking the noise it made especially since she had sharp hearing. The second thing that struck her was the wind. This was another thing that she had didn’t like, being a small cat the wind made it difficult to make her way without being blown off her paws. She dreaded having to leap into the craft itself as she would have to be that much near to the whirling blades and the wind they kicked up.

Luna was hunched a few feet away from the craft when she heard Lucan’s voice. She gratefully made her way toward him and called, “I’m here ...”

[Luna]

As soon as she was set down, Luna dug her claws into the surface under her paws. She had no wish to be sliding about the helicopter as it flew through the air. She still kept her ears pinned somewhat backwards, not liking the noise of the helicopter at all.

However, she soon forgot about the noise as she looked outside. The lights of the night time city were spectacular from the air. She glanced toward the Tokyo tower with wonder once it was pointed out, but when Shinjuku was pointed out she frowned. “It does look a little bizarre, like an abyss in a see of lights. Do you know what happened to the power yet?”

It was an eerie sight and the fur along her spine bristled just a bit as she watched. As they descended she began to notice the pinpricks of light and figured that they would belong to whomever was working at rescuing the people inside the hotel.

[Luna]

“In other words, it’s more then likely a very big problem that’s going to take a long time to fix.” Luna was silent for a moment before adding, “I agree by the way, it’s much better to worry about the protectees and everyone else’s safety first.”

She relaxed a little bit when he ran a hand down her back. Even if she wasn’t a cat all the time she was one most of the time and it calmed her down whenever someone petted her. It didn’t fail this time either. Although she stiffened in alarm when Lucan threw open he doors and stepped out on to the rails. “Don’t ...” she murmured worriedly but she didn’t finish her sentence knowing that Lucan probably knew what he was doing.

Luna gratefully allowed Lucan to pick her up and set her back down on the ground. She could have jumped it, after all it was easy to jump down. However, the blades of the copter were still whirling and they might have thrown her jump off. She was a lot lighter then a human being.

She started to follow along behind Lucan, however she froze the moment she noticed the coroner’s car and then the black bag atop a stretcher. Luna hadn’t expected anything like this and her fur once again bristled along her spine. Her claws pricked out warily as she swallowed down the sudden panic rushing through her. Just because there was a body bag here did not mean that Usagi was not ok. Lucan had assured her that she would be fine and she believed him. It was just some other unlucky soul.

Luna forced herself to relax as she glanced up at Lucan. “It’s ok ...” It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the dead before. There had been casualties during all the fights with evil that the senshi had. She just hadn’t been this close to one and it bothered her just a little.

She followed Lucan closer and was glad to hear the officer say that it wasn’t one of Lucan’s protectees, which meant that it definitely wasn’t Usagi or Mamoru. She couldn’t help frowning as she listened to the officer describe how the man was electrocuted. Couldn’t this man be just a little more respectful for the dead. Oh well, maybe she was just being overly sensitive.

Luna refused to look in the bag when Lucan opened it, keeping her eyes firmly fixed upon the ground her ears and tail twitching nervously. She couldn’t help picking up on the burning smell even when she wasn’t standing close to the bag, after all she had a sensitive nose. She shifted her paws nervously and tried not to imagine the image to go along with the smell.

She glanced up cautiously when Lucan knelt down next to her and listened to what he had to say, ignoring the strange looks from the others. They obviously didn’t recognize her and so they were wondering what Lucan was doing talking with a small black cat when he should be doing his job.

Luna nodded hesitantly and murmured, “I ... I can do that. Is there anything in particular you want me to watch out for?”

[Luna]

Luna grinned, not feeling patronized at all by Lucan’s words. She respected the man a lot and so if she could help in any way she was glad to do it. She nodded as she listened to what he wanted her to watch and listen for. She could do that, she might not understand everything that was going on here but she did know people to some degree. “I’ll keep my eyes open then.”

When Lucan stood and began speaking to another Secret Service officer, Luna listened closely at his feet. She wanted to hear everything that was going on in the hopes that it would allow her to pick up on something or someone that other people had missed. Still, she couldn’t help swallowing nervously when the officer began speaking of people that had been injured.

Luna tried not to be affected by everything she was hearing, but when she heard that two of the hospitals were out of power and that they had already lost a few of the critical patients her ears and tail began drooping sadly. She simply wasn’t cut out for this kind of job, she wasn’t able to step aside and not think about it at the moment. Still, she had promised to do her best and so she took a deep breath and steeled herself to go on.

She listened to everything being said, but none of it made any sense to her. Luna didn’t know enough about electricity or transformers or anything like that to be able to make sense of what was going on.

Luna followed behind Lucan silently as he asked to see the transformer. She froze, one paw still held above the ground when he ordered her to stay back. She watched cautiously, wondering what he had found. When he opened the circuit box, Luna gazed in dismay at what she saw. Although Luna didn’t know much about circuits or anything of the sort, she did know they weren’t suppose to look like that. She warily watched Lucan pick his way back over to her and listened to him tell the agent not to tell anyone about what had been seen or said. She was confused, but she knew that whatever was going on was something bad.

When the agent left Luna glanced up in confusion at Lucan and said, “I don’t understand Lucan ...” She fell silent when he began speaking, nodding slowly as he tried to explain. She tensed in fear, her claws scrapping the ground, as she listened to him. She wasn’t exactly certain what a coordinated and carefully controlled non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack was, but it was obviously something bad. She opened her mouth to question the safety of Usagi and Mamoru, but before she had managed to do so Lucan was already reassuring her.

She nodded slowly and murmured, “I don’t really understand much of what you were saying, except that it was bad. Things like that aren’t really my specialty, but I’ll trust you when you say that Usagi and Mamoru are safe for the moment. What happens now? What do we do next?”

[Luna]

Luna tried to relax when Lucan said that things could be and were being dealt with. She could see that and she trusted to Lucan and his men’s skills at fixing things. She trusted that they would do everything within their power to get Usagi to safety as well as everyone else that needed to be rescued. His words didn’t entirely make her feel better, there was too much to worry and think about to do that. However, they did allow her to calm down so that she could think beyond that worry.

She listened carefully to Lucan’s explanation, nodding occasionally as he spoke. She appreciated his attempt to clarify things for her. Luna stayed silent a moment when he had finished, absorbing the information before murmuring, “I think I understand. Thank you . . . ” She tilted her head a bit, tail still flicking thoughtfully as she added, “Things are really bad, but they could have been worse if it had been a nuclear thing then. I guess we can count that as some sort of blessing then . . . ” The more things went on the more Luna was glad that Usagi and Mamoru were stuck in the elevator. Lucan said they were safe there and she believed him. Above anything she was glad that neither one of them had been in a room somewhere doing something that could have gotten them hurt like that person she had seen earlier.

Luna nodded when Lucan said they needed a plan and that he needed to know how many people there were and where they were. Heating the lift sounded like a good thing to do as well. Lucan had already said he would give it only three hours before he wanted her to call the senshi because he was worried about how cold it would get. At his question Luna simply blinked at him for a moment before saying, “Rappelling? You mean going down a cliff or something by rope?” She flattened her ears against her head and said, “No, no I haven’t . . . I don’t think paws are made to hold on to ropes while your propelling yourself down a long drop.”

This next thing was actually something she had already known. Luna had lived in the palace since the beginning and so she was aware of how much of a legal issue it was. She knew very well how testy some of those higher echelons would get if they knew that Usagi was not capable of communicating with them. Luna knew that there were some orders that technically speaking Usagi should be giving or at the very least giving the go ahead for them. They couldn’t reach her at the moment and so until they could everyone would have to work without her approval. It could cause a lot of trouble if it wasn’t kept as quiet as possible. “You don’t have to worry about me Lucan, last time I saw Usagi she was sound asleep in her own bed. I’m just here with you because I wanted to help.”

Luna followed the group quietly, watching and learning as they went. She kept close to Lucan’s heels not wanting to get in the way. She watched each man dart off to do everything Lucan had told them to do and admired the way they did everything he said without once ever questioning him.

When Lucan entered the hotel, she watched the people running around with the night vision goggles curiously. They looked really odd to her, most of this stuff did. She wasn’t use to dealing with anything to do with the military and so a lot of their equipment she had never seen before except when she happened to see it on television. Still she didn’t need to know what most of this stuff was used for and so she kept quiet, carefully sticking to Lucan’s heels so that she wouldn’t get stepped on in the darkness.

The darkness didn’t trouble her, being a cat she had much better night time vision then a human and so she confidently trotted after Lucan. She wondered vaguely how he was making his way without any misstep but figured it was because he knew where he was going.

As they walked, Luna payed special attention to everyone she saw, trying to spot anything that seemed odd to her. It was easy to tell the protectees from the hotel staff from their uniforms, even easier to spot the people working on rescuing everyone.

She didn’t particularly see anyone doing anything odd, at least as far as she had seen so far. Luna was certain that most of the people she passed weren’t even aware of her presence, except for perhaps the ones with the night vision goggles. She was only a small cat and considering that she had a coat of black fur she tended to blend easily into the darkness. It was easy to watch people without them being aware and so while she followed Lucan she noticed one of the hotel staff members. This person, while he was seemingly doing his job he wasn’t doing it as diligently as all the others . . . more then anything, he seemed to be doing his best to keep an eye on the officials such as Lucan and his other men. However, every time one of them happened to look at him the man carried on working as busily as his coworkers.

Luna slowed in her steps to watch the man curiously for a few moments, uncertain if he was just paying attention out of curiosity or something more sinister. She couldn’t decide and so noticing that Lucan was about to head into another room, Luna quickened her steps to catch back up to him. She noticed him glancing down at her before entering the room and so deciding it was better to be safe then sorry, she murmured softly, “I was just noticing one of the hotel staff members seemed more interested in watching all of you then actually doing his job.” She flicked her ears hesitantly before adding, “but he’s more then likely just curious . . . this can’t be a situation that he’s use to dealing with.”

[Khalid ibn Maleec]

Khalid had woken up when the power went out, sitting up and immediately alert. A quick survey of the room assured him that he was in no danger, but he was surprised when the generators did not kick on immediately to support at least emergency lighting. Frowning, Khalid had gotten out of the bed and quickly dressed, grabbing what he needed before heading down to find out what was going on. Just because he had a small guard--the smallest he could get away with--did not mean that he considered himself a protectee. When he went to grab his cell phone, his frown deepened.

Nodding he ran downstairs and had immediately found whoever was organizing the rescues. He made no big deal of who he was, beyond identifying himself as a retired military officer, and once his help--and that of his two guards--was accepted, he began focusing on the non-MVP guests of the hotel.

The tall Arabian was wearing a headlamp that seemed to give off a bit more light than the others, and as Lucan and Luna entered the hotel, he was carefully guiding out a family he had just rescued, the baby carried in his arms, as the husband gently helped his wife who had gotten hit by the burst cell phone battery.

[Luna]

Luna’s eyes brightened with pride when Lucan told her she had done good work. She nodded in response to him asking if she had noticed a name tag and murmured, “His name was ...” She thought back a moment, trying to remember what she had seen. It had only been a brief time that she had actually seen the name tag, but she had gotten a glimpse of it. Finally she recalled the name and said, “It read Tomomichi Miyakawa, yeah that's it. He looked like ..." She hesitated a moment more before saying, "Eh he was tall and thin with dark hair and eyes.” Luna twitched her tail irritably, knowing that description wouldn't help much but hopefully the name would.

She glanced back in the direction she had just come from to see if she could still spot the man when she happened to catch sight of someone that was very familiar. Luna had no trouble recognizing Khalid.

Luna briefly wondered what the man was doing here before realizing that he was probably one of the protectees that was suppose to be staying at this hotel. After all he had come down for the ball and so it was only natural that he would be here. She had to admire the fact that he seemed to be trying to help out instead of just being led somewhere to safety.

Nodding in response to Lucan’s half spoken sentence Luna simply said, “Yeah that’s Khalid ...” before following him as Lucan headed in Khalid’s direction.

[Khalid ibn Maleec]

Once Khalid got the couple to the paramedics and the father calmed down enough to take the baby girl, he gently placed the child into her arms and turned to go back for more of the guests. He had been perfectly gentle and confident with the child, but he had to admit, to himself at least, that he was rather glad that not too many people had seen the "energy prince" carrying an infant.

However, when he turned to go back in, he raised an eyebrow as Lucan and Luna were approaching him. The corners of his lips turned down into a small frown. There could only be on reason that the head of the Queen's security and her advisor were present in this emergency, and he did not think it was simply Usagi's good will to help out that had them here. Though to be honest, he wouldn't have been surprised if she had sent help, but not these two.

He moved to meet them, since it was quite clear that they were coming towards him. "I assume that means the Queen is in the building." His voice was low and soft, since he understood the need for discretion. "Is there anyway I can be of assistance?"

[Luna]

Again Luna couldn’t help feeling pride at Lucan’s words and she tried hard to remember more details for him. She thought carefully for a few moments before slowly saying, “He had narrow shoulders I think and a kind of a squarish face with a strong jaw line and a kind of squared-off chin. I guess I’d have to say he was either in his late 20s or early 30s and ...” She hesitated trying to think about how tall the man had been. Finally Luna gestured in the direction of a picture that happened to be on a nearby wall and said, “I’d have to say his head would have been about even with that picture over there.”

Luna stiffened the moment that Khalid mentioned assuming the Queen was in the building. She knew that Lucan didn’t want anyone to know, but how on earth could they deny a direct question like that. Besides, Luna was well aware that Khalid was a very smart guy and he was bound to realize that she wouldn’t be here if Usagi would be here. There wasn’t really any other reason for her presence.

Uncertain how to proceed from here, Luna glanced up at Lucan to see what he would say. She blinked in surprise as Lucan said that Khalid was mistaken without missing a beat. Was Lucan going to deny everything even though they had been asked directly? She watched in confusion as Lucan stepped closer and said something in a language which she assumed was Khalid’s own language. She didn’t actually know this language well enough to follow completely, but she had picked up a few words from listening to other diplomats. From the way Lucan was acting and from the one or two words she had managed to understand, she would have to guess that he was taking Khalid up on his offer of assistance. Otherwise wouldn’t he have just sent him away using the usual language?

[Khalid ibn Maleec]

Khalid raised an eyebrow when Lucan first informed him that he was mistaken. The fact of the matter was that he knew full well that he was right, and he knew that Lucan knew that he knew. The denial made sense--the last thing that was needed was widespread panic over the queen's whereabouts or for someone to take advantage of the fact that she was here given the circumstances.

However, when Lucan leaned in and spoke in Arabic, he managed not to smirk, but only because his military training made it that he could keep even his small reactions from showing. A short nod was all the answer he received. He was a bit surprised that the man spoke Arabic, causing him to wonder more about the man's military record. There was a definite accent, Mediterranean. That made him wonder, but now was not the time for that.

"I believe you are the ranking officer here. For now, I will consider myself under your command." There was a tone that made it clear that Khalid would remove himself from that command at any point if he felt the need.

[Luna]

Luna sat up straighter with pride. She didn’t know the phrase, other then sounding like the name of a hotel, but from Lucan’s tone he was very happy. She had done better then she thought she would, but of course things weren’t over. Even if they found the guy, they still had to rescue Usagi.

She stayed quiet, sitting at Lucan’s feet while he continued speaking to Khalid and then to the head of security for the hotel. She watched as Lucan passed over the plans for the lifts to Khalid and then asked him to take care of the batteries.

Luna was slightly less comfortable leaving the rescue of Usagi up to unawakened Shitennou, but she trusted Lucan’s judgement. Besides, Lucan was right as the well-known Energy Prince, Khalid should know more about batteries then either of them. She turned a beseeching gaze on Khalid, silently pleading with him to do his best in getting the lifts down.

She returned her gaze back to Lucan when he spoke to her and murmured, “I’ll know him if I see him again . . .”

[Khalid ibn Maleec]

Normally, Khalid politely corrected people who assumed that because he was the heir and vice president of a major and technologically leading energy company that he knew how to deal with batteries and the like. However, the fact of the matter was that he did know more than the basics, as he felt it was rather crucial to have some idea of what was going on.

He nodded, "I should be able to take care of it. I assume the hotel has the basic emergency engineering supplies." He had a couple of ideas of how to get the battery running, though he'd need to see it before he knew exactly what needed to be done. Worse case scenario, he could jerry-rig a battery and splice it into the elevator wiring enough to get the elevator running.

[Luna]

Luna watched Lucan search through the personnel list for the name she had given him. She waited patiently until he finished, though she was disappointed that he hadn’t found the name. Luna had hoped that he would find the name, but a small thrill of excitement went through her at the thought that perhaps they could find someone involved in this crisis.

She rose to her feet as Lucan said what he did. “What happens if we don’t find him? Does that mean he’s involved or just was somewhere he didn’t need to be?”