"Sigma! Sir! Wait up, please!"

Rolling his eyes, Sigma stopped on a dime and swerved 180 degrees to face Skysheen who was pounding down the empty hallway in an attempt to catch up to the Spartan. "What is it, Lord Th'ckpa'sskyleth?"

Skysheen halted and saluted. "Requesting permission to talk to you."

"Can you talk and walk at the same time?"

"Uh...I think so."

"Then you may accompany me as I walk back to my office." Sigma resumed his march with Sky in tow. "What can I do for you?"

"Have you been made aware of the brave deeds of that member of the Medical Unit, Zero?"

"The one who forsook his duties to carry out orders that he was not given? Indeed I have. I'm going to see that he gets what he deserves. Your sister, Lady Dra'conia'mat, was also reported to have been going against orders." There was an edge to Sigma's voice with these last words.

Skysheen blanched a bit. "Sir, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to ask you to pardon them for their disobedience. Zero and Red may have disobeyed, but they saved a lot of lives in the process. Those refugees would have been killed if they had not've shown up."

Sigma gave a neutral grunt. Skysheen wasn't sure if the leader was even listening to his pleas. Shakily, he drew a breath and prepared for the kill. "Sir...I'd like your permission to promote Zero to the Regal Dragons. Red told me that he's quite an awesome fighter, and we need as many of those as we can get at this point. I will take responsibility for any negative actions that may result from my desire."

Skysheen mentally braced himself for a bombardment of insults and nasty comments which were characteristic of Siggy. To his astonishment, they never came. Rather, Sigma merely checked his watch and mumbled, "Yeah, sure...do what you want...sounds good, party 'till you barf, that's what I always say. Zero can be promoted, and Lady Draco will be pardoned. Now if you'll excuse me..." Sigma turned the handle to his office door, stepped in...and stopped short in utter shock. Skysheen nearly crashed into his superior.

"What in GOD'S name...?" Sigma sputtered, scanning the room with disbelieving eyes. His office, normally reputed for its meticulously orderly state, was overrun with hordes of toddlers armed with blocks, books, and other assorted toys.

"What the hell is going on!?" He roared. "This is my OFFICE, not a bloody DAYCARE!"

A colourful block printed with a picture of an 'H' and a horse flew out of the crowd and smacked Sigma right between the eyes. Skysheen wisely surpressed a wild urge to laugh. Scattered giggles rose from the sea of children.

Skysheen cleared his throat. "Sir, allow me to explain. Because it's raining outside, some of the parents in the refugee camps were concerned that the shelters didn't provide enough protection against dank drafts. Ergo, some of them sent their children into Hunter HQ to prevent them from catching cold."

"That's insane! I couldn't care less if they caught ebola!" Sigma seethed, his words not exactly reflecting very well on his role as a protector of humans. "Let them go play in the kitchen or the bathrooms, or something!" Sigma turned to face the children before him. "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE, YOU EGG SUCKING, WEASEALLY LITTLE BASTARDS!" He reached for a kid who promptly bit him, while others clamped onto the Spartan's legs, begging for a story. In all the ruckus, Skysheen wisely slipped away from the 'babysitter' to announce the good news of Zero's promotion to him.

"She'll be fine. She's just going through post-anesthetic shock right now," Genesis announced to the anxious ring of Hunters around him as he tossed another warmed blanket onto the unconscious, trembling human in the bed before him. "during the surgery, we put some metal fragments into that arm of hers. She'll still have use of it, but it might be a very long time before full strength is restored." Genesis turned and frowned at the Hunters who still loomed over his shoulder like vultures. "That was a hint, my friends. You're invading my personal space. Get lost. She'll be fine. Pip?"

That last word summoned a small, spry blonde haired medic reploid to Genesis' side. "Yes sir, Mr. Genesis sir?"

"You mentioned that this girl's mother was outside of the recovery room? You can bring her in in about thirty minutes. For now, just update her on what's going on."

"Rightyo, Mr. Genesis sir!" Pip tottered off to carry out his orders.

"Red, Zero...you two can stay and keep an eye on this girl. I have a lot of work to do. Try to get her name and all that when she snaps out of the anesthetic. The rest of you are just taking up space by hanging around here. Go play out in traffic or something."

Zero felt a tug on his ponytail. Startled, he turned around and dropped his eyes to Pip, who had issued the physical summon. "Mr. Zero sir?" The small robot voiced.

"Yes Pip, what is it?"

"Lord Skysheen is outside...he wishes to talk to you. It's good news!"

"Okay then. Red, you stay with her."

"Sure thing, Sugarmuffinhoneybunny!!"

Slowly, Celeste ascended the dark staircase of unconsciousness. Sleepily, she blinked her eyes and tried to draw in her surroundings through her drugged mind. Not surprisingly, she was in a medical ward of some sort. What WAS surprising was the large, female reploid dragon sitting closeby with a comic book clutched in her claws, chuckling softly to herself at regular intervals. One sharp - finned ear twitched in Celeste's direction, and the dragon was suddenly smiling at her. "Hello, dear. How are you feeling?"

Celeste's mind was too sluggish to even bother searcing for an answer.

The dragon seemed to understand. "Here, I'll give you an easier question; can you tell me your name?"

Celeste accepted that. "Celeste," she drawled. Then, almost as an afterthought she added, "McTreggor."

The draco froze. "McTreggor?" She breathed. "Do you happen to be Jake McTreggor's daughter?"

Celeste only blinked listlessly. The dragon shrugged. "We'll talk about it when you're more up to it. I'm Red Draco, by the way. You just came out of surgery. You'll be fine. We managed to save your arm."

For the first time since awakening, Celeste remembered the arm that Sabre had nearly blown clear off. She found it in its usual spot, swathed tightly in adhesive bandages. The injured arm throbbed dully, but other than that, Celeste didn't really notice any pain. What she DID notice, however...

"Uh...Red...?"

"Yes?"

"Where did my clothes go...? Can I have them back?"

Red laughed. "Sorry 'bout that. You see, you go into surgery with nothing on. Something about sterilization and germs. But now that you're out, I think we can fit you into something." Red snatched a blue cotton robe from a hook beside her and helped Celeste into it. "Watch your arm, dear...oh, and stop acting so embarrassed! We're all girls!"

The next time Celeste snapped into life, she was much more aware of where she was and what was going on. She had obviously been moved from the recovery room at some point into a more comforting semi - private hospital room that didn't have such a stale air of urgency hanging in it. "It's much more...homelike," Celeste decided...until she noticed the crimson reploid sitting beside her.

The reploid was having a doze, his head cradled in his arms, which were laid on Celeste's bed. In the dim light, Celeste spied the reptilian escorts of the Regal Dragons Unit badge newly soldered on the reploid's shoulder. A gold ponytail of impressive length spilled out from behind his gilded helmet. He awoke with a start when he detected Celeste's movement. "Hey Celeste," he mumbled quietly with a sleepy smile. "Are you all right? Can I get you anything?"

"I think I'm fine."

"That's good. So, you tackled a Maverick, huh? I can see that you have the 'never give up and never think things out logically' spirit that your father had. You'd better be more careful."

Celeste paused. "You knew my dad?"

"No, but I heard about him. Jake, right? He was a Spartan."

"Yes. He went after Torrent Leviathan by himself, and I guess you could say he payed for it. I see where you're getting at."

Zero decided it would be best to change the subject. "I'm Zero, by the way."

Celeste wasn't really listening, but she was trembling slightly.

"Celeste, what's wrong?"

There were a lot of things wrong. Mostly, Celeste was lonely and scared. She had seen her mother a while back, but she had only been able to stay for a little while before she had been politely hearded out of the recovery room and back into the refugee camp. "Nothing...my arm just hurts," Celeste made excuse.

Zero was already up and preparing a syringe of something. "Well, I can fix that!" He returned and eased a small needle into Celeste's arm. "There you go. That should help. It'll also make you drowsy, so if you feel sleepy, don't fight it."

Celeste sank back into her pillow wearily. All at once, everything caught up with her, causing tears to sting her eyes. She gave up and began to sob. Zero regarded her with mild surprise. "There now," he soothed, pushing back Celeste's bangs from her eyes. "You're going to be fine. Just go to sleep."

Obediently, Celeste turned over, still shaking. Zero watched her until he was sure she had fallen asleep. Once he had confirmed it, he extracted a small pencil and notebook. It had been such a memorable day, Zero decided, that he wanted to record it. Start a journal, in fact. "Who knows," Zero pondered mentally, "someday in the future, someone might actually want to read this. Or use it for firestarter." Zero shrugged, and the pencil began to scratch onto the notebook paper, leaving a trail of words that recorded the day's events:

April 12 / 21XX

"Today marked an amazing turn of events for me. As a reward for saving those refugees, Skysheen made me a member of the Regal Dragons! Woo hoo! Now things'll get underway in earnest.

"I've been thinking a lot about how things have turned out. At first I thought that I wanted to rescue those refugees just for the sake of a fight, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I actually WANTED to save them. Besides that, I also wanted to watch over Celeste. Yick, I hope I'm not growing respect for humans. That would go against my purpose in life.

"But anyway, to happier stuff! As soon as Skysheen made me a member of the Regal Dragons, he took me on a tour of the RD branch of MHHQ. Quite interesting. I was assigned a computer lab along with some other Unit members, where we were supposed to log in the number of Maverick kills we had made that week. Instead, we downloaded the 'Barbie Girl' song from the ancient 'Aqua' website, printed out the lyrics, and had a singalong before I came back down to keep and eye on Celeste. Am I a hard worker or what?"

Zero closed the journal and yawned. Prior to exiting the Medical Unit, he threw one last concerned glance at Celeste to make sure she was sleeping all right. With that confirmed, he went on his way.