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[Silv]

Rose smiled when Bido complimented her hair, running a hand through it absently as she pulled back her hood now that they were inside. People usually made fun of her white hair. It was nice to have someone think it was nice for a change. Then the dragon asked about the Titans. “Because he hates them,” Rose said airily. “I do too,” he voice turned hard as she thought of those horrible brother-murderers. “They killed my brother.” But caves were a much happier thing to think about as she led the way through the tunnels. He was asking her why she and Slade lived underground. Actually...she had no idea. “I dunno,” the girl said with a shrug. “But we're not Bats.” she added quickly. “I'm pretty sure he'd find that insulting. And I don't live down here all the time. I have a dorm too. I go to school.” Rose made a gag-me-with-a-spoon sort of facial expression as she stopped in front of a doorway. She turned to face her dragon friend. “Okay. We have to be super sneaky from now on. I'm gunna take you back to my room, and you can hide there, while I find us some food.” she pushed open the door. “Then I can figure out what I'm going to tell Dad.”

[Empathy]

Bido fell silent when Rose explained her and her father's hate for the titans. He remembered his own interactions with the titans. The kindness of the redheaded titans, the hurt inflicted by the children of the bat: Bido could partly understand Rose. Or at least he thought he could. "Bido doesn't like the boy of the bat either."

The subject of caves was indeed a much lighter one. "Rose lives in the outside world?" The reptile mutant's face was a mixed expression of fear and awe. "Isn't school... full of bullies?" Bido remembered them somewhat. From before he was a dragon. The Morlock kept talking, oblivious to the fact that they were supposed to be sneaky around Slade's home.

Even after Rose pointed out the fact, he became invisible but kept the same flow of words, just a little less loud. "Bido will be sneakily invisible." He kept following the white haired girl. "Does Rose's lair have a chocolate stash? Bido always has a chocolate stash in his hoard." Bido ignored the whole 'what to tell dad' issue. His mind was focused on more primary needs. "Bido is eager to see Rose's room. Does it have a shiny hoard?"

[Deleted]

An alert popped up the moment one of the surface entrances was opened up. Slade was notified any time anyone entered or left any of his bases, especially when his daughter's code was being used. He would not have been surprised if someone had captured her and interrogated her for the information. So Slade had to make sure it was Rose coming down instead of some hostile force. He was indeed surprised when he saw it was actually Rose, but the girl was not alone. There was a mutant with her.

Interesting.

Slade left what he was doing and locked the room behind him as he moved about in darkness. No one would know this place better than he, and sight was something one should not have to rely on in their home. Not that Slade would actually call this place a home. Home was a word he had not used since the incident with his other son. It was a bad coincidence he came upon Rose and the stranger just as she was telling him about the Titans killing her brother.

Any other person would have had an emotional response at the mention of a son's death. Not Slade. The first thought in his mind was Rose best have a decent explanation for giving away so much information to a stranger and then leading him down into one of his bases. And all of that had been done without his permission. He would have to have a little 'talk' with Rose about that later to remind her the rules of working with him.

"Bats are not welcome here," Slade said as he stepped out of the darkness in front of them. "And neither are other animals," he quickly added as he looked from Rose to the space where he knew Bido was standing.

"What exactly do you think you are doing, Rose?" he asked as he turned his full gaze on his daughter.

[Silv]

“Yeah, school sucks,” Rose confided in the dragon, who seemed to sort of already know about school. The girl didn't seem to question how a magical creature would know about something as inconsequential and human as school. “But nobody bullies me. Anybody who tries get their butt kicked,” there was a smug look on the girl's face as she said this. It wasn't entirely true, but she'd been suspended plenty of times for picking fights. “And then I get suspended. But that's okay,” the girl shrugged. They fell silent again as Rose snuck past an area she knew her Dad and Wintergreen tended to hang around. She held a hand to her lips to silence the silly dragon. It...wasn't working out so well. She giggled when he mentioned her room having a hoard and the lightness of the moment made her forget they were supposed to be sneaking. “I'm not a dragon!” she protested with a smile. “I don't have a-” Her Dad's voice cut through the chattering pair and Rose realized they were kind of horrible at being sneaky when she and Bido were together. The girl whirled to face her Father moving to stand between him and her new pet dragon in a protective fashion. “Daddy!” she greeted him with a gigantic, if slightly forced, smile. “I uhhh....I found a dragon,” she gestured slightly behind her. “And he followed me home.” “I know you have a thing against animals, and anything fun, but he's a dragon,” she focused up on her Father's single eye and tried to look terribly innocent and convincing. Her smile was pleading. “Can I keep him? Please!?”

[Empathy]

"Rose gets suspended?" Bido repeated the tidbit of information. "But can Rose sneak away when she's suspended?" The scale-shifting dragon had a sense that his new friend was even better than him at being sneaky. More giggling ensued as Rose's potential hoard was mentioned, but then a big, threatening figured appeared seemingly out of thin air. It spoke with a deep, commanding voice that made Bido take a big gulp of saliva before hiding behind Rose.

The girl gave a much braver show than her pet dragon, telling a story so convincing that even Bido found himself nodding maniacally. He seemed to have otherwise lost his voice. When Rose asked her final question, and her daddy looked at Bido, the latter couldn't get more than a squee out.

"Bido." He spoke shortly, trying to let go of some of his angst. This had not been the jolly Santa Claus he had been promised earlier. The lonely eye was spooky, and Bido had a nagging feeling the outfit was one he ought to recognize. Like the person was someone famous. "Bido."

[Deleted]

Slade made no indication of having any emotional response to Rose's little innocent act. He knew very well she was only acting like to try and get out of all the trouble she was about to be in. The girl knew better than to bring anyone into any of his bases. The stranger would have immediately been disposed of had Rose not said it was a dragon. Now that was certainly an interesting concept. Although he had to wonder just what Rose's definition of dragon was after seeing the creature behind her.

"A dragon." His words were not a question or a statement. Slade was merely repeating her words as his eye moved over from his daughter to the creature. The creature seemed to be missing an arm by the looks of things but was not bleeding all over the place. So the creature at least possessed some interesting regenerative ability. The question is if it that ability could be harvested or if this creature could be of any use. Otherwise, there was no way Slade was about to let some stray into his base.

If it had not been for the fact Rose was the one asking, Slade would have not even considered letting the creature stay. So maybe there was some emotion deep down inside the man kept buried. It still did not show in his posture nor tone.

"I will assume the creature's name is Bido," Slade began as he turned his gaze back upon the girl. "If he is indeed a dragon, then he will have to prove so before he can stay here," he continued as he turned around and pressed a panel on the wall. The hidden door opened, and Slade walked into the laboratory. Rose and Bido would be smart to follow immediately before the door closed.

[Silv]

Daddy has his eye trained on her and was asking if the dragon's name was Bido. The girl nodded enthusiastically hoping against hope that Slade had decided she could keep him. When her father said something about Bido proving he was a dragon before the creature could say Rose burst into a brilliant smile.

Of course he was a dragon! That meant he could stay!

"Come on!" she reached back a hand for Bido, giving him a reassuring smile, before skipping through the hidden door after her Father. Rose wasn't often let into the laboratory. She was too clumsy, and impulsive to be safe in such a space. The girl wrinkled her nose at the smell of chemicals and other foreign smells that assailed her senses upon moving through the door. She wasn't as used to them as her Father was.

"How are you going to test his dragonness, Daddy?" Rose asked following behind the man like a happy little duckling who was being taken on a jaunt to the pond. She didn't even notice when the door slid shut ominously behind them barring exit. Rose trusted Slade not to hurt them.

[Empathy]

Bido offered no resistance as Ravager pulled him through a newly opened door. "Bido." A little stunned and very unsure of how he was supposed to prove his status as a dragon, Bido just followed the girl's lead. Even though this brought Bido from a spooky place to a downright scary one. "Bido. Bido doesn't recognize those smells." Despite being accustamted to Jump's finest underground aromas, the little dragon had not set foot in such a esoteric lab before. Looking around, Bido saw all kinds of dissected creatures, mechanical devices and robots. "Shiny." He stated, half-hardheartedly. This reminded him a bit too much of his time after being captured by the titans, where scientists in white coats kept him in a place smelling vaguely similar.

"Bido is a dragon." Still rather subdued, the little mutant felt the need to justify his existence, his life-style and core beliefs. "Bido used to have a hoard. Bido's hoard was vast and shiny." Did losing his hoard also cost him his dragon status? Bido hadn't thought of that before now. It was a distressing idea. He quickly grabbed for other proofs of his dragonness, almost for to quell his self-doubt than to convince Slade to keep him alive. "Bido has scales. They are magical scales. Bido can use them to become invisible." That counter for something, right? "And Bido talked to other dragons. Bido was recognized as a brother by Naga the sea dragon." Family counted too, right? Bido looked with scared eyes at Rose, looking for help and support. "And Bido was hunted. By dragon hunters with big scary traps with lots of teeth."

[Deleted]

The majority of the laboratory was hidden in darkness except for the immediate areas around them as Slade led them through the area. Slade did not need Rose getting sight of some of his projects going on even if she would be the best suited to testing out the equipment. The projects were just not to the testing phase, and he did not need her taking something and using it without even knowing what it was capable of achieving. That was one way to blow up the city, and that was not Slade's goal. Now if she were to use said device on a certain Tower.... That was just being too hopeful of Rose's abilities.

Slade left Rose's question unanswered as he listened to everything Bido was saying. It seemed as if the creature was trying to persuade Slade into believing he was a dragon, but the reasoning thrown out was almost as if Bido was trying to convince himself as well. Interesting. The creature's mental state could be considered rather fragile then. No wonder Rose had no problem in befriending the creature and leading down without any problem. At least Slade learned some interesting information as Bido continued to spoke. The ability of invisibility and then the mention of the sea dragon. That creature had not been seen for quite some time, but Slade remembered it well. Although Bido's last statement was the most intriguing. Someone was hunting this creature down, and that meant the creature held some worth. It would take to figure out just who was searching for the creature and why, but it was possible.

"A simple scan will suffice in extracting the information I need. No needles. No pain. Stand on that platform over there, and we will begin," Slade answered as he now stood in front of a console. The silver platform lit up almost instantly so Bido would have no problem knowing where to stand.

[Silv]

Bido was telling her father all about how dragony he was and Rose smiled encouragingly at him as he did so. She couldn't see beyond where they were in the lab, which was a shame, because she would have loved to play with all the new inventions in there.

When Bido turned towards her with scared eyes to explain the hunters she reached out her hand to him again and gave him a fiercely determined smile. "Don't worry Bido, those dragon hunters won't hurt you ever again," she didn't care if her Dad heard her making promises to the dragon. She was being typical Rose. "We'll get revenge on them."

Her Dad stopped at a console and Rose bounced to a stop just behind him, peering curiously around him to see the screen. He said he was going to scan her dragon, and that it wouldn't hurt him, so she gave a quick nod and gestured to the silver platform that had just lit up. "It'll be okay," she reassured the dragon with a smile. "Daddy won't hurt you," she fixed her father in a glare when she said that because he better have been telling the truth.

Once she figured Bido knew what he was doing she made her way back over to Slade's side and tried to get a good look at the console. "What are you scanning for, Daddy?" she asked curiously. "Is this a dragon scanner?"

[Empathy]

Bido's eyes squinted as the silver platform lit up. Despite Slade's assurances that the scan was painless, the little dragon shifted around uneasily, his camouflage turning on. But Rose was fast to smile at her friend and offer reassuring words. Bido's skin shifted towards its natural green color. "Bido promise?"

The dragon eventually made it inside the scanner. The glass container closed around him. Bido could still see Rose and her father talking, but the words did not come through. It was awfully silent inside the scanner. "Biiiido." he sighed. That's when a red circle suddenly surrounded the top of the glass cylinder. "Shiny?" It started moving down slowly. "Oh. It's just made of red light." Bido was a little disappointed. You couldn't touch light, even if it was shiny.

As the laser circle progressed downwards, it reflected off Bido's scale. "Bido feels warm." That was a pleasant feeling, after the cold and wet past few hours and days. Bido's hands followed the red light down, keen to capture all the heat as well as play off the shiny bright color off his scales. "Bido!"

[Deleted]

It was a good thing Rose was there to ease the creature's worries and convince the creature to step into the scanner. Slade would not have been so gentle about the method. Anything could have a tranquilizer used on it, and the creature did not need to be conscious for the scanner to work. At least this way there was less conflict, and Slade noticed the creature trusted his daughter. Now the question was if the creature could be of any use.

The glass came down, and the scanner began its process. Of course Rose was curious as to what the scanner was actually doing. "It will scan his genetic make up, and I can examine it after to see just what our friend here is. For all we know, he is simply another metahuman, but keep that to yourself. The creature's mind is already fragile enough. No need to make him question his existence again."

There was no mistaking the fact the creature was more innocent than a killing machine. One could easily tell that just by watching the creature as it played with the red light inside the scanner. Slade was not sure if the creature would ever have any real use aside from providing samples. At the very least, Rose would have something equivalent of a pet and would keep her docile for a bit as well. Slade could not really say anything definite until he knew what this creature could do.

"Where did you find him?" Slade asked her as the scan neared its end.

[Silv]

Rose watched Bido step into the scanner curiously, her eyes flicking between watching her new friend, and seeing the screen her Dad was in front of. She couldn't help but smile when the red light came on and Bido started playing with it like a cat. A small giggle escaped her but she quickly stifled it and turned her attention to Slade when he started talking. “Metahuman?” she echoed, her brows drawing together in confusion. Bido didn't look remotely human to her. He was obviously a dragon. Where would her Dad get the idea that Bido was a metahuman? But she would do as Daddy said and not tell Bido that her father thought he wasn't a dragon. Though, really, it was because she thought he was a dragon too. Then came the awkward question of where she'd found him. Awkward mostly because she had no excuse for being around the docks when she should have been at school. The girl shifted uncomfortably, her gaze on Bido for a second, before she glanced back up at her father. There was no lying to Slade. “I found him at the wharves.” she said. “He was on a pile of crates between warehouses. I thought he was dead so I decided to poke him.” Oh Rose and her Kindergarten logic.

[Empathy]

Bido tried to chase the red line right to the bottom of the container. "Don,t go away, little light. Bido needs your warmth." The crouched reptile pleaded. When it hit the ground however, the red light backtracked, and went back up again]. "Bido!" The mutant exclaimed with delighted surprise. His green hands quickly followed the red light again.

Bido was pretty much oblivious to the discussion outside his glass container. He couldn't hear Rose and Slade talking, and obviously was too focused on the red light to read too much into their body language. Instead, Bido reflected on his fortune today. "Rose is a good girl. Bido was very lucky to meet Rose." Remembering their earlier discussion about beards, the scales of his lower chin turned white again.

When the scan finished, Bido pleaded again to the red light to come back down. But eventually he understood that the test was over, and looked over to Slade and daughter. "Can Bido come out now?" He wasn't sure if the pair could hear them. The glass was still surrounding the reptile man. "Did Bido pass the dragon test?" His voice carried a note of alarm. Was that why they were taking so long?

[Deleted]

"Yes, metahuman. Some mutations are very aggressive and completely change the physiology of a person. That could very well be the case with your friend here," Slade explained to Rose as the scan was almost over. There was no telling just what this Bido was until Slade looked over all the information himself. Even though such metahumans did exist, one could not rule any other possibilities. This Bido could be some sort of alien they had not encountered yet or he could very well be a dragon. There was just no reason to rush into anything just yet.

Then came Rose's explanation of how she found the creature. She actually went up to something she thought was dead and poked it. That was a clear sign her training was lacking or it was just something there was nothing Slade could do about. Certain personality traits were almost impossible to train out of somebody, and he had no idea if this was one of those. At the very least she had brought him a unique specimen that could prove of some use. If the creature at least held some regenerative properties, that alone would help speed along the serum he was working on. The invisibility would be something else Slade would look into once the full analysis was complete.

Slade chose not to comment on her story as the scan came to an end. A press of a button and the glass wall rose up from around Bido just as Bido asked his question.

"Everything is just fine Bido. There is nothing to worry about now," Slade answered Bido calmly before turning back to Rose. "It will take time to analyze everything. Until then, he can stay here."