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Chapter 38: Unfinished Business

Up until that moment, none of the Bright Bats, aside from Aero, had met Teomo's mayor. However, since the police force was a mess, Mayor Klatt had sent her own security guards to intercept the three museum thieves when the Drache touched down on Klickelan. The second Teisel stepped out onto the grass, still clad in Roll's towel and not much else, he found himself immediately apprehended by the officials.

"Teisel Bonne?" one of the men addressed him as he gave Terra's last known line of defense against the Elder System a quick glance-over. "We're here on behalf of Mayor Bernice Klatt of Teomo City. She has taken it upon herself to summon you and Aero Goodwin to City Hall for your pending interrogation, along with the third accomplice in the robbery of the local museum and in the murder of Gonzo Goodwin. We would like your cooperation in locating Miss Goodwin and identifying your accomplice."

Max and Pic climbed out of the Drache. They were grateful that they'd had to leave Grill behind on the island until they could come back for him with a rental boat. He wouldn't have liked the look of this at all. Since Teisel seemed to be at a complete loss for words, Max stepped in. "Aero's skipped town," he stated. "She hopped a ship out of here and wouldn't tell any of us where she was headed." When the guard just stared at him in suspicion, he added, "By the way, my name's Max. You've heard of me, right? Fearless leader of the Bright Bats?"

The guard just stared blankly and asked, "...Who?"

Max heaved a sigh and Teisel held himself together long enough to brush off whatever it was that had been on his mind. He needed to cut into that conversation before the three of them were charged with gang-related activity on top of their current predicament. "Nothing important," he quickly explained. "I've, uh, I can explain everything at City Hall, no problem. Just...could I at least run home and grab a pair of pants?"

If Teisel's request amused any of the guards at all, they didn't show it. The man who'd been doing all of the talking shook his head. "Murder of a government official is a very grave offense."

"I didn't kill Chief Goodwin," Teisel persisted, "And I don't want to be slapped with an indecent exposure charge on top of that, either!"

Pic stepped forward. "I could go get some clothes for him. We're roommates."

"All three of you?"

Max nodded and opened his mouth to respond, but Teisel and Pic both stared him down until he finally got the message that perhaps it would be in his best interest to keep his mouth shut.

"We're going to have to bring you two in for questioning as well, then," the guard informed them. "However, since we have no reason at this time to consider you accomplices to the murder, you may retrieve some more suitable attire for Mr. Bonne."

"I guess we'll see you at City Hall, T-Bonne," Max replied. "I'll be back--you have my word." He and Pic turned to head toward Teomo City and waved. "Good luck."

Bernice Klatt was a tiny woman who had to have been pushing eighty at least. Although she'd been the mayor for longer than he had been alive, Max had no idea what she'd even looked like until she'd summoned his strategist to trial in her office. He did, however, vaguely recognize her face from the crowd back on Volnutt Island, and after thinking about that a little, he wasn't terribly surprised about it.

If she'd mentioned anything about Teisel's family before he and Pic made it to City Hall with Teisel's clothes, Max couldn't tell. When he and Pic arrived, the reluctant digger was already in the middle of animatedly explaining what he'd found in the ruins. From the sound of it, Teisel was trying to write off what he and Pic and Aero had been doing at the museum in the middle of the night.

"We really have no idea where she went after leaving the island," Teisel insisted when the subject of Aero came up. It wasn't entirely untrue. Roll and Art probably didn't even know exactly where they were going when they took off in the Flutter.

"Aero didn't kill her dad," Pic added before Teisel could accidentally make Aero look any guiltier for fleeing the island. "Her mom thinks she did, but her mom hates her. Max and I have known her for twelve years, five months, and twenty-three days. She wouldn't kill anybody. Bullbreath and Thunderhead and their gangs did that part."

"Thunderhead's going by Seedy Leigh these days," Teisel added. "You should really look into him. That ruin information he's been selling down on 9th Street can't possibly be legal."

Mayor Klatt, whose secretary had been taking diligent notes on the trio's report, nodded and replied, "If I hadn't seen that thing blast out of Ghiotte Summit with my own eyes, I'm not sure I would have believed a word any of you just said. However, all things considered, I believe the best course of action at this time is to keep the three of you here until we can be sure you aren't just trying to get out of trouble. In the meantime, we're going to send a representative of the Digger's Guild—the best diggers we have on hand—to further investigate Ghiotte Summit and explore this hole you claim to have dug into the auxiliary tower. If you really did discover a generator that required the card from the museum to run, and the curator failed to even identify the card in question, then he's the one in the wrong here, assuming you didn't cause any damage to anything in the museum to get it...but without any kind of character reference who can vouch for you, it wouldn't be prudent of me to just let you go right away. How am I supposed to be sure you won't just run off and meet up with your friend again?"

"That really wasn't what it looked like!" Max exclaimed. "We're not..."

But before Max could say anything dumb enough to further incriminate any of them, the door to the mayor's office creaked open, and of all people, Bakerly the baker stepped inside. He looked incredibly out of place in his shabby cap and flour-covered apron. "Sorry I'm late, Bernice. Broad Street was closed off thanks to the harbor damage, and I had to take this ridiculous detour through..."

"It's fine, Bakerly," Mayor Klatt sighed. "I was just getting around to collecting character references for these suspects in the Goodwin case."

"Just a baker?" Teisel suddenly spoke up. "Really, Bakerly?"

Mayor Klatt frowned. "You didn't know he was the vice mayor of this city?" she asked. "I didn't think anybody believed his 'I'm just a baker' act."

"HEY! I am NOT as dumb as I look!" Teisel snapped, but when he realized he'd just yelled at the mayor, his face grew bright red and he quickly added, "I mean, uh, I, er, that is..."

"Bakerly, is there something you ought to be telling me about these suspects?"

The alleged baker glanced over at the trio and shrugged. "I know all of these guys," he told his boss. "They don't usually drop by together, but they're always in and out of the bakery. I didn't know they were friends, or involved in the police attack. You can let them go."

"You're absolutely insane," the mayor riposted. "You just want them to walk free so they can buy more of your baked goods. You always let the easy sales go."

"In our defense, we really didn't kill any police officers," Pic said, but the two officials didn't pay him much attention.

"I guess if Bakerly insists you're alright, I ought to count that as a valid reference," Mayor Klatt reluctantly replied. "I expect you to fill out the requisite forms on your way out. We're going to need to continue your questioning once the Digger's Guild has investigated the ruins and we get that report from the museum. Failure to comply will result in incarceration, no matter the state of the police force, mark my word.

"As for Chief Goodwin," she continued, "there is no denying that the damage done to the harbor district is far too substantial for three people on one motorhorse to have possibly caused. Although the idea of the chief of police spending all of that money on a giant robot just so he could exert his dominance over his child is completely ridiculous, we can't deny the extent of the destruction inflicted on that part of town. I'll have to call in a few favors and have our remaining police officers questioned at once."

Max broke into a grin, vigorously shook the tiny old woman's hand, and exclaimed, "Thanks a ton! Your findings won't let you down, ma'am!"

"Don't rip her arm off, Max," Teisel interjected. "The idea was to get out of jail time, remember?"

"Yeah, sure. You did a great job keeping your voice down just now," Max snickered as the three of them thanked the mayor and Bakerly and headed out to the City Hall lobby.

Bakerly waved as they left and called after them, "Don't forget, cinnamon rolls are 20% off tomorrow!"

In the end, after a series of messy trials, the government let Teisel off the hook once they were able to confirm the Bright Bats' testimony. He would only have to pay a fine of 30,000 zenny for damages to the allegedly valuable sculpture Pic had used to break into the museum display. The sculpture itself was only worth about 6,000 zenny. The rest covered the cost of a replacement display case.

Despite Bakerly's intervention, the police would ask Teisel time and time again about what had happened to Aero Goodwin. Strangely enough, he never heard from Dr. Goodwin directly, but whenever anybody did ask, he would genuinely respond with a shrug. He had no way of knowing where the Flutter had docked at any given moment, after all.

The Bright Bats hung onto their Rebel Rider affiliation even without Aero. Teisel still loved riding through the wasteland like he owned the place, and as expected, the more he raced, the better at racing he became. He knew that if he could stay on Klickelan forever, he could have easily turned the Bright Bats into the top gang in the circuit.

He thought about telling Max, Pic, and Grill about his experience in that alternate reality where the rest of the Bonne family had survived. Sometimes it was right on the tip of his tongue, but he always managed to resist the urge to mention it. He knew they'd listen. He knew they wouldn't laugh or judge him. He didn't really have anything to worry about. Still, something inside him made him want to keep it to himself for a little while longer. That situation did have a certain weirdness factor to it, and even though they'd turned out to be excellent friends in the end, it just seemed like an awkward topic to broach.

Most of all, he didn't want to worry or disappoint them. Teisel figured that after they'd watched him face Seedy Leigh, Chief Goodwin, and Ghiotte Summit, they'd assumed that everything was okay now. That he'd moved on entirely. The last thing he wanted was for them to realize that he still had nightmares sometimes, and he still had moments where he'd find himself spacing out in the middle of the day. He still saw Draches in the sky and Servbots running around during those times when he ended up scared or, more commonly, stressed out. Even though he knew it was only his mind running wild, the fact that it was still happening disappointed him, and he definitely didn't want to disappoint Max, Pic, and Grill as well. Still, Teisel was very much aware of how easy he was to read, and he was grateful for their support when they offered it. Asking for help was just a lot harder than it sounded.

So when Teisel started sneaking off to Volnutt Island on his own, he didn't tell any of the others. As hard as going out there had been the first time, he discovered that the more often he visited the place, the more he began to think of it as a safe haven where he could go when he really missed having his family around. He could bring Sprocket on the days when he wanted company, and he would never have to worry about how it would affect the rest of the gang.

That was how he found himself sitting under the tree next to Tron's grave one cool, crisp, sunny day about seven months after Aero left, with his little sister's book resting against his legs and a ballpoint pen in his hand. He'd taken to calling her unfinished epic "The Ending We Deserved," and he decided, after a few dozen false starts, that this would be it. This would be the day he finally picked up where Tron had left off over ten years earlier. He knew that if he just let it sit unfinished, it would eat away at him for the rest of his life. He needed the closure before he took off for the open skies on his new adventure. Both of them did.

He had a rough idea in mind about where he wanted the story to go. He'd been thinking about it for a while. Tron and Mega Man would ultimately need to wind up married in the far-flung future. There was no question about that. He needed to figure out how the version of Roll in this story would deal with it, and while Tron probably wouldn't have been terribly enthusiastic about the idea, Teisel wanted a happy ending for Roll...and for her mother, too. She'd left so many pages for him to fill. Even if Tron had only come to him with a tough case of writer's block and urged him to help her figure out what to do next, he still wouldn't have been sure about where to go from there.

He sat in the shade and stared for hours at the spot where his sister's handwriting stopped, allowing himself to take in that intimidating block of empty space after it and really feel the weight of all of those empty pages resting against his right thigh. The story abruptly ended with Mega Man—Mega Man Volnutt—composing and sending an e-mail as he and Tron tried to work a romantic date around a high-stakes casino robbery. To complicate the matter, Volnutt had no idea that Tron was planning to rob the casino he was visiting. It was such a random place to stop writing. If she'd abandoned that story for any other reason, he liked to think she would have at least made an effort to actually wrap up the scene before setting down her pen and moving on to another project.

Teisel closed his eyes and inhaled. He tried so hard to stay calm, even though his writing hand was trembling.

"Teisel! What are you waiting for?! Suck it up and write already!" he imagined Tron shouting at him from across the field, with a frustrated expression on her face and a pair of Servbots flanking her, as always. He could have sworn he spotted Bon chasing a third Servbot around the launchpad in the distance. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for that stupid email to go through!?"

Teisel couldn't help but smile to himself. Pic had been right. Nobody knew Tron quite like he did. After all, a perfect stranger and a mechanical monkey had, for a couple of hours, successfully used his own memories to reconstruct their summer house and project the Bonne family fourteen years into a future that could have never happened. They'd created a Bonne family believable enough that it even had Teisel fooled for a while.

With a sudden burst of confidence, he brought his pen to paper. Any self-consciousness about how different his handwriting looked next to hers, or how his new vision might have clashed with her lost design had all but vanished entirely by the time he'd finished his first sentence.

'Sheesh, it sure took him long enough,' Tron muttered to herself when she noticed the new message pop up, but she felt her mouth curl into a smile nonetheless as she read its contents.

He held the book out at arm's length and gave himself a moment to take in the new line. It was more than ten years overdue, but it fit in perfectly.

There would be plenty more where that came from.