Any experiment you can walk away from...

I'll give Ash credit, he kept on my tail the whole flight, even when I threw a couple stunts in he followed my lead. After we touched down I had Ash help me set up the experiment. After I secured my jetpack.

I still had some samples of the Founder's ichor from before he was irradiated, for golem creation and such. He drank the Ereb'ai Bloodwine throughout his entire existance, for thousands of years. I could almost see that distinctive color in the black fluid even before I began heating it to filtrate.

I watched nervously as the pure juice slowly spiraled down the tubes into the smaller beaker. A line printer squealed as it scrawled out the purity of the Bloodwine. We both looked on curiously at the results of purified ichor. Ash read the results directly from the feed.

"50% Neko hemoglobin. 50% Unidentified, positive for anti-aging and regenerative elements...cross-referencing...Ichor positive for trace elements found in Immortals of Olympian...conclusion rejected...proportions incorrect for ambrosia...refining analysis..."

"Wow" I said, "so Bloodwing's Mom really was a neko. I guess that explains the whole Vortex thing too..." I watched as the ichor, now turned from black to red, began to glow.

"Umm...Ash?"

"Fascinating! Self-contained catalysts requiring neither ambrosia nor bloodwine substitute..."

Flames began erupting from the larger beaker.

"ASH!"

"Sir! This is a discovery of paradigm-cracking proportions!"

I jumped up and grabbed his jacket by his epaulets, pulling him down. "DAMMIT ASH! STOP SPARKING! THIS IS A NO-MONOLOGUE ZONE! THE ICHOR IS ON FIRE!"

"But of course, Sir! Purified Titan blood is known to..."

I grabbed the vial of reconstituted bloodwine. "Follow me! Heed your Maker!"

That snapped him back to attention. Suddenly he scooped me up and kicked the secret door of rotating stones, smashing it. His metal bat-wings extended with a slicing sound and we were airborne. I covered the bottle with my hand as a stopper, even though my hands were staring to blister from the heat. I saw a flash below and looked down to see a column of smoke where Novem once stood.

"OY..."

"For once I have to agree with you, Darien. We seem to have destroyed your commercial venture."

"What do you mean WE, Tin Man? You should have beenpaying attention!"

"I was Sparking, Master Darien! You should have followed basic procedures and..."

"Basic Procedures? I've only been in Europan Day School for what, two weeks? Cut me some slack! Miss Viv and Miss Lily are gonna SCRAP you for this!"

"US, Darien. You blew it up as well."

"DID NOT!"

"You did, too."

"DID NOT! And you owe me a new jet..."

A shadow fell over us both, and Ash stopped to hover as we stared at the underbelly of the largest Black Trireme we had ever seen.

"Ash? Didn't we just see this somewhere?"

"It does strike me as derivative, yes..."