After his coffee break Ashley heads to one of the older unoccupied labs that no one was using for testing. He carried a large locked box and a few more materials. On his way, he left small chunk with someone he trusted greatly to get a chemical analasis on the crystal. Within this lab area Ashley took a few hours to get some materials and equipment. Then takes a few more to get things up for his first test. The first one that he was going to do was to see if it would react to conventional energies. Such as electrical as he was able to safely get some electrical wires connected to the crystal. Ashley then gets behind a safety glass barrier with a remote that would turn on the battery and feed the crystal with electrical energy. The crystal was pointed in a direction that would point one of the ends at very durable target. He was also wearing the aura scanner to catch any reactions to the crystal.

"This is Ashley Zelpher, electrical energy test one. Three....two.....one....fire in the hole" he said into a blue tooth headset. He then presses the remote to start the flow of electricity into the crystal.

The crystal would begin to glow, the glow growing slowly brighter as the volume of electricity increases but would just rise with the current, lower volume that was going through the structure. The lights flicker in the room just slightly.

Ashley stops the power flow and then starts making some notes on what he saw. As the crystal seemed to collect the energy from the electricity. Now he pondered how to draw out the energy, as it was the main thing. The only reaction that he remembered was when it was in the area of any Covenant Corruption. But for him what was the catalyst for it to activate. So his next thing was to reverse wire a few things and Ashley connected the crystal to a large laser pointer aimed at the metal. He turns on the goggles to see how the energy would flow or not. "Test two, in three....two.....one....line is hot" he then turned on the laser to see what would happen. If it did nothing then he would see what would happen if there was anything that had a Covenant Aura around it.

The crystal in response to the abrupt change, flashes and releases a beam of energy in the direction of the metal, causing it to superheat and explode all within a few seconds, shards would fly everywhere producing modest damage to equipment and to Ashley himself if he should just stand and take it.

Ashley had taken percautions against this and had behind the shield he put up and was very much surprised. He shut off the machine before it went through the wall. He started to laugh like a mad doctor and a feral grin on his face. As success had happened for him but then got serious again and put on his aura scanner to see if the crystal was tapped of energy. His next experiment would take a bit longer to see if he could grow the crystals. He would need to take the large chunk of the ice golem that he had and the solution. Then maybe add a bit more crystal shards into a growth tank under high heat and pressure for it to grow. As he was using what he knew on how they grew in nature. Ash took his tablet device and then started to put in his research notes and thoughts before he progressed on what he needed to do next.

Ashley then started to think of a few applications for the crystal now. But one of the things he thought about was to see if he could use the energy of the crystal for healing. Since he started to read on what various things crystals were related to in culture and other from other finge sciences. Since he was able to use the crystal and other things. He starts drawing out something for a small tank to grow the crystals in. As if to test his theory in general. None the less, now things were rolling for him but now had to be careful of what he did from here on out. "I am going to need a lot of time or a way to quicken this up. But if I can grow them......I can have more material to work off of. Or get lucky with the senshi and knights....Perhaps its time I met with them...but how" he thought to himself and then was starts to clean up from his small experiments.

A few hours later after he cleans the place up and puts his machines away he locks it back up and heads to his office to check for messages or other things.

When Zelpher gets back to his desk, he finds a note from Tanaka:

[Meet me in my office, there's something I want to bring up]

When Ashley made his way to where Dr. Tanaka's office was, he finds that Dr. Matou was leaving. He glares at Ashley and then snaps his finger back in the direction of engineering.

"Back to your cave peasant!" he snaps, angrier than usual, before storming off down another hallway and out of sight of the younger scientist. Inside, Dr. Tanaka would be adjusting his glasses, leering in the direction that Matou had left in.

"Oh, Ashley, good of you to come. Have you heard that there was an incident in the power grid today? Cause a few of Matou's pet projects to go haywire and he's looking for someone to take the heat for it." he says a bit too casually, as he opens a folder and looks at it.

"He tried to say that my KOES Serum Synthesis was causing it, but he got really upset when I refuted him with data" he says with a slight chuckle. "But that's not why I asked you here...I believe I have noted something a little...interesting. Recently the flamboyant one had to adhere to the chain of command and send his toys out to the field, four came back with minor damage, one was substantially beaten up, and the sixth was lost. Makes you wonder just what we're dealing with out there...but even more, I heard Dr. Matou shout something about 'Facility XC-0N' to the tin cans on their way back, does that strike you as anything?" he says, scratching his chin hairs boredly.

Ashley narrowly dogged Rishijo as he went on a deva meltdown over something and just stayed silent. He felt a bit pissed that he was ordered around like a kicked puppy. After the man passes he turns to Dr.Tanaka and then sighs when the man passes. He motions for the doctor to go back into his office as Ashley walked into it. Once they were in and the door was locked, he begins to laugh a bit. "Well then....it seems I am the guilty one in this. I was conducting my own experiment.....I did not realize that it took that much power. Anyway, I will explain that later as your question and what you have said got my attention" he said and then went on to what the doctor said about the SPECTOR units getting there asses handed to them. He knew that they were strong but this was much more surprising to him on the fact that one got busted up really good and one went missing.

"They, might have come against something that could defeat them, I am surprised when they were not called to fight a Class V Covenant that attacked a few days ago. So maybe they ran into something that was on par with that thing or something stronger. But him yelling this XC-ON....perhaps its his own private laboratory that he uses for the SPECTORS or his own use. That's all I can think of....but something weird is going on now and I can not put my finger on it" said Ashley as he thought on the things that Tanaka brought up with him. It was all very perplexing he needed to do something with what he had done several hours ago. Although so far the good doctor was working with him and did gain his trust. So perhaps he could ask for a favor soon.

"Heh, you play a dangerous game Zelpher...bad things will assuredly happen to you if the flamingo ever catches you being naughty behind his back. Fortunately he can't see past his own obsession most of the time." Tanaka says, possibly speaking from experience. Even though Matou was the director of science, a department head could at least bump heads with him within a certain extent.

"Hm...that is sort of interesting, perhaps they didn't identify it as a class V quickly enough to mobilize...or maybe it's the sanitation protocol of bombing an area that they use to repel a Class V, as silly as I think that is personally." he says, leaning back and poking the side of his head with the back end of a pen...one of his odd 'thinking quirks'.

"It really is interesting though...Matou must feel the pressure from on high to get results. Apparently General Masuou was so impressed with the private industry's walking tank that the government is seriously considering outsourcing all it's scientific projects due to Matou's lack of progress report after report." he says with a slight laugh.

"I always thought Matou was a narcissist but you know I wonder if he has his own agenda sometimes. For all his ego he does have a brilliant mind, but yet he seems to do nothing tangible with it, and anything he does do is kept top secret. I actually tried to hack his personal mainframe a few days ago and I ran into an odd encryption scheme that doesn't match anything JSDF uses: I could dig into the President's files without a sweat, but that stuff...insane." he says, chuckling a little as he looks around the room.

"Been scanning my room every day twice now to make sure he hasn't bugged me along with running my own specialized run times on my data to keep him out. Hopefully my anonymity program kept me concealed but well you know him."

"At this point I can say he can screw himself as there really has not been any progress on anyone else experiments except his. Nor have we seen other brilliant minds here, as he tries to make sure he is the only one that is shining like a diamond while everyone is guttersnipe trash. Once I get done with I need to do, I am going around him and speak to either the General or the President. And show them what I have made and perhaps get them to do something about Pinkie Pie. I might get the most wrath from this man and might be his number one target from now on. But it would at least give a chance for other people to rise" said Ashley as he voiced what his plans were to Tanaka. As he was now quite furious to this fact and his eyes went to slits on the fact due to that man's ego that was going to happen to there department. This time he was going to go all out with what he wanted to do.

"Knowing this man so far.....he already has one. Now I would not go that far for information like what your doing. But my faith has been getting shattered as of late with any government. So like the same I have done the same along with a few additional things at my home. But how odd is the encryption scheme. I do my own coding and have made several personal security programs. Plus a few interesting virus programs. So I know my stuff, good doctor" he said to the man next to him as he saw him do a odd thinking quirk.

"Showing the brass a flashy prototype alone isn't enough, then flamingo can just say that the resources are hard to acquire or large scale implementation isn't possible. Now if you had some more combat data, then you might be able to get somewhere with it. Of course his credit keeps declining lately. But be careful about being a martyr, he'll just whisk you off to that outpost he likes to for people he doesn't like..." he says as he pokes his face with the back of the pen a little more.

"I've been thinking a lot lately...Matou's actions don't entirely line up. While to the politicians and jarheads he can mess around and to coin an old term 'baffle them with bullshit', I have lately begun to question his loyalties. He created cybernetic supersoldiers that he still insists can't be deployed as a normal contingent due to 'experiment status' that has been going on for five years now, plus since you stole that stuff from him, which is a miracle material that apparently destroys KOES infection from tissue samples, that would be a modern miracle in medicine. There are soldiers in Shinjuku hospital who are too critical to move when the Class V struck about a week or so ago...they have deep infection of KOES from energy contamination and the supernatural attacks that Scorpio used. Also...there's the fact that he immediately took possession of the corpse and refuses to let any other department at it. I mean Taika and myself could probably gleam something from that body, and Matou isn't as knowledgeable in biological sciences as we are..." he says, then sighing just slightly.

"It makes you wonder what his personal agenda is, because day by day I'm starting to believe it's not in the benefit of Japan."

"Agreed.....I think with the facts adding up, I think that the Director might be working with or is a covenant member. I was a tad blind since I figured the man did not want to half ass things and wanted results at over 100% with out failing. But after snagging the crystal and seeing the senshi in action. Plus other things as of late have brought a lot of doubt to my mind" Ashley said expressing his thoughts and feelings on the matter. "It would make sense to put a idiot into the system to foul it up. As you said though that you and Taika would have gained something from the corpse. But if lets say he was Covenant it would make sense for him to get the body out of there. Before people could dissect it to figure out what made it tick. So he would try and sabotauge everyone to a degree to hinder any innovation" he said and then looked at Tanaka as he was trying to think about something.

"If I am going to need battle data for this weapon, I am going to need more of those crystals. Or if I wanted to give some to trusted people, I am going to need more. Would you be interested in helping me in this venture? Because I think I might know a way to grow these things" said Ashley as he knew Tanaka knew more on the lab and was just as crafty or more so then himself. "If you do help me I can give you the first chance to get some of these" he said to him. While another thing came to mind. "To the best of your memory, has there been anyone that has any of there projects or research passed by the Director." it had been awhile since he had a good puzzle to solve and was going to try and break down something of the Director.

"Well, we need something more direct before we accuse him of the big C.." Tanaka says with a slight sigh. "Even if it makes sense, you could probably successfully argue that we are working with them with out own clandestine projects behind the director's back." he says with a small shrug. "Much as I'm sure more than a few people would want to shoot him, we can't rush into that without undermining our own credibility."

When Tanaka heard the proposal about the crystals, he rubbed his chin with the tip of his writing utensil for a few good moments as the glasses tilted against the light to produce just the smallest glare from the light.

"Well of course I'd be interested, though how to make such a material grow must be difficult to produce in large quantities...Matou sent his robots to recover small shards after all, if I understand correctly." he says with a slight shrug. As Ashley asked a question about other projects, he tapped his desk with his free hand.

"Nothing major...some juniors get basic research approved, his loyal slackeys also get some projects green lighted, but if anything comes up with large potential implications, Matou has historically found a way to weasel into it even if it's outside his normal field of expertise."