“Upstairs, third door on the left. There’s a chest in the tub with the medical supplies we have. Some things don’t have labels, so just keep an eye out for those, we don’t know what they do.” She looked back at Mar as she began to head up the stairs with the new guy and Rain. Blood had soaked through her bandages and she was really pale. Skyler quickly looked away and descended the stairs before she felt sick from the sight of the blood. She tripped on a stair and fell a few before she caught the banister, giggling off the embarrassment she continued down the steps.

People were already hanging out in the kitchen area; food was definitely at a premium tonight. She got the food out of the oven and began to serve it up for everyone, setting aside plates for Law, Mar, and that new guy if they ever came down.

“Rowen, I made blood sausages for you. A hot pocket for Mary, is it? And the rest I made a giant casserole like thingy. I tried to add some healing properties into it as well; something’s not even Melvin could change.” She said referring to the herbs and other ingredients she had added.

Gordon was absolutely disgusted with the state of these back streets; they reeked of raw sewage and the homeless. A few he had seen mumbling craziness as he made his way through. Why would anyone choose to live here, it was clearly inferior to his estate and neighborhood. He shifted the magazines from one arm to the other as he pulled his black phone out. Pressing buttons he called Melvin’s house, he needed to talk with the little nerd in person and couldn’t call him away from this new found project without calling attention to the sect’s members. Reaching an answer tone he frowned and hung up, no sense leaving a trail when he was trying to cover up. He frowned as he reached the address of his employee, leaving several half developed magazines and a manila envelope in the mail slot. Walking away he pulled out his phone and called back to his office, a secretary picked up.

“I want all information regarding Mr. Fuddlebuddims and his current report sent to this particular address. Yes, no. I do not care what the legal actions could include. Just do this, and more stories of the strange and mythical will be pouring in. I know some people who are just unhappy about where they stand.” He flipped his phone terminating the call, and smirked, trouble was his calling and reporting it was his business.

Mary was facinated by the small child that hid behind Randy. She got on all fours like a small puppy and bound over to peer at Julia. Mary sniff-sniffed at the air taking in all the scents that told Julia's story. Underneath the scent of blood, grass, and sweat from her last scuffle, Mary smelled a faintly metallic odor of one who works with technology.

"57 68 69 63 68 20 4c 61 6e 67 75 61 67 65 20 64 6f 20 79 6f 75 20 73 70 65 61 6b 3f" She asked Julia speaking in Hex code. Mary sat back on her haunches with her rabbit pajamas trailing past her hands and feet. Melvin, who noticed Mary trying to make friends, flipped her rabbit hood over her head to make her look completely like a Rabbit.

Melvins laptop flashed red in his hand like a broken street light. "Uh-oh looks like someone is accessing information about us Lambi." He told Mary using his pet name for her. "Shall I let him have it or shall we put up a bit of a fight?" Mary's eyes glittered with the spirit of a blood thirsty mongrel. "Fight-o!" She yelled thrusting one arm into the air. Melvin sat down on the floor before typing furiously on the keyboard of the white laptop. "Hmm the IP addy is registered with the paper, I think I'll let them have it. 'Course Im obligated to trace the signal and poke around in their network, Right Lambi?"

"Of course! When you find the one wanting the info, we should send him a present ne? It would only be polite." Mary's emphasis on present bode ill for anyone on the recieving end of such a gift. Melvin's brow furrowed in concern and concentration. "Mary I think we need to relocate. I'm going to head to the apartment and gather our things. You stay here and negotiate for that apartment we stayed in." Melvin levered himself up, then bent over and kissed Mary on the forehead. "Keep an eye out Lambi, I think we're about to be hunted." Melvin warned her then turned on his heel and headed for their home.

Julia watched the odd lady, giggling at her strange composure, she did truly act a bit weird, but it was funny and though she wanted to answer back she continued to hide behind Randy, clinging on tight.
Mary was a nice lady as far as Julia could tell but she felt safer around Randy, a natural inclination maybe because she was the first thing to offer her actual safety from what was going on. She was beginning to understand that bizarre things were commonplace here and tot hese people it seemed like an everyday thing, but she still didnt like the Melvin person too much yet. As for the scary demon man that had saved her, she felt she needed to make it up to him and apologize, but maybe when she could build up the nerve. Then her eyes went to Law, she didnt know what to think of him yet, he looked reliable enough and really strong, but that was just a natural awe for big, strong looking people, not to mention the white hair was all pretty from the dim lights outside.
She'd probably figure out more about people and see more as time went by but for now her tummy began to rumble and she looked up at her protector, giving a gentle tug at her sleeve,
"I-I'm hungry..."

[And for anyone wondering what Mary asked, it reads "Which Language do you speak?" xD Hex Code is fun]

Rowen was currently poking his sausages with a fork and occasionally licked them with his long tongue. He prodded them awkwardly like a cat would with a dieing bug. He whimpered low enough for nearly no one to hear. Solid food was so hard for him to digest unless he chewed it so much that it turned into a liquid. Meat was about the only solid he could swallow. Most would find the scene amusing or pathetic. Rowen sat, hunched over his plate at the table, picking at his food with a sad, sour look on his face. His ears drooped as he held the meat in front of his face and cautiously sniffed it. It wasn't as if he didn't trust Skyler's cooking, it was that he couldn't trust his stomach. Rowen gulped before sucking on one end of the sausage. He didn't even think twice at how strange this might look.

{[TA-DAAAAAAA~
I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK~ x333]}

"Unghh...." Rainbow groaned, shifting slightly in Henry's grip as her eyes fluttered open to the sounds of yelling and gunshots. When her vision cleared, the first thing she saw was Henry, who was holding her and trying to carry her up to the bathroom. Smells of food wafted into her nostrils, and she licked her slightly chapped lips weakly. "Something smells good," she mumbled slightly. She was still pale, and her hearing was a little muffled, but she made short order of that and popped her ears. For a moment, she remained silent as she tried to sort through her jumbled thoughts.

"Where are we? How'd I get here? Did I hear guns? What's going on?" the still weak girl tried to get Henry to put her down, wriggling a little in his arms. The bandages on her arms and legs itched slightly, and she scratched at them lightly. "Nnngh..." As she started moving more, her head began to throb painfully. Both hands gripped it tightly in an attempt to slow it down. "I need Tylenol...."

Henry couldn't help but laugh some at the last comment, "The others seem to have a hold of whatever's going on up there, I was told to wrap you up so you'd stop bleeding all over the place"

And things just sort of slowed down from there, and a few weeks slipped by. Henry and Marcella got Rainbow all bandaged up, and both newbies stuck around (well, for Henry it was an on and off thing, depended if there was anything shiny in the area or how his current projects were going). Julia got used to the oddities that was being near any given sect member, attaching herself mostly to Randy however. And Mary when she was around. It seemed Melvin wasn't rid of this pesky sect entirely yet. And things slowed down to a crawl like they had before that very hectic night, with the exception of a handful of new people working their way into the group. Oh, and those spider things kept popping up and trying to eat people. Luckily they were rather easy to squash, brute force is a wonderful thing.

"Where the hell did these things come from, and why do they keep coming back?" asked Randy to the remnants of one someone had "forgotten" to clean up after they squished the fucker. "And who forgot to clean up their spider?" called Randy down the narrow stairwell, skirting around the puddle of innards. Not her kill, not her mess to clean up. But, it was polite not to go and track it all through the house if you weren't going to clean it. Wilmer sheepishly oozed out from under a door, she looked down at the blob in front of her. "Are you trying to tell me that you did it?" she asked with a raised brow. It bobbed directly up and down, which either meant yes or it was happy. Then out of it's innards it burped up what looked like part of a spider leg. "And you couldn't finish off your meal?" Wilmer flattened himself to the ground and edged to the stairs, "going to go get Henry and make him do it?" Bob. Wilmer sort of teetered on the edge of the stairs though, "What, afraid to go down?" Bob. "Here, I'll help," by help, she meant punt down the stairs before walking away.

"Randy!" whined Henry as he saw Wilmer go flying into the wall and hit the ground with a splat before wobbling back up to it's normal shape and falling over again. Henry looked down at his creation/pet, "you seem drunk," Wilmer sort of flopped backwards and rolled into a little ball, then started gently running into walls. "This is why I don't let people throw you around, as much as you may like it," now Wilmer was rolling into the bottom step, "Upstairs?" it wobbled up and down, and Henry shrugged, mounting the stairs, and falling down them as he saw the mess waiting for him in shock, making a lot of noise on the way down. "Ow..."

Mary was curled up on the couch with one foot propped up on the coffee table. Her other foot was being held still by right hand while her left applied a thick layer of electric blue glitter nail polish. Her pretty-in-pink colored cellphone was wedged between her head and her shoulder, it looked about ready to fall at any moment. Mary was on a confrence call with a therapist in Toluca Kansas and a mental patient who would only speak in zombie. Apparently he had been influenced by the Resident Evil games and taken to biting people. He was actually a rather refined fellow, if you could ignore his thick southern drawl.

'Honestly, If you're going to speak a made-up language atleast learn the syntax and grammar.' Mary thought bitterly while the man blathered on in a mix of growls and gurgles.

<<The following has been translated from zombie to english and vice versa. This is what Mary hears and what she reports>>

ZombiePatient: (You is speak me for yes?)
Mary: (Why yes, Good fellow I shall be translating for you this evening)
Dr. Jesse: Erm, Will you ask him why he became a zombie?
ZombiePatient: (Zombie see I, Bit yes me. I feel no now more)
Mary: He says A zombie bit him and now he has no feelings.
Dr. Jesse: Hm. Yes, quite. Would you ask if he would tell us about his childhood?
Mary: He can understand you just fine Jesse-sensei.
Zombie: (Cute pastry right. The dogs of my uncles beg for cheese)
Mary: (Your accent is off, you mean "Rawrug ra urrrg" not "Ruwrag ri urrrg" right?)
Zombie: (...yes)
Mary: He says he was locked in a crypt and molested by his uncle 7 years ago.
<DING>
Mary: Whoops our session's over gotta go! TTYL!
Dr.Jesse: ...Wha? Wait!
<CLICK>

Mary waved enthusiastically at Randy as she came in the apartment. Even blind she could tell it was Randy by the heavy footsteps and unique walking pattern. "Itarashi Kurenai-chan! Welcome home!" She greeted Randy with a warm smile in her general direction. "Whats kickin?"

Law, on the other hand, had spent a lot of time being quiet, he wouldn’t avoid conversations but, given the chance, he’d wander off somewhere quiet and meditate or train, thought it didn’t do him much good; he was already in peak condition. The only thing that could be improved on now was his power but he had no choice when it came to unlocking extra potential. He was in his own room, door wide open again, one handed push-ups, but it was more like two fingers and a thumb, he didn’t seem all that tired though, but the pressure his arm was under could well be seen, the bulging seemed thicker with every bend and push. Anyone who had nothing better to do would have been able to count him past his thousands.

Julianna had adapted herself to the people in the building, but mostly to Randy and Miss Mary. Wherever she could she’d secretly fix broken things because they were no real challenge and she’d always hang around people she felt most safe with, mostly Randy and Mary once again, but at times she’d sneak up to Law’s room and sit nearby quietly, watching him work his days away with practice, other times she’d stalk Rowen, he was still a bit scary because of what she could remember but she’d found him to have a nice composure when he wasn’t fighting and eating people.
This bizarre new life felt so natural even if things could surprise her, so many new things to learn, she may have been born a genius and technological prodigy but with so many amazing things like demons and magic and all sorts of once imaginary things all around her she had a whole new outlook on what she wanted to explore to help not only humanity but also this new kind, the magic folk.

Once Julianna heard that Randy was back the exact same process that always happened occurred once again, she dropped everything she was doing so she could scramble for Randy’s presence and once she’d found her Julianna would grip Randy’s waistline and look up at her,
“Welcome back!!”

Recently, Rowen had been keeping to himself on the roof more than usual and had taken up reading (to the surprise of several sect members). His countenance usually carried a tired look and he was talking in his sleep more often. Finally, he moved to the roof during his sleeping hours to prevent anyone from hearing him. The demon seemed to be feeding himself well, considering he had yet to ask Randy for another meal (nor anyone else for that matter) and seemed to be in a very fit condition (except for the lack of sleep). He had yet to discover Julianna's mild interest in him, despite the fact that he usually peeked in on her too. She compelled his curiosity more than he could admit. Rowen had never been around children much and it was hard to tell whether he was interested in them or horrified of them. He had realized that the child was probably smarter than he was when he found her fixing several electronics in the apartment. As far as he knew, he didn't like technology and technology didn't like him (especially the toaster).
His ears twitched as he heard the commotion of Randy's return. Rowen stretched his limbs groggily and placed his book down before climbing over to the nearest window and peeking in.

{{blagh}}

"Wilmer," said Randy without thinking before Julia latched onto her, but added on, "and stop calling me that" still not sure what the nickname she had been given by this strange woman actually meant, and more then a little apprehensive to find out, she figured it was better to try to shake it. Probably something like cuddly bunny. That would be unfortunate, and not at all fitting. She smiled as the little girl latched on, having sort of given in to the fact that it was going to happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it, and ruffled her hair. "And thanks..." she trailed off as she spotted Rowen's head through the window, smiled, and waved at him. She had been worried about her two demons lately. Law had become, well, indifferent, to put it simply, and Rowen she half expected to find him listing to My Chemical Romance and wearing eye liner. She had no idea what to do about either boys mood, which just added to her frustration.

That and she begrudged them their angst. What did they have that was so awful going on? They weren't stuck in a tree or mountain or living on the streets, they weren't going hungry, no one had died, and Melvin wasn't around that much to send them both into hiding. She was stuck playing Mom, which was causing a lot of lost sleep, not that she ever said a word about it. No way to make a little kid feel better about their situation then by bitching about it, so she kept her mouth closed. She figured she'd get used to it and start sleeping better, so, she didn't let on. No one noticed her being cranky and irritable, because she always was.

"Eep!!"

A strange squeaking sound erupted from between Rainbow's shimmering lips. From the center to either corner of her mouth extended a lip-gloss rainbow, starting with red in the center and ending with purple at the corners. Her eyes were decorated similarly with a rainbow pattern similar to her lips on the upper lids in shadow and shiny silver mascara and eyeliner, and every article of her clothing was multi-colored and shiny: a rainbow-striped tube-top with a pattern of dark gray rain-clouds, rain drops and lightning bolts scattered randomly around it, glimmering with glitter embedded in the designs and showing off her tattoo very well; a very short denim miniskirt that-- if not for the glittering silver and lime-green leggings beneath them, would have been very much useless-- with small, cutesy rainbows on either hip; a pair of black flats adorned with rainbows, lightning bolts, hearts with crowns, butterflies, stars, clovers, and other random shapes and coated in flaking glitter covered her feet. A rainbow-striped headband rested uselessly atop her head-- her bangs were still in front of her face, as were her ear-tails, and none of the rest of her hair was long enough to be altered by the addition of the headband. A rainbow wristband covered her left wrist and several rainbow bangles clunked into each other on her right. She had even colored in her visible bandages with Magic Markers, giving them rainbows and attacking them with silver glitter glue.

Her multi-colored eyes shot wide-open as she saw Henry falling down the stairs, which she was near the top of herself, and she dove forward in time to catch him mid-fall. Unfortunately, catching him did not include stopping him, so the two of them tumbled comically down the rest of the stairs and ended with them landing in a humorous heap on the floor.

"Oww......" a muffled groan floated out from the bottom of said heap, where the teenager lay trapped. "You okay, Henry....?" she asked him sheepishly, shifting and wriggling her way out from under the socially-awkward but well-meaning mad scientist without knocking him over. Standing up, she offered her right hand to him, bangles clanging as bangles do, and used the other to scratch the back of her head in an embarrassed pose classic of animes. Had this been an anime, as a matter of fact, a rather large sweat drop would be floating behind her head. A blush still rested heavily on her cheeks, and the fact that she was aware of it made it all the more bold and embarrassing to her. Thus making her blush more.

It's a vicious cycle, really.

Anyway, "What happened anyway? Why were you tumbling down the stairs...?" Despite the fall, her make-up was entirely undamaged. Girl secret. You spend more than 3 hours applying to make the colors blend seamlessly, you're going to find a way to make it all stay. Although her make-up was still intact, her hair was a little bit of a mess, and she set to smoothing it down and coming through it with the fingers of her left hand, since her right was otherwise occupied.

Not like that, you sick-o's.
Gross.

• Marcella spent a large majority of her time sleeping or sword fighting with herself, when you can use some fire illusions, and you're born of the sun, you can do that sort of thing No matter how strange it looked to any random passerby. In reality it was a good thing Marcella had been keeping herself occupied, if she hadn't she have certainly got pissed off by god only knows what and her harsh way would have caused her to leave in search of more trouble.
  
  Marcella was trying to strengthen her illusions and gain controll over them better, without so much of a backlash, but she couldn't say it was working particularly well. The backlash was as strong as ever and probably explained her overdosing in sleep. Heck, these days she could have been mistaken for being narcoleptic.
  
  She heard Randy come in and in record speed hid the swords she'd been using. Best not to flash such things around an apartment where you're supposed to be staying.most of the time, Marcella would meekly avoid Randy if she could. She had no idea why, she just seemed to avoid her, most of the time, not on purpose. Sleep had a habit of creeping up on her at a perculiar time. Although this time she decided to utter a simple "Hey" to her before hiding in the kitchen to deal with her blades again. They'd managed to gain a strange ooze from the illusions again. Disgusting stuff really.

Julia flinched as she watched two bodies tumble down the stairs, must have been a little painful atleast, yet oddly enough she had predicted it to be Henry and Rainbow as if it wasnt too hard to guess, sure enough it was, the nice glitter lady and scientist man in a budle on the floor.
A giggle escaped her and she leaned in closer on Randy though backed off suddenly as if a sudden shock had hit her, looking up to Randy,
"Oh! Mr Law was on six-thousand, three hundred and seventy four pushups when I last counted! He's really strong! That must take alot of effort." Julia folded her arms, though looked at her skinny limbs, funny thoughts of her with muscles beginning to pour in, that certainly would have been bizarre to see.
Julia kept at attention of Randy, she would normally follow Randy like a lost puppy because she felt safe with her even though she knew everyone else here was safe to be with too, maybe even that scary demon man, Rowen. But Julia was attracted to Randy because of the first night they met and because she had the general attitude of a mother that Julia required to feel truly safe.

Rowen waved back at Randy before crawling in through the window. It was a tight fit with his wings but he still managed to pull himself through.
"Welcome back?" He said with a small grin, "just as dull as ever around here I'm afraid," Rowen chuckled as he shrugged. Despite Rainbow's and Henry's sudden fall it really was boring around the apartment. He looked at Julia from the corner of his eye and made sure to stay a decent distance away from her. If anyone was paying attention to him, they would think he was afraid that the child would eat him or something.
"So, was your trip eventful?"


{{lolshort>_>;}}

Had her trip been eventful? Well, not in the traditional sense of the word. They had told her it would be standard, just a sort of check up, see where the sect was, how it was doing. She had been suspicious to start with, but, as the interrogation went on for a few days, she only got more suspicious. They had ended the last meeting with an ominous “We may send someone” to see for themselves. For funding reasons. Yeah. Right. And she was a fairy princess. Speaking of fairies and suspicion, her eye wandered after Wings. If only because she didn’t see much of the other woman she didn’t trust her. She kept to herself, a lot. It was fishy. She kept a tired sort of smile in place and said, “The trip was fine, just as dull as these things always are,” she had no idea if that was true, as this was her first one. She had spent a fair amount of time at the administrative buildings when she was new to the organization, but since she had gotten this job she hadn’t seen or heard from them unless to say her request for better equipment, or more funding, had been turned down. “And Law cheats, he’s a demon. It’s a lot easier for them to do that sort of thing then it is for us humans,” pause, “that said, that is rather impressive…” Had he been cooped up in his room all this time doing push ups? That couldn’t be a good sign. She added it to her ever growing list of things to take care of.

Henry’s eyes slowly went up the various colors and levels of glitter until he was looking at Rainbow’s face, and smiled sort of sheepishly, taking the hand with a murmured ‘thankyouI’mfine’. He pointed weakly to the top of the stairs, his hand trembling a little, “Well, to put it simply, it turns out Wilmer can eat meat, and he started something with a spider he couldn’t finish…” his voice was getting progressively smaller, “and Randy said I had to clean it up…” now he was speaking at a level you had to strain to hear him, “and I have weak knees…” his whole face was an interesting shade of fuchsia as he said this, and getting darker and darker. He fidgeted with his glasses, looking for something to divert his attention, and then realized he hadn’t asked Rainbow was alright. He had sort of dragged her down a flight of stairs, “Ah, er, uhm, are you alright, too?”

"Oh, dear..." Rainbow murmured consolingly with a pat on Henry's back as he told his story. She turned towards Wilmer and gave him a disapproving look, then turned back to Henry. "Me? Oh, I'm fine. I've survived worse." A nervous smile widened on her face, and she closed her eyes. A nervous laugh completed her look, "Just a few bumps and bruises. Nothing a good, tough girl can't live through." Her eyes reopened and her smile softened. "I can help you clean up Wilmer's disaster if you'd like. In fact, I'll go get the mop, dirty sponges, a bucket, some water, some cleaner, and some towels right now," her run-on sentence-slash-list finally ended with her giving Henry a consoling hug and trotting up the stairs, towards the closet that held the aforementioned cleaning supplies. After pulling the various items out, with the exceptions of the towels and water, she set them next to the mess.

"Wow... that's a scene fit for C.S.I...." she mumbled musingly, rubbing the back of her neck as she gazed upon the scene. "Maybe we should get some crime-scene tape..." Shaking her head, the rainbow-covered girl picked up the bucket and the cleaner and slipped into the bathroom, snagging up a couple of towels and tossing them over her shoulder. Then, she jogged back down the stairs and into the kitchen, using the large sink to fill up the large bucket with water and then mixing the cleaner with it. She turned and returned to the 'scene of the crime' as she was now referring to it in her head, being careful not to splash and slosh the water in the bucket all over the place-- especially on her clothes. Gently, Rainbow set the bucket down and stared at the mess, hands on her hips. "Oh! I'd better get some gloves..." she snapped around, rat-tail slicing through the air at the sudden turn and whipping her in the cheek. A slight hiss escaped her lips, but otherwise she paid no mind as she dug through the closet where she'd gotten the other supplies. After a moment, she erupted triumphantly, a box of latex gloves in hand. "Want a pair, Henry?" she asked the scientist with a curious smile as she pulled out two for herself. Flour particles flew through the air and up her nose, eliciting a sneeze. "Haachoo~" A quick sniff and wipe of her nose, and Rainbow was all better. "Excuse me," she apologized politely. The box was tucked under her right arm as the teen slid the thin, white, powdered gloves over her small hands. Plenty of extra space was left, and she balled her hands into a fist to test the material, then returned her eyes to Henry.

Skyler had managed to make simple repairs in the walls and even got some of the gunk that the spider had left out of Randy’s room. She knew that she wasn’t off the hook yet and had hoped that with all the new people and new personalities that Randy was tied up with other things. She continued to find new ways to prove her wings to Melvin, but so far nothing had worked. She refused to let him into her room after what she had seen his void do to her beautiful feathers, they turned into simple chicken and pigeon feathers, no magical properties to them at all. She was still trying to sort out all the people who had crash landed in the apartment, at times she caught herself thinking about commandeering the pad next door and doubling the space of their HQ. The tops would have her wings for that, not that it was a bad idea, just that it brought more attention than they needed.
She had just finished preening her feathers and found that she was molting, a dangerous time for any feathered creature. It put her on edge and made her a bit testy and it was nearing a meal time again. Skyler stalked into the kitchen past everyone nodding greetings and muttering a few hellos. Marcella was in there with her swords out nothing different than normal.
“Hey, you wanna put those swords to good use and help with the food. If we get this done quickly do you want to join me later for a quick rooftop flight, just a sweep for trouble?”

Gordon paced through his large opulent office as he waited for Melvin to answer. He had plenty of time by now to have viewed those latest issues of the magazine and even enough time to get something on this sect he had found. Gordon was sure that certain events had been launched into place and couldn’t wait for the resounding cries of ‘monster.’ If only Melvin would pick up, he cursed out loud as the ring tone carried on.

Mary listened to the racket the others were making patiently. It was very amusing to listen to Henry and Rainy interact. Atleast it was at first, but now Mary wished Henry would grow a backbone and snog Rainy already. Mary was obviously going to have to have the talk with Henry. He needed to know about the facts of girls and what not.

The tip tapping of claws on the floor let Mary know Skylar had just bustled past in a hurry. 'She must be on her way to make food, I wonder if she'll make another hot pocket for me.'

Excited by the prospect of a hot, tender, juicy hot pocket in her jaws gave Mary the energy to break free of her lethargy and get up. She dashed after skylar winding her way between everyone as if she could see.
The illusion was shattered when she forgot to compensate for Rowen's wing and met with his feathers face first.

She was confused by the winged intrusion into her path of choice. She felt along the wing trying to discern the owner by the texture of the feathers. It was when she got up close and personal with the owner's back that she realized it was Rowen and not Skylar in her way. "Gomenasi Rowen-kun! Dondez estas le Hot Pocket?" She asked him without know what she said precisely.

Meanwhile Melvin was hanging upside down from a tree by a crudely made rope. Below him was a tribe of midgets with rat skins covering their personal regions. They were chittering and chanting squeaks as he swung from the tree. His Cell phone rang and rang, but he was having trouble remembering which pocket it was in. Finally success decided to smile upon him for the moment. He flipped open the cell with a mild flourish. "Speak." he said into the cell.

Rowen's eyes widened and he turned around only to find Mary standing there, he had tensed for a moment but calmed almost immediately. He scratched his head with a clawed finger, trying to figure out what the woman had just said,
"I believe the hot pockets are in the kitchen," he responded, "and ummmmmm, it's okay?" He was never big on conversations, especially with someone he didn't know all too well. And honestly, Mary kind of freaked him out. The demon turned back toward Randy to avoid delving into the topic of hot pockets any further,
"So, are we gonna get anymore money? Also, no one's going to check out the place, right?" Rowen hated the higher ups who had previously come to inspect their humble abode. He was supposed to be kept on a short leash, and the last time that he had retorted to an insult he had nearly lost his head, considering that he wasn't allowed to fight back. In most of their views, he should be dead, but Randy had stood up for him and his life was reluctantly spared. The last thing he needed was for some taddle-tail to ruin his life all over again.

Skylar rustled through the fridge and the cabinets looking for anything that she could throw together. They always seemed to be running out of food, and with more people than ever milling about that meant the food went faster. The Tops were kind enough to supply them with the standard rations of ready meals, aka TV dinners. She took a few out and threw them together in one of the large cooking pans they had, better to stretch the meal out by making it look bigger until she actually had more food to work with. It would be great if Randy let her go out during the day, but her wings decided that decision more so.

“Mr. Fuddlebuddums,” Gordon frowned relieved to get through, but angry that Melvin didn’t pick up right away, “how is the report going, have you gotten enough from these people yet. I want a new story, Melvin.” He coughed, both for effect and to clear his throat. A change in the conversation direction was quickly enacted, typical of Gordon, “I recently had to fire a few people here at the offices, people compromising the security and the privacy of individuals. I believe your name was on that list of those compromised, any reason why your information would be worth leaking? Would it have anything to do with connections of yours?”

He passed a chimera statue that was sitting on his desk, he stopped to pet its lion mane and he smiled knowing that trouble was brewing in the underground cesspools. He wanted all this trouble to spill over into the common world, his business would boom. His reporters would be working double time, he frowned at this realization, that meant more pay for them.

• Marcella flicked her wings. "I'd help you if there was more food. I'll join you for a flight later if you want." She sighed. Smiling. "If there's no voids around, I might be able to hide you wings for you. If you want to go out not in a trench coat and all that shit" She said. Marcella had the air of a slightly moody teenager, who'd been around longer than any teenager should. She wasn't a 'young fairy' but for her breed. She was only barely an adult, and she'd been like one for an awful long time.
  
  "Isn't it annoying? Not being able to go out in case people see you? Having people tell you that you shouldn't let humans see magical creatures like us? Isn't it unfair to make them live in there own naivety? Where they think that things that go bump in the night don't exist?" Marcella asked. She'd taken to sharpening her beloved blades. They where deliactely patterned and she was extremely attatched to them. That, and they'd slayed a small amount of werewolves, somewhere along her timeline. She couldn't say she was proud of her former professions as she drifted off and started to mumble.

Mary skipped between the remaining people, then with the grace of a swan in flight, crashed purposefully into skylar latching onto her wings with both hands. "Hiii! Mary wants a hotpocket!" Mary chirped at Skylar. "Feed Mary please yes?" She pawed at Skylar's wings making quite a nuisance of herself so Skylar would give up and feed Mary. "Sky-sky should feed Mary!" She whined bringing her tone up an octave.

Meanwhile Melvin was fending off the rat people with a laser pointer and a packet of salted airline peanuts. He was indifferent to his boss's anger at this point, surviving the savages of South Central Park seemed a trifle more important. "Er Sir I'm currently following up on the rat people sightings. The sect is mearly a group of strange people that think its fun to scare the locals sir. The sighting of the Harpy was no more than an elaborate stage costume of superior design. I covered this in my first report sir, there's really nothing more to the story." As he explained this a rat-man jumped up and clawed at his greasy locks. Melvin subdued the creature with a quick laser point to the eye. The man howled in pain, rubbing his eye socket with a hair dirt-covered knuckle. Melvin swung like a pendulum on the tree, he hoped he could think of something to do before he missed dinner with Mary. It was hot-pocket night after all.

Skylar smiled at Marcella, her questions were sincere and she was ready to answer them when Mary came crashing into the kitchen and more specifically, her wings. As sensitive as they usually were it was double so now that she was molting, the pain was intense. Skylar bit back a wild and loud sqwuack and settled for whimpering, her eyes teared up and her knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on the pan and stovetop, which began to burn her right hand. The new pain was a welcome from the screaming pain of her wings, but it couldn’t mask that pain, instead it was pain on top of more pain. The faint smell of burned flesh and feathers drifted up from the stove, the smell along with the pain caused her black out, she crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor.


Gordon frowned at this news but forced himself to think quickly of an alternative way he could get first hand information about the secrets these sects were hiding.
“Good job about following up on those rat people sightings. A new story is a new story after all. But I want a follow up on this sect, I think there is more to them than appears. Get back before the storm appears over the horizons.” His frowned deepened and moved his chimera statue to the other side of his desk, the lighting hit it in such a way that made it look even more menacing and terrifying than usual.
“In regards to the leak in security, you have no idea as to why most of your information was leaked? There isn’t someone looking to hire you away from our little agreement is there? You better not be leaving this job for some hack counter-intelligence magazine.” He was making himself angry, he was ready to go out and ruin someone’s day or week by intruding in on their life. If only he hadn’t gotten kicked out of most support groups in the city.

"Urk!" was all Mary said as Skylar crumpled into a rather messy heap on the floor. She reached down and scanned Sky for injuries. They were minor, but she had passed out from the pain in her hand and wings. Mary trotted the required 11 steps into the living room. She folded her hands behind her back and swayed forward and back like a child that is forced to admit something bad. "Uhhhmmm Randy-sama... Uhmm... If I accidently killed sky, you wouldnt be terribly mad... right? hee hee..." She tilted her head down, she couldnt see but she was sure she didnt want to be looking into Randy's eyes if Melvin happened to come around. "Cause I didnt... but... uhmm... I think she's sick... and um... Im gonna go..." she tried to sneak out the door without anyone catching her.


Meanwhile Melvin had managed to ping a rat-man in the nose with one of the peanuts. The battle was at a standstill with neither side having the edge over the other. Melvin really needed to call Mary, she was his laison to the weird folk of the undercity. Gordon was hogging all his anytime minutes and he only had about 400 or so left for the month. He liked his boss it was true, but sometimes the man was a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Really he and Melvin had nothing in common.

"Sir, you pay me more than any other magazine has even dreamed of offering me. I'd be a fool to take another job. As your employee I will investigate the sects further, but I doubt I'll find anything. Mary is there all day long and she hasn't reported anything out of the ordinary. The only thing peculiar about them is that little kid that can hack faster than I can! That's so wrong." Melvin had been entertaining the idea that the little girl was possibly an alien. No one under the age of 16 should be able to hack faster than him. Infact no one he had met, ever, had been a faster hacker than him. She was definately an alien. or a robot. Maybe both.

"Now if you'll excuse me sir, I must go because I think they're stringing bows made of rubber bands and water cooler tubing." He clicked off the phone just as an arrow made of bent fishhooks and #2 pencils struck him in the shoulder. "Ow... I am sooo screwed." he whimpered.

Would they get more money? Probably not. Would some one come to 'investigate' things? Probably. Could she tell the others that? No, not until she knew for certain. It could be dangerous or at very least highly annoying to get them riled up for nothing. Law and Rowen were already acting like little children, and she hadn't figured out a way to explain Julia to the higher ups yet. She'd have to get Mary and Melvin to pretend she was their niece or something... An arrangement that no one would be particularly happy with in all likelihood, but, she knew telling the higher ups could end badly. If this girl was on record, someone would find her...

She was saved from having to lie to Rowen when Mary came out and tried to be cute in her indirect admission of killing Sky. The red head sighed, and kicked one of the tall lamps that Sky usually knocked over with her wings into Mary's path as she tried to slink away. Perhaps throwing things into a blind person's path wasn't really the best way to go about this sort of thing, but getting to boot something made her feel a little better, and she was going to want Mary around to explain what she had done to poor Sky. Besides, the lamp landed with a pretty loud crash, and she knew that it could take the abuse. "Alright, what did you do?" she asked as she went into the kitchen to see for herself before cursing rather loudly. She was going to need some help moving Sky to a bed or nest of some sort.

Henry stood there rather uselessly staring at the remains of the spider as Rainbow hustled off to get needed things, and meekly accepted the gloves from her before taking a deep breath (and nearly gagging on the smell) and grabbing a trash bag, clamped his eyes shut and began to shove some of the bigger chunks into it chanting "It's spaghetti, it's spaghetti," over and over again until he had to open his eyes to find the last of the bigger chunks (which nearly sent him bolting down the stairs again). He swallowed hard and shoved those in too, and couldn't help but feel proud that he hadn't run away or fainted again. In his mind, he may have even seemed a bit manly to Rainbow... Now, in reality he would be lucky to pull off endearingly pathetic, but, leave him to his delusions. They help him sleep at night. After some gagging and mopping later, the two were done, "Thanks, by the way," said Henry realizing he had completely forgotten to thank her before, and smiled sheepishly, "I really appreciate it. If there's anything I can do to pay back the favour, just lemme know." Cue adorable smile here.